The research team's goal is to develop compounds perfectly matched to the acetylcholinesterase molecules in malaria-transmitting mosquitoes he said.
Bloomquist and colleagues at Virginia Tech where the project is based are trying to perfect mosquito-specific compounds that can be manufactured on a large scale
and tested a compound enough that it's ready to be submitted for federal approval Bloomquist said.
and Physiology comparing eight experimental compounds with commercially available insecticides that target the enzyme. Though they were less toxic to mosquitoes than commercial products the experimental compounds were far more selective indicating researchers are on the right track he said.
The compounds we're using are not very toxic to honeybees fish and mammals but we need to refine them further make them more toxic to mosquitoes
and safer for nontarget organisms he said. Funding for the project came from a five-year $3. 6 million grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious diseases part of the National institutes of health.
carbon and timbermore than 13000 ships per year carrying more than 284 million tons of cargo transit the Panama canal each year generating roughly $1. 8 billion dollars in toll fees for the Panama canal Authority.
dry-season water flows carbon sequestration timber and livestock production. Published this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) their study--Bundling ecosystem services in the Panama canal Watershed--examines precipitation topography vegetation
but does increase carbon sequestration and timber production said Simonit. Our research provides an insight into the importance of understanding the spatial distribution of the costs and benefits of jointly produced services.
Both natural forest and teak plantations offer benefits in the form of carbon sequestration and timber products among other things and these should be weighed against any water losses said Perrings.
According to their study water losses from natural forest regeneration would be compensated by the value of carbon sequestration in 59.6 percent of the converted area at current carbon prices.
On the other hand reforestation of existing grassland with teak (under sustainable forest management) would generate gains sufficient to offset the hydrological losses in all converted areas regardless of the value of carbon.
Working with GM tomatoes that are different to normal fruit only by the addition of a specific compound allows us to pinpoint exactly how to breed in valuable traits said Professor Cathie Martin from the John Innes Centre.
and shelf life characteristics because even higher levels of the compounds can be achieved. In research to be published in Current Biology Martin
Those found to be highest in antioxidant compounds can be used as parental lines for breeding.
Other varieties of JIC tomatoes high in a variety of compounds such as those found in red wine are being used by Essex company Biodeb to develop a range of skincare products.
Graphene a single sheet of carbon atoms is the thinnest electrical conductor we know. With the addition of the monolayer molybdenum disulfide and other metal dichalcogenides we have all the building blocks for modern electronics that must be created in atomically thin form.
For example we can now imagine sandwiching two different monolayer transition metal dichalcogenides between layers of graphene to make solar cells that are only eight atoms thick--20 thousand times smaller than a human hair!
To study the material the researchers refined an existing technique to grow large symmetric crystals up to 100 microns across but only three atoms thick.
--and it would not have misaligned any atoms says Pinshane Huang a Phd student in the David Muller lab at Cornell and the paper's third lead author.
and saw lines of misaligned atoms. Once they knew where to find the grain boundaries
and saw that the single defective line of atoms at the grain boundaries could drastically change the key electronic and optical properties of the Mos2.
The structural modeling and electronic structure calculations were performed by the David Reichman lab in chemistry.
#Footwears (carbon) footprint: Bulk of shoes carbon footprint comes from manufacturing processesa typical pair of running shoes generates 30 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions equivalent to keeping a 100-watt light bulb on for one week according to a new
MIT-led lifecycle assessment. But what's surprising to researchers isn't the size of a shoe's carbon footprint
but where the majority of that footprint comes from. The researchers found that more than two-thirds of a running shoe's carbon impact can come from manufacturing processes with a smaller percentage arising from acquiring
or extracting raw materials. This breakdown is expected for more complex products such as electronics where the energy that goes into manufacturing fine integrated circuits can outweigh the energy expended in processing raw materials.
and manufacturing of one pair of running shoes to identify hotspots of greenhouse-gas emissions. The group found that much of the carbon impact came from powering manufacturing plants:
A significant portion of the world's shoe manufacturers are located in China where coal is the dominant source of electricity.
--and therefore carbon-intensive--compared with the energy that goes into making shoe materials such as polyester and polyurethane.
and reduce shoes'carbon footprint. He adds that the findings may also help industries assess the carbon impact of similar consumer products more efficiently.
Understanding environmental footprint is resource intensive. The key is need you to put your analytical effort into the areas that matter Kirchain says.
In response companies have started to take account of their products'greenhouse-gas contributions in part by measuring the amount of carbon dioxide associated with every process throughout a product's lifecycle.
These last three stages they found contributed very little to the product's carbon footprint.
If we were looking at a leather shoe it would be much more materials-driven because of the carbon intensity of leather production.
An improved designin tallying the carbon emissions from every part of a running shoe's lifecycle the researchers were also able to spot places where reductions might be made.
Scientists at the Network of Excellence for Functional Biomaterials (NFB) in the National University of Ireland Galway have published just their breakthrough polymerization method in Nature Communications.
Their new polymerization technique allows for the easy creation of new complex multifunctional branched compounds.
Polymers are a broad class of natural and synthetic compounds built up of many parts known as monomers
Because this work contradicts longstanding theories about polymerization we too have faced the challenge of acceptance.
Wildfires impact atmospheric conditions through emissions of gases particles water and heat. Some of the article focuses on radiative forcing from fire emissions.
Smoke particles can generate radiative forcing mainly through scattering and absorbing solar radiation (direct radiative forcing)
or burning seasons smoke particles reduce overall solar radiation absorbed by the atmosphere at local and regional levels.
Besides the atmospheric impacts wildfires also modify terrestrial ecosystem services such as carbon sequestration soil fertility grazing value biodiversity and tourism.
GNVS can efficiently deliver a variety of therapeutic agents including DNA RNA (DIR-GNVS) proteins
University of Louisville researchers have uncovered how to create nanoparticles using natural lipids derived from grapefruit
The researchers demonstrated that GNVS can transport various therapeutic agents including anticancer drugs DNA/RNA and proteins such as antibodies.
Treatment of animals with GNVS seemed to cause less adverse effects than treatment with drugs encapsulated in synthetic lipids.
because a larger quantity of lipids can be derived from this fruit. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by University of Louisville.
For research to be published in elife a team of molecular biologists from Europe and the US reconstructed the spread of the potato blight pathogen from dried plants.
A lot of the changes in greenhouse gases and in a shrinking ice volume then are similar to
and plants he says can reveal a lot about carbon cycling which is so central for applying the work to climate change today.
Today we're seeing change in greenhouse gas concentrations of CO2 on the order of centuries and decades.
Many environmental factors leave an imprint on the carbon contained in tree trunks from this period.
The high latitudes today contain the largest amount of carbon locked up as organic material and permafrost soils On earth today he says.
It actually exceeds the amount of carbon you can measure in the rain forests. So what happens to that stockpile of carbon
when you warm it and grow a forest over it is completely unknown. Another unknown is
The survival of organic material is really dependent on the particular chemical properties of the soil
First fully integrated artificial photosynthesis nanosystemin the wake of the sobering news that atmospheric carbon dioxide is now at its highest level in at least three million years an important advance in the race to develop carbon-neutral renewable
Similar to the chloroplasts in green plants that carry out photosynthesis our artificial photosynthetic system is composed of two semiconductor light absorbers an interfacial layer for charge transport
and spatially separated co-catalysts says Peidong Yang a chemist with Berkeley Lab's Materials Sciences Division who led this research.
Solar technologies are the ideal solutions for carbon-neutral renewable energy--there's enough energy in one hour's worth of global sunlight to meet all human needs for a year.
Artificial photosynthesis in which solar energy is converted directly into chemical fuels is regarded as one of the most promising of solar technologies.
and produce charge-carriers to drive separate water reduction and oxidation half-reactions. In natural photosynthesis the energy of absorbed sunlight produces energized charge-carriers that execute chemical reactions in separate regions of the chloroplast Yang says.
We've integrated our nanowire nanoscale heterostructure into a functional system that mimics the integration in chloroplasts
and provides a conceptual blueprint for better solar-to-fuel conversion efficiencies in the future. When sunlight is absorbed by pigment molecules in a chloroplast an energized electron is generated that moves from molecule to molecule through a transport chain until ultimately it drives the conversion of carbon dioxide into carbohydrate sugars.
This electron transport chain is called A z-scheme because the pattern of movement resembles the letter Z on its side.
and titanium oxide--loaded with co-catalysts and with an ohmic contact inserted between them. Silicon was used for the hydrogen-generating photocathode
while the photo-generated holes in the titanium oxide nanowires oxidize water to evolve oxygen molecules.
the results of the experiments are affected significantly by organisms'initial fitness and lipid reserves. To eliminate these effects
and predator bugs that in turn preyed on woolly apple aphids a pest that growers often control with chemical sprays.
The scientists sprayed protein markers on the sweet alyssum and later captured insects and spiders at a distance from the flower plots.
Many of the insects and spiders tested positive for the proteins proving that they had visited the flowers.
and predator bugs that in turn preyed on woolly apple aphids a pest that growers often control with chemical sprays.
The scientists sprayed protein markers on the sweet alyssum and later captured insects and spiders at a distance from the flower plots.
Many of the insects and spiders tested positive for the proteins proving that they had visited the flowers.
HA receptor-binding specificity is a major molecular determinant for the host range of influenza viruses.
Within the HA protein of novel H7n9 viruses there was a leucine residue at position 226
#Molecular basis of strawberry aromayou know that summer is here when juicy red strawberries start to appear on the shelves.
The characteristic aroma of a fresh strawberry is the result of around a dozen different aroma compounds.
A ripe strawberry has a particularly high concentration of this compound--up to 50 milligrams per kilo
This compound gives the ripe fruit its characteristic caramel-like aroma. HDMF is also found in pineapples and tomatoes.
We were interested particularly in the biocatalytic process that leads up to the final compound comments Prof.
Arne Skerra from the TUM Chair of Biological Chemistry. In this process a molecule precursor binds to the Faeo enzyme (Fragaria x ananassa enone oxidoreductase) which converts it into the final product namely HDMF.
Molecular analysis reveals a new biosynthetic routethe TUM scientists were able to map this reaction path in detail.
To understand how enzymes catalyze the biosynthesis of these new metabolic products the research team took advantage of X-ray structural analysis. This allowed them to view the 3d structure of the molecules.
For the strawberry aroma we investigated altogether six different enzyme-molecule combinations --and ended up understanding how Faeo produces the HDMF flavor compound explains Dr. Andr Schiefner from The chair of Biological Chemistry.
In the course of their research the scientists discovered that the catalytic reaction involved a hitherto unknown mechanism.
The compound is reduced and electrons are transferred specifically to a particular part of the molecule. Thus the Faeo enzyme represents the first member of new class of biocatalysts--a discovery
which could lead to useful applications in industrial biotechnology. The latest research results provide valuable insight into the development of taste in widespread cultivated plants as Skerra explains:
Unlike coffee or vanilla the biochemical processes that produce the strawberry aroma are very complex.
But now our TUM research team has shed light on an important step in its biosynthesis . Thus biosynthetic processes might be used soon to prepare the true flavor of strawberry from fructose for example to make drinks
The researchers who sequenced it say that 97 percent of the genome consists of genes--bits of DNA that code for proteins--and small pieces of DNA that control those genes.
Noncoding DNA is DNA that doesn't code for any proteins. This includes mobile elements called jumping genes that have the ability to copy
which for genes feeds into the machinery that makes proteins. But Herrera-Estrella Albert and their colleagues argue that organisms may not bulk up on genetic junk for reasons of benefit.
and function and so produce more of a given gene product--a protein for example he said.
and birds focusing on the gene that codes for the viral hemagglutinin (HA) protein. After comparing HA genetic sequences in five key locations that control the viruses'interactions with infected hosts the researchers calculated an antigenic index for each strain.
The researchers also took into account the patterns of attachment of the HA protein to sugar molecules called glycans.
Published today 10 may in IOP Publishing's journal Environmental Research Letters it shows that deforestation will not only reduce the capacity of the Amazon's natural carbon sink
Similar to the many studies that indicate tobacco use might reduce risk of Parkinson's our findings also suggest a protective effect from nicotine or perhaps a similar but less toxic chemical in peppers and tobacco.
#Exotic atoms hold clues to unsolved physics puzzle at the dawn of the universean international team of physicists has found the first direct evidence of pear shaped nuclei in exotic atoms.
Antimatter particles have the same mass but opposite charge from their matter counterparts. Antimatter is rare in the known universe flitting briefly in and out of existence in cosmic rays solar flares and particle accelerators like CERN's Large Hadron Collider for example.
and antimatter particles mutually destruct or annihilate. What caused the matter/antimatter imbalance is one of physics'great mysteries.
And the strong and weak forces operate in the cores of atoms binding together neutrons and protons or causing those particles to decay.
The researchers confirmed that the cores of these atoms are shaped like pears rather than the more typical spherical orange or elliptical watermelon profiles.
and radon atoms at CERN's Isotope Separator facility ISOLDE The atom beams were accelerated and smashed into targets of nickel cadmium
and Europe where new techniques are being developed to exploit the special properties of radon and radium isotopes.
They're primarily concerned with land conversion--high carbon stock land or lands that are high in biodiversity values Endres said.
She stressed that international harmonization is vital for the aviation industry because of looming compliance mandates for carbon reductions in Europe.
To land a plane in Europe U s. carriers will have to prove that they have reduced their carbon footprint below a certain level.
So even though we think we're achieving rural development receiving carbon reductions or climate mitigation benefits or that we're having increased energy security people may still be suspicious of biomass fuels
Their study published in ACS'Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry found similar results as those published in the European union.
The above story is provided based on materials by American Chemical Society. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
the ability to burn sugar and fat and the ability to switch between slow-and fast-twitch muscle fibers.
In this study we wanted to determine on a molecular level what makes a muscle fit during development or following exercise.
To do this they turned to two different mouse models each specially engineered to produce distinct but related proteins that turn muscle-specific genes on and off.
and muscle fiber type-switching Kelly's team compared the molecular differences between these two disparate mouse models.
The two mouse models also differed in molecular profiling according to this study. The team discovered that marathon mice produce certain micrornas that are capable of activating the fiber switch.
This protein collaborates with PPARÎ/Î'to turn on micrornas. That's why marathon mice are fitter
For now the device can distinguish between the odorous compounds emitted by pears and apples.
which reaches the tower with the sensors which are metal oxide semiconductors that detect odorous compounds such as methane
#U s. urban trees store carbon, provide billions in economic value, finds state-by-state analysisfrom New york city's Central park to Golden gate Park in San francisco America's urban forests store an estimated 708 million tons of carbon an environmental service with an estimated value
of $50 billion according to a recent U s. Forest Service study. Annual net carbon uptake by these trees is estimated at 21 million tons and $1. 5 billion in economic benefit.
In the study published recently in the journal Environmental Pollution Dave Nowak a research forester with the U s. Forest Service's Northern Research Station
and six states and national tree cover data to estimate total carbon storage in the nation's urban areas.
Carbon storage is just one of the many benefits provided by the hardest working trees in America.
Nationally carbon storage by trees in forestlands was estimated at 22.3 billion tons in a 2008 Forest Service study;
additional carbon storage by urban trees bumps that to an estimated 22.7 billion tons. Carbon storage and sequestration rates vary among states based on the amount of urban tree cover and growing conditions.
States in forested regions typically have the highest percentage of urban tree cover. States with the greatest amount of carbon stored by trees in urban areas are Texas (49.8 million tons) Florida (47.3 million tons) Georgia (42.4 million tons) Massachusetts (39.6
million tons) and North carolina (37.5 million tons. The total amount of carbon stored and sequestered in urban areas could increase in the future as urban land expands.
Urban areas in the continental U s. increased from 2. 5 percent of land area in 1990 to 3. 1 percent in 2000 an increase equivalent to the area of Vermont and New hampshire combined.
The study is not the first to estimate carbon storage and sequestration by U s. urban forests however it provides more refined statistical analyses for national carbon estimates that can be used to assess the actual and potential role of urban forests in reducing atmospheric carbon dioxide.
More urbanization does not necessarily translate to more urban trees. Last year Nowak and Eric Greenfield a forester with the Northern Research Station and another study co-author found that urban tree cover is declining nationwide at a rate of about 20000 acres per year or 4 million
Carbon Storage by Urban Treesstate: Carbon Stored (tons) Total 708100000the mission of the U s. Forest Service is to sustain the health diversity
and productivity of the nation's forests and grasslands to meet the needs of present and future generations.
Even when other known means of communication such as contact chemical and light-mediated signals are blocked chilli seeds grow better when grown with basil plants.
or chemical signals they germinated as though they could still communicate with the basil. A partial response was seen for fully grown chilli plants blocked from known communication with the seeds.
Approaches will include new molecular breeding and genetic engineering technologies to speed up the selection and production of CMD and CBSD resistant cassava cultivars more appealing to farmers.
and relinquish more carbon than expectedit's difficult to imagine how a degree or two of warming will affect a location.
The approach foresees big changes for one of the planet's great carbon sponges. Boreal forests will likely shift north at a steady clip this century.
Along the way the vegetation will relinquish more trapped carbon than most current climate models predict.
This vegetation stores vast amounts of carbon keeping it out of the atmosphere where it can contribute to climate change.
This means that boreal ecosystems are expected to store even more carbon than they do today. But the Berkeley Lab research tells a different story.
Grassland stores a lot of carbon in its soil but it accumulates at a much slower rate than is lost from diminishing forests.
Most Earth system models don't predict this which means they overestimate the amount of carbon that high-latitude vegetation will store in the future he adds.
He also investigated how this shift will transport the carbon stored in the vegetation that grows in the gridcell's climate.
Only one of the Earth system models shows this precipitous loss of carbon in southern boreal forests.
In addition Earth system models predict carbon loss by placing vegetation at a given point and then changing various climate properties above it.
Thanks to molecular analyses biologists discovered that such crossing has already been carried out previously confirming the possibility of hybridizing the two subspecies.
Studies suggest that the nicotine-like compounds fry bees'navigation systems and leave them unable to learn
These neonicotinoids are just one of hundreds of compounds being used and I would be surprised if it was all down to just these chemicals says Christopher Connolly a neuroscientist at the University of Dundee UK.
He argues that we should not allow farmers spray a toxic soup of chemicals onto their crops.
Pesticides not adequately testedconnolly exposed bee brains to these pesticides and organo-based pesticides andreported that the nerves spun into hyperactivity
beneficial insects such as ladybirds and bees are exposed to lots of different chemicals and we have a really poor understanding of
When milk allergic children inhale chalk particles containing casein life-threatening asthma attacks and other respiratory issues can occur.
or dustless still release small particles into the air said Carlos H. Larramendi MD lead study author.
when the particles are inhaled by children with milk allergy coughing wheezing and shortness of breath can occur.
The diet restricted foods high in the sugar-binding protein lectin generally regarded as a healthy nutrient.
and fish olive oil and grass-fed animal protein while taking supplements containing the antioxidant polyphenol from fish oil grape seed extract and vitamins.
Antioxidants are thought to slow cell aging. These findings represent a fundamental paradigm shift in how the diseases of the'Western Diet'should be treated said Steven R. Gundry M d. lead author
The plant releases the chemical compound emodin which is produced in the leaves fruit bark and roots of the plant into the amphibian breeding pond environment at various times of year.
In a related study published online Feb 21 in Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry Relyea's Pitt research team examined
Using three commonly applied pesticides that have similar chemical properties--chlorpyrifos carbaryl and malathion--the Pitt researchers exposed 15 populations of wood frog tadpoles to high concentrations of each insecticide.
but similar-acting chemicals said Aaron Stoler a coauthor of the second paper and a graduate student in Relyea's lab. In the future Relyea and his team plan to study the genetic mechanisms that underlie increased resistance in amphibians
The article published Feb 21 in Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry is titled Cross-tolerance in amphibians: Wood frog mortality when exposed to three insecticides with a common mode of action.
and compounds naturally found in plants known as phytochemicals. However honey bees have relatively few genes dedicated to this detoxification process compared to other insect species she said.
Research had shown previously that eating honey turns on detoxification genes that metabolize the chemicals in honey
and added different chemical components in extracts of honey. They identified p-coumaric acid as the strongest inducer of the detoxification genes.
We found that the perfect signal p-coumaric acid is in everything that bees eat--it's the monomer that goes into the macromolecule called sporopollenin
This signal can also turn on honey bee immunity genes that code for antimicrobial proteins. According to Berenbaum three other honey constituents were effective inducers of these detoxification enzymes.
That's the conclusion of 12 leading plant biologists from around the world whose laboratories recently discovered important properties of plant transport proteins that collectively could have a profound impact on global agriculture.
These membrane transporters are a class of specialized proteins that plants use to take up nutrients from the soil transport sugar
and lack sufficient protein and carbohydrates in their diets the biologists write in their paper.
because their diets lack required micronutrients such as iron zinc and Vitamin a. These dietary deficiencies have an enormous negative impact on global health resulting in increased susceptibility to infection
Along with growing urbanization increased demand for protein in developing countries coupled with impending climate change
When soils are acidic aluminum ions are freed in the soil resulting in toxicity to the plant the scientists write.
From their recent findings the plant biologists now understand how transport proteins control processes that allow roots to tolerate toxic aluminum.
By engineering crops to convert aluminum ions into a nontoxic form they said agricultural scientists can now turn these unusable
Other recent transport protein developments described by the biologists have been shown to increase the storage of iron
The remainder can lead to production of the greenhouse gas nitrous oxide or to eutrophication of aquatic ecosystems through water run off.
The biologists said crops could be made more efficient in using water through discoveries in plant transport proteins that regulate the stomatal pores in the epidermis of leaves where plants lose more than 90 percent of their water through transpiration.
A recent discovery of protein transporters that move sugar throughout the plant has been used to develop rice plants that confer pest resistance to crops the biologists said providing a novel way to simplify the engineering of crops with high yields and pest resistance
and carrying their own chemical elements. These recent developments in understanding the biology of plant transporters are leading to improved varieties less susceptible to adverse environments and for improving human health.
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