#Better-educated parents feed children fewer fats and less sugarthe level of education of parents has an influence on the frequency with
whether they relate to greenhouse gas savings or individuals claiming that new biomass varieties will all be invasive species Endres said.
With a longtime specialization in the molecular basis for unexpected gene activity in plants Hollick had zeroed in on an enzyme called RNA polymerase IV (Pol IV.
and Pol IV is an enigmatic RNA polymerase that is known in plants to produce small RNA molecules.
Molecular analysis showed that that was in fact the case Hollick said. The researchers selected dark kernels and light kernels from multiple generations of plants
Soy contains isoflavones estrogen-like substances that are known also to affect molecular pathways involved in tumor development and growth.
As the need for carbon sequestration biofuels and other forest products increases the study suggests that there might be unintended consequences to enhancing ecosystems using fertilization.
A lot of the value of cattle at that time had to do with the fat they had because the primary lighting source people had was made candles of tallow
and Texas longhorns have very low fat content. Ranchers began fencing off the range and importing breeds from Europe that had higher fat content.
and power lines findings that could affect the oil and gas industry as much as farmers and land owners.
Hybrid ribbons a gift for powerful batterieshybrid ribbons of vanadium oxide (VO2) and graphene may accelerate the development of high-power lithium-ion batteries suitable for electric cars and other demanding applications.
The research appears online this month in the American Chemical Society journal Nano Letters. The ribbons created at Rice are thousands of times thinner than a sheet of paper yet have potential that far outweighs current materials for their ability to charge
and in fact vanadium pentoxide has been used in lithium-ion batteries for its special structure and high capacity.
The high-conductivity graphene lattice that is literally baked in solves that problem nicely he said by serving as a speedy conduit for electrons and channels for ions.
The atom-thin graphene sheets bound to the crystals take up very little bulk. In the best samples made at Rice fully 84 percent of the cathode's weight was the lithium-slurping VO2
and lead author Shubin Yang said they believe that to be among the best overall performance ever seen for lithium-ion battery electrodes.
The process involved suspending graphene oxide nanosheets with powdered vanadium pentoxide (layered vanadium oxide with two atoms of vanadium and five of oxygen) in water and heating it in an autoclave for hours.
This unique structure was favorable for the ultrafast diffusion of both lithium ions and electrons during charge
We think this is real progress in the development of cathode materials for high-power lithium-ion batteries Ajayan said suggesting the ribbons'ability to be dispersed in a solvent might make them suitable as a component in the paintable batteries developed in his lab. Co-authors of the new paper are Rice graduate students
Ajayan is the Benjamin M. and Mary Greenwood Anderson Professor in Engineering and a professor of mechanical engineering and materials science chemistry and chemical and biomolecular engineering.
and sodium ion transport have evolved rapidly in falcons and also the evolutionary novelties in beak development related genes of falcons and saker-unique arid-adaptation related genes.
They compared 141 peach gene families to those of six other fully sequenced diverse plant species to unravel unique metabolic pathways for instance those that lead to lignin biosynthesis--the molecular glue that holds the plant cells together
It is documented well that corn residues introduce a host of physical chemical and biological effects that negatively influence corn yields.
Effects of accumulated corn residues include reduced soil temperature increased soil moisture reduced N fertilizer availability and production of autotoxic chemicals all of
and the quantity of lipids per cell (essential for obtaining fuel). Their study shows that one type of marine algae that has received little attention till now--dinoflagellate microalgae--is highly suitable for cultivation with the aim of producing biodiesel.
and protein pulp that is not converted into biodiesel) and using air pumps and more efficient cultivation materials.
The MATE1 gene which was found in triplicate in aluminum-tolerant maize turns on in the presence of aluminum ions
and expresses a protein that transports citric acid from root tips into the soil which binds to
He added that the extra gene copies had a cumulative effect of coding for more protein that transports aluminum-binding citric acid into the soil.
In the study Argerich and colleagues analyzed concentrations of stream nitrogen which despite regulations have been on the rise across the country as energy and food production release reactive forms of the compound into waterways.
It is rich in protein which usually makes up around 40%of the nutritional components of the seeds
and protein the researchers looked to monitor bioactivity between the peptides derived from the meals of soybean and various types of human cancer cells.
The meat forms a cheap and accessible source of protein for poor people as well as a source of income
The trees also have other ecosystem functions in the form of carbon sequestration and effects on nutrient cycling and retention.
The simulations are the largest particle-in-cell (PIC) code simulations by number of cores ever performed.
PIC simulations are used extensively in plasma physics to model the motion of the charged particles and the electromagnetic interactions between them that make up ionized matter.
High performance computers such as Sequoia enable these codes to follow the simultaneous evolution of tens of billions to trillions of individual particles in highly complex systems.
Each simulation evolves the dynamics of more than 100 billion particles for more than 100000 computational time steps.
Published in the April issue of the Journal of Lipid Research and featured on the cover their early study found that mice that were fed these tomatoes in freeze-dried ground form had less inflammation
This is one of the first examples of a peptide that acts like the main protein in good cholesterol
Specifically for the study the team genetically engineered tomatoes to produce 6f a small peptide that mimics the action of apoa-1 the chief protein in high density-lipoprotein lipoprotein (HDL or good cholesterol.
and was degraded then to natural amino acids before being absorbed into the blood as is the case with the other peptides and proteins in the tomato.
It seems likely that the mechanism of action of the peptide-enhanced tomatoes involves altering lipid metabolism in the intestine
which positively impacts cholesterol said the study's corresponding author Srinavasa T. Reddy a UCLA professor of medicine and of molecular and medical pharmacology.
Peptides prior to the current 6f version have required additions that can only be made by chemical synthesis. The 6f peptide does not require these additions
This is one of the first examples in translational research using an edible plant as a delivery vehicle for a new approach to cholesterol said Judith Gasson a professor of medicine and biological chemistry director of UCLA
study findsthe American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Heart Association recommend that all children drink low fat
or skimmed milk after the age of 2 to reduce their saturated fat intake and ward off excess weight gain.
Researchers asked the parents/primary caregivers of almost 11000 children about their milk consumption--skimmed 1%semi-skimmed 2%milk fat full fat
so that they could calculate the fat and sugar intake from these sources. The children were weighed also
and greenhouse gases vehicles must become dramatically more efficient regardless of how they are powered said Douglas M. Chapin principal of MPR Associates
In addition alternative fuels to petroleum must be readily available cost-effective and produced with low emissions of greenhouse gases.
and compressed natural gas vehicles such as the Honda civic Natural gas. Although driving costs per mile will be lower especially for vehicles powered by natural gas
or electricity the high initial purchase cost is likely to be a significant barrier to widespread consumer acceptance the report says.
Natural gas vehicles were considered but their greenhouse gas emissions are too high for the 2050 goal.
Vehicles powered by electricity will not emit any greenhouse gases but the production of electricity and the additional load on the electric power grid are factors that must be considered.
However varying amounts of greenhouse gases are emitted during hydrogen production and the low-greenhouse gas methods of making hydrogen are more expensive
#Chemical trickery explored to help contain potato pestthe pale cyst nematode Globodera pallida is one bad roundworm.
Now however U s. Department of agriculture (USDA) and cooperating scientists are evaluating new ways to control G. pallida using naturally occurring chemicals called egg-hatching factors.
According to lead scientist Roy Navarre with USDA's Agricultural research service (ARS) the egg-hatching factors are exuded actually chemicals from the roots of potato and certain other solanaceous plants into surrounding soil.
There the chemicals stimulate G. pallida eggs to hatch Normally this helps ensure the survival of emerging juvenile nematodes.
But Navarre's approach calls for using the chemicals to trick the eggs into hatching
whose roots exude the chemicals but don't support the nematode's reproduction. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by United states Department of agriculture-Research Education and Economics.
#For smokers, low levels of Vitamin d may lead to cancernew research appearing online today in Clinical Chemistry the journal of AACC shows that decreased levels of Vitamin d may predispose smokers to developing tobacco-related cancer.
This study illustrates that simple Vitamin d blood tests and supplements have the potential to improve smokers'health.
In this paper Afzal et al. measured plasma Vitamin d levels in blood samples collected in 1981-1983 from 10000 Danes from the general population.
The authors determined that the median Vitamin d concentration among these participants was only 14.8 ng/ml
These results show for the first time that the risk of tobacco-related cancers as a group is associated with lower concentrations of Vitamin d.
The data also indicate that tobacco smoke chemicals may influence Vitamin d metabolism and function while Vitamin d may conversely modify the carcinogenicity of tobacco smoke chemicals.
If further research confirms this it would be consistent with previous studies demonstrating the anti-tumorigenic effects of Vitamin d derivatives as well as the correlation of Vitamin d deficiency with favorable cancer-forming conditions and increased susceptibility to tobacco smoke carcinogens.
Interestingly though low Vitamin d levels were connected not with risk of other cancer types. Our analyses show that the association between lower concentrations of plasma Vitamin d
and higher risk of cancer may be driven by tobacco-related cancer as a group which has not been shown before stated author Børge G. Nordestgaard MD DMSC in the paper.
This is important for future studies investigating the association between plasma Vitamin d and risk of cancer.
Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by American Association for Clinical Chemistry (AACC.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. Journal Reference n
#High-fat dairy products linked to poorer breast cancer survivalpatients who consume high-fat dairy products following breast cancer diagnosis increase their chances of dying from the disease years later according to a study by Kaiser permanente researchers.
The study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute is the first to examine the relationship between high-fat and low-fat dairy consumption following a diagnosis of breast cancer and long-term breast cancer survival.
Estrogenic hormones reside primarily in fat so levels are higher in high-fat than in low-fat dairy products.
The researchers studied a cohort of women who were diagnosed with early-stage invasive breast cancer between 1997 and 2000 primarily from Kaiser permanente's Northern California region (83 percent) and the Utah Cancer Registry (12 percent.
and butter most often and they consumed relatively limited amounts of low-fat dairy desserts low-fat cheese and high-fat yogurt.
The study found an association between high-fat dairy and breast cancer mortality but no association with low-fat dairy products and breast cancer outcomes.
and whether the dairy products were full fat low fat or nonfat. Of the total sample 349 women had a recurrence of breast cancer
abdominal obesity high blood pressure high blood sugar and unhealthy cholesterol and lipid levels. Having this disorder greatly increases a person's chances of developing heart disease
It may be the calcium it may be the proteins. Whatever the mechanism evidence suggests that dairy products are effective in attaining
and they may not know they have problems with their weight blood pressure lipids or blood sugar she said.
greener concrete with biofuel byproductskansas State university civil engineers are developing the right mix to reduce concrete's carbon footprint
By using these materials we can reduce the carbon footprint of concrete materials. Concrete is made from three major components:
#Social bees mark dangerous flowers with chemical signalsscientists already knew that some social bee species warn their conspecifics
Researchers at the University of Tours (France) in collaboration with the Experimental Station of Arid Zones of Almeria (Spain) have demonstrated now that they also use chemical signals to mark those flowers where they have previously been attacked.
whether bees are capable of using evasive chemical signals to mark those flowers where they have previously been attacked.
#Goats milk with antimicrobial lysozyme speeds recovery from diarrheamilk from goats that were modified genetically to produce higher levels of a human antimicrobial protein has proved effective in treating diarrhea in young pigs demonstrating the potential for food products from transgenic animals to one
day also benefit human health report researchers at the University of California Davis. The study is the first on record to show that goats'milk carrying elevated levels of the antimicrobial lysozyme a protein found in human breast milk can successfully treat diarrhea
In this study Murray and colleagues fed young pigs milk from goats that were modified genetically to produce in their milk higher levels of lysozyme a protein that naturally occurs in the tears saliva and milk of all mammals.
He publishes his discovery that baleen is a highly mobile material that tangles in flowing water to form the perfect net for trapping food particles at natural whale swimming speeds in The Journal of Experimental Biology.
Explaining that baleen is composed of keratin#the same protein that makes hair and fingernails#Werth also describes how the protein forms large continually growing plates each with an internal fibrous core sandwiched between smooth outer plates.
Whales usually carry 300 of these structures on each side of their mouths#arranged perpendicular to the direction of water flowing into the mouth
and reducing the number of snagged particles: single baleen plates are less effective filters at higher swimming speeds.
and more matted as the flow increased trapping the most particles at speeds ranging from 70 to 80 cm/s
The above story is provided based on materials by American Chemical Society. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
and won't emit volatile organic compounds. When exposed to the right microbes they will break down in 180 days in any landfill or backyard.
It also means a smaller carbon footprint and Ecovative is hoping to the point where they can displace all plastics
slowing decomposition and allowing soil carbon and other nutrients to accumulate; and inhibiting the invasion of aggressive nonnative species including Scotch broom and hairy cat's ear.
Prior to this recent testing which used sensitive gas chromatography/mass spectrometry researchers were unsure of the historical use of tobacco on the Pacific Northwest Coast.
After two years of experimentation the researchers developed a chemical process where residue is extracted directly from the stone
Co-authors of the study with Tushingham at UC Davis include Jelmer W. Eerkens a professor of anthropology whose research centers on hunter-gatherers and Oliver Fiehn professor in the department of molecular and cellular biology and the genome center.
The authors conclude that the application of pesticides on fresh produce may not only be a chemical hazard
or alkaline the soil was had a huge impact on the selenium levels of the inhabitants as had been predicted from a previous study.
Selenium intake was eight times higher in villages with more alkaline rich soils in Mikalango than those from villages in Zombwe where the soil was acidic.
Molecular data have revealed recently that both cucumber (Cucumis sativus L) . and melon (Cucumis melo L.)are indigenous to India
Updating and summarising the available information on Indian Cucurbitaceae and linking it to molecular data
#Untangling lifes originsresearchers in the Evolutionary Bioinformatics Laboratory at the University of Illinois in collaboration with German scientists have been using bioinformatics techniques to probe the world of proteins for answers to questions about the origins of life.
Proteins are formed from chains of amino acids and fold into three-dimensional structures that determine their function.
In collaboration with scientists at the Heidelberg Institute for Theoretical Studies he has been working at the interface of molecular evolution
and molecular dynamics looking back to when proteins first appeared approximately 3. 8 billion years ago to determine changes in folding speed over time.
To do this they looked at all known protein structures as defined in the Structural Classification of Proteins (SCOP) database
In a previous study researchers in Caetano-Anoll s's group used SCOP and genomic information to reconstruct phylogenomic trees that describe the history of the protein world.
In contrast the leaves of these new trees are protein domains which are compact evolutionary units of structure and function.
Proteins are usually complex combinations of several domains. We have a world of about 90000 of these structures
or folds because they are determined by the way the protein chains fold on themselves. To date approximately 1300 folds have been characterized.
For the current study the researchers identified protein sequences in the genomes that had the same folding structure as known proteins.
when proteins became part of a particular organism. This allowed them to map protein structures and organisms onto a timeline.
Directly calculating the folding speed for all of these proteins would be impossible with today's technology so the researchers took advantage of the fact that a protein always folds at the same points
and used a measure called Size Modified Contact Order (SMCO). Contact order is the ability of a protein to establish links between segments of the polypeptide chain.
When points that are close together on the chain come together they generally form helical structures; when distant points come together they form beta strands that interact with each other
The measure is normalized (size modified) to take protein length which affects folding speed into account.
What we see is said an hourglass Caetano-Anoll s. At the beginning proteins seem not to be folding so fast.
what he calls the Big bang in protein evolution. Approximately 1. 5 billion years ago more complex domain structures and multi-domain proteins emerged with the appearance of multicellular organisms.
Amino acid chains which make up proteins also became shorter at this point in time. Why does speed folding matter?
If the protein does not fold in the vast majority of cases it will not have a function.
So folding implies functionality. And speed of folding implies speed of achieving that functionality he explained.
For a cell that's very important because if proteins are very slow folders there is a time lag to
Moreover proteins that fold rapidly are more likely to fold correctly. Protein misfolding has been linked with diseases such as Alzheimer's.
Caetano-Anoll s said however that this research makes an important contribution to understanding how molecules work.
The complexities of the biological functions of molecules are understood still poorly he said. If we mix the world of molecular dynamics with the world of molecular evolution we can then determine what aspects of sequences are important for molecular dynamics
and therefore we can apply them to genetic engineering synthetic biology and so on. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by University of Illinois College of Agricultural Consumer and Environmental sciences.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. Journal Reference e
#Are tropical forests resilient to global warming? Tropical forests are less likely to lose biomass--plants and plant material--in response to greenhouse gas emissions over the twenty-first century than may previously have been thought suggests a study published online this week in Nature Geoscience.
In the most comprehensive assessment yet of the risk of tropical forest dieback due to climate change the results have important implications for the future evolution of tropical rainforests including the role they play in the global climate system and carbon cycle.
and Degradation+scheme require rainforest stability in effect locking carbon within the trees. The research team comprised climate scientists
Dr Huntingford and colleagues used computer simulations with 22 climate models to explore the response of tropical forests in The americas Africa and Asia to greenhouse-gas-induced climate change.
and deforestation will also affect the carbon stored in tropical forests. Their impacts are also difficult to simulate.
They will also impact the global community through changes in regulatory ecosystem services relating to emissions of greenhouse gases.
The soils in the northern land mass potentially can release significant amounts of greenhouse gases
and in particular sports stars in advertising unhealthy or High Fat Salt and Sugar (HFSS) products.
Caffeine is a defence chemical in plants and tastes bitter to many insects including bees
when you look at the level of cells proteins and genes human and bee brains function very similarly.
Unfortunately 50 to 70 percent of the phosphorus in grain is in the form of phytic acid a compound indigestible by pigs.
and functions in a similar fashion to that of phytase included in the diet said Dr. Cecil Forsberg Professor Emeritus Department of Molecular
Researchers found that 26 percent of people exposed to varying levels of secondhand smoke had signs of coronary artery calcification (CAC) compared to 18.5 percent in the general population.
The new data also shows that people who report higher levels of secondhand tobacco smoke exposure also have the greatest evidence of coronary artery calcification a build up of calcium in the artery walls as seen on a low-dose computed tomography scan.
or high secondhand smoke exposure were 50 60 and 90 percent more likely to have evidence of coronary artery calcification than those who reported minimal exposure.
and the current understanding is trapped that gas in vascular tissue is compressed by growth of ice crystals and water uptake when the tree freezes in colder months;
when the tissue subsequently thaws in the spring the compressed gas expands which generates the pressure that causes exudation.
Osmotic pressure which exists due to differences in sugar concentration between different components of the vascular tissue helps maintain stable gas bubbles
which govern the multiphase gas-liquid-ice environment the model incorporates the dynamics and effects of thawing sap dissolving gas bubbles and an osmotic pressure gradient between two components (vessels and fibers) in the tree's nonliving vascular tissue.
On the cellular level the model focuses on the transfer of pressure between vessels and fibers in the vascular cells.
They conclude that compression of gas effected by freezing in the previous season is important for pressure build up.
The effect of gas bubbles is also necessary to allow transfer of pressure which causes exudation.
While osmosis is not essential for the pressure generation itself it is seen to maintain gas bubbles
To help control carbon emissions the government has set targets to increase woodfuel production but this will be hard to achieve
Barney earned his bachelor's degree in chemistry at the University of Kentucky and his master's and doctorate degrees in weed ecology at Cornell University.
and maintain cells DNA is copied into ribonucleic acid (RNA) molecules also called transcripts. Transcripts are often like a recipe for making proteins
and a collection of all the transcripts in a cell is called a transcriptome. Pankaj Jaiswal Assistant professor of Botany and Plant pathology at Oregon State university Samuel Fox a Postdoctoral Associate in Jaiswal's laboratory and colleagues assembled transcriptomes of a noxious weed Brachypodium sylvaticum
#Stressed proteins can cause blood clots for hoursnew research from Rice university Baylor College of Medicine (BCM)
and brain could cause a common protein to change shape and form dangerous blood clots. The scientists were surprised to find that the proteins could remain in the dangerous clot-initiating shape for up to five hours before returning to their normal healthy shape.
The study--the first of its kind--focused on a protein called von Willebrand factor or VWF a key player in clot formation.
A team led by Rice physicist Ching-Hwa Kiang found that shear forces like those found in small arteries of patients with atherosclerosis cause snippets of nonclotting VWF to change into a clot-forming shape for hours at a time.
Kiang associate professor of physics and astronomy and of bioengineering studies the forces involved in protein folding.
Proteins are the workhorses of biology. Tens of thousands are produced each second in every living cell and each of these folds into a characteristic shape within moments of its creation.
Despite its ubiquity protein folding is an immensely complex process that is shrouded in mystery. Kiang is a pioneer in the use of atomic force microscopes (AFM) to shed light on the fundamental physical processes involved in protein folding.
The AFM has a tiny needle with a tip measuring just a few atoms across. The needle is suspended from a tiny arm that bobs up and down over a surface.
Kiang's team uses the bobbing needle to grab and pull apart individual protein molecules. By stretching these like rubber bands her team has shown it can measure the precise physical forces that hold them in their folded shape.
In this study we did more than just measure the forces; we used those measurements to see what state the molecule was said in Kiang.
In this way we were able to study the dynamics of the molecule to see how it changed over a period of time.
Moake a senior research scientist in bioengineering at Rice and professor of medicine at BCM said the work is vitally important
It's a long protein and one end remains anchored to the cell while the rest unfurls from the wall like a streamer.
We didn't know how the conformation of the PVWF protein changed. That is why Dr. Kiang's research is so important
They also determined how long the protein remained partially unfurled before relaxing into its natural shape. The next step will be to design new experiments that allow us to monitor the proteins as they bind to platelets
and initiate clot formation Kiang said. That will tell us even more about the physical properties of the proteins
and provide more clues about potential therapies. The research was supported by the National institutes of health the National Science Foundation the Alliance for Nanohealth the Welch Foundation the Mary R. Gibson Foundation and the Everett Hinkson Fund.
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