and animal manure in China has resulted in serious water pollution and substantial waste of phosphorus, a nonrenewable inorganic chemical.
Soils in many parts of the world are deficient in the chemical, which is required for plant growth.
Zhang and his colleagues are trying to crank that up by manipulating the chemistry and biology of the rhizosphere, the narrow layer of soil surrounding roots.
With a limited labour force but ample subsidized chemical fertilizer available in most of rural China, dumping this phosphate-rich animal manure into waterways has become an easier and cheaper option than using it to fertilize cropland.
and funded by biotechnology corporation Monsanto, headquartered in St louis, Missouri. Kumar had contributed also to this second report.
Patterns of heavy and light molybdenum in sea water, reflecting oxygenation levels, are captured in deposited rocks called shales.
scientists can chart periods of low and high oxygenation in the history of the seabed and, by inference, in the oceans themselves.
Levels of oxygenation in the oceans are assumed to reflect levels in the atmosphere. Dahl's study uncovered two periods when heavy molybdenum isotopes show up in the shale records
The rise of vascular plants led to the oxygenation of the atmosphere, because their photosynthesis pumped out oxygen while large amounts of organic matter,
However, Tim Lenton, an Earth system scientist at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, UK, questions whether atmospheric conditions can be inferred directly from measurements of oceanic oxygenation.
adding that lowering the supply of nutrients in the ocean also increases oxygenation, as animal life respires less.
The chemical clues yielded by the spectrometer gave immediate feedback to the diggers as they collected further samples.
he and his colleagues show how infrared spectrometry can reveal the distinctive origins of seemingly identical layers of calcite, a form of calcium carbonate (L. Regev et al.
HFCS are the third-generation chemical designed to replace hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCS themselves a replacement for the original ozone-eater, chlorofluorocarbons.
which has phased successfully out dozens of chemicals over the past two decades. Advocates say the protocol could be used to tackle global warming
Some observers says the debate has stalled in part owing to controversy over payments for HFC-23, a by-product from manufacture of the refrigerant and chemical feedstock HCFC-22.
and China actually spent destroying the chemical. You have the countries that are benefiting financially from this there at the table,
A recent study in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics2 compared atmospheric HFC-23 trends with published statistics for HCFC-22 production and the production and destruction of HFC-23.
the chemical (dubbed HFO-1234yf) is 360 times less potent as a greenhouse gas than the current refrigerant, HFC-134a,
in order to speed up the transition towards more climate-friendly chemicals, says Durwood Zaelke, who heads the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development, an advocacy group in WASHINGTON DC.
and navigate, the team dug trenches some 3 metres deep and 10-20 metres long to study soil and water chemistry.
'According to figures from the Global Fire Monitoring Centre (GFMC), based at the University of Freiburg in Germany and part of the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, around 7 million hectares including 800,000 hectares of forest,
A second set of towers will be used to conduct detailed chemistry experiments focused on forest emissions
who shared the 2002 Nobel prize in Chemistry, died on 10 december aged 93. In the late 1980s, he developed electrospray ionization, a way to gently separate clumped proteins into a fine spray of individual molecules.
This method, when combined with mass spectrometry, gave scientists a tool to quickly identify proteins via their mass
and helped to launch the field of proteomics. In 2005, Fenn lost a legal battle over the patent rights to Yale university in New haven, Connecticut,
Monsanto, based in St louis, Missouri, which markets the GM beets, says it will appeal the ruling.
Red wine drug Drug company Glaxosmithkline (GSK) has halted all development of a proprietary formulation of resveratrol a chemical found in red wine
Instead, the company is focusing on other chemicals thought to activate the same biological pathway as resveratrol.
Coming up 11-15 december The chemical and physical signals that influence pluripotency in stem cells are among many topics discussed at the American Society for Cell biology's 50th annual meeting in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Bisphenol A ban The European commission has agreed to ban the common chemical bisphenol A from baby bottles across the European union by mid-2011.
such as growing a wider variety of crops and reducing reliance on chemical fertilizers. See go. nature. com/bbkrbb for more.
as well as seed firm Monsanto, based in St louis, Missouri, are also working on transgenic maize varieties, hoping to tap into a multibillion-dollar market (see Nature 466,548-551;
incorporating a gene from the variety currently under development by Monsanto. Meanwhile, CIMMYT recently partnered with the Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable agriculture,
They are used as catalysts and in technology including magnets, car batteries, wind turbines and mobile phones. Business watch In 2011 and 2012, the drug industry will face the worst effects of its'patent cliff'
Business Biofuel offering Gevo, a company that genetically modifies microbes to produce chemicals from plant sugars,
Egyptian-born scientist Ahmed Zewail, winner of the 1999 Nobel prize in Chemistry, told state television that he would present a plan to overhaul research and education.
People Stolen secrets A former research chemist at the chemical giant Dow was last week found guilty of stealing trade secrets,
when the chemical was discovered in many water supplies. Perchlorate interferes with the production of thyroid hormones and mainly leaches into the environment from its use in the manufacture of rocket fuel and explosives.
and 4. 6 million tonnes of carbon from peat oxidation below ground. Indonesia is among the largest contributors to carbon emissions,
Lab death Michele Dufault, a 22-year-old undergraduate student, was found dead after an accident at Yale university's Sterling Chemistry laboratory on 13 april.
Nobel chemist dies William Lipscomb, who won the 1976 Nobel prize in Chemistry for his work on chemical bonding,
showed that agriculture was responsible for 43.7%of the total chemical oxygen demand (COD) a measure of organic pollutants in water.
With a limited labour force but ample subsidized chemical fertilizers available in most rural areas, dumping nutrient-rich animal manure has become an easier and cheaper option than using it to fertilize crops.
making many farmers reluctant to use manure as a replacement for chemical fertilizers. Consequently, livestock has become the largest contributor to run off pollution being responsible for 98%
but they have a chemical cost. Making phaeomelanin consumes large amounts of a tripeptide called glutathione (GSH) which is an antioxidant molecule that can also protect tissues from radiation damage by mopping up free radicals.
and the animals it houses, all survived unscathed a massive chemical explosion at a nearby plant on 14 june.
They have created a digital catalogue of the chemical and optical properties of some 4, 700 plant species in different conditions.
but Asner's information will provide unprecedented detail on the chemistry of leaves in the canopy.
The hypothesis is that those trees that have suffered during the drought also have different canopy chemistry,
the array of chemical traits in these upper canopies is amazing and radically under-appreciated,
Mosquitoes score in chemical war: Nature Newskey weapons in the fight against malaria, pyrethroid insecticides, are losing their edge.
and were introduced to replace chemicals that destroy stratospheric ozone. As potent greenhouse gases, their regulation falls under the United nations climate framework,
The crop, MON 810, is made by US biotech firm Monsanto, based in St louis, Missouri; the European union has approved it for planting.
Chemicals data gap Companies are failing to provide the safety data required by Europe's expansive chemicals law REACH, according to a study by the Centre for Alternatives to Animal Testing at the University of Konstanz in Germany.
and found basic information missing on chemicals'developmental and reproductive toxicity. It warns that up to 1. 6 million animals might be used in toxicity tests for the 4
These rice-fish co-cultures could lessen the environmental impact of agricultural chemicals and help make rice farming more profitable,
F. Roberts/Alamyfracking worry The US Environmental protection agency (EPA) has said that chemicals associated with fracking, a controversial technique that involves pumping high-pressure fluids into shale to force out natural gas,
and other chemicals in groundwater can't definitely be linked to fracking, despite the many public protests against the practice (pictured).
in theory, be engineered to produce a variety of other useful chemicals and fuels.""This is very impressive work it really is a groundbreaking achievement,
and methane and the more esoteric fluorinated chemicals. The data should help researchers trying to measure
which is a by-product of the manufacture of the refrigerant and chemical feedstock chlorodifluoromethane. The flood of data does not mean that scientists can stop measuring greenhouse-gas emissions in the atmosphere.
Anastas, a pioneer of green chemistry, spent much of his time reforming the agency's programme for assessing the risks of individual chemicals,
Synbio troubles US synthetic biology firm Amyris which engineers microbes to process plant sugars into useful chemicals saw its share price plunge by 28%on 10 february,
after it admitted that it would not meet its production forecasts for a key chemical, farnesene.
agricultural biotech giant Monsanto and retailer Walmart together with producers and environmentalists to negotiate environmental certification standards for products such as soya beans, palm oil,
In conventional agricultural systems, farmers apply chemical fertilizers to fields while the crops are growing,
Having evolved the ability to withstand glyphosate, the main ingredient in Monsanto s popular herbicide Roundup,
the plants can break down both of the chemicals in Dow s newly formulated herbicide Enlist."
The chief worry is that new herbicide blends will accelerate the emergence of resistance to multiple chemicals.
"These are traits that could overcome more than one chemical mode of action and see an increase in selection pressure,
using mass spectrometry to identify specific animal fats and using the relative levels of carbon isotopes to pick out more exactly the origin of those fats in 29 of the samples.
W. Greenblatt/Sygma/Corbisnobel chemist dies Organic chemist William Knowles (pictured), who shared the 2001 Nobel prize in Chemistry,
Knowles worked for four decades at the agricultural giant Monsanto in St louis. He won the Nobel with Ryoji Noyori
and Barry Sharpless for his work on chemical syntheses that selectively create one of two mirror-image forms (enantiomers) of a molecule.
GM soya levy The biotechnology giant Monsanto is one step closer to losing billions of dollars in revenues from its genetically modified (GM) Roundup Ready soya beans in Brazil.
Monsanto, headquartered in St louis Missouri, levies a charge on Brazilian farmers who grow soya beans that turn out to be GM.
Monsanto may lose GM soya royalties throughout Brazilthe biotechnology giant Monsanto is one step closer to losing billions of dollars in revenues from its genetically-modified (GM) Roundup Ready soya beans,
farmers can spray they fields with the chemical to control weeds without risking damage to their crops.
Monsanto has charged Brazilian farmers 2%of their sales of Roundup Ready soya beans, which now account for an estimated 85%Â of the nation s soya-bean crop.
Monsanto argues that most Brazilian farmers still use smuggled seeds, and that the company is consequently being deprived of revenue
that Monsanto s levy was illegal, noting that the patents relating to Roundup Ready soya beans have expired already in Brazil.
He ordered Monsanto to stop collecting royalties, and return those collected since 2004 or pay back a minimum of US$2 billion.
Monsanto appealed, and Conti's decision has been suspended for now, pending consideration by the Justice Tribune of Rio grande do Sul.
But in 2011, Monsanto had made also a parallel legal bid to the Brazilian Supreme court of Justice, the country's highest federal court.
On 12 june, the judges of the Brazilian Supreme court of Justice ruled against Monsanto, deciding unanimously that the ruling by the Justice Tribune of Rio grande do Sul,
Monsanto has declined to comment on the case. Some scientists fear that if the company is forced to repay royalties,
has a research partnership with Monsanto.""Although Embrapa has other financial sources, if the collection of royalties is interrupted then $5 million to $10 million dollars will be cut from our budget,
Monsanto charges us in double: when we buy the seeds and then when we sell the soy
and Missouri-based Monsanto expects to commercialize a genetically engineered variety soon. In the meantime, some are turning to alternative solutions."
meanwhile, agribusinesses Dupont and Monsanto have chipped in more than $4 Â million apiece. The labels would not reflect how the crops have been modified,
although no firm date had been set as Nature went to press. www. nasa. gov/msl19-23 august The American Chemical Society holds its autumn meeting in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,
GM patent win One of the largest ever US patent settlements saw biotechnology giant Monsanto awarded $1 Â billion on 1 Â August in a dispute with chemical company Dupont
Monsanto, based in St louis, Missouri, argued that Dupont s agriculture subsidiary Pioneer hi-bred (now Dupont Pioneer) in Johnston,
Iowa, infringed a Monsanto patent on Roundup Ready crops, which are resistant to the herbicide glyphosate.
Dupont violated the patent by making soya beans that mingled the Monsanto trait with its own herbicide-resistant technology, the jury concluded.
and Chemical Toxicology, looked for adverse health effects in rats fed NK603 maize (corn), developed by biotech company Monsanto to resist the herbicide glyphosate
and approved for animal and human consumption in the European union, United states and other countries. It reported that the rats developed higher levels of cancers
An earlier test of NK603 maize in rats in a 90-day feeding trial the current regulatory norm sponsored by Monsanto showed no adverse effects3.
Monsanto itself said that the study"does not meet minimum acceptable standards for this type of scientific research.
The 90-day trial of Monsanto s NK603 maize used in its authorization also used Sprague-Dawley rats,
and a managing editor of Food and Chemical Toxicology, says that the study raised no red flags during peer review.
nanosafety and chemical accidents for the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in Paris. They were designed for testing chemicals where precise doses of purified and well-characterized compounds can be administered,
but that add chemical tags in the form of methyl (CH3) molecules to sections of the DNA.
Bid to curb fried-food chemical goes coldthe rich, roasted aroma of coffee or the golden-brown colour of crispy French fries are enough to set most mouths watering.
The finding sparked an international effort to reduce concentrations of the chemical by changing ingredients and cooking methods.
Switzer  land unpicked the chemistry behind the problem3, 4. They found that sugars and amino acids such as asparagine found in potatoes
In August, he showed that acrylamide levels in French fries can be predicted from the cooking methods and the presence of key precursor chemicals in the partially cooked,
Nevertheless, the chemical will always be present in our food, says Margareta TÃ rnqvist from Stockholm University,
) GM study slammed A study claiming that rats fed Monsanto's genetically modified NK603 maize (corn) or its companion glyphosate-based herbicide,
Nature went to press before the chemistry prize was awarded, but full details will be available at go. nature. com/5yjkul.
Chemistry lawsuit The American Chemical Society, the world's largest scientific society, announced on 5 october that it would pay US$22. 6 million to Leadscope, a chemical-information company in Columbus
2012) and had been filed unfairly to crush a competitor to its Chemical Abstracts Service, which brings in some $300 million a year to the nonprofit society.
Agribusiness giant Monsanto, based in St louis, Missouri, has applied to plant 700,000 hectares of genetically modified maize (corn) in the country,
Plant defenses which can include induced cell fortification, cell suicide, toxic chemicals, and defensive enzymes and proteins typically were sufficient to keep the infection in check,
MÃ lanie Salque, a chemist at the University of Bristol, UK, used gas chromatography and carbon-isotope ratios to analyse molecules preserved in the pores of the ancient clay
The reports conclude that these chemicals should be used only on crops that are not attractive to honey bees,
Dust and plant sap contaminated with the chemicals may also pose a risk to bees,
and any ban or restrictions on the use of the three chemicals would require legislation by the European union (EU) or individual nations.
Bayer, a chemical company based in Leverkusen, Germany, which manufactures imidacloprid and clothianidin, said in a statement that it does not believe that the EFSA s reports"alter the quality
The chemical company pins most of the blame for bee declines on parasitic Varroa mites
and moths, says Robert Raguso, a chemical ecologist also at Cornell. We don t know if they can perceive charge differentials,
But even Monsanto, the agricultural biotechnology giant in St louis, Missouri, was surprised by the furore that followed
In 1999, Monsanto s chief executive pledged not to commercialize terminator seeds. The concept, if not the technology, is now gaining traction again.
This week, the US Supreme court hears arguments that pit Monsanto against 75-year-old Indiana soya-bean farmer Vernon Hugh Bowman
who used the progeny of Monsanto seeds to sow his land for eight seasons. The company says that by not buying seeds for each generation,
"If I were at Monsanto and I learned that patents are not available to protect my soybeans,
Bowman was a regular customer for Monsanto s herbicide-resistant soya beans for his main crop,
but bypassed the company by purchasing seed for a late-season crop from a grain elevator known to contain Monsanto s transgenic seed.
Monsanto sued him. As the case climbed through the court system, it grew from a simple contract violation to a challenge of the idea that companies can use patents to limit the offspring of naturally self-replicating technologies.
The lower courts sided with Monsanto, and many were surprised when the Supreme court took up the appeal.
Another approach is to place the transgene under the control of a switch that must be activated by a proprietary chemical.
That would give companies control over the engineered trait by forcing buyers to return each year to purchase the chemical.
That is the strategy of Ginkgo Bioworks, a four-year-old synthetic biology company in Boston, Massachusetts, that develops made-to-order microbes to churn out marketable chemicals.
a genetic tweak that makes production of the desired chemical dependent on a proprietary additive, supplied by Ginkgo, in its fermentation medium.
and food safety groups are concerned about contamination of food crops with products from a new generation of crops engineered to produce chemicals or pharmaceuticals.
Patents owned by Monsanto required the insertion of three different genes into the plant genome.
Monsanto says it is currently not researching the techniques, and other companies are hoping that they will not have to."
But around the city of Gumi, about 280 kilometres south of Seoul, blighted branches still bore a shroud of brown, withered leaves reminders of the chemical accident that shook the region some three months earlier.
which dissolves in the moisture in air to form droplets of corrosive hydrofluoric acid, burst from the Hube Global chemical plant in Gumi.
In the wake of the incidents, experts are raising questions about safety in the country s research-intensive chemical and microelectronics industries,
including education of factory workers, firefighters, medical doctors and public servants about the risks of toxic chemicals.
Several workers at the Hube Global chemical plant died in a massive hydrogen fluoride leak. The disaster was compounded by the regional government s response."
who runs the consulting company Advanced Chemical Safety, based in San diego, California. Some firefighters failed to use chemical-protective clothing
and self-contained breathing apparatus because they did not initially understand the threat posed by HF. Almost a day passed before they began using calcium hydroxide to neutralize the acid,
and South korea s government has promised to establish a centre that will work with local branches of the environment ministry to oversee the use of dangerous chemicals.
"Most chemical plants are located out of Seoul, so it s too late to wait for government agents coming from the capital to deal with an accident.
The European commission then proposed a two-year ban on the use of these chemicals in such crops.
Organic pollutants poison the roof of the worldtoxic chemicals are accumulating in the ecosystems of The himalayas and the Tibetan plateau,
"Their levels correlate well with human use of those chemicals, says Wang Xiaoping, an environment scientist at the ITP who was lead author of that study.
Xu and his colleagues correlated meteorological measurements with chemical compositions of air parcels sampled at 16 locations across the region.
The results"are another warning of the way we use chemicals, says David Molden, director of the Integrated Centre for Integrated Mountain Development in Kathmandu.
Patent blocked India s Supreme court ruled on 1 Â April against an attempt by Swiss drug company Novartis to patent the anticancer drug Gleevec (imatinib mesylate.
The patent claim by Basel-based Novartis on a modified version of Gleevec"fails in both the tests of invention and patentability,
Delaware, will pay Monsanto, based in St louis, Missouri, at least US$1. 75 Â billion over the next decade for the right to offer two herbicide-tolerant lines of soya bean.
Monsanto will gain access to some Dupont patents covering disease resistance and maize (corn) defoliation.
/wiozbm7-11 april Plenary talks about the sustainability of the world s food system feature at the American Chemical Society s Spring Meeting in New orleans,
so a chemical that targets the gene could help to keep pests away from economically important crops."
agricultural technology giant Monsanto, based in St louis, Missouri. Indiana farmer Vernon Bowman argued that Monsanto s patents did not apply to seeds he purchased from a grain elevator (storage tower) that contained a mixture of surplus crops,
including Monsanto s herbicide-resistant soya beans. The court disagreed, saying that US patent law"provides no haven for propagating crops from such seeds.
See go. nature. com/uil764 for more. Source: HEIDI LARSON/LANCET INFECT. DIS. An online media surveillance tool can track concerns
The ozone-depleting chemicals, which are also powerful greenhouse gases, are used in applications such as refrigeration.
The bulk of these studies suggest the half-life of these chemicals is between one and four years
If you apply these chemicals once a year on crops, they will accumulate. Goulson's review also cites earlier studies suggesting that grain-eating birds such as partridges may be dying after eating as few as five seeds treated with neonicotinoids.
Chemical forensics confirm French wine had early rootsfrance is renowned for its mastery of winemaking, but when did the country begin its love affair with the vine?
Using a battery of chemical techniques, including mass spectrometry and infrared spectroscopy, the researchers analysed residues inside Etruscan
and Massaliote amphorae that had been retrieved from excavations in Lattara s merchant quarters. Michel Py, l'Unitã de Fouilles et de Recherches Archã ologiques de Lattesthisâ pressing platform from the Gallic town of Lattara, in southern France
"The combination of botanical and chemical evidence makes a pretty tight argument that wine was being produced at Lattara,
owing to concerns that the chemical is contributing to the drastic decline in Europe s bee population.
GM CROPS dropped Agricultural biotechnology giant Monsanto has abandoned efforts to win regulatory approval for the cultivation of new genetically modified (GM CROPS in the European union (EU). The company confirmed last week
Monsanto drops GM in Europeeuropean researchers have expressed regret but little surprise at last week s announcement by the agriculture giant Monsanto that it will no longer be seeking approvals for genetically modified (GM CROPS now under review for cultivation in the European union (EU). As anti-GM campaigners celebrated,
advocates warned that Europe risks becoming a scientific backwater as the rest of the world increasingly adopts the technology."
Four crops in limbo three varieties of maize (corn) and one of soya bean are Monsanto products.
Monsanto says that it will abandon applications for all of them except for one GM maize, MON810.
Monsanto will now focus its European efforts on its conventional agriculture business and on enabling the import of GM CROPS for use as animal feed,
But in 2012, its makers, BASF Plant science in Limburgerhof, Germany, announced that, because of hostility to GM products in Europe,
Maurice Moloney, director of Rothamsted Research, an agricultural-research centre in Harpenden, UK, says that the Monsanto move is a"perfectly reasonable business decision,
and Chemistry of the Earth s Interior. go. nature. com/9cbgun  21-25 july Current research in viral ecology,
developed by the agricultural company Monsanto, based in St louis, Missouri. Monsanto killed the project in 2005 over farmers worries that overseas customers would not buy US wheat if it contained transgenic varieties.
No GM wheat has yet been approved to be grown commercially in the United states. The company says that all seed from the field trials conducted on more than 400 hectares in 16 states (see Sifting for GM wheat) was accounted for and either secured or destroyed.
Monsanto has made already clear its favoured explanation for the contamination: sabotage.""There are folks who don t like biotechnology
and both say that Monsanto kept a close watch over the experiments.""We had to account for pretty much every seed in and every seed out, down to the gram, recalls Van Acker.
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