In a new study published in this week's Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Michigan State university researchers provide an improved prediction of nitrogen fertilizer's contribution to greenhouse gas emissions from agricultural fields.
The study uses data from around the world to show that emissions of nitrous oxide a greenhouse gas produced in the soil following nitrogen addition rise faster than previously expected
Nitrogen-based fertilizers spur greenhouse gas emissions by stimulating microbes in the soil to produce more nitrous oxide.
Agriculture accounts for 8 to 14 percent of all greenhouse gas production globally. We're showing how farmers can help to reduce this number by applying nitrogen fertilizer more precisely.
Simply put when plant nitrogen needs are matched with the nitrogen that's supplied fertilizer has substantially less effect on greenhouse gas emission Robertson said.
however would deliver major reductions to greenhouse gas emissions in those regions. This study provides support for expanding the use of carbon credits to pay farmers for better fertilizer management.
Carbon credits for fertilizer management are now available to U S. corn farmers. This paper provides a framework for using this system around the world.
Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Michigan State university. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
and differences in sensitivity were found between chemicals species and life stages tested. Overall clams were more susceptible to mosquito control pesticides than oysters.
Naled an organophosphate chemical was the most toxic compound in oyster larvae while resmethrin was the most toxic compound in clam larvae.
Decreased swimming activity was observed after four days in larval oysters and decreased growth was found in juvenile clams and oysters after 21 days.
When the ants are need in of protein they simply eat the aphids. Ants also distribute organic matter by moving dead insects into the colonies
Acid rain occurs when these gases react in the atmosphere with water oxygen and other chemicals to form various acidic compounds.
The result is a mild solution of sulfuric acid and nitric acid. When sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides are released from power plants
and other sources prevailing winds blow these compounds across state and national borders sometimes over hundreds of miles.
advisor of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research center Seattle Washington. Roughly 60 percent of the world's population lives in Asia where approximately half of men are tobacco smokers.
which seeks to build scientific communities around cornerstone species of relevance to DOE missions in bioenergy carbon cycling and biogeochemistry.
#Vitamin d and the nursing mothereveryone seems to agree that Vitamin d is important throughout life. This is certainly as true in the first year of life as it is later on.
Both the Institute of Medicine (IOM) and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) agree that Vitamin d intake during the first year of life should be 400 IU/d. My own estimation of the requirement (for different ages
The question is how is the infant to get that Vitamin d? Human milk in most nursing mothers contains very little Vitamin d.
Infant formulas from various manufacturers all contain some added Vitamin d in amounts calculated to be sufficient to meet an infant's needs.
But extensive studies during the first year of life reveal that less than one-fifth of all infants ever get as much as the recommended 400 IU/d from any source
Most babies are just not getting the Vitamin d they need. The late-life consequences of this shortfall could be enormous.
and on the other seem to ignore the fact that human milk doesn't contain the Vitamin d those babies need.
Nursing mothers have so little Vitamin d in their own bodies that there is little or none left over to put into their milk.
We know that the Vitamin d blood concentrations that are regularly found today in Africans living ancestral lifestyles are high enough to support putting into breast milk all the vitamin D an infant needs.
if we give nursing mothers enough Vitamin d to bring their blood levels up to the likely ancestral levels then they automatically put all of the Vitamin d their baby needs into their own milk thereby ensuring that the infant gets total nutrition without the need to resort to Vitamin d drops.
How much Vitamin d does need the mother so as to ensure an adequate amount in her milk? As with everything else related to Vitamin d there is a lot of individual variation
but it appears that the daily intake must be in the range of 5000-6000 IUS.
As no surprise that's just about the amount needed to reproduce the Vitamin d blood levels in persons living ancestral lifestyles today.
While for other purposes it is possible to take Vitamin d intermittently (e g. once a week) that doesn't work for putting Vitamin d into human milk.
The residence time of Vitamin d in the blood is so short that if the mother stops taking her Vitamin d supplement for a day
or two Vitamin d in her milk will be low (or absent altogether) on the days she skips.
There is a glaring disconnect here between these well-attested physiological facts and the official IOM recommendation for nursing mothers i e. only 400 IU/d--the same intake for her as IOM recommends for her baby (whose body weight is less than 10%of her own).
The evidence we analyzed indicates that your own body needs only 400 IU of Vitamin d each day.
Unfortunately that won't allow you to put any Vitamin d into your breast milk. Sorry about that...
So if you want to ensure that your baby is nourished adequately you are going to have to resort to giving your infant Vitamin d drops.
(whether or not they are nursing an infant) have far higher blood levels of Vitamin d than contemporary urban Americans.
Milk production (and its optimal composition) are simply two of the many functions that Vitamin d supports in a healthy adult.
it is just one of the many pieces of evidence that point to the fact that current Vitamin d recommendations for adults are too low--way too low.
Vitamin d supplements--and in this case Vitamin d drops--are literal lifesavers for infants today. But what about two or three generations back--before nutritional supplements come into existence but long after migration out of Africa?
Ninety years ago Vitamin d had not yet been discovered and there certainly were no Vitamin d supplements that could have been used.
How did we get by through those thousands of years? There are two answers. Most of us living in temperate latitudes got a lot more sun exposure than we do today
and of course there were no sunscreens so there was no blocking of the solar radiation that produces Vitamin d in our skin.
which is naturally a rich source of Vitamin d. And those of us who got Vitamin d by neither route were increased at risk of a whole host of Vitamin d-related disorders most obvious and most easily recognized being rickets.
The bony deformities of rickets were common a century ago in Europe North america and East asia and were eradicated largely in growing children by use of cod liver oil and in the US by the introduction of Vitamin d fortification of milk in the 1930s.
Fortunately growing children can repair some of the bone deformities of rickets if they are given Vitamin d soon enough.
But repairing rickets while a good and necessary thing to do is not sufficient. It is too late
To sum up we now better recognize the importance of Vitamin d in the earliest stages of life.
Why not rely on giving nursing infants Vitamin d drops as the AAP recommends? Two reasons: 1) It's been tried
By contrast ensuring an adequate Vitamin d input to the mother during pregnancy and lactation is almost certainly the best way to meet the needs of both individuals.
In the first study of its kind scientists have calculated the amount of carbon absorbed by the world's tropical forests
and the amounts of greenhouse gas emissions created by loss of trees as a result of human activity. They found that tropical forests absorb almost two billion tonnes of carbon each year equivalent to one-fifth of the world's carbon emissions by storing it in their bark leaves and soil.
However an equivalent amount is lost through logging clearing of land for grazing and growing biofuel crops such as palm oil soya bean and sugar.
Peat fires in forests add significantly to the greenhouse gas emissions. Researchers estimate that if all human-related deforestation of the tropics were to stop the forests could absorb more carbon than at present equivalent to one-fifth of global emissions.
Researchers say carbon emissions from tropical forests will increase as the climate warms as rising temperatures accelerate the decay of dead plants
and trees giving off more CO2. Global temperatures are forecast to rise by two degrees by the year 2099 which is predicted to increase annual carbon emissions from the forest by three-quarters of a billion tonnes.
Scientists from the Universities of Edinburgh and Leeds analysed data from multiple previous studies including satellite studies to determine the amount of carbon absorbed
and emitted by the world's tropical forests in South and Central america equatorial Africa and Asia.
Preventing further losses of carbon from our tropical forests must remain a high priority. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by University of Edinburgh.
The researchers have discovered a pair of proteins made by flowering plants that are vital for the production of the sperm present within each pollen grain.
and DAZ2 are controlled by the protein DUO1 that acts as a'master switch '--so that DUO1 and the DAZ1/DAZ2 genes work in tandem to control a gene network that ensures a pair of fertile sperm is made inside each pollen grain.
and allows forests to store more carbon dioxideevery spring as the weather warms trees in forests up and down the east coast explode in a bright green display of life as leaves fill their branches
Though the fact that forests can store more carbon is a good thing both Keenan
If forests weren't storing additional carbon in this manner we would be even worse off in terms of atmospheric CO2 levels so at the moment it's a good thingâ
Yes 26 million metric tons is a lot of carbon but it's still small when compared to fossil fuel emissions.
#so in the future an earlier spring might not help forests take up more carbon if they end up running out of water in midsummer.
Decomposition matters because the speed at which woody material are broken down strongly influences the retention of carbon in forest ecosystems
and can help to offset the loss of carbon to the atmosphere from other sources.
and bees have been shown to be able to use a wide range of floral cues including colour shape texture certain chemical compounds
The situation is particularly severe in new member states where the use of agri-chemicals such as fertilizers has grown rapidly.
and carbon mitigation into services paid for by markets. While economists recommended that the limited budget for this program be allocated among to the most efficient service providers the money ultimately went to rural communities
Humans continue to dump billions of tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere every year and it's evidently affecting even the remotest forests On earth said Laurance.
#Chemicals found that treat citrus greening in the laba University of Florida research team is cautiously optimistic after finding a possible treatment in the lab for citrus greening a disease devastating Floridaâ##s $9 billion
The researchers found that benzbromarone targets a specific protein known as Ldtr in the citrus greening bacterium.
When benzbromarone binds to Ldtr it inactivates the protein which disrupts a cell wall remodeling process critical for the greening bacteriumâ##s survival inside a citrus tree. â#oeas a consequence of the chemical treatment several genes were expressed not
and the bacteria were not able to survive inside the phloem of the plant where osmotic pressure from sugar is said highâ Fernando Pagliai a co-author of the study
and a UF graduate assistant. Phloem is the living tissue that carries organic nutrients to all parts of the plant.
on current trends in forest biomass for energy in Europe carbon balance and the sustainable potential.
New research led by Newcastle University UK has tested the insect-specific Hv1a/GNA fusion protein bio-pesticide--a combination of a natural toxin from the venom of an Australian funnel web spider
Publishing their findings today in the academic journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B the authors say the insect-specific compound has huge potential as an environmentally-benign'bee-safe'bio-pesticide and an alternative to the chemical neonicotinoid pesticides
This means increased calorie and protein needs as well as increased need for vitamins and minerals like calcium Vitamin d iron and folate.
and Vitamin d intake an area of focus especially since teens tend to replace milk with sugar beverages like soda or sports drinks.
and Vitamin d during this time head into adulthood with less than optimal bone density setting themselves up for osteoporosis and bone fractures years later.
The Vitamin c in the salsa will keep the guacamole from turning brown and the healthy monounsaturated fat from the avocado will keep your hungry teens satisfied she said.
Whole wheat rotini and veggies and pasta sauce: Pasta is versatile and can easily be made in large quantities.
The extra protein from the Greek yogurt will keep your hungry teen full and he or she will also be getting fiber from the fruit as well as Vitamin c potassium folic acid and calcium.
Cereal: When you don't have time to leave something prepared cereal is always an easy alternative.
and pepperoni can reduce the damage associated with full-fat deep-dish varieties. Story Source:
Dermatologists also have advanced ways to treat scarring including chemical peels microdermabrasion and laser technologies. And they're generally more cognizant of the psychological damage that acne can inflict.
Not only are vegetables low in calories they are powerhouses of vitamins minerals and phytochemicals that are important for keeping us healthy she said.
Recyclable material absorbs 82 percent of its weight in carbon dioxiderice University scientists have created an Earth-friendly way to separate carbon dioxide from natural gas at wellheads.
A porous material invented by the Rice lab of chemist James Tour sequesters carbon dioxide a greenhouse gas at ambient temperature with pressure provided by the wellhead
Natural gas is the cleanest fossil fuel. Development of cost-effective means to separate carbon dioxide during the production process will improve this advantage over other fossil fuels
and enable the economic production of gas resources with higher carbon dioxide content that would be too costly to recover using current carbon capture technologies Tour said.
Traditionally carbon dioxide has been removed from natural gas to meet pipelines'specifications. The Tour lab with assistance from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) produced the patented material that pulls only carbon dioxide molecules from flowing natural gas
and polymerizes them while under pressure naturally provided by the well. When the pressure is released the carbon dioxide spontaneously depolymerizes
If the oil and gas industry does not respond to concerns about carbon dioxide and other emissions it could well face new regulations Tour said noting the White house issued its latest National Climate Assessment last month and this week set new rules to cut carbon pollution from the nation
's power plants. Our technique allows one to specifically remove carbon dioxide at the source. It doesn't have to be transported to a collection station to do the separation he said.
or use it for enhanced oil recovery to further the release of oil and natural gas. Or they can package
The Rice material a nanoporous solid of carbon with nitrogen or sulfur is inexpensive and simple to produce compared with the liquid amine-based scrubbers used now Tour said.
Rice graduate student Chih-Chau Hwang lead author of the paper first tried to combine amines with porous carbon.
But I still needed to heat it to break the covalent bonds between the amine and carbon dioxide molecules he said.
Hwang also considered metal oxide frameworks that trap carbon dioxide molecules but they had the unfortunate side effect of capturing the desired methane as well
and they are far too expensive to make for this application. The porous carbon powder he settled on has massive surface area and turns the neat trick of converting gaseous carbon dioxide into solid polymer chains that nestle in the pores.
Nobody's ever seen a mechanism like this Tour said. You've got to have that nucleophile (the sulfur
or nitrogen atoms) to start the polymerization reaction. This would never work on simple activated carbon; the key is that the polymer forms
and provides continuous selectivity for carbon dioxide. Methane ethane and propane molecules that make up natural gas may try to stick to the carbon
but the growing polymer chains simply push them off he said. The researchers treated their carbon source with potassium hydroxide at 600 degrees Celsius to produce the powders with either sulfur
or nitrogen atoms evenly distributed through the resulting porous material. The sulfur-infused powder performed best absorbing 82 percent of its weight in carbon dioxide.
The nitrogen-infused powder was nearly as good and improved with further processing. Tour said the material did not degrade over many cycles
After heating it to 600 degrees C for the one-step synthesis from inexpensive industrial polymers the final carbon material has a surface area of 2500 square meters per gram
Apache Corp. a Houston-based oil and gas exploration and production company funded the research at Rice
Tour is the T. T. and W. F. Chao Chair in Chemistry as well as a professor of mechanical engineering and nanoengineering and of computer science.
Forests are also big carbon sinks that offset in part human-induced carbon emissions. Our finding also suggests the forest carbon sink may decrease in the U s. because of the slowdown in forest growth Tang says.
In some other countries young forests could grow faster and take up more carbon dioxide. To mitigate human-induced climate change
than climate in wood decomposition rates and the subsequent impacts on regional carbon cycling. Because decomposition of organic matter strongly influences the storage of carbon
or its release into the atmosphere it is a major factor in potential changes to the climate.
which may be more important in governing the release of terrestrial carbon. To better assess the importance of those local effects the researchers distributed 160 blocks of pine tree wood across five sub-regions of temperate forest in the eastern United states--from Connecticut to northern Florida
After 13 months they measured how much carbon had been lost whether absorbed by the microbes growing on the wood or directly into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide.
Potatoes contain a range of vitamins minerals phytochemicals fiber and--for hungry populations--needed calories.
versus chemical pesticides offers multiple benefits to farmers and the environment Bais says. Rice blast quickly learns how to get around synthetics--most humanmade pesticides are effective only for about three years Bais says.
We have to cut down the amount of carbon being released into the atmosphere. The interdisciplinary team looked at a range of possible approaches to dissipating greenhouse gases and reducing warming.
We found that climate engineering doesn't offer a perfect option said Daniela Cusack the study's lead author and an assistant professor of geography in UCLA's College of Letters and Science.
Working under the auspices of the National Science Foundation the team spent two years evaluating more than 100 studies that addressed the various implications of climate engineering and their anticipated effects on greenhouse gases.
reducing emissions sequestering carbon through biological means on land and in the ocean storing carbon dioxide in a liquefied form in underground geological formations and wells increasing Earth's cloud cover and solar reflection.
and low-carbon fuels would. Technology that is already available could reduce the amount of carbon being added to the atmosphere by some 7 gigatons per year the team found.
We have the technology and we know how to do it Cusack said. It's just that there doesn't seem to be political support for reducing emissions.
Of the five options the group evaluated sequestering carbon through biological means --or converting atmospheric carbon into solid sources of carbon like plants--holds the most promise.
One source curbing the destruction of forests and promoting growth of new forests could tie up as much as 1. 3 gigatons of carbon in plant material annually the team calculated.
Deforestation now is responsible for adding 1 gigaton of carbon each year to the atmosphere. Improving soil management is another biological means of carbon sequestration that holds considerable promise
because soils can trap plant materials that have converted already atmospheric carbon dioxide into a solid form as well as any carbon dioxide that the solids give off as they decompose.
Since the dawn of agriculture tilling land has led to the loss of about half (55 to 78 gigatons) of the carbon ever sequestered in soil the team reports.
But such simple steps as leaving slash--the plant waste left over after crop production--on fields after harvests so it could be incorporated into the soil could reintroduce between 0. 4 and 1. 1 gigatons of carbon annually to soil the study says.
The approach would also improve soil's ability to retain nutrients and water making it beneficial for additional reasons.
So the approach can work to keep carbon that has become bound up in plant life from decaying
but scientists are only now starting to appreciate its potential for tying up greenhouse gases Cusack said.
which sequesters carbon. The approach ranked as the study's least viable strategy in part
because less than a quarter of the algae could be expected to eventually sink to the bottom of the ocean which would be the only way that carbon would be sequestered for a long period of time.
The study's second most promising climate engineering strategy after carbon sequestration was carbon capture and storage particularly when the technique is used near where fuels are being refined.
CCS turns carbon dioxide into a liquid form of carbon which oil and coal extraction companies then pump into underground geological formations and wells and cap;
millions of tons of carbon are already being stored this way each year. And the approach has the potential to store more than 1 gigaton permanently each year
--and up to 546 gigatons of carbon over time--the study says. However a liquid carbon leak could be fatal to humans
and other animals and the risk--while minimal--may stand in the way of public acceptance.
It contributes significantly to global environmental change with a recently estimated 14.5%of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions attributable to the sector as well as through environmental problems associated with manure management and disruption of the nitrogen cycle in the soil water and air.
Food and carbon sequestrations are fine and may even rise under the various scenarios but you may need strong incentives to limit declines in the provision of other ecosystem services.
or to a control odor such as limonene another compound produced by citrus trees. The wasps were attracted strongly to the smell of both bacteria-infected and louse-infested citrus plants and also to pure methyl salicylate.
The shift toward a diet higher in calories and richer in protein could lift many in hunger-stricken regions such as Sub-saharan africa South Asia China and Mongolia above the malnutrition line.
and respirable particulate matter with a mean particle diameter of less than 2. 5 microns (PM2. 5). A micron is approximately 1/30th the width of a strand of human hair.
With the advent of more and more sophisticated ways to measure genetic variation and relatedness using molecular markers such as allozyme polymorphisms
despite the initial skepticism about the importance of gene flow modern empirical and theoretical research using up-to-date molecular
and highly efficient molecular breeding model possible. This opens a new way to carry out agricultural breeding.
Wetter and more fertile soilssample analysis of carbon and nitrogen isotope compositions--a technique used in crop physiology
On one hand Carbon isotope composition enables to evaluate water availability for crops. It reached its maximum level 9000 years ago
On the other hand nitrogen isotope composition provides information about soil's organic matter and fertility. Juan Pedro Ferrio (Agrotecnio-Udl) affirms that
which include higher calorie solid fats and added sugars. Per capita calories purchased per day decreased by 182 during the period.
By exploiting new molecular and genetic insights the research done in collaboration with Pierre de Wit from Wageningen Agricultural University in The netherlands provides a better understanding of the defense system of crop plants against the damaging pathogens that grow in the spaces between plant cells.
The two receptor systems have different classes of plant receptor proteins to detect different types of pathogen molecules.
Before the pathogen has entered the plant its presence of specific pathogen molecules or patterns is recognised by the host plant's immune systems.
The presence of the pathogen in the cell activates specific proteins that cause death of both the plant cell and the invading pathogen.
help dairy producersconsumers may have more palatable low-fat products and milk producers a solution to an industry-wide problem through use of a unique strain of lactic acid bacteria according to Ashraf Hassan
Some bacteria produce polysaccharides which can contain hundreds of sugar molecules such as glucose attached to one another.
They give the same mouth feel as fat by increasing the thickness and giving smoothness he added.
The polysaccharide produced by this strain also improves the functionality of proteins recovered from the cheese by product whey Hassan explained.
This protein-polysaccharide mixture can be dried and added to salad dressing mayonnaise or even processed meats like sausage.
When mixed with polysaccharide less protein is needed to give the same effect. Furthermore the polysaccharide produced by this strain minimizes the negative impact of heat on milk protein during pasteurization according to Hassan.
Essentially heat breaks down protein a process called denaturation but the bacteria encapsulate protein thereby maintaining more of its nutritional value.
This unique polysaccharide will also address a longstanding problem in the dairy industry--the formation of biofilm on milk processing equipment Hassan noted.
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