and divided them equally between an outdoor environment, an indoor environment, and an isolated environment where they were fed antibiotics on a daily basis. The scientists then killed piglets on days 5 (neonatal stage), 28 (weaning age),
and 56 (nearing maturity) to study their gut tissue and faeces. The study found that 90%of bacteria in the guts of the outdoor piglets came from the phylum Firmicutes.
Most of these were known lactobacillaceae for their health-promoting effects, and for their ability to limit intestinal pathogens such as Escherichia coli and Salmonella.
Animals raised in the isolated environment expressed more genes involved in inflammatory immune responses and cholesterol synthesis,
the link between living environment and immune response had been circumstantial. There has been a lot of hearsay around gut microbiota
Twelve days before the United nations climate summit kicks off in Copenhagen, an international task force has published five research papers exploring the impact that strategies for tackling greenhouse gas emissions would have on public health.
Policies for mitigating the impact of climate change must align with policies for protecting public health,
In the household energy and food and agriculture sectors, the proposal with the biggest impact on both climate change and public health was a 10-year programme in India to replace 150 million indoor biomass-burning
of UNAM's Institute of Ecology in Mexico city, questions whether the company's methods are sensitive enough to detect transgenes after several generations of plant growth.
Jay Reichman, an authority on transgenic testing with the US Environmental protection agency in Corvallis, Oregon, says that overall the combined evidence suggests that at least two transgenes were present within the plant tissues in question.
and environmental-stress tolerance that were conserved in B73 and Palomero, but that were absent from teosinte,
the researchers realized that there were frequent volcanic eruptions 8, 500-10,500 years ago in the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt a region close to the cradle of maize domestication that dumped heavy metals into the local soils.
The conservation of the metal-detoxification and stress-tolerance genes in the derived strains strongly suggests that environmental changes caused by volcanic activity represented an important driving force that acted early in maize domestication,
Climate stand: The American Physical Society (APS) last week rejected a call from some of its members to reverse its position on climate change.
The society's 2007 statement acknowledges anthropogenic global warming. But a petition, delivered in July
had asked the APS to adopt a statement that climate change is a natural phenomenon. After a review, the society's council decided to retain its current statement.
Ecosystem economics: Countries will gain huge fiscal returns by protecting and restoring ecosystems, according to a 13 november report aimed at policy-makers and backed by the United nations Environment Programme.
The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) study pointed to the ample financial returns of investment in protecting natural areas such as mangroves, tropical forests and grasslands.
It also advocated cutting subsidies for environmentally harmful fossil fuels. See also page 277. Security screen: Five gene-synthesis companies in a new International Gene Synthesis Consortium have adopted practices that are intended to address the biosecurity risks of the technology.
The consortium's members will screen incoming orders against a single database still being developed that contains gene sequences identified as potentially hazardous by authoritative groups,
The paper, by Clive Spash, an ecological economist at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) in Canberra, was accepted by the journal New Political economy earlier this year
Brazil has pledged to reduce its projected carbon dioxide emissions in 2020 by 36-39%below business-as usual levels, increasing pressure on other countries less than a month before the United nations climate summit in Copenhagen.
The voluntary commitment builds on an existing pledge to cut the rate of deforestation by 80%by 2020;
Business watch One of the questions facing climate negotiators in Copenhagen next month is how to handle surplus carbon allowances in Russia
Environmental impact of cocaine strategy assessed: Nature Newsa controversial herbicide-spraying programme to tackle cocaine production in Colombia has few adverse environmental impacts.
That's the conclusion of a suite of studies that marks the latest chapter in a bitter environmental debate over its benefits
and risks yet the studies'findings are already being challenged. Spraying the herbicide glyphosate on coca plants is a key tool in the war on cocaine.
The latest assessment looks at the various environmental and ecological effects of glyphosate and surfactants that are used to increase the herbicide's potency.
including deforestation and the use of pesticides. The results of the various studies are published in a series of articles in the Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health.
But Rick Relyea of the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, a critic of both Solomon's research and Plan Colombia, says that the studies are flawed.
That's bad news for Colombia's neighbour Ecuador, which continues to protest the aerial spraying of glyphosate around its borders.
'the proportion of a stream or river not attributable to direct run off from precipitation or melting snow.
gy, an ecologist at Argentina's national scientific council (CONICET) and the National University of San luis. Less base flow means less water for local populations.
a forest ecologist at Colorado State university in Fort Collins who was involved not in the research.
Besides reducing base flow, afforestation can affect how water filters through the ecosystem. Afforested sites are not as'splashy'as pastured sites,
which water levels rise after rain. This is actually a good thing, he says. It could reduce flood flows, particularly from small watershed areas.
According to his team's observations, the afforested parts of watersheds also prevent the erosion and sediment-leaching that were seen in their grassland counterparts.
To understand what happened, Justin Yeakel, an ecologist at the University of California, Santa cruz, and his colleagues analysed the lions'remains.
Apart from the environmental pressures on the lions, the dominant maneater also had severe wounds in his mouth and jaw,
when organisms must adapt to a severely changing environment.
Native american culture sowed seeds of its own collapse: Nature Newsthe mysterious Peruvian culture that preceded the Incas had a significant hand in its own catastrophic collapse,
A leading hypothesis for this precipitous collapse proposes that massive floods destroyed the society's agricultural system,
But Native americans did not always live in harmony with their environment. Ice-core records suggested that severe storms a mega El Ni  o hit the Peruvian Andes around the time the Nazca's fall began2
but this had not been corroborated in the coastal valleys where the Nazca once lived. Beresford-Jones and his colleagues, focusing on the lower Ica valley,
when they discovered a flood layer that sat directly on top of a Nazca rubbish dump. The authors then recreated the flood using a computer simulation,
demonstrating that a flood that left such a layer could have caused the damages to the Nazca canal system known to have occurred around 500 AD.
But that's not the end of the story, says Beresford-Jones. The landscape was exposed only to the effect of the El Ni  o because of
team member Alex Chepstow-Lusty of The french Institute of Andean Studies in Lima analyzed the pollen that had been blown to the edges of the basin by strong winds.
That caused erosion and made the irrigation system useless, he explains. Storms like this should have replenished just the water table
and wouldn't have hurt them, but the Nazca exposed their own land. The study is original in lots of ways
But the cultural and ecological changes we record in the lower Ica Valley seem to correlate with the wider social changes recorded by archaeology,
Brazil mulls major climate action: Nature Newsbuilding on an existing pledge to slash deforestation rates in the Amazon, Brazil is considering a commitment to substantially reduce cumulative greenhouse-gas emissions over the next decade.
Details were under discussion as Nature went to press, but such a commitment would represent the most significant step yet by a developing country going into December's United nations climate summit in Copenhagen.
It could also help to bridge the gap between rich and poor countries, while increasing pressure on industrialized nations to boost their commitments.
says Steve Schwartzman, who heads tropical forest policy for the Environmental Defense Fund in WASHINGTON DC. This is a major step.
says Carlos Nobre, a climate scientist at Brazil's National Institute for Space Research in S £o Josã dos Campos.
Working with the scientist network Rede-Clima, Nobre recently calculated for Brazil's environment ministry that the country could reduce its annual emissions by the equivalent of nearly 1 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide (see graphic) by 2020.
Nearly two-thirds of that would come from an existing commitment to an 80%reduction in deforestation now responsible for more than half of Brazil's total emissions by 2020.
Marina Silva, an environmental advocate who resigned as Brazil's environment minister last year amid internal opposition to her policies
The government is also rethinking its position on the role of forest carbon in a future climate treaty.
the country has taken a lone stance in demanding that wealthy countries should not be able to offset their greenhouse-gas emissions by funding forest conservation in the tropics.
Brazil created the Amazon Fund last year as an alternative mechanism that would allow donor countries to help pay for the country's ongoing programme to curb deforestation (see Nature 460,936-937;
That panel has proposed allowing nations to offset up to 10%of their commitment by purchasing carbon credits for avoided deforestation.
the official Brazilian position was did that they not want any discussion of deforestation in the international negotiations,
Officials with the environment ministry could not be reached for comment. As Nature went to press,
where climate negotiators are meeting for the last round of formal talks before Copenhagen. Â See also www. nature. com/roadtocopenhagen
says Ken Wilson, an ecologist at Lancaster University, UK. Together with the UK-based development organization CABI, he and fellow researchers have received just around £500, 000 (US$800,
and sinks of atmospheric carbon dioxide (see'Climate researchers in a spin after satellite loss').'But in a funding bill for 2010, the US Congress ordered $50 million to be spent on an OCO replacement enough to restart the programme (see'Budget win for climate probe'.
'However, only about half of the money from Congress is new the rest must be gleaned from other NASA Earth science accounts.
Researchers have identified a previously unknown climate feedback effect suggesting that, as vegetation creeps northward, it will accelerate warming trends already in place.
Asked what her team's findings might mean for the international climate negotiations going on in Copenhagen,
Nature Newswhatever agreement emerges from the climate meeting in Copenhagen, many expect that it will include a mechanism allowing rich nations to offset their emissions by paying poorer countries to protect their forests
Current biomass estimates for the tropics are gathered based on data by the Food and agriculture organization of the united nations (FAO), and their quality varies greatly from country to country.
As a result, baseline figures for biomass are some of the biggest uncertainties in calculating emissions from deforestation and forest degradation,
Sassan Saatchi, an environmental scientist at NASA's Jet propulsion laboratory in Pasadena, California, worked on one study with researchers at the carbon consulting firm Winrock International in Arlington, Virginia.
about 26%higher than what has been reported by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC. The figures for Africa (51 gigatonnes) and south Asia (46 gigatonnes) are about the same as the IPCC figures.
as well as more recent deforestation trends. Also at Copenhagen, researchers at the Woods Hole Research center in Massachusetts presented another pantropical biomass assessment,
Like the Winrock study, it includes spectral data from NASA satellites as well as laser measurements of forest canopy height from an instrument on NASA's Ice, Cloud,
a geographer at the World bank in WASHINGTON DC, is to produce better estimates for carbon emissions from deforestation.
Satellites can reliably track deforestation and increasingly, small-scale logging. In Copenhagen, Greg Asner of the Carnegie Institution of Science in Stanford, California,
to map deforestation using an automated system to analyse satellite imagery. Asner has developed also a system for assessing biomass at finer resolution,
Asner has found that deforestation in Brazil is moving into higher biomass areas in the interior of the forest.
offsetting some of the reductions in deforestation that Brazil aims to achieve in the coming decade (see Nature doi:
Environment minister Jairam Ramesh, announcing the commitment on 3 december, said that the target was worked out in concert with other developing countries (see Nature 462,550;
Following a fortnight of political turmoil that saw climate-change sceptic Tony Abbott elected as leader of the opposition,
the US Environmental protection agency declared on 7 december. The ruling, proposed in April, allows the administration of President Barack Obama to regulate emissions under the federal Clean Air Act without going through Congress.
Business Carbon capture: On 4 december, the US Department of energy announced $979 million for three demonstration projects to capture carbon dioxide from power plants and store it underground.
Two projects involve fitting carbon capture units to existing coal power plants (in New haven, West virginia and Mobile, Alabama),
The Forest Carbon Index, released by the environmental think tank Resources for the Future and consultancy firm Climate Advisers, both based in WASHINGTON DC, charts where governments should invest in preserving forests in developing countries.
particularly in Brazil and Peru, where there is a high rate of deforestation, cheap land, market capacity
Brazil has asked for donations not an offset market to help avoid deforestation, because it wants developed countries to reduce emissions at home.
Climate security breach: Three weeks after the theft of e-mails from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, UK, unsuccessful hacking was reported at the Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis
at the University of Victoria in British columbia. Andrew Weaver, a climate researcher at the university, claimed that there had been sustained a hacking attempt in recent weeks.
At CRU, Phil Jones has stepped aside as director, pending the result of a university review of the incident.
an ecological economist at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization in Canberra, said he had had enough after his paper was accepted by the journal New Political economy earlier this year, withdrawn by the acting chief of his division,
The last known outbreak was in Kenya in 2001, with the last remaining pockets of the disease in Pakistan, Sudan and the Somali Ecosystem (parts of Somalia,
which measures the side-to-side motion of a star on the sky to see
It is estimated that deforestation accounts for around 12%of the greenhouse-gas emissions that cause climate change1
and there is general agreement that the next global climate deal-under negotiation next week in Copenhagen-should include a forest protection plan.
The Forest Carbon Index, released by the environmental think tank Resources for the Future and consultancy firm Climate Advisers, both based in WASHINGTON DC, aims to help investors
says Nigel Purvis, the head of Climate Advisers and director of the project. According to the study, the Amazon-Andes, Central america, the Congo Basin, Madagascar and Southeast asia are all experiencing enough deforestation to capitalize on the carbon market.
But the earliest opportunities will go to the countries that have a safer investment environment. The report suggests that 85%of the best places for forest carbon returns are in the greater Amazon
particularly in Brazil and Peru, where there is a high rate of deforestation, inexpensive land, existing market capacity and political will to save the forests.
The Congo Basin with its carbon-rich forests and rock-bottom prices contains around 75%of the potentially high-profit locations.
But relatively low deforestation rates, political instability and lack of capacity to bring carbon credits to market mean that the region is unlikely to garner much investment in the next decade.
who directs the Tropical forest and Climate Initiative at the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington,
see'Brazil mulls major climate action').'Instead Brazil has created a fund, allowing rich nations to donate money to help the country meet its goal to reduce deforestation by 80%by 2020 (see'Paying to save the rainforests').
'So much of the investment depends on national policies, says Boucher. Leo Bottrill, who is mapping drivers of deforestation in the region for the conservation group WWF in WASHINGTON DC (see'Model predicts future deforestation),
'says that although the index is a good overview of forest carbon opportunities, some of the global and national datasets used should be treated with caution.
and divided them equally between an outdoor environment, an indoor environment and isolated conditions in which they were fed antibiotics daily.
The scientists then killed piglets on day 5 (neonatal stage), day 28 (weaning age) and day 56 (nearing maturity) to study their gut tissue and faeces.
Pigs from these cleaner environments also had much smaller proportions of bacteria from the Lactobacillaceae.
Animals raised in the isolated environment expressed more genes involved in inflammatory immune responses and cholesterol synthesis,
filling gas tanks without raising global food prices or increasing hunger and deforestation in far-flung locales.
Moreover, the process is much more climate friendly than manufacturing ethanol from maize, and produces higher-energy fuels that are interchangeable with current petroleum products.
Senate climate debate up in the air: Nature Newshaving passed climate legislation in the House of representatives last June, Democrats in the US Congress were hoping to push climate legislation through the Senate this spring.
But the politics shifted with a special election in Massachusetts this week that tipped one of the 60 Democratic-voting seats to Republican hands.
And on Thursday, Lisa Murkowski (Republican, Alaska) introduced a resolution that would effectively block the Environmental protection agency (EPA) from implementing new greenhouse-gas regulations.
Nature takes a look at the resolution and the longer-term prospects for global-warming legislation.
The language states that Congress disapproves of the EPA's December 2009 assessment that greenhouse gases pose a threat to public health.
That'endangerment finding'was spurred by a 2007 Supreme court ruling that the EPA has the authority to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from automobiles and, by extension, from power plants and other sources.
the EPA is now legally bound to regulate emissions. Murkowski's resolution would use existing congressional authority to override decisions by the administration of President Barack Obama,
and preventing the EPA from following through with its emissions regulations. How much support does the senator have?
not the EPA, should tackle global warming, but it's an open question as to how many senators would block the EPA's efforts
if Congress fails to act. Murkowski's resolution is supported by three Democrats, including the chairwoman of the Senate agriculture committee, Blanche lincoln (Democrat,
The Obama administration has made climate legislation a priority, but health-care reform occupied Congress for most of 2009.
Now, instead of pushing forward on climate, Democrats find themselves on the defensive. Environmentalists and major industry supporters are taking the Murkowski threat seriously,
recognizing that even a symbolic vote against climate regulation would qualify as a major setback. Will a Senate climate bill go forward?
The outlook for comprehensive climate legislation in 2010 is bleak. Even optimists are quoting odds of 50/50,
but the Senate is tough to predict. Brown's election in Massachusetts makes things more difficult.
but Democrats never had a chance of holding the party together on climate legislation, on
and recently teamed up with dozens of high-profile corporations to push for climate legislation this year.
or a scaled-back climate bill that focuses on power plants and possibly on other major industrial sources of greenhouse-gas emissions.
president of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change in Arlington, Virginia. I think the time has come to figure out what will actually get 60 votes
What will the EPA do in the meantime? EPA will keep plugging along. In September, the agency proposed a rule that would limit near-term regulations to emissions from large industrial sources.
At some point, it will follow up with a regulatory proposal that is likely to focus on power plants and other major industrial sources.
says Tiejun Wang, a spatial ecologist in the Department of Natural resources at the University of Twente in Enschede, The netherlands,
Conservationists worry about such inbreeding because it means that more animals rely on the same set of genetic defences to overcome environmental threats,
such as the climate or a particular environmental chemical, that affects one or more pigmentation genes, says Fang.
says Mike Bruford, a molecular ecologist at Cardiff University, UK, who worked on that study2. The giant panda genome,
says Daniel Costa, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of California,
and the interplay between the environment, nutrition and health. In 2008-09 the trust spent a total of £720 million (US$1. 1 billion) on research.
It should complete 1. 5 sweeps of the sky before its cryogens run out around October.
) Climate chief resigns: Yvo de Boer (pictured), executive secretary of the United nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, unexpectedly announced his resignation on 18 february after almost four years leading climate negotiations.
I believe the time is ripe for me to take on a new challenge, he said,
telling Associated press that the failure of the climate talks in Copenhagen last year was not a factor in his decision to quit.
where he will advise on climate and sustainability. Anthrax case closed: Federal authorities in the United states announced on 19 february the conclusion of their investigation into the 2001 anthrax attacks,
China takes stock of environment: Nature Newschina has completed its first ever pollution census. The 4-billion yuan (US$585-million) project took 570,000 people two years to complete.
The broad survey will provide the basis for setting environmental protection targets in the next five-year plan of economic initiatives that begins in 2011,
says Zhang Lijun, China's vice-minister of environmental protection. The census found that agriculture was more damaging to China's waterways than manufacturing.
Pollution and other environmental issues in China have caused widespread health problems such as cancer and birth defects and have led to much social unrest.
says Lei Ming, an environment economist at the Guanghua School of management at Peking University in Beijing.
Many, like Lei, hope that the next five-year plan will introduce an environment tax on polluters.
An environment tax would be standardized a nationally system and the generated revenue would be used to curb environmental pollution,
says Lei. However, a complete switch from a local fee system to a national tax may face resistance from local governments;
Vice-minister Zhang Lijun says that the environmental protection targets for the next five-year plan are being deliberated,
adding that the environment ministry is in discussion with the finance ministry and the State Administration of Taxation about an environment tax.
fertilizer it is used now sparingly owing to an awareness of its environmental effects, including the pollution of rivers and lakes.
On 9 february, environment minister Jairam Ramesh announced an indefinite moratorium on the cultivation of a transgenic version of aubergine,
A 19-page statement issued by Ramesh said that his ministry had decided to impose a moratorium on the release of Bt brinjal until independent scientific studies had established that it would not adversely affect the environment or human health.
Mahyco spokesperson Raju Barwale said that the company respected the decision of the environment ministry.
Ramanjaneyulu believes that the environment ministry should now confiscate the transgenic brinjal seeds held by Mahyco.
Nature Newspolicy Business People Events Awards Research Business watch The week ahead Number crunch Sound bites Policy Climate service:
The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric administration (NOAA) announced plans on 8 february to create a'climate service'charged with collecting and disseminating climate-related data and information.
which will also incorporate six existing regional climate centres and a new online portal (www. climate. gov). The reorganization will require authorization from Congress,
which is currently considering the 2011 budget. Legislation to establish a national climate service linking the climate programmes of all federal agencies an idea supported by NOAA chief Jane Lubchenco is pending in Congress.
Indian collaboration: The Indian Network for Climate Change Assessment, a group of more than 200 scientists formed in October 2009,
will publish its first research findings by November and feed them into the fifth report of the United nations'Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
India's Prime minister Manmohan Singh announced the details on 5 february at a Delhi meeting on sustainable development,
Business watch New biofuel standards have cleared the way for a continued expansion of maize (corn) ethanol production in the United states. The US Environmental protection agency (EPA) ruled on 3 february that ethanol made from maize decreases
The determination went against recent studies that suggest that ethanol made from maize may increase emissions owing in part to deforestation spurred by increased demand for the crop.
But the EPA has scaled also back the 2010 requirement for cellulosic biofuels, citing slow progress in the field.
Climate scientist Michael Mann of Pennsylvania State university, University Park, has been cleared of allegations of research misconduct by a committee at his university.
It would have been only the second mammal other than the polar bear to be afforded such protection explicitly because of climate change.
Cloud access: The US National Science Foundation (NSF) announced on 4 february that selected NSF-supported researchers would be given access, via three-year agency grants,
trillion The minimum global cost by 2050 of the melting Arctic's declining ability to cool the climate,
according to a Pew Environment Group report the first to attempt to quantify the value on the region's'climate services'.
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