If scientists can pinpoint the molecular triggers in snacks that stimulate the reward center in the brain it may be possible to develop drugs
For example when gypsy moth caterpillars consume foliage high in certain toxic compounds transmission of viruses between the caterpillars is reduced facilitating moth outbreaks.
in addition to protecting Salmonella from heat-processing and sanitizers such as bleach biofilms preserve the bacteria in extremely dry conditions
and the nanogumbos materials--particles so small that 100000 could fit across the width of a human hair.
If even an early form of cancer were present the particles would accumulate in the abnormal tissue
Warner said that nanogumbos technology allows scientists to produce new nanoparticles in a focused way such that these particles are produced for specific uses from the beginning.
Organic substances are simply those containing carbon. An example of an organic salt is one that forms when an organic acid reacts with
but the mechanism at the molecular level has not been clear says Jun-Lin Guan Ph d. the senior author of the FIP200 paper
Abnormally higher levels of ROS can cause neural stem cells to start differentiating Guan is a professor in the Molecular Medicine & Genetics division of the U-M Department of Internal medicine and in the Department of Cell & Developmental Biology.
-M Department of Neurology research lab member Christine Bian and Yuan Zhu Ph d. an associate professor in Molecular Medicine & Genetics and Cell & Developmental Biology.
The study showed that the biggest mitigation potential lies in cutting emissions from agriculture such as livestock production as well as in managing forests effectively to increase their role as a carbon sink.
Amy Townsend-Small a UC assistant professor of geology and geography will present her research Carbon Sequestration
either be a small sink--meaning they store carbon--or a small source of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.
For her research Townsend-Small monitored the carbon uptake and storage--known as carbon sequestration--in the soil of urban lawns in Los angeles and Cincinnati.
Despite the extreme climate variation between the two regions she found the lawns had surprisingly similar abilities to absorb carbon and store it in soils.
Townsend-Small found that while having a well-cared-for lawn will improve its carbon-quelling capacity intensive lawn care isn't worth the atmospheric side effects.
and fossil fuel energy expended to keep lawns looking lush consumes so much energy that it counteracts the soil's natural carbon sequestration abilities.
This means more lawns don't require irrigation helping reduce the carbon cost of lawn maintenance and preserve the carbon sequestration benefits.
and preserve the carbon storage in soils. Townsend-Small's research could prove useful to cities businesses
When measuring your carbon footprint remember to thoroughly evaluate what's underfoot. Urban green space usually gets a lot of credit for all the benefits to the atmosphere Townsend-Small says.
The amounts of phosphorus fertilizer compounds in the Lower Mississippi have doubled and nitrogen compounds have tripled nitrogen over the last 50 years Rabalais said.
Elements in low-saline water have different stable isotope signatures or fingerprints than those in high-saline water.
Fossil fuels are responsible for the annual release of nearly nine billion metric tons of excess carbon into the atmosphere.
and determine the specific location where an individual enzyme molecule was binding. Enter PALM a technique in
and Fox other co-authors of the paper A single-molecule analysis reveals morphological targets for cellulase synergy were Phillip Jess Rakesh Jambusaria and Genny Moo.
while changing the triglyceride oil paradigm by their ability to tailor the oil profiles by carbon chain and saturation.
Cellulose is the most abundant organic polymer On earth a material like plastics consisting of molecules linked together into long chains.
They also pinpointed the genes involved in polymerizing nanocellulose (linking its molecules together into long chains)
and as they head into jack pine forests where the defensive compounds may be different this variation could allow them to be more successful in new environments explains Keeling.
Cellular/Molecular Biol) Nancy Liao (M. Sc. MBB; Diana Palmquist (B. Sc. MBB) and Shaun Jackman (B. Sc.
According to the study 2. 7 billion tonnes of CO2 or 30%of the carbon emissions associated with deforestation in the last decade was exported from Brazil.
The data will be used to evaluate how much carbon the forests contain and assess their vulnerability to human and natural disturbances.
Their study which includes molecular evidence that sorghum lacks the proteins toxic to people with celiac disease appears in ACS'Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.
The researchers set out to make a detailed molecular determination of whether sorghum contains those toxic gluten proteins.
and reproduce instead of splitting water molecules to yield pure hydrogen. To liberate the hydrogen Virginia Tech scientists separated a number of enzymes from their native microorganisms to create a customized enzyme cocktail that does not occur in nature.
The energy stored in xylose splits water molecules yielding high-purity hydrogen that can be utilized directly by proton-exchange membrane fuel cells.
The molecular characterizations of CTCS will provide real-time information allowing us to choose the right treatment for the right patient at the right time.
and limited capability of captured cells to be utilized for later molecular analysis. Our technology is the combination of three state-of-the-art technologies:
and maintain their integrity for sophisticated genomic and behavioral analyses said Hsian-Rong Tseng Phd associate professor of molecular and medical pharmacology at UCLA and the inventor of the Nanovelcro Chip concept and device.
UCLA researchers were supported by a Creativity Award from the Prostate Cancer Foundation and research grants (R21 CA151159 and R33 CA157396) from the National institutes of health/National Cancer Institute Innovative Molecular Analysis
#Soils in newly forested areas store substantial carbon that could help offset climate changesurface appearances can be so misleading:
In most forests the amount of carbon held in soils is substantially greater than the amount contained in the trees themselves.
If you're a land manager trying to assess the potential of forests to offset carbon emissions
and climate change by soaking up atmospheric carbon and storing it what's going on beneath the surface is critical.
and predict the amount of aboveground carbon accumulating in a forest the details of soil-carbon accounting have been a bit fuzzy.
Two University of Michigan researchers and their colleagues helped to plug that knowledge gap by analyzing changes in soil carbon that occurred
U-M ecologist Luke Nave and his colleagues found that in general growing trees on formerly nonforested land increases soil carbon.
Previous studies have been equivocal about the effects of so-called afforestation on soil carbon levels. Collectively these results demonstrate that planting trees
or allowing them to establish naturally on nonforested lands has a significant positive effect on the amount of carbon held in soils said Nave an assistant research scientist at the U-M Biological Station and in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.
These forest soils represent a significant carbon reservoir that is helping to offset carbon emissions that lead to climate change said Nave lead author of the paper.
Large and rapid increases in soil carbon were observed on forested land that had previously been used for surface mining
On a post-mining landscape the amount of soil carbon generally doubled within 20 years of mining termination
and portions of the Midwest--takes about 40 years to cause a detectable increase in soil carbon.
But at the end of a century's time the amount of soil carbon averages 15 percent higher than when the land was under cultivation with the biggest increases (up to 32 percent) in the upper two inches of the soil.
In places where trees and shrubs have encroached into native grassland soil carbon increased 31 percent after several decades according to the study.
and managing the carbon balance of U s. lands by putting a number on the changes in soil carbon that occur during this sort of land-use transition Nave said.
Most of the organic carbon in forest soils comes from the growth and death of roots and their associated fungi he said.
The study involved a reexamination of 46 research papers published between 1957 and 2010 as well as an analysis of 409 soil profiles from the National Soil Carbon Network database.
#Even graphene has weak spotsgraphene the single-atom-thick form of carbon has become famous for its extraordinary strength.
The kryptonite to this Superman of materials is in the form of a seven-atom ring that inevitably occurs at the junctions of grain boundaries in graphene where the regular array of hexagonal units is interrupted.
and the atoms at these boundaries are forced occasionally to change the way they bond by the unbreakable rules of topology.
Most common of the defects in graphene formation studied by Yakobson's group are adjacent five-and seven-atom rings that are a little weaker than the hexagons around them.
The team calculated that the particular seven-atom rings found at junctions of three islands are the weakest points where cracks are most likely to form.
They determined through molecular dynamics simulation and good old mathematical analysis that in a graphene quilt the grain boundaries act like levers that amplify the tension (through a dislocation pileup) and concentrate it at the defect either where the three domains meet or where a grain boundary between two domains ends.
But it's clear that plants contain many compounds that are meant to deter humans and animals from eating them like cellulose in stems
which makes a fluorescent compound that glows when p53 is activated the scientists mixed dilutions of the food products
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.
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.
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
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
The MATE1 gene which was found in triplicate in aluminum-tolerant maize turns on in the presence of aluminum ions
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.
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.
which positively impacts cholesterol said the study's corresponding author Srinavasa T. Reddy a UCLA professor of medicine and of molecular and medical pharmacology.
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:
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.
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
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
and Degradation+scheme require rainforest stability in effect locking carbon within the trees. The research team comprised climate scientists
and deforestation will also affect the carbon stored in tropical forests. Their impacts are also difficult to simulate.
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
To help control carbon emissions the government has set targets to increase woodfuel production but this will be hard to achieve
and maintain cells DNA is copied into ribonucleic acid (RNA) molecules also called transcripts. Transcripts are often like a recipe for making proteins
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.
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
Lignin is a big molecule. Heating it up in the absence of oxygen--pyrolysis--breaks it down into smaller fragments that can be read by a molecular beam mass spectrometer.
The ratios of lignin to carbohydrate components together with the intensity of the lignin peaks can tell a scientist how easily a plant will give up its sugars.
HTAP integrates a molecular beam mass spectrometer with the pyrolysis unit to quickly determine chemical signatures (phenotypes) on small amounts of biomass samples that can be used for among other things identifying the genes controlling the chemical makeup.
and fabricate the molecular beam mass spectrometer and Frontier Laboratories which provided the pyrolysis instrument. NREL scientists integrated the autosampler pyrolyzer
and molecular beam mass spectrometer to make HTAP. Other partners using NREL's rapid analytical tool for fuel research besides Arborgen are the University of Florida the University of Georgia Greenwood Resources the Bioenergy Science Center
not only for the pulp and paper industry but also for any business wishing to reduce its carbon footprint.
#Selfish gene may undermine genome policefor a bunch of inanimate chemical compounds the nucleic and amino acids caught up in the infamous selfish segregation distorter (SD) saga have put on quite a soap opera for biologists
Silica forms minute particles inside many plants called phytoliths that among other things help some plants stand upright
and is considered by many to be a separate species. They play a vital role in maintaining the biodiversity of one of Earth's critical carbon sequestering tropical forests.
and exposed to high heat until the powder particles are bound together into a solid but slightly porous material.
When this field is applied it creates subtle changes in the material's grain boundaries--where atoms from different crystals meet in the material.
These defects consist of vacancies (missing atoms) which can carry charges. The defects are negatively charged and draw current from the electric field to the area
and in coprolites from ancient sites and dated with over 200 Carbon-14 dates. After years of study Haas and his colleagues have concluded that during the Late Archaic maize (Zea mays
A total of 212 radiocarbon dates were obtained in the course of all the excavations. Macroscopic remains of maize (kernels leaves stalks and cobs) were rare.
and compounds associated with oxidative stress compared to those grown on conventional farms according to research published February 20 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Maria Raquel Alcantara Miranda and colleagues from the Federal University
and they also accumulated more compounds linked to stress resistance. According to the authors organic farming exposes plants to greater stress than conventional farming.
They suggest that this increased stress may be the reason organic tomatoes had higher levels sugars Vitamin c and pigment molecules like lycopene an antioxidant compound--all of
According to Tang molecules derived from wood products are particularly worthwhile targets. They're a rich source of the cycloaliphatic
They have the rigid molecular structures and hydrophobicity that materials scientists know work well. They also have an advantage at the end of their life cycle.
Post said that the next step in his research will be to study the contribution of plant diversity to long-term stability of carbon dynamics in the atmosphere and in the soil.
The technology is also known as plant molecular farming. Just one farm growing 16000 acres of safflower could meet the world's total demand for insulin.
A new study'Small RNA profiling reveals phosphorus deficiency as a contributing factor in symptom expression for citrus Huanglongbing disease'published online February 19 in the journal Molecular Plant profiled small
and found that some of these tiny molecules could potentially be developed into early diagnosis markers for HLB.
They found a positive correlation between OHCAS and exposure to both fine particulate matter (airborne particles smaller than 2. 5 micrograms) and ozone.
Their findings suggest that IKBKE is a key molecule related to tobacco-induced lung cancer. Since IKBKE kinase is induced by tobacco small molecular inhibitors of IKBKE could have a therapeutic drug potential for lung cancer explained lead author Jin Q. Cheng Ph d. M d. senior member
of the Molecular Oncology Department at Moffitt. Current treatments for non-small cell lung cancer include surgery radiotherapy and chemotherapy.
However patients eventually develop resistance to treatment. There is a great need to better understand the molecular mechanism of resistance
and develop new gene-targeted therapies that can circumvent resistance said the authors. In this study the researchers also reported for the first time that IKBKE is a target of STAT3 a transcription factor that plays a key role in many cellular processes such as cell growth
#Scientists explore new technologies that remove atmospheric carbon dioxidein his Feb 12 State of the Union address President Obama singled out climate change as a top priority for his second administration.
The administration has taken a number of steps to meet those goals such as investing billions of dollars in wind solar and other carbon-neutral energy technologies.
The solution they say could also require developing carbon-negative technologies that remove large amounts of CO2 from the atmosphere.
In the GCEP report Field and lead author Jennifer Milne describe a suite of emerging carbon-negative solutions to global warming--from bioenergy technologies to ocean sequestration.
Many of the examples cited were presented initially at a negative carbon emissions workshop hosted by GCEP in 2012.
As a carbon-negative technology BECCS takes advantage of the innate ability of trees grasses
To make the process carbon negative researchers have proposed a BECCS co-fired power plant that runs on a mixture of fossil fuel (such as coal) and vegetation (wood grass or straw for example.
To meet ambitious climate targets a cost-effective policy would be to implement a carbon tax
A carbon tax would put a price on CO2 emissions and increase the competitiveness of CCS while an emission subsidy would encourage BECCS deployment she added.
Biocharfield and Milne also assessed the pros and cons of biochar--a carbon-negative technology based on the same principal as BECCS.
Heating vegetation slowly without oxygen--a process called pyrolysis--produces carbon-rich chunks of biochar that can be placed in the soil as fertilizer.
Like BECCS the goal is to permanently lock carbon underground instead of letting CO2 re-enter the atmosphere as the plant decomposes.
Implementing biochar technology on a global scale could result in the sequestration of billions of metric tons of carbon a year they added.
In this model the system took 18 years to recoup carbon emissions with most reductions coming from soil replenishment from root growth
The report also explored the possibility of sequestering carbon in the ocean with a particular focus on the problem of ocean acidification
Keith has launched also a startup company called Carbon Engineering that's developing industrial-scale machines--artificial trees--that are designed to capture CO2 directly from the air.
Following the 2012 negative-emissions workshop GCEP issued an international request for proposals to develop net-negative carbon emissions technologies.
The team looked at the dynamics of water availability to the trees by examining the ratio of oxygen isotopes in the sap contained in the tree veins that transport water.
Isotopes are atoms with the same number of protons but different numbers of neutrons and their ratios are signatures of where
Mother nature provides us with natural fingerprints in the ratio of oxygen isotopes explained Leander.
The scientists examined the isotopes in the aspen sap during natural and experimental drought in an area in Colorado that had heavy tree casualties.
Forests store about 45 percent of the carbon found on land remarked William. Widespread tree death can radically transform ecosystems affecting biodiversity posing fire risks
They looked at both carbon starvation and water-transportation stress and found no evidence of significantly decreased carbon reserves.
They did find a notable depressed function in the trees'water-transport systems especially in the roots--some 70 percent loss of water conductivity.
and carbon mineralization--to see what information these inexpensive tests might give them. Their results suggest that simple measures of labile organic matter can reflect long-term management
After collecting soil from the different fields the scientists then measured carbon and nitrogen mineralization.
What's nice about carbon and nitrogen mineralization is they're based on actual biological activity says Culman.
A long-term cropping system trial provided the perfect opportunity to test the extent to which carbon
The researchers also found that carbon mineralization was a better predictor of corn agronomic performance than other measures that are used currently (pre-sidress nitrate test and leaf chlorophyll.
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