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.
#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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
and plants he says can reveal a lot about carbon cycling which is so central for applying the work to climate change today.
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
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
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.
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.
while the photo-generated holes in the titanium oxide nanowires oxidize water to evolve oxygen molecules.
HA receptor-binding specificity is a major molecular determinant for the host range of influenza viruses.
#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.
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.
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:
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
#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
In this study we wanted to determine on a molecular level what makes a muscle fit during development or following exercise.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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
When soils are acidic aluminum ions are freed in the soil resulting in toxicity to the plant the scientists write.
By engineering crops to convert aluminum ions into a nontoxic form they said agricultural scientists can now turn these unusable
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.
In the study the researchers were able to identify the subtypes through genetic and molecular labeling methods.
Now we know the molecular triggers for how it occurs. Noel's co-senior investigator on the project Joanne Chory professor and director of Salk's Plant Molecular and Cellular Biology laboratory says the team found the molecular wake-up call for burned forests.
What we discovered she says is how a dying plant generates a chemical message for the next generation telling dormant seeds it's time to sprout.
The chemical structures the team solved revealed all the molecular contacts between karrikin and KAI2 according to Salk research associate Yongxia Guo a structural enzymologist and one of the study's lead investigators.
of this family of enzymes has been recruited somehow through natural selection to bind to this molecule in smoke
The molecules in a liquid crystal elastomer are like rods that want to point in a particular direction Verduzco said.
Before testing the researchers chemically attached liquid crystal molecules--similar to those used in LCD displays--to the silicones.
and pseudochromosomal molecules are reassembled using powerful computers and algorithms. Wheat has the largest genome among crop plants
While 50 years of inorganic fertilization did increase soil organic carbon stocks in a long-term experiment in western Kansas the practice seemingly failed to enhance soil aggregate stability--a key indicator of soil
which in turn can boost soil organic carbon levels. But unexpectedly in this case we didn't see improvement in soil aggregate stability
even though soil organic carbon concentration increased Blanco says noting that soil particles usually bind together more strongly in aggregates as soil organic carbon concentrations rise.
When he tested soils from the experimental plots he saw soil organic carbon concentrations rise gradually with increases in nitrogen fertilization at soil depths from 0 to 6 inches although not at deeper ones.
Similarly phosphorus fertilization increased soil organic carbon at depths of 0 to 3 inches and 6 to 12 inches.
Some studies suggest that adding fertilizers rich in ammonium ions may cause soil particles to disperse rather than aggregate thereby offsetting any positive effects of increased soil organic carbon content.
'By studying the levels of isotopes in the bones we can for example find out where the animals were raised
and wheat were farmed at the site they point to elevated levels of the isotope N15 (nitrogen 15).
and emit isoprene an abundant molecule in the air known to protect leaves from oxygen damage and temperature fluctuations.
However in 2004 researchers contrary to popular assumptions revealed that isoprene was involved likely in the production of particulate matter tiny particles that can get lodged in lungs lead to lung cancer and asthma and damage other tissues not to mention the environment.
which isoprene contributes to the production of these tiny potentially health-damaging particles. The study found that isoprene once it is altered chemically via exposure to the sun reacts with human-made nitrogen oxides to create particulate matter.
--either directly or via electricity generated by solar cells--to convert the end products of hydrocarbon combustion water and carbon dioxide back into a carbon-based fuel.
A very promising route to making a carbon-containing fuel is to hydrogenate carbon dioxide (or carbon monoxide) using solar-produced hydrogen said Fujita who leads the artificial photosynthesis group in the Brookhaven Chemistry department.
The Brookhaven team had identified already some promising leads with experiments demonstrating the potential effectiveness of low-cost molybdenum paired with carbon as well as the use of nitrogen to confer some resistance to the corrosive acidic environment required in proton exchange membrane water electrolysis cells.
The students set out to identify plentiful and inexpensive sources of carbon and nitrogen and test ways to combine them with a molybdenum salt.
and the carbon and nitrogen components of the soybeans to produce molybdenum carbides and molybdenum nitrides Chen explained.
The presence of nitrogen and carbon atoms in the vicinity of the catalytic molybdenum center facilitates the production of hydrogen from water Muckerman said.
Nutritional value and resistant to pathogensthe four clones obtained are characterised by the high presence of antioxidants compounds making them very attractive from a nutritional perspective.
Moreover these varieties incorporate natural antioxidant compounds which are nutritionally and visually attractive both for restaurant professionals and for end consumers#.
The other factor that Bowne will test in the future is the sequestration of carbon. Along with the carbon dioxide efflux data in the current study information about carbon sequestration would give a bigger picture of carbon cycling.
That picture could then help researchers determine how various land uses as well as management practices such as no-till agriculture
or leaving grass clippings on lawns can change the carbon cycling. If we go from one land use to another land use how does that impact carbon cycling
which in turn can affect climate change? Our current study touches on one component of that cycle and more research is needed to address this huge topic says Bowne.
and reduce carbon emissions from deforestation. This incentive-based approach is comparatively inexpensive as low agricultural yields
Supernova may have been the one that triggered the formation of the solar systemit's a bit like learning the secrets of the family that lived in your house in the 1800s by examining dust particles they left behind in cracks in the floorboards.
Isotopes are different atoms of the same chemical element that have a slightly different mass. Different stars produce different proportions of isotopes.
But the material from which our solar system was fashioned was mixed and homogenized before the solar system formed.
Haenecour with the Nanosims 50 ion microprobe he used to look for presolar grains in a primitive meteorite.
They found they could reproduce the oxygen-18 enrichment of the two grains by mixing small amounts of material from the oxygen-rich inner zones and the oxygen-18-rich helium/carbon zone with large
whose explosion is thought to have started kick the collapse of the molecular cloud out of which the planets of the solar system formed?
although the carbon footprint aspect of sustainability receives the most attention nutritional aspects are also important.
We have a lot of animal work that suggests these compounds will protect the aged brain and reverse some of behavioral deficits.
and all the nooks and crannies that it needs to present to other molecules to be able to function.
and would essentially kill the virus. We are now designing small molecules that could block ring formation
and ingenious molecular-level designs Maiti said. Methane is far more potent as a greenhouse gas than CO2.
Zeolites are unique structures that can be used for many different types of gas separations and storage applications because of their diverse topology from various networks of the framework atoms.
and reduce carbon emissions from deforestation. This incentive-based approach is comparatively inexpensive as low agricultural yields
This beautiful'molecular fossil'has a remarkably slow mutation rate meaning that its mitochondrial genome has remained largely unchanged
#Maya Long Count calendar calibrated to modern European calendar using carbon-14 datingthe Maya are famous for their complex intertwined calendric systems
A combination of high-resolution accelerator mass spectrometry carbon-14 dates and a calibration using tree growth rates showed the GMT correlation is correct.
This same lintel was one of three analyzed in the previous carbon-14 study. Researchers measured tree growth by tracking annual changes in calcium uptake by the trees which is greater during the rainy season.
The amount of carbon-14 in the atmosphere is incorporated into a tree's incremental growth.
Atmospheric carbon-14 changes through time and during the Classic Maya period oscillated up and down. The researchers took four samples from the lintel
The researchers used this information to fit the four radiocarbon dates to the wiggles in the calibration curve.
Wiggle-matching the carbon-14 dates provided a more accurate age for linking the Maya
These calculations were complicated further by known differences in the atmospheric radiocarbon content between northern and southern hemisphere.
The complication is that radiocarbon concentrations differ between the southern and northern hemisphere said Kennett. The Maya area lies on the boundary and the atmosphere is a mixture of the southern and northern hemispheres that changes seasonally.
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