This is why molecular biologists at IME and the research department of the automotive supplier built a pilot facility in MÃ nster that is capable of producing natural rubber by the ton.
With the aid of DNA markers we now know which gene is responsible for which molecular feature.
Rehan and colleagues overcame the lack of fossil evidence for bees with a technique called molecular phylogenetics.
A team of researchers led by Dr. X. J. Meng University Distinguished Professor of Molecular Virology has used virus strains isolated from the ongoing outbreaks in Minnesota
and research assistant professor at the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute performed the molecular clock analysis to determine that the divergence of the U s
Mayer is recognized an internationally expert in the use of stable isotopes to track contaminants in the environment.
The french-U of C study is the first that tracks using stable isotope fingerprinting the fate of fertilizer N remaining in the soil zone over several decades.
The research team used a stable isotope of nitrogen N-15 as a tracer to track fertilizer nitrogen applied in 1982 to sugar beet and winter wheat crops on a pair of two-metre-square plots
but during a severe drought in 2005 it released 1 petagram of carbon (about one-tenth of annual human emissions) to the atmosphere.
The protein is uniquely effective in capturing virus particles and neutralizes the virus specifically binding to the HIV envelope.
In nature oil storage is the job of seeds where the energy-dense compounds provide nourishment for developing plant embryos.
Identifying the mechanismnext the scientists used radio-labeled carbon (C-14) to decipher the biochemical mechanism by which PDAT increases oil production.
In essence this means that the largest pool of tropical carbon On earth has been a black box for ecologists
While the study suggests that hyperdominants--just 1. 4 percent of all Amazonian tree species--account for roughly half of all carbon
and streamers of light observed near the poles of Earth caused by the charged particles from the solar wind colliding with atoms high in the atmosphere.
or south Forest says noting that the charged particles are tugged into the atmosphere by Earth's magnetic field creating the beautiful red green and yellow displays of light.
Researchers based at Princeton university found that land ecosystems have kept the planet cooler by absorbing billions of tons of carbon especially during the past 60 years.
The planet's land-based carbon sink--or carbon-storage capacity--has kept 186 billion to 192 billion tons of carbon out of the atmosphere
From the 1860s to the 1950s land use by humans was a substantial source of the carbon entering the atmosphere because of deforestation and logging.
Had Earth's terrestrial ecosystems remained a carbon source they would have generated instead 65 billion to 82 billion tons of carbon
in addition to the carbon that it would not have absorbed the researchers found. That means a total of 251 billion to 274 billion additional tons of carbon would currently be in the atmosphere.
That much carbon would have pushed the atmosphere's current carbon dioxide concentration to 485 parts-per-million (ppm) the researchers report--well past the scientifically accepted threshold of 450 (ppm) at
which Earth's climate could drastically and irreversibly change. The current concentration is 400 ppm.
Those carbon savings amount to a current average global temperature that is cooler by one-third of a Degree celsius (or a half-Degree fahrenheit) which would have been a sizeable jump the researchers report.
The planet has warmed by only 0. 74 degrees Celsius (1. 3 degrees Fahrenheit) since the early 1900s and the point at
The study is the most comprehensive look at the historical role of terrestrial ecosystems in controlling atmospheric carbon explained first author Elena Shevliakova a senior climate modeler in Princeton's Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.
Previous research has focused on how plants might offset carbon in the future but overlooked the importance of increased vegetation uptake in the past she said.
People always say we know carbon sinks are important for the climate Shevliakova said. We actually for the first time have a number
and we can say what that sink means for us now in terms of carbon savings. Changes in carbon dioxide emissions from land-use activities need to be considered carefully.
and not consider how managed lands such as recovering forests take up carbon she said. It's not just climate--it's people.
On land people are major drivers of changes in land carbon. They're not just taking carbon out of the land they're actually changing the land's capacity to take up carbon.
Scott Saleska an associate professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Arizona who studies interactions between vegetation
I think this does have implications for policies that try to value the carbon saved
whereas most current approaches just account for the'carbon impact.''Work like this could help forest-preservation programs more accurately consider the climate impacts of policy measures related to forest preservation.
Although the researchers saw a strong historical influence of carbon fertilization in carbon absorption that exchange does have its limits Saleska said.
If carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere continue rising more vegetation would be needed to maintain the size of the carbon sink Shevliakova and her colleagues reported.
and Atmospheric administration's Geophysical Fluid and Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) to simulate how carbon and climate interacted with vegetation soil and marine ecosystems between 1861 and 2005.
The GFDL model predicted changes in climate and in atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide based on fossil fuel emissions of carbon.
A decrease in global deforestation combined with enhanced vegetation growth caused by the rapid increase in carbon dioxide changed the land from a carbon source into a carbon sink.
For scientists the model is a significant contribution to understanding the terrestrial carbon sink Saleska said.
Scientists only uncovered the land-based carbon sink about two decades ago while models that can combine the effects of climate change
#Carbon cycle models underestimate indirect role of animalsanimal populations can have a far more significant impact on carbon storage
and exchange in regional ecosystems than is recognized typically by global carbon models according to a new paper authored by researchers at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies (F&es).
In fact in some regions the magnitude of carbon uptake or release due to the effects of specific animal species or groups of animals--such as the pine beetles devouring forests in western North america--can rival the impact of fossil fuel
or transport of carbon within an ecosystem says Oswald Schmitz the Oastler Professor of Population
and therefore contribute little carbon in the way of respiration. What these sorts of analyses have not paid attention to is
In one case an unprecedented loss of trees triggered by the pine beetle outbreak in western North america has decreased the net carbon balance on a scale comparable to British columbia's current fossil fuel emissions.
which eventually led to about 80 percent of the ecosystem to burn annually releasing carbon from the plants
when thinking of local and regional carbon budgets said Peter Raymond a professor of ecosystem ecology at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies.
For example in the Arctic where about 500 gigatons of carbon is stored in permafrost large grazing mammals like caribou
We're not saying that managing animals will offset these carbon emissions. What we're trying to say is the numbers are of a scale where it is worthwhile to start thinking about how animals could be managed to accomplish that.
and acreage timber harvests carbon storage water recycling and other forest benefits in some areas.
The researchers were surprised to find that average concentrations of one of the compounds they analyzed dieldrin--an insecticide
and coolants in motors and electrical systems but were banned in 1979 in the U s. after studies found that exposure to these compounds caused cancer and other deleterious health effects in animals.
In mammals these compounds can cause gene disruption and interfere with hormone function particularly in a developing fetus.
Before these compounds were banned U s. farmers applied more than 15 million pounds of dieldrin and aldrin (its parent compound) to their crops every year--much of it in the Midwest.
#Compound derived from vegetables shields rodents from lethal radiation dosesgeorgetown University Medical center researchers say a compound derived from cruciferous vegetable such as cabbage cauliflower and broccoli protected rats and mice from lethal doses of radiation.
Their study published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) suggests the compound already shown to be safe for humans may protect normal tissues during radiation therapy for cancer treatment
The compound known as DIM (33'-diindolylmethane) previously has been found to have cancer preventive properties. DIM has been studied as a cancer prevention agent for years
Rosen says this study points to two potential uses of the compound. DIM could protect normal tissues in patients receiving radiation therapy for cancer
By adding modified single-atom-thick graphene nanoribbons (GNRS) to thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) the Rice lab made it 1000 times harder for gas molecules to escape Tour said.
Because gas molecules cannot penetrate GNRS they are faced with a tortuous path to freedom he said.
Tour's breakthrough unzipping technique for turning multiwalled carbon nanotubes into GNRS first revealed in Nature in 2009 has been licensed for industrial production.
But the overlapping 200-to 300-nanometer-wide ribbons dispersed so well that they were nearly as effective as large-sheet graphene in containing gas molecules.
That's because gas molecules go through rubber or plastic Tour said. It took years for scientists to figure out how to make a plastic bottle for soda.
Oxygen molecules get in through plastic and make the beer go bad. Bottles that are effectively impermeable could lead to brew that stays fresh on the shelf for far longer Tour said.
The environmental scientists experts in air quality atmospheric chemistry and ecology have been studying the fate of nitrogen-based compounds that are blown into natural areas from power plants automobile exhaust and--increasingly--industrial agriculture.
#The Mcgill team made the discovery by using a variety of genomic and molecular tools to identify specific ARGONAUTE4 9 genes
#Carbons new champion: Carbyne, a simple chain of carbon atoms, strongest material of all? Carbyne will be the strongest of a new class of microscopic materials
if and when anyone can make it in bulk. If they do they'll find carbyne nanorods
Carbyne is a chain of carbon atoms held together by either double or alternating single and triple atomic bonds.
That makes it a true one-dimensional material unlike atom-thin sheets of graphene that have a top
*It has twice the tensile stiffness of graphene and carbon nanotubes and nearly three times that of diamond.*
*If outfitted with molecular handles at the ends it can also be twisted to alter its band gap.
*Carbyne chains can take on side molecules that may make the chains suitable for energy storage.*
That's a remarkable set of qualities for a simple string of carbon atoms Yakobson said.
You could look at it as an ultimately thin graphene ribbon reduced to just one atom
Regardless of the applications he said academically it's very exciting to know the strongest possible assembly of atoms.
Based on the calculations he said carbyne might be the highest energy state for stable carbon.
what is called the'ground state'the lowest possible energy configuration for atoms Yakobson said. For carbon that would be followed graphite by diamond then nanotubes then fullerenes.
But nobody asks about the highest energy configuration. We think this may be it a stable structure at the highest energy possible.
They set out to detail carbyne with computer models using first-principle rules to determine the energetic interactions of atoms Artyukhov said.
Another finding of great interest was the energy barrier that keeps atoms on adjacent carbyne chains from collapsing into each other.
Instead the researchers found carbon atoms on separate strings might overcome the barrier in one spot
A computer simulation of the molecular stucture of a metal alloy showing the boundaries between microcystalline grains (white lines forming hexagons) shows a small crack (dark horizontal bar just right of bottom center) that mends itself as the metal is put under stress.
diet improves healthpolyphenols are naturally occurring compounds found largely in fruits vegetables coffee tea nuts legumes and cereals.
More than 8000 different phenolic compounds have been identified in plants. Polyphenols have antioxidant antiinflammatory anticarcinogenic etc. effects.
It focuses its activity on the analysis of new more effective and sensitive nutritional biomarkers based on the bioavailabilty of bioactive compounds in food and their activity in order to associate the intake of certain foods (consumption markers) with their potential
and contain compounds of interest for their health and wellness attributes. Thus our work supports the commercial development of buffaloberry chokecherry and sea buckthorn berries.
In solid fractions organic phosphorus bound in biochemical molecules such as phospholipids nucleotides and nucleic acids offer a bountiful source of phosphorus. These agricultural residues represent a huge additional reservoir for phosphate recovery:
In preliminary experiments we could show that these enzymes can release inorganic phosphate from model compounds explains Jennifer Bilbao who manages the project at the Fraunhofer IGB.
Since the invention of the earliest light microscopes the classification and identification of pollen and spores has been a highly subjective venture for those who use these tiny particles to study vegetation in their field palynology.
The researchers see potential for very large sheets of h-BN only a few atoms thick made by scalable vapor deposition methods.
and signaling molecule in both plants and animals and plays an important role in root system formation.
Numerous studies have found this molecule to be required for lateral root development in plants such as tomatoes rice corn lupine and Arabidopsis.
and colleagues have determined that this molecule can in fact have the opposite effect as previously found
#Smoking affects molecular mechanisms, childrens immune systemsthe Leipzig Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research has gained new insights on the influence of tobacco smoke in utero.
and their children how exposure to tobacco smoke affects the development of human immune system on molecular level.
The focus thereby was on microrna--a short single-stranded RNA molecule that is now recognised as playing an important role in gene regulation.
The main objective for Dr Gunda Herberth was to reveal the influence of tobacco smoke on the development of children's immune systems--at molecular level.
However the exact molecular mechanisms and processes that are behind such developments still struggle researchers.
From the early 1990's these cell components started to become more and more of a focus in molecular and cell biology.
In the meantime for humans more than 1200 different short single-stranded RNA molecules have been named some of them playing an important role in immune response.
and/or from volatile organic compounds resulting from smoking. From the pool of mothers participating in the LINA-study 315 mothers (6. 6 percent of whom were smokers)
After already being able to demonstrate the influence of prenatal smoking on regulatory T-cell numbers in cord blood from our LINA study the current epidemiological investigation delves even deeper into molecular processes Dr. Gunda Herberth
Now the immunologists from Leipzig explicate we will know more about the molecular processes that trigger off stressors from smoke during pregnancy.
These compounds help to protect the developing fruit against predators pathogens and abiotic stresses. When the seeds are ripe the Anr gene is turned off.
and the synthesis of protective compounds are also important in the stigmas of the flower says Thilo Fischer.
just as effective as other chemical compounds to eradicate harmful organisms in stored grains without negative effects.
because it stores carbon in the soil says Sebastian Behrens. Indigenous peoples in tropical zones of South america and Africa were aware of biochar's positive effect on soil
#Aggressive fungal pathogen causes mold in fruits, vegetablesa research team led by a molecular plant pathologist at the University of California Riverside has discovered the mechanism by
Many bacterial fungal and oomycete pathogens deliver protein effectors--molecules the pathogens secrete--into the cells of hosts to manipulate
The new study represents the first example of a fungal pathogen delivering RNA effectors specifically small RNA effector molecules into host cells to suppress host immunity
Ours is the first study to add the RNA molecule to the list of effectors.
or if the bee has the ability to detoxify these compounds at all Hladun said. Further research is necessary to examine the cellular and physiological effects of selenium.
The study also suggests trees might be storing more carbon than currently estimated. The take away from this is that a combination of short
and that raises questions about whether on average forests are socking away more carbon than we think.
Further the team of researchers has identified three safe compounds that mimic DEET and could one day be used to prevent the transmission of deadly vector-borne diseases such as malaria dengue West Nile virus and yellow fever.
Our three compounds which we tested rigorously in the lab do not dissolve plastics Ray said.
Using novel chemical informatics strategies Ray's lab screened half a million compounds against the DEET receptor to identify substitutes.
which compounds are predicted not only to be strong repellents but also found naturally in fruits plants or animals.
of which the researchers tested ten compounds. Of these eight were strong repellents on flies of which four were tested in Aedes mosquitoes
Of the four compounds three are approved already by the Food and Drug Administration as food additives.
All three compounds activated the same antennal cells in flies as DEET Ray said. What's really encouraging is that some of these compounds may be affordable to produce in large quantities.
In the future using this algorithm we could find chemicals that activate DEET receptors but are substantially different with far better properties than DEET.
In past work his lab identified compounds that mask the host from insects as well as compounds that serve as lures.
The three natural compounds identified by Ray's group that mimic DEET are methyl NN-dimethyl anthranilate ethyl anthranilate and butyl anthranilate.
(More than a hundred compounds still await testing in Ray's lab.)The research was supported partially by the National institutes of health's National Institute of Allergy
--or odor molecules--will interact with specific odorant receptors. This research too may lead to the development of more effective insect repellents.
and used this information to screen more than 240000 different odorant-like volatile compounds. For each receptor they came up with 500 new odorants that were predicted to interact most strongly with it.
and found that approximately 71 percent of the predicted compounds activated or inhibited the receptors.
Many studies have tried to estimate the age of flowering plants from molecular data but so far no consensus has been reached.
Molecular estimates typically need to be anchored in fossil evidence but extremely old fossils were not available for flowering plants.
Specifically we found less plant-type compounds in soils receiving nitrogen. In addition we found that among the different nitrogen treatments manure-enriched soil had the highest amounts of compounds related to microbial turnover said Gillespie.
The findings will prove important for farmers and scientists alike as they work to maximize the potential growth of food
#Waviness explains why carbon nanotube forests have low stiffnessa new study has found that waviness in forests of vertically-aligned carbon nanotubes dramatically reduces their stiffness answering a longstanding question surrounding the tiny structures.
Although they appear to be perfectly straight under high magnification we found waviness in the carbon nanotubes that we believe accounts for the difference in
The research which was supported by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) was published online August 31 2013 in the journal Carbon.
Carbon nanotubes provide many attractive properties including high electrical and thermal conductivity and high strength.
Individual carbon nanotubes have a modulus ranging from 100 gigapascals to 1. 5 terapascals. Arrays of vertically-aligned carbon nanotubes with a low density would be expected to a have an effective modulus of at least five to 150 gigapascals Sitaraman said
but scientists have measured typically values that are four orders or magnitude less--between one and 10 megapascals.
and Ph d. students Nicholas Ginga and Wei Chen studied forests of carbon nanotubes grown atop a silicon substrate then covered the tips of the structures with another layer of silicon.
To look for potential explanations the researchers examined the carbon nanotubes using scanning electron microscopes located in Georgia Tech's Institute for Electronics and Nanotechnology facilities.
We found very tiny kinks in the carbon nanotubes said Sitaraman. Although they appeared to be perfectly straight there was waviness in them.
We took into account the contact between the carbon nanotubes said Chen. This allowed us to investigate the extreme conditions under which the deformation of nanotubes is constrained by the presence of neighboring nanotubes in the forest.
The beauty of the carbon nanotubes is that they act like springs between the silicon chip
Carbon nanotubes have extraordinarily high thermal conductivity as much as ten times that of copper making them ideal for drawing heat away from the chips.
Carvajal Moreno explained that such molecule was recovered from tissue samples of liver and cervical cancer in humans therefore aflatoxins are a very important factor in triggering this diseases.
The class of compounds studied includes those used by some plant pathogens to coordinate their attacks.
-and water-holding properties of soil but its popularity in recent years also owes to its ability to reduce greenhouse gases by storing carbon in soil in some cases for many centuries.
That upheld our hypothesis which was that biochar could interfere with cell signaling most likely by binding with the fatty-acid molecules that the speakers were using to broadcast their message.
However this may rather be caused by other compounds contained therein such as so-called polyphenols. Fruit and vegetables are healthy
Such compounds are known as exercise mimetics. The researchers conducted their experiments on the model organism Caenorhabditis elegans.
hydrogenfor astrophysicists the interplay of hydrogen--the most common molecule in the universe--and the vast clouds of dust that fill the voids of interstellar space has been an intractable puzzle of stellar evolution.
Impurities and defects on the dust grains produce catalytic sites for the formation of hydrogen molecules which are ejected subsequently creating miniature rocket engines also called Purcell thrusters after Nobel laureate Edwin Purcell who studied grain alignment.
and Hoang predicts how the molecular hydrogen thrust changes grain alignment and was put to the test by Andersson's team of observers.
The observations conducted by Andersson demonstrate that intense molecular hydrogen formation on the surface of the interstellar dust grains is an important contributor to the dust grains spinning.
since the two atoms of the molecule cannot rid themselves of the formation reaction energy without a third body.
and pharmaceutical products into waterways is often based on a belief that as the compounds degrade the ecological risks naturally decline.
and night in the lab the research team found that the steroid's chemical compounds never fully disappeared in daylight.
Moreover during a simulated night under typical surface water conditions some of the compounds regenerated themselves to as much as 60 percent of the metabolite's initial mass
and when it was more acidic or alkaline the team found. The researchers validated the lab results with two experiments in the field--one with water culled from the Iowa River in Iowa City Iowa
#First long temperature reconstruction for the eastern Mediterranean based on tree ringsfor the first time a long temperature reconstruction on the basis of stable carbon isotopes in tree rings has been achieved for the eastern Mediterranean.
The analysis of carbon isotope ratios (13c/12c) in tree rings aims to close this research gap.
The carbon isotope ratios measured in individual tree rings largely depends on the environmental conditions; thus the varying tree-ring isotope values are good indicators for changes in the environment.
The carbon isotope ratios in the trees from Turkey indicate a temperature sensitivity of the trees during late winter to early spring.
In cold winters the cambium and the leaves are damaged more than usual and the following recovery in spring takes longer.
This can have important impacts not only on plant composition diversity and succession within a community but also in the cycling of critical elements like carbon and nitrogen on a larger potentially even global scale.
Some convert atmospheric nitrogen into bioavailable forms that are exchanged then for carbon from the plant.
Bioavailable nitrogen is frequently limiting in soils yet many invaded ecosystems have more carbon and nitrogen in plant tissues and soils compared with systems dominated by native plants.
The team's approach particularly the theoretical model is applicable to assess laser processing of other alloys and compounds Guan notes.
and many experts believe it is just a matter of time before the disease appears full force in California said plant molecular biologist Abhaya Dandekar lead author on the study.
and other small molecules to restore the infected tree's normal metabolism or boosting the tree's innate immune response to effectively fight the infection.
Overtext Web Module V3.0 Alpha
Copyright Semantic-Knowledge, 1994-2011