But a report by the California Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) concluded in 2009 that the compound posed significant health risks.
and another protester against the use of the chemical. You have to have a lot of faith that there won't be accidents.
There's not a lot of wiggle room for error with a compound like this. There are non-chemical alternatives to soil fumigants including planting strawberries alongside mustard or broccoli,
which release chemicals that deter insects but these can be expensive or difficult to implement.
The economic interests of farmers and pesticide manufacturers affect these decisions as much as science reports,
The chemical is registered already for use in 48 states. The agency does not have figures on how much methyl iodide is being used at present,
Organic fields where only a limited number of man-made chemicals can be used had far greater evenness than those where pesticides were applied regularly.
drive up greenhouse-gas emissions and wreak havoc on biodiversity. The study's results suggest that further agricultural intensification will play a critical part in addressing global warming.
the results show that increased greenhouse-gas emissions resulting from intensive farming are more than offset by the effects of land preservation,
which keeps carbon sequestered in native soils, savannahs and forests (J. A. Burney et al. Proc.
whether the carbon savings from land use would outweigh the increased agricultural emissions, says David Lobell,
After all, the fertilizers used in intensive farming increase emissions of greenhouse gases. All told, agriculture was responsible for 10-12%of global anthropogenic emissions in 2005.
and the carbon savings are quite large. All other things being equal, the researchers found that agricultural advances between 1961 and 2005 spared a portion of land larger than Russia from development
and to calculate the resulting reduction in greenhouse-gas emissions. Between 1961 and 2005, the global population increased by 111%,from 3. 1 billion to 6. 5 billion,
but were still higher than actual impacts in the real-world analysis (see'Greenhouse-gas emissions').
Averaged over the study period, investments in agricultural yields reduced carbon emissions at a cost of around $4 per tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent,
less than a quarter of the going price for emissions permits under Europe's carbon-trading scheme.
and is considered to be the least toxic alternative to chemical pesticides. But a new study has revealed adverse effects on the reproductive success of birds.
toxic proteins produced by Bti cause pores to form in the guts of the larvae,
Bti is still much safer than chemical pesticides, says Mineau. The message that should not be taken away from this study is that people should go back to using chemical pesticide,
he says.
Mosquito saliva may signal infection outbreaks: Nature Newsbaiting mosquito traps with cards soaked in honey,
At a climate conference in Oslo on 27 may, some 50 countries agreed to a loose framework for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions caused by deforestation.
and medicine for his work on molecular mechanisms of pain. The mathematics prize went to Jean Bourgain of Princeton university for his work in mathematical analysis.
So far, only a potato with modified starch content Amflora, developed for industrial rather than food use by German chemical company BASF,
a major carbon storehouse. The debate began with a 2007 study1 that used data gathered by NASA's Terra satellite to argue that the canopy of the Amazon rainforest grew
which would measure the subtle colour and chemical changes in the rainforest canopy in much more detail than the Terra satellite.
higher concentrations of the gas reduce water loss during photosynthesis. A strong CO2 fertilization effect
not only boosts growth and carbon uptake, but could also offset reductions in precipitation thus increasing resilience to drought, says Peter Cox of the University of Exeter, UK,
the report aims to highlight the effects of stabilizing greenhouse gases at a chosen target level.
and sea level rise of different greenhouse-gas emissions scenarios. It also concludes that once the global average temperature warms beyond a certain point,
the London-based think tank. The report's authors suggest that fighting illegal logging is a cheap way to prevent carbon emissions produced
Such decreases may have cost as little as $2. 50 per tonne of carbon, as compared to a cost of $18 per tonne in the European union carbon trading scheme.
The reasons for the decline vary by country. In Cameroon, donor countries insisted that an independent observer of forests be installed.
Illegal logging may be more cost-effective than carbon trading, but we should not forget that energy efficiency
Not emitting greenhouse gases in the first place is the most effective way to reduce climate change.
Mystery RNA spawns gene-activating peptides: Nature Newssome so-called'non-coding'pieces of RNA may actually encode short proteins that regulate genes,
researchers have found. Protein-coding MESSENGER RNA molecules serve as templates for the production of proteins in cells,
while a variety of non-coding RNA molecules are known that do not produce protein but are known either to regulate gene expression directly
or to carry out other functions in the cell. But many researchers have questioned whether the rest of the apparently non-coding RNA made in cells serves any function at all.
suggests that more of these mysterious RNA molecules could produce peptides too small to be considered true proteins
In scans of the genome, a DNA sequence is considered generally not potentially protein-coding unless it can encode a string of more than 100 amino acids.
these peptides are chipped usually fragments off larger proteins. Kageyama and his colleagues have now found an RNA that directly codes for four peptides
The team found that the polished rice peptides trigger the truncation of a protein called Shavenbaby,
This shorter form of the Shavenbaby protein activates the expression of genes needed for hair growth.
Sequence analysis suggests that DNA regions capable of encoding tiny peptides exist in front of many protein-coding genes,
which have long been thought to be defunct relics of protein-coding genes. Pseudogenes often contain many signals that would stop protein synthesis and,
as a result, could only encode short amino-acid chains. Maybe this would provide a new way for pseudogenes to have some sort of function
Chemical dispersants to break up the oil were applied at one of the highest rates in history.
whether they exhibit the chemical signatures of oil from the Ixtoc I well. It is unlikely that the oil is having any significant ecological effects after weathering away for so long,
DNA patent ruling hinders Monsanto: Nature Newsa decision by the European Court of Justice on a DNA patent held by global seed company Monsanto has caused a stir in the biotechnology industry,
with concerns that the ruling could limit the protection companies enjoy on their European patents. Nature explains more.
Since 1996, Monsanto has held a European patent on genes that give soya beans resistance to the company's Roundup herbicide specifically the active ingredient glyphosate.
Monsanto had sued importers such as Cefetra, based in Rotterdam, The netherlands, to try to prevent this practice,
The European Court of Justice Europe's top court, based in Luxembourg ruled on 6 july that Monsanto couldn't bar imports of the soya meal.
which Monsanto had gained patent protection in the first place. Why does it matter? The decision reflects a wider question about the scope and strength of DNA patents:
Monsanto were hoping for a broad interpretation of the biotechnology directive, which says: The protection conferred by a patent on a product containing
Indeed, Monsanto had withdrawn already its complaint against Cefetra after an undisclosed out-of-court settlement in June, following a preliminary opinion on the case from one member of the European Court of Justice.
as Monsanto have failed to do in Argentina. However, most patents incorporate other legal claims that could be used to enforce protection on products containing genetic material without resorting solely to claims over DNA sequences as Monsanto had to do, notes Martin Maclean of intellectual-property lawyers
Mathys and Squire in London. The court decision also highlights existing uncertainties in the biotechnology directive,
'and whether the DNA's'function'is the production of a particular protein (with all its uses),
or a specific use of that protein. The ruling might push these uncertainties higher up lawyers'agendas, notes Radcliffe.
As for the wider impacts on Monsanto, the company stated that overall patent protection of the company's Roundup Ready soya bean was not at issue,
and fuel wood and in some cases to earn money from selling carbon credits under the Clean Development Mechanism established in 2001 as part of the Kyoto Protocol.
They are only good to store carbon, he says. This distinction between native and nonnative trees is important for an accurate picture of the state of the world's forests,
Laurance says he is hopeful that the United nations'REDD+initiative to reduce carbon emissions from deforestation and forest degradation
In individual disciplines, Princeton university in New jersey took top spot for mathematics and the University of California, Berkeley, led in chemistry.
the core of the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement (CMRR) project, has violated federal law by failing to produce an environmental-impact statement.
which reads off DNA sequences at single-molecule resolution in real time (see Nature 465,145; 2010). ) It would also use the money to boost marketing,
Currently, half of the patients with HCV are cured by a course of an immune-boosting protein and a general antiviral,
and its NS5A protein, which is involved in replication and viral assembly. See go. nature. com/rknczt for more.
¢www. icm2010. org. in 22 26 august The American Chemical Society holds its autumn meeting in Boston, Massachusetts,
with the theme of chemistry for combating disease. ¢go. nature. com/AD8G6E 22 28 august The 28th International Ornithological Congress discusses all things bird-related in Campos do Jord ae'£o, S ae'£o
and environmental disasters including the risk of radioactive particles being released from contaminated land around the Chernobyl nuclear reactor.
and the Nizhni novgorod region southwest of Moscow, according to figures from the Global Fire Monitoring Centre (GFMC), part of the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, based at the University of Freiburg in Germany.
This has raised fears that radioactive particles could be released into the atmosphere. Goldammer told Nature that he received unconfirmed reports on 11 august that 200 hectares in the region are alight.
Most of the radioactive particles are in the soil rather than in the flammable leaf litter and trees,
where the land is unlikely to be contaminated with à Â-particle-emitting isotopes potentially the most damaging if inhaled.
Sagers and her team found two varieties of transgenic canola in the wild one modified to be resistant to Monsanto's Roundup herbicide (glyphosate),
and tested for the presence of proteins that could give it resistance to either of the herbicides.
Tom Nickson, head of environmental policy at Monsanto in St louis, Missouri, told Nature, Those familiar with canola know that these plants are readily found on roadsides and in areas near farmers'fields.
and animal manure in China has resulted in serious water pollution and substantial waste of phosphorus, a nonrenewable inorganic chemical.
Soils in many parts of the world are deficient in the chemical, which is required for plant growth.
Zhang and his colleagues are trying to crank that up by manipulating the chemistry and biology of the rhizosphere, the narrow layer of soil surrounding roots.
With a limited labour force but ample subsidized chemical fertilizer available in most of rural China, dumping this phosphate-rich animal manure into waterways has become an easier and cheaper option than using it to fertilize cropland.
says Raghuram, a molecular biologist at Indraprastha University in Delhi. The academies have a total lack of social sensitivity, objectivity and public honesty,
a variety of aubergine modified to produce a protein from the Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) bacterium that is toxic to insect pests.
and funded by biotechnology corporation Monsanto, headquartered in St louis, Missouri. Kumar had contributed also to this second report.
Dahl's team looked at the concentration of molybdenum and the ratios of its isotopes atoms of the same element with different numbers of neutrons and different masses in oceanic rocks for clues to the concentration of oxygen in the seas
In oxygenated water, the lighter of the two main molybdenum isotopes 95mo and 98mo is absorbed into the seabed
leaving the heavier isotope in solution. Sea water gets lighter and heavier as a measure of the balance between oxic
Patterns of heavy and light molybdenum in sea water, reflecting oxygenation levels, are captured in deposited rocks called shales.
scientists can chart periods of low and high oxygenation in the history of the seabed and, by inference, in the oceans themselves.
Levels of oxygenation in the oceans are assumed to reflect levels in the atmosphere. Dahl's study uncovered two periods when heavy molybdenum isotopes show up in the shale records
suggesting that oxygen levels increased in the Ediacaran period, about 560-550 million years ago,
The rise of vascular plants led to the oxygenation of the atmosphere, because their photosynthesis pumped out oxygen while large amounts of organic matter,
However, Tim Lenton, an Earth system scientist at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, UK, questions whether atmospheric conditions can be inferred directly from measurements of oceanic oxygenation.
adding that lowering the supply of nutrients in the ocean also increases oxygenation, as animal life respires less.
In more relaxed conditions, many animals opt for high-protein foods that help them to grow
Grasshoppers that were exposed to spiders switched from eating protein-rich grasses to munching on several species of sugary goldenrod plants.
or protein-rich'biscuits'and he saw the same trend. Fearful grasshoppers went for the high-sugar cookies rather than the protein-rich bars1.
All that sugary food means that the stressed-out insects are ingesting foods richer in carbon and poorer in nitrogen than their calmer,
protein-pumping cousins. Meanwhile, their bodies are breaking down proteins to make even more glucose. The result is a body that is made of significantly more carbon
and less nitrogen and thus makes poorer fertilizer when it dies and rots. Hawlena thinks that the ecosystem is likely to be changed in two ways by frightened grasshoppers.
First, they eat more goldenrod and less grass, changing the ratio of these species in the landscape.
Second, the soil is receiving less nitrogen, potentially influencing what can grow there. In ongoing experiments, Hawlena is getting intriguing results by looking at the different kinds of soil bacteria that thrive on stressed or unstressed grasshopper corpses.
Taking molecular snaps of ancient crops: Nature Newsarchaeologists interested in the genetics of ancient organisms have a new molecular tool at hand RNA.
Two teams of scientists have decoded RNA from ancient crops in the hope of understanding the subtle evolutionary changes that accompanied the process of plant domestication.
RNA molecules offer a snapshot of the activity of a cell, indicating which genes are turned on and off, and to what extent.
says Sarah Fordyce, a molecular biologist at the University of Copenhagen, who presented the RNA transcriptomes (the whole set of RNA molecules present) of 700-850-year-old maize (corn) seeds at a conference there last week.
Ancient RNA is also a lot more likely to catch evolution in action than DNA, says Robin Allaby, an evolutionary geneticist at the University of Warwick, UK,
Increasingly, biologists are discovering that the differences between organisms are due not to mutations that change the sequence of protein-coding genes
it isn't an obvious molecule to study in ancient specimens. RNA is notoriously difficult to work with
Oliver Smith and their colleagues examined small regulatory RNA molecules in 500-year-old barley seeds from Egypt.
thinks that RNA molecules are the right place to look for the molecular changes that underlie domestication.
but he still questions the molecule's hardiness. The problem is going to be which samples have RNA survival.
For perspective, the Union of Concerned Scientists, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, estimates the corresponding reduction in greenhouse-gas emissions at 1 gigatonne
A study published in Science last year suggests that the drought reduced cumulative carbon storage in affected areas by some 1. 6 gigatonnes3.
and assess the broader impacts of drought on carbon storage. Having a second set of data to analyse certainly won't hurt.
you get protein poisoning, says Hardy.
Societies evolve in steps: Nature Newshuman societies progress in small steps just as biological evolution does, according to a study of the structure and language of societies in South East asia and the Pacific ocean.
This form of personalized medicine tailors treatments on the basis of the molecular and genetic characteristics of a patient's cancer cells
These data could reveal how drugs targeting one molecular pathway are affected by mutations in another gene
It can really change the landscape of how molecular testing is being done for cancer, he says.
The sweet pepper gene produces a protein called HRAP that strengthens the plant's ability to seal off infected cells.
which has been fortified with Vitamin a and iron to help to combat blindness and anaemia in rural areas.
The chemical clues yielded by the spectrometer gave immediate feedback to the diggers as they collected further samples.
he and his colleagues show how infrared spectrometry can reveal the distinctive origins of seemingly identical layers of calcite, a form of calcium carbonate (L. Regev et al.
And if the carbon sample removed for analysis actually contains material from more than one source,
Money will be raised by selling 300 million carbon credits from the European union's emissions trading scheme for greenhouse gases;
a team of astronomers declared last week that they had discovered two gargantuan'bubbles'of ray-emitting particles extending north and south of our Galaxy's centre (M. Su et al.
or a jet of energetic particles from the black hole at the Galactic Centre. First asteroid dust The Hayabusa space explorer has picked up dust from the Itokawa asteroid, from
Business watch Firms that tap unconventional natural-gas sources 墉 such as in underground shale 墉 are in demand.
The moves are based on a belief that such sources will make up an increasing share of global gas production,
Ozone treaty could be used for greenhouse gases: Nature Newsinternational negotiators might be bogged down in the ongoing United nations climate talks,
but there could yet be hope for an agreement on reducing emissions of a class of powerful greenhouse gases  using the same treaty that is responsible for the phasing out of gases responsible for destroying the ozone layer.
HFCS are the third-generation chemical designed to replace hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCS themselves a replacement for the original ozone-eater, chlorofluorocarbons.
which has phased successfully out dozens of chemicals over the past two decades. Advocates say the protocol could be used to tackle global warming
however, including small-island nations that want rapid greenhouse-gas reductions as well as industrial giants such as the United states and Europe.
Some observers says the debate has stalled in part owing to controversy over payments for HFC-23, a by-product from manufacture of the refrigerant and chemical feedstock HCFC-22.
700 times more potent than CO2 as a greenhouse gas, and as such it fetches a high price on the carbon market.
The London-based Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) estimates that Europe will have spent roughly 6 billion euros on payments for HFC-23 destruction by 2012 75 times more than the 80 million euros companies receiving
and China actually spent destroying the chemical. You have the countries that are benefiting financially from this there at the table,
Meanwhile, the executive board of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) the emissions-trading scheme to meet the greenhouse-gas reduction targets set by the Kyoto Protocol in August put a hold on issuing carbon credits
A recent study in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics2 compared atmospheric HFC-23 trends with published statistics for HCFC-22 production and the production and destruction of HFC-23.
the chemical (dubbed HFO-1234yf) is 360 times less potent as a greenhouse gas than the current refrigerant, HFC-134a,
in order to speed up the transition towards more climate-friendly chemicals, says Durwood Zaelke, who heads the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development, an advocacy group in WASHINGTON DC.
The cystic fibrosis gene CFTR codes for a protein called the cystic fibrosis transmembrane regulator, which helps to move chloride ions across cell membranes.
Scientists don't know why damage to the gene leads to reduced IGF1 levels, but Stoltz and colleagues'study suggests that it is because of CFTR's action in the brain.
and navigate, the team dug trenches some 3 metres deep and 10-20 metres long to study soil and water chemistry.
They performed carbon-isotope analyses on soil layers and studied fossilized plant materials to work out how the land was used.
with no legally binding commitments for countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Following Copenhagen, the U s. Senate was unable to pass even a modest cap
Curry says, on the subject of atmospheric aerosols that is, particles such as dust and soot that affect cloud formation.
that human-generated greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, are in large part to blame, or that the plausible worst-case scenario could be catastrophic.
Lanaud's team found scores of genes potentially involved in the production of lipids flavonoids and terpenoids, responsible for much of the taste of chocolate.
T. cacao had some 84 candidate genes involved in lipid biosynthesis, compared with 71 in the well-studied but less flavoursome plant thale cress (Arabidopsis thaliana),
The alkaline sludge, a by-product of bauxite production, contains high concentrations of heavy metals, including arsenic, cadmium and mercury,
'According to figures from the Global Fire Monitoring Centre (GFMC), based at the University of Freiburg in Germany and part of the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, around 7 million hectares including 800,000 hectares of forest,
east of Chernobyl the site of the nuclear power plant that exploded in 1986 could cause radioactive particles in the soil to be released into the atmosphere.
among other things, scientists will use the data collected to track how much carbon is released taken up
A second set of towers will be used to conduct detailed chemistry experiments focused on forest emissions
which at a stroke outlawed much useful molecular biological research and introduced lengthy bureaucratic approval procedures for each experiment that involved genetic manipulation.
to hunt for the elusive Higgs particle at the collider's current collision energies. The plan is likely to be agreed by CERN's management and council in January.
-gas emissions 墉 largely approving commitments made in last year's Copenhagen Accord. See page 875 for more.
Hall (pictured) has made it clear that he will take a hard line against attempts to regulate greenhouse gases.
who shared the 2002 Nobel prize in Chemistry, died on 10 december aged 93. In the late 1980s, he developed electrospray ionization, a way to gently separate clumped proteins into a fine spray of individual molecules.
This method, when combined with mass spectrometry, gave scientists a tool to quickly identify proteins via their mass
and helped to launch the field of proteomics. In 2005, Fenn lost a legal battle over the patent rights to Yale university in New haven, Connecticut,
where he developed the technique. He had moved to Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond in 1994.
were developed by start-up firm Ion Torrent in Guilford, Connecticut, which was bought by Life Technologies in August.
Working into the small hours of 11 Â December, negotiators agreed that both developed and developing countries will act to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions
The other major dispute in Canc  n was between the world's two largest greenhouse-gas emitters the United states and China.
and forest degradation (known as REDD) and augmenting the carbon stocks locked up in forests. Collectively, the programme is called REDD-plus.
a molecular plant pathologist at Imperial College London, UK, and his team found that B. graminis genes responsible for infection
Developing a better grip on the molecular make-up and evolution of plant pathogens, current control methods can be targeted better slowing the chances that they evolve resistance,
Monsanto, based in St louis, Missouri, which markets the GM beets, says it will appeal the ruling.
the only international agreement with legally binding targets to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. No solution was forthcoming at the beginning of this week.
Red wine drug Drug company Glaxosmithkline (GSK) has halted all development of a proprietary formulation of resveratrol a chemical found in red wine
Instead, the company is focusing on other chemicals thought to activate the same biological pathway as resveratrol.
Coming up 11-15 december The chemical and physical signals that influence pluripotency in stem cells are among many topics discussed at the American Society for Cell biology's 50th annual meeting in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Bisphenol A ban The European commission has agreed to ban the common chemical bisphenol A from baby bottles across the European union by mid-2011.
Debra Brock, a molecular biologist at Rice university in Houston, Texas, who led the study, attributes this gap in our knowledge to the fact that very few labs work on wild Dictyostelium.
such as growing a wider variety of crops and reducing reliance on chemical fertilizers. See go. nature. com/bbkrbb for more.
Fotis Kafatos, a molecular entomologist at Imperial College London who was the first president of the ERC,
Overtext Web Module V3.0 Alpha
Copyright Semantic-Knowledge, 1994-2011