#New drug to help common bowel diseasean international team led by University of Adelaide researchers has identified the mechanism of pain relief of a new drug for treating Irritable bowel syndrome with Constipation (IBS-C) based on nonclinical studies
rivals that of professional forestersas global forest and climate experts gather at the Oslo REDD Exchange 2013 to ramp up international efforts to protect carbon-storing forests in the developing world a recent study
and sticks--can produce forest carbon data on par with results by professional foresters using high-tech devices.
and Forest Degradation) projects which pivot on the accurate measurement of carbon trapped in forests do not engage communities in this data gathering
and was based on a study conducted in Southeast asia's most complex carbon-rich forests: lowland forest in Indonesia mountain rain forest in China and monsoon forest in Laos and Vietnam.
and Forest Degradation and Enhancing Carbon Stocks (I-REDD+).+To determine if communities can provide accurate monitoring of aboveground forest-carbon stocks researchers trained community members in simple measuring tactics
and sent them to 289 preselected forest plots to measure the number of trees tree girth and biomass per hectare.
and the fertilizer value of potassium chloridein the chemical age of agriculture that began in the 1960s potassium chloride (KCL) the common salt often referred to as potash is used widely as a major fertilizer in the Corn belt without regard to the huge soil reserves that were recognized once for their fundamental
This is why molecular biologists at IME and the research department of the automotive supplier built a pilot facility in MÃ nster that is capable of producing natural rubber by the ton.
With the aid of DNA markers we now know which gene is responsible for which molecular feature.
It has long been called'the king of fruits'because of its remarkably high Vitamin c content and balanced nutritional composition of minerals dietary fiber
The duplication contributed to adding additional members of gene families that are involved in regulating important kiwifruit characteristics such as fruit vitamin C flavonoid
Prior to the study extensive research on the metabolic accumulation of Vitamin c carotenoids and flavonoids had been reported in kiwifruits
Reptile and arthropod venoms are complex chemical cocktails. Some venom components have evolved to mimic chemicals made by the human body such as endothelin-1
which causes blood vessels to constrict during bacterial infections. At the same time mammals have evolved immune responses to venom which in some cases escalate into maladaptive allergic reactions.
Rehan and colleagues overcame the lack of fossil evidence for bees with a technique called molecular phylogenetics.
A team of researchers led by Dr. X. J. Meng University Distinguished Professor of Molecular Virology has used virus strains isolated from the ongoing outbreaks in Minnesota
and research assistant professor at the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute performed the molecular clock analysis to determine that the divergence of the U s
but over many decades says Mayer U of C professor of geochemistry and head of the Applied Geochemistry Group.
Mayer is recognized an internationally expert in the use of stable isotopes to track contaminants in the environment.
The french-U of C study is the first that tracks using stable isotope fingerprinting the fate of fertilizer N remaining in the soil zone over several decades.
The research team used a stable isotope of nitrogen N-15 as a tracer to track fertilizer nitrogen applied in 1982 to sugar beet and winter wheat crops on a pair of two-metre-square plots
Even under future scenarios in which atmospheric greenhouse gases rise dramatically the models project the dry season in the southern Amazon to be only a few to 10 days longer by the end of the century
but during a severe drought in 2005 it released 1 petagram of carbon (about one-tenth of annual human emissions) to the atmosphere.
The protein called Tenascin-C or TNC had previously been recognized as playing a role in wound healing
Reporting in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences during the week of Oct 21 2013 the researchers describe how the TNC protein in breast milk binds to
More recent studies pointed to a large protein that had yet to be identified. In their study the Duke team screened mature milk samples from uninfected women for neutralizing activity against a panel of HIV strains confirming that all of the detectable HIV-neutralization activity was contained in the high molecular weight portion.
Using a multi-step protein separation process the researchers narrowed the detectable HIV-neutralization activity to a single protein and identified it as TNC.
This is a protein involved during wound healing playing a role in tissue repair. It is known also to be important in fetal development
The protein is uniquely effective in capturing virus particles and neutralizes the virus specifically binding to the HIV envelope.
The discovery of the HIV inhibiting effect of this common protein in breast milk provides a potential explanation for why nursing infants born to HIV-infected mothers do not become infected more often than they do said Barton F. Haynes M d. director of the Duke
Greenhouse gas balances depend on utilisation formsit can thus be said that straw can contribute to the future energy mix.
The degree to which it will contribute to greenhouse gas reduction however will depend on how the straw is used.
The different greenhouse gas balances cast a differentiated light on the EU's goal of covering ten percent of transportation sector's energy use by using biofuels.
This trait is caused by the accumulation of large amounts of Î-carotene that was reported to be controlled by a single recessive gene ore.
In this study researchers discovered a key natural variation in a Î-carotene hydroxylase gene that could be used to breed cucumber with enhanced nutritional value.
If you want to cut calories from your diet you cut fat and oils. Conversely if you want to increase the caloric output of your biofuel
In nature oil storage is the job of seeds where the energy-dense compounds provide nourishment for developing plant embryos.
An important observation was that the excess oil did not mix with cellular membrane lipids
In seeds he said oil droplets are coated with a protein called oleosin which prevents the droplets from fusing together keeping them smaller
Identifying the mechanismnext the scientists used radio-labeled carbon (C-14) to decipher the biochemical mechanism by which PDAT increases oil production.
They traced the uptake of C-14-labeled acetate into fatty acids the building blocks of membrane lipids and oils.
Enhancing Fatty acid Synthesis and Diverting Fatty acids from Membrane Lipids to Triacylglycerol in Arabidopsis Leaves http://www. plantcell. org/content/early/2013/09/26/tpc. 113.117358. abstract
-Reduce intake of foods with trans and saturated fats while increasing intake of monounsaturated fats such as avocados and olive oil-Lower intake of animal protein and add more vegetable protein to your diet-Add more fiber to your diet by consuming whole grains vegetables
and fruit-Incorporate more vegetarian sources of iron such as legumes tofu nuts seeds and whole grains-Consume high-fat dairy instead of low-fat dairy-Take a regular women's multivitaminapproximately 40 percent of infertility issues are attributed to men according to the American Society for Reproductive Medicine.
Among them is low sperm count and poor sperm motility which are common in overweight and obese men.
In essence this means that the largest pool of tropical carbon On earth has been a black box for ecologists
While the study suggests that hyperdominants--just 1. 4 percent of all Amazonian tree species--account for roughly half of all carbon
The gene SYN1 encodes the protein synapsin which is involved in communication between nerve cells. Synapsin almost exclusively occurs in nerve cells in the brain.
and streamers of light observed near the poles of Earth caused by the charged particles from the solar wind colliding with atoms high in the atmosphere.
or south Forest says noting that the charged particles are tugged into the atmosphere by Earth's magnetic field creating the beautiful red green and yellow displays of light.
Researchers based at Princeton university found that land ecosystems have kept the planet cooler by absorbing billions of tons of carbon especially during the past 60 years.
The planet's land-based carbon sink--or carbon-storage capacity--has kept 186 billion to 192 billion tons of carbon out of the atmosphere
From the 1860s to the 1950s land use by humans was a substantial source of the carbon entering the atmosphere because of deforestation and logging.
Although a greenhouse gas and pollutant carbon dioxide also is a plant nutrient. Had Earth's terrestrial ecosystems remained a carbon source they would have generated
instead 65 billion to 82 billion tons of carbon in addition to the carbon that it would not have absorbed the researchers found.
That means a total of 251 billion to 274 billion additional tons of carbon would currently be in the atmosphere.
That much carbon would have pushed the atmosphere's current carbon dioxide concentration to 485 parts-per-million (ppm) the researchers report--well past the scientifically accepted threshold of 450 (ppm) at
which Earth's climate could drastically and irreversibly change. The current concentration is 400 ppm.
Those carbon savings amount to a current average global temperature that is cooler by one-third of a Degree celsius (or a half-Degree fahrenheit) which would have been a sizeable jump the researchers report.
The planet has warmed by only 0. 74 degrees Celsius (1. 3 degrees Fahrenheit) since the early 1900s and the point at
The study is the most comprehensive look at the historical role of terrestrial ecosystems in controlling atmospheric carbon explained first author Elena Shevliakova a senior climate modeler in Princeton's Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.
Previous research has focused on how plants might offset carbon in the future but overlooked the importance of increased vegetation uptake in the past she said.
People always say we know carbon sinks are important for the climate Shevliakova said. We actually for the first time have a number
and we can say what that sink means for us now in terms of carbon savings. Changes in carbon dioxide emissions from land-use activities need to be considered carefully.
and not consider how managed lands such as recovering forests take up carbon she said. It's not just climate--it's people.
On land people are major drivers of changes in land carbon. They're not just taking carbon out of the land they're actually changing the land's capacity to take up carbon.
Scott Saleska an associate professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Arizona who studies interactions between vegetation
I think this does have implications for policies that try to value the carbon saved
whereas most current approaches just account for the'carbon impact.''Work like this could help forest-preservation programs more accurately consider the climate impacts of policy measures related to forest preservation.
Although the researchers saw a strong historical influence of carbon fertilization in carbon absorption that exchange does have its limits Saleska said.
If carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere continue rising more vegetation would be needed to maintain the size of the carbon sink Shevliakova and her colleagues reported.
and Atmospheric administration's Geophysical Fluid and Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) to simulate how carbon and climate interacted with vegetation soil and marine ecosystems between 1861 and 2005.
The GFDL model predicted changes in climate and in atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide based on fossil fuel emissions of carbon.
A decrease in global deforestation combined with enhanced vegetation growth caused by the rapid increase in carbon dioxide changed the land from a carbon source into a carbon sink.
For scientists the model is a significant contribution to understanding the terrestrial carbon sink Saleska said.
Scientists only uncovered the land-based carbon sink about two decades ago while models that can combine the effects of climate change
#Carbon cycle models underestimate indirect role of animalsanimal populations can have a far more significant impact on carbon storage
and exchange in regional ecosystems than is recognized typically by global carbon models according to a new paper authored by researchers at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies (F&es).
In fact in some regions the magnitude of carbon uptake or release due to the effects of specific animal species or groups of animals--such as the pine beetles devouring forests in western North america--can rival the impact of fossil fuel
or transport of carbon within an ecosystem says Oswald Schmitz the Oastler Professor of Population
and therefore contribute little carbon in the way of respiration. What these sorts of analyses have not paid attention to is
In one case an unprecedented loss of trees triggered by the pine beetle outbreak in western North america has decreased the net carbon balance on a scale comparable to British columbia's current fossil fuel emissions.
which eventually led to about 80 percent of the ecosystem to burn annually releasing carbon from the plants
when thinking of local and regional carbon budgets said Peter Raymond a professor of ecosystem ecology at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies.
For example in the Arctic where about 500 gigatons of carbon is stored in permafrost large grazing mammals like caribou
We're not saying that managing animals will offset these carbon emissions. What we're trying to say is the numbers are of a scale where it is worthwhile to start thinking about how animals could be managed to accomplish that.
which could help scientists build an even better more healthful broccoli in ACS'Journal of Agricultural & Food Chemistry.
The above story is provided based on materials by American Chemical Society. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
and acreage timber harvests carbon storage water recycling and other forest benefits in some areas.
#Illinois river otters exposed to chemicals banned decades agoresearchers report that river otters in Central Illinois are being exposed to polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBS)
The researchers were surprised to find that average concentrations of one of the compounds they analyzed dieldrin--an insecticide
and coolants in motors and electrical systems but were banned in 1979 in the U s. after studies found that exposure to these compounds caused cancer and other deleterious health effects in animals.
In mammals these compounds can cause gene disruption and interfere with hormone function particularly in a developing fetus.
Before these compounds were banned U s. farmers applied more than 15 million pounds of dieldrin and aldrin (its parent compound) to their crops every year--much of it in the Midwest.
More research is needed to understand the factors that contribute to the river otters'exposure to these chemicals Mateus-Pinilla said.
The sensors make use of microfluidic technology--developed by Abraham Stroock associate professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering--that places a tiny cavity inside the chip.
#Compound derived from vegetables shields rodents from lethal radiation dosesgeorgetown University Medical center researchers say a compound derived from cruciferous vegetable such as cabbage cauliflower and broccoli protected rats and mice from lethal doses of radiation.
Their study published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) suggests the compound already shown to be safe for humans may protect normal tissues during radiation therapy for cancer treatment
The compound known as DIM (33'-diindolylmethane) previously has been found to have cancer preventive properties. DIM has been studied as a cancer prevention agent for years
Rosen says this study points to two potential uses of the compound. DIM could protect normal tissues in patients receiving radiation therapy for cancer
and researcher at the Institute of Biotechnology (mixed centre of the CSIC-Spanish National Research Council Public University of Navarre and the Government of Navarre) has demonstrated for the first time the viability of using specific tobacco proteins (known as
Thioredoxins (Trxs) are small proteins present in most living organisms. In the course of her research Ruth Sanz demonstrated the capacity of the thioredoxins f
but also to increase the production of proteins like human albumin. For some time Trxs have been known to have a regulating function in living organisms
but in the thesis we have shown that they can also act by helping other proteins to fold
Human albumin is the most widely used intravenous protein in the world for therapeutic purposes.
Although commercial albumin is extracted from blood the lack of a sufficient volume in reserve has prompted many researchers to seek new formulas for obtaining this protein on a large scale economically and safely.
and solid fats counter to the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommendations increasing the risk of obesity and diabetes.
#¢Ate similar amounts of fruits vegetables whole grains dairy potatoes/potato products saturated fats and sugars as students in control schools#¢Consumed significantly more legumesas a result of the intervention
beera discovery at Rice university aims to make vehicles that run on compressed natural gas more practical. It might also prolong the shelf life of bottled beer and soda.
The Rice lab of chemist James Tour has enhanced a polymer material to make it far more impermeable to pressurized gas
and far lighter than the metal in tanks now used to contain the gas. The combination could be a boon for an auto industry under pressure to market consumer cars that use cheaper natural gas.
It could also find a market in food and beverage packaging. Tour and his colleagues at Rice
and in Hungary Slovenia and India reported their results this week in the online edition of the American Chemistry Society journal ACS Nano.
By adding modified single-atom-thick graphene nanoribbons (GNRS) to thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) the Rice lab made it 1000 times harder for gas molecules to escape Tour said.
Because gas molecules cannot penetrate GNRS they are faced with a tortuous path to freedom he said.
The researchers acknowledged that a solid two-dimensional sheet of graphene might be the perfect barrier to gas
Tour's breakthrough unzipping technique for turning multiwalled carbon nanotubes into GNRS first revealed in Nature in 2009 has been licensed for industrial production.
But the overlapping 200-to 300-nanometer-wide ribbons dispersed so well that they were nearly as effective as large-sheet graphene in containing gas molecules.
and make it impermeable to gas Tour said. This becomes increasingly important as automakers think about powering cars with natural gas.
Metal tanks that can handle natural gas under pressure are often much heavier than the automakers would like.
He said the material could help to solve longstanding problems in food packaging too. Remember when you were a kid you'd get a balloon
That's because gas molecules go through rubber or plastic Tour said. It took years for scientists to figure out how to make a plastic bottle for soda.
Oxygen molecules get in through plastic and make the beer go bad. Bottles that are effectively impermeable could lead to brew that stays fresh on the shelf for far longer Tour said.
Akos Kukovecz an associate professor of chemistry and ZÃ ltan KÃ nya head of the Department of Applied and Environmental Chemistry both at the University of Szeged Hungary;
and Pulickel Ajayan the Benjamin M. and Mary Greenwood Anderson Professor in Mechanical engineering and Materials Science and of chemistry at Rice.
Tour is the T. T. and W. F. Chao Chair in Chemistry as well as a professor of mechanical engineering and materials science and of computer science at Rice.
or above a critical threshold for ecological damage according to a study published in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry
The environmental scientists experts in air quality atmospheric chemistry and ecology have been studying the fate of nitrogen-based compounds that are blown into natural areas from power plants automobile exhaust and--increasingly--industrial agriculture.
The vast majority 85 percent of nitrogen deposition originates with human activities explains principal investigator Daniel J. Jacob Vasco Mccoy Family Professor of Atmospheric Chemistry and Environmental Engineering at the Harvard
and has become an international standard for modeling atmospheric chemistry over time. Actual levels of future nitrogen deposition will depend on a complex interplay of economic legal and environmental factors.
#oethe complex Rddm machinery is composed of several proteins that guide the genome in response to growth developmental and stress signals.
#The Mcgill team made the discovery by using a variety of genomic and molecular tools to identify specific ARGONAUTE4 9 genes
#Carbons new champion: Carbyne, a simple chain of carbon atoms, strongest material of all? Carbyne will be the strongest of a new class of microscopic materials
if and when anyone can make it in bulk. If they do they'll find carbyne nanorods
The paper appears this week in the American Chemical Society journal ACS Nano. Carbyne is a chain of carbon atoms held together by either double
or alternating single and triple atomic bonds. That makes it a true one-dimensional material unlike atom-thin sheets of graphene that have a top
and a bottom or hollow nanotubes that have an inside and outside. According to the portrait drawn from calculations by Yakobson and his group:*
*It has twice the tensile stiffness of graphene and carbon nanotubes and nearly three times that of diamond.*
*If outfitted with molecular handles at the ends it can also be twisted to alter its band gap.
*Carbyne chains can take on side molecules that may make the chains suitable for energy storage.*
That's a remarkable set of qualities for a simple string of carbon atoms Yakobson said.
You could look at it as an ultimately thin graphene ribbon reduced to just one atom
Regardless of the applications he said academically it's very exciting to know the strongest possible assembly of atoms.
Based on the calculations he said carbyne might be the highest energy state for stable carbon.
what is called the'ground state'the lowest possible energy configuration for atoms Yakobson said. For carbon that would be followed graphite by diamond then nanotubes then fullerenes.
But nobody asks about the highest energy configuration. We think this may be it a stable structure at the highest energy possible.
and how thin a rod you could make from a given chemical Yakobson said. We had a paper 10 years ago about silicon in
They set out to detail carbyne with computer models using first-principle rules to determine the energetic interactions of atoms Artyukhov said.
Another finding of great interest was the energy barrier that keeps atoms on adjacent carbyne chains from collapsing into each other.
Instead the researchers found carbon atoms on separate strings might overcome the barrier in one spot
Yakobson is Rice's Karl F. Hasselmann Professor of Mechanical engineering and Materials Science a professor of chemistry and a member of the Richard E. Smalley Institute for Nanoscale Science and Technology.
A computer simulation of the molecular stucture of a metal alloy showing the boundaries between microcystalline grains (white lines forming hexagons) shows a small crack (dark horizontal bar just right of bottom center) that mends itself as the metal is put under stress.
diet improves healthpolyphenols are naturally occurring compounds found largely in fruits vegetables coffee tea nuts legumes and cereals.
More than 8000 different phenolic compounds have been identified in plants. Polyphenols have antioxidant antiinflammatory anticarcinogenic etc. effects.
It focuses its activity on the analysis of new more effective and sensitive nutritional biomarkers based on the bioavailabilty of bioactive compounds in food and their activity in order to associate the intake of certain foods (consumption markers) with their potential
and contain compounds of interest for their health and wellness attributes. Thus our work supports the commercial development of buffaloberry chokecherry and sea buckthorn berries.
and further develop these nutritive-rich ingredients is being sought from the recently established (2010) Global Institute for Food security (GIFS) says co-author of the study Dr. Nicholas Low a Professor of Food Chemistry at the Department of Food and Bioproduct Sciences University
In solid fractions organic phosphorus bound in biochemical molecules such as phospholipids nucleotides and nucleic acids offer a bountiful source of phosphorus. These agricultural residues represent a huge additional reservoir for phosphate recovery:
In preliminary experiments we could show that these enzymes can release inorganic phosphate from model compounds explains Jennifer Bilbao who manages the project at the Fraunhofer IGB.
The findings appear online in the Journal of Lipid Research. My collaborators Dr. Rong Wen and Dr. Byron Lam at the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute in Florida first sought my expertise in mass spectrometry to analyze cells cultured from a family
in which three out of the four siblings suffer from RP said Ziqiang Guan an associate research professor of biochemistry in the Duke university Medical school and a contributing author of the study.
and found that the children with RP carry two copies of a mutation at the dehydrodolichol diphosphate synthase (DHDDS) gene which makes the enzyme that synthesizes organic compounds called dolichols.
I can readily detect dolichols by liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry Guan said. Using these techniques he analyzed urine
and blood samples from the six family members and found that instead of dolichol-19 the profiles from the three siblings with RP showed dolichol-18 as the dominant species. The parents who each carry one copy of the mutated DHDDS gene showed intermediate levels of dolichol-19 and higher
They think this mass spectrometry-based detection method will help physicians provide more personalized care to RP patients especially to young children whose retinal degeneration has developed not fully.
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