and contain a vast amount of carbon primarily in the soil Kelly said. There is more carbon in the boreal forests than in the atmosphere he said.
And one of the main ways that the carbon that's accumulated over thousands of years gets out of the soil is through burning.
The release of this carbon from fires adds to the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere potentially leading to additional climate warming he said.
The Yukon Flats region appears to be undergoing a transition that is unprecedented in the Holocene epoch Hu said.
Halas Rice's Stanley C. Moore Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering professor of physics professor of chemistry and professor of biomedical engineering is one of the world's most-cited chemists.
and studying light-activated particles. One of her creations gold nanoshells is the subject of several clinical trials for cancer treatment.
and exposed to sunlight the particles heat up so quickly they instantly vaporize water and create steam.
Loss of trees could impact on climate change as forests store carbon in their stems
Land use in Africa influences how much its forests can grow--and their capacity for absorbing carbon emissions.
and help to limit the impact of carbon emissions but instead in many places people are impacting more on woodlands
and forests adding to carbon emissions. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by University of Edinburgh.
Now University of Manchester scientists working in collaboration with scientists at CSIR-Indian Institute of Chemical Biology in Kolkata have proven a link between rice containing high levels of arsenic and chromosomal damage as measured by micronuclei*in urothelial cells
In the absence of contamination rice is stored an easily food that provides essential energy vitamins
Measurement of predicted particle decay with implications for dark matter searcha discovery facilitated by Rice university's contribution to the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) will impact scientists'search for dark matter in the universe.
That match with only a 1-in-100000 chance of being caused by a statistical error virtually eliminates any possibility that B-sub-s meson decay is related to interaction with particles predicted by dark matter theories as some physicists have suspected.
The particle itself was discovered quite some time ago and that isn't news said Rice physicist Paul Padley a co-investigator on the CMS experiment
But there has been the possibility it could decay through new particles predicted by dark matter theories such as supersymmetry.
or other new particles then the prediction of how often this decay should happen would be wrong.
The carbon emissions generated by a search on Google or a post on Facebook are related mostly to three things:
and how much of the center's electricity comes from renewable or low-carbon sources. Adding renewable power to the mix can help reduce a data center's overall emissions by 98 percent
Of these three improving the efficiency of the IT devices is overwhelmingly the most important said Jonathan Koomey a co-author of the study Characteristics of Low-Carbon Data centers published online June 25 in Nature Climate Change.
and in many of the countries where they operate carbon emissions have a cost or soon will.
and are responsible for about 0. 5 percent of carbon emissions. And the Internet overall is reducing greenhouse gas emissions
because it distributes goods digitally that once were delivered physically like books music publications and mail.
After IT equipment the second major way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions associated with data centers is to improve the efficiency of the buildings that support them.
Of the potential 88 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions though IT device efficiency accounts for about 80 percent and facility energy management for only about 8 percent.
So high-energy data centers that pay their utilities a premium for renewable power unnecessarily tie up low-carbon electrons that might otherwise be used to reduce emissions from other customers.
#Graphene onion rings have delicious potentialconcentric hexagons of graphene grown in a furnace at Rice university represent the first time anyone has synthesized graphene nanoribbons on metal from the bottom up--atom by atom.
and the remarkable rings that chemists marveled were even possible are described in a new paper in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
Usually graphene grown in a hot furnace by chemical vapor deposition starts on a seed--a speck of dust or a bump on a copper or other metallic surface.
One carbon atom latches onto the seed in a process called nucleation and others follow to form the familiar chicken-wire grid.
The edge lets carbon atoms get under the graphene skin where they start a new sheet.
But because the top graphene grows so fast it eventually halts the flow of carbon atoms to the new sheet underneath.
The mechanism relies on that top layer to stop carbon from reaching the bottom so easily Tour said.
The Tour lab pioneered the bulk manufacture of single-atom-thick graphene nanoribbons in 2009 with the discovery that carbon nanotubes could be unzipped chemically into long thin sheets.
versus carbon and get entirely new structures. This is dramatically different from regular graphene. Graduate student Zheng Yan a member of Tour's lab and lead author of the paper discovered the new route to nanoribbons
They may also be suitable for lithium storage for advanced lithium ion batteries he said.
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.
Yakobson is the Karl F. Hasselmann Professor of Mechanical engineering and Materials Science and professor of chemistry.
#Widely used pesticide toxic to honeybeesforthcoming research in the journal Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry analyzes the physiological effects of three separate pesticides on honey bees (Apis mellifera.
The above story is provided based on materials by Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
The scientists also grew an oat variety unable to produce normal levels of avenacin a compound that protects roots from fungal pathogens.
and using less chemicals in the process so as to reduce negative impact on the environment. Tomato peel:
He also studied the structure of the tomato peels to assess their efficiency as biomaterials to remove toxic metal ions and organic pollutants from water.
and inorganic chemicals dyes and pesticides and they can also be used in large scale applications. The results were published in the Royal Society of Chemistry journal RSC Advances in September 2012.
Apple peel: a biomass for water purificationin addition to tomato peels Mr Ramakrishna also explored the viability of using the peels of apples for water purification as apple peels are easily available as biowaste from food processing industries
Zirconium loaded apple peels were found to be able to extract anions such as phosphate arsenate arsenite and chromate ions from aqueous solutions.
The findings are published in the American Chemical Society journal ASC Applied materials & Interfaces in May 2013.
Rainforests that previously contained lots of big old trees which store carbon and support a diverse ecosystem are being replaced with oil palm or timber plantations or hollowed out by logging.
which tend also to be plant defense chemicals Olsen says but it is weed basically a.
The key to success Ghosh found is that vegetarian athletes must find ways within their diet to reach the acceptable macronutrient distribution for all athletes which he breaks down as carbohydrates (45-65 percent) fat (20-35 percent
) and protein (10-35 percent. Vegetarian athletes can meet their dietary needs from predominantly or exclusively plant-based sources when a variety of these foods are consumed daily
Vegetarians should find non-meat sources of iron creatine zinc Vitamin b12 Vitamin d and calcium because the main sources of these typically are animal products
But in general the current recommendation is 1. 4 to 2. 0 grams of protein per kilogram (g/kg) of body weight--about 1 gram per pound.
Ideally a bodybuilder should seek to eat that amount in increments of 20 to 25 grams of high-quality protein throughout the day to maximize protein synthesis in muscle in response to training.
This is important because it seems to indicate there is an upper cap of protein intake that seems to promote protein synthesis to the maximum level
and if you exceed this upper cap of protein level intake you will not be pushing protein synthesis any further Apong said.
In fact you're going to be oxidizing protein for energy production. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Institute of Food Technologists (IFT.
It is used as a basic raw material in producing starch oil protein alcohol food sweeteners and as a dietary staple.
or the microsporidia Nosema ceranae have changes in the chemical profile of their skin and in their brains finds research in Biomed Central's open access journal BMC Ecology.
The levels of these chemicals was altered by infection with either the endo -or ectoparasite nevertheless infected bees were treated as normal by other bees--social interactions including antennal contact grooming feeding
However this new research shows that enriched levels of nitrogen-15 a stable isotope abundant in manure have been found in the charred cereal grains
The research is based on stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis of 124 crop samples of barley wheat lentil and peas totalling around 2500 grains or seeds.
The charred remains represent harvested crops preserved in Neolithic houses destroyed by fire. The samples were from archaeological excavations of Neolithic sites across Europe dating from nearly 6000 to 2400 BC.
Archaeologists rely on the stable isotope analysis of the skeletal remains to establish a signature which provides information about what people once ate.
The heavier stable isotope of nitrogen-15 found in manure mimics the isotopic effect of a diet rich in meat and milk.
It had been assumed that early farmers in northwest Europe had a diet full of animal protein. However these results suggest that the protein from cereal
and pulse crops is much higher than previously thought and that Neolithic crops were a staple part of their diet.
The crop nitrogen isotope analysis suggests that early farmers in Europe used their manure strategically as a resource that was limited by the number of animals they owned
#Broadband photodetector for polarized lightusing carpets of aligned carbon nanotubes researchers from Rice university and Sandia National Laboratories have created a solid-state electronic device that is hardwired to detect polarized light across a broad swath of the visible and infrared spectrum.
The research is available online from the American Chemical Society's journal ACS Nano. Detecting polarized light is said extremely useful Rice's Junichiro Kono professor of electrical
In February Kono L onard and colleagues described a new method for making photodetectors from carpets of carbon nanotubes--long narrow tubes of pure carbon that are about as wide as a strand of DNA.
In the ACS Nano study lead author He used chemicals called dopants to alter the electrical properties of the nanotube carpets.
Agriculture and land use change contributed about 1/3 of total human greenhouse gas emissions in the past decade through crop cultivation animal production and deforestation.
which can lead to large emissions of nitrogen-containing gases that also contribute to global warming.
The study found that increasing livestock yields was more effective at reducing greenhouse gas emissions than increasing yields from crops that people eat.
and 25%for livestock would lead to a 12%savings in greenhouse gas emission per calorie produced.
and livestock greenhouse gas emissions and the trade-offs and co-benefits of different pathways of crop yield improvement.
They also can be derived from cane sugar and seaweed for use as a low-calorie (1. 5--2 Kcal/g) food sweetener and supplement.
In her studies she found children like fat and sugar and somewhat surprisingly fruit is at the top of the list of food choices followed by starches meat and eggs dairy and vegetables.
Lundgren and Duan suggest that researchers investigating the potential of interference RNA pesticides create types that are designed to be unlikely to affect non-target species. They also suggest a research program to evaluate how the chemicals move in real-life situations.
and associated environmental impacts including greenhouse gas emissions responsible for climate change and reduced recreation for people.
Recasting the CAP as a Payment for Ecosystem Services mechanism would reward farmers for delivering a bundle of key of ecosystem services including climate change mitigation by the reduction of emission of greenhouse gases water regulation recreation and biodiversity conservation.
With the evidence at hand it is imperative that there is a U-turn in land use policies that allow to maximize the economic benefits of landscapes by reducing greenhouse gas emissions reducing water pollution enhanced recreation and urban greenspace and improvements
Particle size has bioaccessibility of the energy of the food that is being consumed said Dr. Richard Mattes (CQ) professor of foods and nutrition at Purdue University West Lafayette Ind.
or 40 times and their fecal fat and energy lost by the number of chews were measured.
The study found with fewer chews the larger particles were eliminated by the body. With more chews the smaller particles were absorbed more readily into the system.
If the goal is to include food that is enjoyable and contribute protein a whole almond is probably the way you want to go Mattes said.
If you're interested in maximizing Vitamin e intake chopped almonds almond butter or almond oil may be a better choice.
Mixed fibers from fruits vegetables and whole grains also topped the charts as high energy sources he added.
studies on caloric content in kcal/g of carbohydrates (4) proteins (4) and fats (9) as they were found in foods
and metabolized by the body. Clemens did acknowledge many variables can impact how efficiently the body extracts energy from plant-based foods
and a diet high in foods that contain a lot of sugar and fat. Researchers looked at risk factors including diet levels of physical activity and smoking in a large Scottish study.
which is high in meat fat and sugar. The healthy dietary pattern was found to be associated with a decreased colorectal cancer risk
Dr Evropi Theodoratou of the University of Edinburgh's School of Molecular Genetic and Population Health Sciences said:
While the positive associations between a diet high in sugar and fat and colorectal cancer do not automatically imply'cause
Among the significant findings the research showed that rather than preventing fatty liver by blocking the inflammation liver fat content was increased actually in the first week of lactation.
In this process the cell produces MESSENGER RNA that copies the genetic information from the cell nucleus to serve as a template for protein synthesis
. In addition to the 1274 genes that take part in coding proteins they also identified 375 novel noncoding gene families on the bovine Y chromosome
The first IBEX images released in 2009 showed an unexpected ribbon of surprisingly high energetic neutral atom (ENA) emissions circling the upwind side of the solar system.
If they become more efficient at using water they should be able to take more carbon out of the atmosphere due to higher growth rates.
When Keenan Richardson and colleagues began to examine those records they found that forests were storing more carbon
and gas development affect prairie chickens Sandercock said. With wind power development the researchers had unexpected the result of female survival rates increasing after wind turbines were installed potentially
When electricity passes through a layer of silicon oxide it strips away oxygen molecules and creates a channel of pure metallic phase silicon that is less than five nanometers wide.
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.
The above story is provided based on materials by Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length g
#Plant molecular biologist are getting to the root of the matterworking to identify key genes in the root development of poplar trees three Michigan Technological University scientists have come up with a new model for how genes interact
and causes increases in algal blooms greenhouse gases and insects like mosquitoes that carry disease.
Wei a molecular biologist also has extensive knowledge of computer science and he is adept at applying it to large biological data sets.
They found 9. 198 genes that produced significantly different amounts or kinds of proteins at six different times.
#Not-weak knots bolster carbon fiberlarge flakes of graphene oxide are the essential ingredient in a new recipe for robust carbon fiber created at Rice university.
The material could be used to increase the strength of many products that use carbon fiber like composites for strong light aircraft or fabrics for bulletproof apparel according to the researchers.
That never happens in a carbon fiber or polymer fibers. Credit goes to the unique properties of graphene oxide flakes created in an environmentally friendly process patented by Rice a few years ago.
But they're massive compared with the petroleum-based pitch used in current carbon fiber.
The pitch particles are two nanometers in size which makes our flakes about ten thousand times larger said Rice graduate student Changsheng Xiang lead author of the new paper.
Unlike pitch the atom-thick flakes have an enormous surface area and cling to each other like the scales on a fish when pulled into a fiber.
Tour said industrial carbon fibers--a source of steel-like strength in ultralight materials ranging from baseball bats to bicycles to bombers--haven't improved much in decades
because the chemistry involved is approaching its limits. But the new carbon fibers spun at room temperature at Rice already show impressive tensile strength
and modulus and have the potential to be even stronger when annealed at higher temperatures.
Heating the fibers to about 2100 degrees Celsius the industry standard for making carbon fiber will likely eliminate the knotting strength Xiang said
and Matteo Pasquali a professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering and of chemistry. 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.
The Air force Research Laboratory (through the University Technology Corp.)the Office of Naval Research the Air force Office of Scientific research and the Welch Foundation supported the research.
#Second door discovered in war against mosquito-borne diseasesin the global war against disease-carrying mosquitoes scientists have believed long that a single molecular door was the key target for insecticide.
Our discovery of a second receptor in the mosquitoes'sodium channel gives us a better understanding of how the insecticide works at a molecular level as well as could lead to ways to stem mosquitoes'resistance to pyrethroids.
At the molecular level resistance appears as mutations in the primary receptor in the sodium channel that allow mosquitoes to survive exposure to the insecticide.
and its downstream signals during the breast's transition to a biofactory that manufactures massive amounts of proteins fats
Dr. Nommsen-Rivers and her colleagues were able to use a noninvasive method to capture mammary gland RNA--a chain of molecules that are blueprints for making specified proteins--in samples of human breast milk.
and its downstream signals during the breast's transition to a biofactory that manufactures massive amounts of proteins fats
Dr. Nommsen-Rivers and her colleagues were able to use a noninvasive method to capture mammary gland RNA--a chain of molecules that are blueprints for making specified proteins--in samples of human breast milk.
because converting uncultivated land would lead to major emissions of greenhouse gases and cause significant losses of biodiversity.
To do this greenhouse gases are to be stabilised at a level that is acceptable for humans and for the environment.
Realistic development pathsthe main culprit in relation to these environmental changes is the emission of the greenhouse gas CO2
The basis for the calculations is provided by a wide range of greenhouse gas scenarios that are based on realistic economic trajectories.
although no differences were found in the quantity of toxic compounds such as cadmium which were detected also in very low concentrations.
According to a new article in Animal Frontiers biotechnologies increase food production and reduce harmful gas output from cattle.
Researchers measured gas output by placing finishing steers in a special corral that traps emissions.
When cows produce more milk greenhouse gas emissions decrease because farms need fewer cows. Dr. Kim Stackhouse National Cattleman's Beef Association Director of Sustainability said animal agriculture has reduced emissions through the use of technologies.
Animal waste is collected in lagoons where the gas is captured. The gas is transported through an internal combustion area that produces energy for heat and electricity.
I expect there to be more improvement as we continue be more efficient continue to do more with less
His research shows that biotechnology can produce more food and lower gas emissions. We need to inform them that these are valuable tools for those two reasons
and surface water quality handling floodwater preventing erosion and storing carbon). They focused on the Yahara River watershed
flood regulation pasture and freshwater supply all went together as did forest recreation soil retention carbon storage and surface water quality.
By measuring radioactive carbon-14 deposited in tusks and teeth by open-air nuclear bomb tests the method reveals the year an animal died
which is shaped a graph roughly like an inverted V--showing changes in carbon-14 levels in the atmosphere
The carbon-14 was formed in the atmosphere by U s. and Soviet atmospheric nuclear weapons tests in Nevada and Siberia from 1952 through 1962.
How the Study Was Performedneutrons from the nuclear tests bombarded nitrogen--the atmosphere's most common gas--to turn some of it into carbon-14.
and animal carbon-14 levels followed by a steady decline ever since. The method in the study is a bit like telling a tree's age by its rings but instead of counting rings Cerling Uno and colleagues measured carbon-14 levels at various points along the lengths of elephants'and hippos'tusks
and teeth. The conventional way of measuring carbon-14 is to wait for and count when the isotope decays radioactively.
In the study the researchers used accelerator mass spectrometry or AMS which requires 1000 times less material for analysis--a big advantage
when sampling fossils or small pieces of worked ivory Cerling says. In AMS the material being analyzed is bombarded with cesium atoms
which sputters off carbon atoms so the ratio of carbon-14 to carbon-12 can be measured.
The researchers tested the accuracy of carbon-14 dating in 29 animal and plant tissues killed and collected on known dates from 1905 to 2008.
The samples included elephant tusks and molars hippo tusks and canine teeth oryx horn hair from monkeys and elephant tails and some grasses collected in Kenya in 1962.
and from Misha an African elephant euthanized in 2008 due to declining health at Utah's Hogle Zoo in Salt lake city. The analysis revealed that various tissues that formed at the same time have the same carbon-14 levels
By determining carbon-14 in these samples of known dates the researchers now can measure carbon-14 levels in other ivory to determine its age within about a year.
The four oldest samples--from animals died between 1905 and 1953--had minimal carbon-14
So the test can identify pre-1955 ivory by its low pre-nuclear-test levels of carbon-14.
It takes about 5700 years for half of carbon-14 to decay radioactively. But the amount in Earth's atmosphere after the 1950s and 1960s bomb tests faded much more quickly
because oceans and trees absorb carbon dioxide--including carbon-14--from the atmosphere. So the method won't work for tusks
or other tissues that grow after about 15 years from now when atmospheric carbon-14 returns to pre-bomb levels.
what prehistoric and modern animals ate over time especially when combined with existing isotope analysis of ratios of carbon-13 to carbon-12 in teeth--data that reveal
When damaged many plants release hydrocarbons called volatile organic compounds similar to the compounds that cause the characteristic smell of freshly cut grass.
These volatile organic compounds are known to be attractive to parasitoid wasps that lay their eggs inside other insects killing them Plants appear to use this strategy to fight back against herbivorous insects by calling for their enemies'enemies.
In contrast herbivorous insects tend to avoid the herbivore-induced volatile organic compounds. Adult moths and butterflies avoid food plants that are under attack by conspecifics.
when this odor is mimicked in the laboratory with a mix of synthetic compounds said Prof.
Ted Turlings an author of the study and head of the Laboratory for Fundamental and Applied Research in Chemical Ecology Institute of Biology at the University of Neuchã¢tel Switzerland.
Turlings and colleagues propose that hungry S. littoralis caterpillars do the best of a bad job by moving towards volatile organic compounds released by damaged maize plants.
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