Labslink Research News

Researchers discover novel mechanism protecting plants against freezing

Fri, 27 Aug 2010 03:21:09 PDT

New ground broken by Michigan State University biochemists helps explain how plants protect themselves from freezing temperatures and could lead to discoveries related to plant tolerance for drought and other extreme conditions. "This brings together two classic problems in plant biology," said Christoph Benning, MSU professor of biochemistry and molecular biology. "One is that plants protect themselves against freezing and that scientists long thought it had something to do with cell membranes, but didn't know exactly how. "The other is the search for the gene for an enigmatic enzyme of plant lipid metabolism in the chloroplasts," in other words, how lipids, which are membrane building blocks, are made for the plant cell organelles responsible for converting solar energy into chemical energy by photosynthesis. In an article published online this week by the journal Science, Benning and his then-doctoral degree candidate Eric Moellering and technical assistant Bagyalakshmi Muthan describe how a particular gene leads to the formation of a lipid that protects chloroplast and plant cell membranes from freeze damage by a novel mechanism in Arabidopsis thaliana, common mustard weed. Working on his dissertation project under Benning, Moellering identified a mutant strain of Arabidopsis that can't manufacture the lipid and linked this biochemical defect to work done by others who originally described the role of the gene in freeze tolerance, but did not find the mechanism. "One of the big problems in freezing tolerance or general stress in plants is that some species are better at surviving stress than others," Moellering said. "We are only beginning to understand the mechanisms that allow some plants to survive while others are sensitive." There is no single mechanism involved in plant freezing tolerance, Moellering added, so he can't say that his findings will lead any time soon to genetic breakthroughs making citrus or other freezing-intolerant plants able to thrive in northern climates. But it does add to our understanding of how plants survive temperature extremes. Much plant damage in freezing temperatures is due to cell dehydration, in which water is drawn out as it crystallizes and the organelle or cell membrane shrivels as liquid volume drops. Lipids in the membranes of tolerant plants are removed and converted to oil that accumulates in droplets, the researchers said, retaining membrane integrity, keeping membranes from fusing with one another and conserving the energy by storing oil droplets. With rising concern globally about water supplies and climate change, scientists see additional reasons to understand the ways hardy plants survive. The research, funded by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science Basic Energy Sciences and the Michigan Agricultural Experiment Station, also leads to speculation that freezing itself can prompt cell proteins directly to change the composition of the membrane, without activation by gradual acclimation. That has been a major focus in the plant freezing tolerance field, the researchers said. "This opens a huge door now for people to do this kind of research, and to redirect researchers," Benning said. "There are lots of them out there trying to understand cold, salt and drought tolerance in plants, and we've given them a new idea about how they can approach this problem mechanistically."

UK researchers release draft sequence coverage of wheat genome

Fri, 27 Aug 2010 03:16:47 PDT

A team of UK researchers, funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), has publicly released the first sequence coverage of the wheat genome. The release is a step towards a fully annotated genome and makes a significant contribution to efforts to support global food security and to increase the competitiveness of UK farming. The genome sequences released comprise five read-throughs of a reference variety of wheat and give scientists and breeders access to 95% of all wheat genes. This is among the largest genome projects undertaken, and the rapid public release of the data is expected to accelerate significantly the use of the information by wheat breeding companies. The team involved Prof Neil Hall and Dr Anthony Hall at the University of Liverpool, Prof Keith Edwards and Dr Gary Barker at the University of Bristol and Prof Mike Bevan at the John Innes Centre, a BBSRC-funded Institute. Prof Edwards said: "The wheat genome is five times larger than the human genome and presents a huge challenge for scientists. The genome sequences are an important tool for researchers and for plant breeders and by making the data publicly available we are ensuring this publicly funded research has the widest possible impact." Universities and Science Minister David Willetts said: "This is an outstanding world class contribution by the UK to the global effort to completely map the wheat genome. By using gene sequencing technology developed in the UK we now have the capability to improve the crops of the future by simply accelerating the natural breeding process to select varieties that can thrive in challenging conditions." The genome data released are in a 'raw' format, comprising sequence reads of the wheat genome in the form of letters representing the genetic 'code'. A complete copy of the genome requires further read-throughs, significant work on annotation and the assembly of the data into chromosomes. Large-scale, rapid sequencing programmes such as this have been made technically feasible by advanced technology genome sequencing platforms, including one based on BBSRC-funded research conducted in the UK in the 1990s.The majority of the sequencing work for this particular project was done using the 454 Life Science platform, developed in the US. Prof Hall said: "The genome sequence data of this reference variety, Chinese Spring wheat, will now allow us to probe differences between varieties with different characteristics. By understanding the genetic differences between varieties with different traits we can start to develop new types of wheat better able to cope with drought, salinity or able to deliver higher yields. This will help to protect our food security while giving UK plant breeders and farmers a competitive advantage." The sequence data can be used by scientists and plant breeders to develop new varieties through accelerated conventional breeding or other technologies. Prof Bevan, a member of the Coordinating Committee of the International Wheat Genome Sequencing Consortium, said: "The sequence coverage will provide an important foundation for international efforts aimed at generating a complete genome sequence of wheat in the next few years." Prof Doug Kell, BBSRC Chief Executive, said: "Recent short-term price spikes in the wheat markets have shown how vulnerable our food system is to shocks and potential shortages. The best way to support our food security is by using modern research strategies to understand how we can deliver sustainable increases in crop yields, especially in the face of climate change. Genome sequencing of this type is an absolutely crucial strategy, building on previous BBSRC-funded work. Knowledge of these genome sequences will now allow plant breeders to identify the best genetic sequences to use as markers in accelerated breeding programmes." Dr Jane Rogers, Member of the Coordinating Committee of the International Wheat Genome Sequencing Consortium and Director of BBSRC's The Genome Analysis Centre, said: "The public release of the wheat genome data will be a useful resource for scientists and the plant breeding community and will provide a foundation to identify genetic differences between wheat varieties. In recent years genomics technology has advanced to a point that scientists can now produce sequence data for plants with genomes as large as wheat at a rate unimaginable a few years ago. This is an impressive achievement, notwithstanding the significant hurdles we still face to fully interpret and understand the data." A key feature of this research has been the quick release of the data into the public domain to allow other scientists and wheat breeding companies to rapidly employ it in practical applications. Richard Summers, Vice Chairman of the British Society of Plant Breeders, said: "The wheat breeding community has been greatly impressed with the collaborative approach taken in this project. The team brought together world class skills in sequencing and wheat genetics to deal with a major barrier in wheat breeding. This is an excellent example of how to achieve technology transfer from research lab through to practical deployment."

Electrifying findings: New ways of boosting healthful antioxidant levels in potatoes

Mon, 23 Aug 2010 03:11:10 PDT

Here's a scientific discovery fit to give Mr. Potato Head static cling and flyaway hair (if that vintage plastic toy had hair). Scientists today reported discovery of two simple, inexpensive ways of boosting the amounts of healthful antioxidant substances in potatoes. One involves giving spuds an electric shock. The other involves zapping them with ultrasound, high frequency sound waves. Those new insights into improving the nutritional content of one of the Western world's favorite side dishes were reported today at the 240th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS), being held here this week. The study was among nearly 8,000 scientific reports scheduled for presentation at the meeting, one of the largest scientific gatherings of 2010. "We found that treating the potatoes with ultrasound or electricity for 5-30 minutes increased the amounts of antioxidants –– including phenols and chlorogenic acid –– by as much as 50 percent," said Kazunori Hironaka, Ph.D., who headed the research. "Antioxidants found in fruits and vegetables are considered to be of nutritional importance in the prevention of chronic diseases, such as cardiovascular disease, various cancers, diabetes, and neurological diseases." Hironaka, who is with Obihiro University in Hokkaido, Japan, indicated that the process could have widespread commercial application, due to growing consumer interest in so-called "functional foods." Those are products like berries, nuts, chocolate, soy, and wine that may have health benefits beyond traditional nutrition. Such foods may promote overall good health, for instance, or reduce the risk of specific diseases. Hironaka estimated that sales of such products in the United States alone now approach $20 billion annually. "We knew from research done in the past that drought, bruising, and other stresses could stimulate the accumulation of beneficial phenolic compounds in fresh produce," Hironaka explained. "We found that there hasn't been any research on the healthful effects of using mechanical processes to stress vegetables. So we decided in this study to evaluate effect of ultrasound and electric treatments on polyphenols and other antioxidants in potatoes." The ultrasound treatment consisted of immersing whole potatoes in water and subjecting them to ultrasound for 5 or 10 minutes. For the electrical treatment, the scientists immersed potatoes in a salt solution for 10 seconds and subsequently treated the spuds with a small electrical charge for 10, 20, and 30 minutes. The study team then measured antioxidant activity and the phenolic content and concluded that the stresses increased the amount of these compounds. The 5 minutes of ultrasound, for instance, increased polyphenol levels by 1.2 times and other antioxidants by about 1.6 times.

New genetic tool helps improve rice

Fri, 20 Aug 2010 03:25:45 PDT

U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientists have developed a new tool for improving the expression of desirable genes in rice in parts of the plant where the results will do the most good. Roger Thilmony, a geneticist with USDA's Agricultural Research Service (ARS), has shown that the LP2 gene promoter can be used to direct other introduced genes to express beneficial traits in specific plant tissues without the potential for causing unintended consequences. Thilmony works at the ARS Crop Improvement and Utilization Research Unit in Albany, Calif. ARS is USDA's principal intramural scientific research agency. Rice is under constant threat from pathogens such as rice blast, a fungus found in fields worldwide, and sheath blight, a continuing threat to U.S. growers. Scientists who develop disease-resistant varieties often find that introducing a gene may prevent disease in one part of the plant, but also may reduce seed quality or produce other "side effects" because the gene is expressed throughout the plant. Tissue-specific promoters, such as LP2, are segments of genes that can direct the activity of introduced genes only to parts of the plant where the beneficial traits are needed. Thilmony and his ARS colleagues Mara Guttman, James Thomson and Ann Blechl found that the gene they named LP2 is consistently expressed in green tissues. In experiments, they fused the LP2 promoter with a "reporter gene" known to produce a specific enzyme, and inserted that fused DNA package into seven lines of rice to see where the enzyme would be produced. They found that the LP2 promoter steered expression of the reporter gene specifically to green tissues where photosynthesis occurs. The reporter gene enzyme activity was highest in the leaves, and nearly undetectable in the roots, seeds and flower parts. The LP2 promoter could be used to improve varieties of rice, barley and wheat and could aid in the development of biofuel crops, in which scientists need to control leaf traits without affecting other tissues, according to Thilmony. The researchers published their work in Plant Biotechnology Journal and have filed a provisional patent on use of the LP2 promoter. This research supports the USDA priority of promoting international food security.

Plant 'breathing' mechanism discovered

Tue, 13 Jul 2010 03:17:05 PDT

A tiny, little-understood plant pore has enormous implications for weather forecasting, climate change, agriculture, hydrology, and more. A study by scientists at the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology, with colleagues from the Research Center Jülich in Germany, has now overturned the conventional belief about how these important structures called stomata regulate water vapor loss from the leaf–a process called transpiration. They found that radiation is the driving force of physical processes deep within the leaf. The research is published the week of July 12, 2010, in the on-line early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Stomata are lip-shaped pores surrounded by a pair of guard cells that control the size of the opening. The size of the pores regulates the inflow of carbon dioxide (CO₂ ) needed for photosynthesis and the outflow of water vapor to the atmosphere—transpiration. Transpiration cools and humidifies the atmosphere over vegetation, moderating the climate and increasing precipitation. Stomata influence the rate at which plants can absorb CO₂ from the atmosphere, which affects the productivity of plants and the concentration of atmospheric CO₂. Understanding stoma is important for climate change research. Current climate change models use descriptions of stomatal response based on statistical analysis of studies conducted with a few plant species. This approach is not based on a solid understanding of the mechanism of stomatal regulation and provides a poor basis for extrapolating to environmental conditions. "Scientists have been studying stomata for at least 300 years. It's amazing that we have not had good grasp about the regulatory mechanisms that control how much stomata open or close in response to a constantly changing environment," remarked co-author Joseph Berry of Carnegie. For the first time, these researchers looked at how the exchange of energy and water vapor at the outer surface of the leaf are linked to processes inside the leaf. They found that the energy from radiation absorbed by pigments and water inside the leaf influences how the stomata control water levels. "In this study we illuminated a sunflower leaf with an incandescent light that was filtered to include or exclude near infrared light (NIR >700 nm)," remarked Berry. "When the near infrared light was applied, the stomata responded by opening and indirectly stimulated photosynthesis. Light of different colors gave similar stomata opening at equal energy inputs—more evidence that heat is the driver." The scientists replicated the experiment with five other plant species and over a range of carbon dioxide levels and temperatures. The researchers also developed a model based on energy balance of the leaf system to simulate responses. Results from the model mimicked the results from the lab. It has been assumed that the guard cells forming the pore have sophisticated sensory and information processing systems making use of light and other environmental cues to adjust the pores. The breakthrough of this research is that it is the first to demonstrate that regulation of the rate of water loss by stomata is linked to physical processes that occur deep within the leaf. "This means that the current model for what drives stomata to change their size has to change," remarked co-author Roland Pieruschka, a Marie Curie Fellow from the European Union at the Carnegie Institution (currently at the Research Center Jülich in Germany). "For a long time researchers have thought that heat from the sun, which is absorbed by pigments, moves from cell to cell until it gets to the cavities beneath the stomata where evaporation has been thought to take place. This probably happens to some degree, but the results presented here are more consistent with our hypothesis that much of this heat is transferred through air spaces inside the leaf that are saturated with water vapor. This key difference is pivotal for understanding how Otto Lange's seminal work in the 1970s, on responses of stomata to humidity, can be fit into a leaf-scale concept of stomatal regulation."

Thousands of undiscovered plant species face extinction

Thu, 08 Jul 2010 03:18:16 PDT

Faced with threats such as habitat loss and climate change, thousands of rare flowering plant species worldwide may become extinct before scientists can even discover them, according to a paper published today by a trio of American and British researchers in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. "Scientists have estimated that, overall, there could be between 5 million and 50 million species, but fewer than 2 million of these species have been discovered to date," says lead author Lucas Joppa of Microsoft Research in Cambridge, U.K., who received his doctorate from Duke University earlier this year. "Using novel methods, we were able to refine the estimate of total species for flowering plants, and calculate how many of those remain undiscovered." Based on data from the online World Checklist of Selected Plant Families at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, the scientists calculated that there are between 10 and 20 percent more undiscovered flowering plant species than previously estimated. This finding has "enormous conservation implications, as any as-yet-unknown species are likely to be overwhelmingly rare and threatened," Joppa says. The new, more accurate estimate can be used to infer the proportion of all threatened species, says coauthor David Roberts of the Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology at the University of Kent. "If we take the number of species that are currently known to be threatened, and add to that those that are yet to be discovered, we can estimate that between 27 percent and 33 percent of all flowering plants will be threatened with extinction," he says. "That percentage reflects the global impact of factors such as habitat loss. It may increase if you factor in other threats such as climate change," Joppa adds. "The timing couldn't be more perfect," says co-author Stuart Pimm, Doris Duke Professor of Conservation Ecology at Duke's Nicholas School of the Environment. "The year 2010 is the International Year of Biodiversity. We wrote the paper to help answer the obvious questions: How much biodiversity is out there, and how many species will we lose before they are even discovered?"

UK geneticists shed light on flowering plants

Wed, 30 Jun 2010 03:18:26 PDT

A team of researchers from Warwick have isolated a gene responsible for regulating the expression of CONSTANS, an important inducer of flowering, in Arabidopsis. 'Being able to understand and ultimately control seasonal flowering will enable more predictable flowering, better scheduling and reduced wastage of crops', explained Dr Jackson. Whilst the relationship between CONSTANS and flowering time in response to day length is well established, the mechanism controlling the expression of CONSTANS is still not fully understood. The scientists present their work at the Society for Experimental Biology Annual Meeting in Prague on Wednesday 30th June 2010. Many plants control when they flower to coincide with particular seasons by responding to the length of the day, a process known as photoperiodism. A flowering mutant of Arabidopsis, which had an altered response to photoperiod, was used in the study led by Dr Stephen Jackson. In the study funded by the BBSRC, the team identified the defective gene in the mutant plant that caused its abnormal flowering time. They then cloned a working version of the gene, known as DAY NEUTRAL FLOWERING (DNF), from a normal Arabidopsis plant and introduced it into the mutant plant to restore its normal flowering response to day length. The role of DNF in normal plant flowering is to regulate the CONSTANS gene. CONSTANS is activated only in the light and the plant is triggered to flower when CONSTANS levels rise above a certain threshold level during the daytime. In normal plants, DNF represses the levels of CONSTANS until the day length is long enough and conditions are favourable for the survival of their seedlings. In mutant plants without an active DNF gene, CONSTANS is not repressed and they are able to flower earlier in the year, when days are still short. The presence of the DNF gene has not yet been identified in species other than Arabidopsis but the scientists believe their on-going work may prove to have a wider significance for other species. Scientists can override complex pathways that control flowering by artificially inducing or inhibiting key flowering genes such as DNF and CONSTANS. This can already be done in the laboratory by spraying an 'inducing agent' onto plants, stimulating them to flower early. This could be used to extend the length of the harvesting season or to co-ordinate flowering or fruit production to a specific time. Growers already regulate the flowering of a few plants such as Chrysanthemum and Poinsettia, the latter specifically for Christmas and Easter. Unravelling the complex pathways that control plant flowering will help scientists to understand and influence flowering patterns more effectively and in many different species.

Gender-bending fish problem in Colorado creek mitigated by treatment plant upgrade

Tue, 22 Jun 2010 03:39:10 PDT

Male fish are taking longer to be "feminized" by chemical contaminants that act as hormone disrupters in Colorado's Boulder Creek following the upgrade of a wastewater treatment plant in Boulder in 2008, according to a new study led by the University of Colorado at Boulder. But the problem of fish feminization -- which causes males to develop characteristics of females and to decline in numbers -- is a global one that is growing as a result of increasing chemicals like natural human reproductive steroids, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, shampoos and soaps making their way into waterways, said CU-Boulder Professor David Norris, who led the study. Norris, a professor of integrative physiology at CU-Boulder, said the multimillion-dollar general upgrade of the Boulder Wastewater Treatment plant northeast of Boulder, Colo., designed to solve multiple problems has had a dramatic effect on delaying symptoms of male fish feminization. The team compared fish populations below the wastewater treatment plant on Boulder Creek in 2006 before it had upgraded and again after the upgrade had been completed. Norris participated in a press briefing at the Endocrine Society's 92nd annual meeting held June 19-22 in San Diego. Other team members included Alan Vajda of the University of Colorado Denver, Ashley Bolden and John Woodling of CU-Boulder, Larry Barber of the U.S. Geological Survey's Water Resource Division in Boulder and Heiko Schoenfuss of St. Cloud University in Minnesota. In the 2006 study Norris and his colleagues used a mobile fish exposure facility situated on Boulder Creek northeast of Boulder that collected both water from upstream of the plant and effluent water directly from the treatment plant. After exposure to equal parts of effluent and upstream water for only seven days, adult male fathead minnows became feminized, looking and acting like females and showing elevated levels of a protein known as vitellogenin that is normally produced by females. Contaminants identified in Boulder Creek included ethinylestradiol -- a chemical used in most contraceptives -- as well as other reproductive steroids produced naturally by humans. Estrogen-related chemicals found in the water included bisphenyl A and phthalates associated with plastic, nonylphenols associated with detergents, and pesticides. Most of the compounds came from products flushed down toilets and drains, according to Norris. In the new study following the treatment plant upgrade, the team studied adult male fathead minnows in 100 percent effluent water, those in a mixture of half effluent and half upstream water, and those in tanks containing all upstream water. Norris and his team saw no effects on male sex characteristics of the minnows in the tank containing 100 percent effluent water directly from the treatment plant until 28 days after exposure. As part of the study, Norris and his colleagues also analyzed reproductive organs from preserved fish specimens from CU's Museum of Natural History that had been collected from Boulder Creek between 50 and 100 years ago. The researchers and found no evidence of feminized or intersex fish in the museum specimens, he said. The CU research team also tested brown trout populations below a wastewater treatment in Vail, Colo., said Norris. The trout showed no increases in vitellogenin. In addition to chemicals that trigger fish feminization, biologists are finding increased concentrations of fluoxetine, a common antidepressant taken by millions of Americans, in waterways across the nation, said Norris. Fluoxetine has been shown to enter the brains of fish and affect fish behavior, said Norris. Between 2000 and 2002, Norris and his group were among the first in the nation to document the problem of intersex fish following their stream surveys of Boulder Creek, the South Platte River near Denver and Fountain Creek near Colorado Springs in 2000. The researchers found feminized fish at all of the sites and as well as skewed sex ratios showing there were more females than males. Since that time biologists have been reporting feminized male fish and intersex fish in waterways across the globe. "I look at the problem of fish feminization in waterways as a canary in a mine shaft," said Norris. "This is not the problem of water treatment plants, it's our problem as human beings. We excrete natural and synthetic estrogens and use shampoos, detergents and cosmetics containing a variety of hormone disrupters that wind up in waterways. All of these different chemicals we are putting into the environment have the potential to alter the biology of animals and to affect ecosystems." It boils down to a growing human population problem, he said. Ways to mitigate effects of chemicals include using reduced amounts of detergents and shampoos. Another way people can lessen the problem is to avoid antibacterial soaps, which can disrupt thyroid function in fish. "People have shown they can consciously mitigate some of these issues," said Norris. "One example is the refusal of some to buy milk from cattle that contain growth hormones." He said the bulk of all pharmaceuticals people ingest generally wind up in urine and feces within 24 hours and are flushed or drained into treatment plants. In addition, chemicals from plastics and canned food can pass through humans and travel into waterways, affecting fish populations as well as the health of people. "Our bodies are being exposed every day to a variety of chemicals capable of altering our physiological development, including impacts on sensitive human fetuses."

New evidence that smokeless tobacco damages DNA and key enzymes

Thu, 17 Jun 2010 03:41:24 PDT

Far from having adverse effects limited to the mouth, smokeless tobacco affects the normal function of a key family of enzymes found in almost every organ in the body, according to the first report on the topic in ACS' monthly journal Chemical Research in Toxicology. The enzymes play important roles in production of hormones, including the sex hormones estrogen and testosterone; production of cholesterol and vitamin D; and help the body breakdown prescription drugs and potentially toxic substances. Smokeless tobacco also damages genetic material in the liver, kidney and lungs. Krishan Khanduja and colleagues note widespread recognition of smokeless tobacco's harmful effects on the mouth, which include an increased risk of gum disease and oral cancer. The potential carcinogens and other chemicals in chewing tobacco and other smokeless products are absorbed into the blood and travel throughout the body. However, scientists have little information on smokeless tobacco's effects on other parts of the body. To fill that knowledge gap, the scientists evaluated changes in enzymes and genetic material in laboratory rats using extracts of smokeless tobacco. In addition to damage to the genetic material DNA, they found that smokeless tobacco extracts alter the function of the so-called CYP-450 family of enzymes. "These products are used around the world but are most common in Northern Africa, Southeast Asia, and the Mediterranean region," the report says. "Most of the users seem to be unaware of the harmful health effects and, therefore, use smokeless tobacco to 'treat' toothaches, headaches, and stomachaches. This false impression only promotes tobacco use among youth. The use of smokeless tobacco and its new products is increasing not only among men but also among children, teenagers, women, and immigrants of South Asian origin and medical and dental students."

Wild potato germplasm holds key to disease resistance

Thu, 17 Jun 2010 03:28:22 PDT

Wild potato germplasm that offers resistance to some major potato diseases has been identified by Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists. Geneticists Dennis Halterman and Shelley Jansky pinpointed the resistant wild potato species in studies at the ARS Vegetable Crops Research Unit in Madison, Wis. Halterman has identified a wild potato species called Solanum verrucosum that contains a gene with resistance to late blight, considered the most destructive disease of potato. The wild species can be crossed with cultivated potatoes, and efforts are under way to move the late-blight resistance gene into the cultivated potato gene pool. But the scientists aren’t stopping there. They are using S. verrucosum to create a potato that’s resistant to both late blight and early blight, a fungal disease that primarily affects the potato plant’s leaves and stems but, if left uncontrolled, can lead to considerable reductions in yields. To create the multi-disease-resistant cultivar, the scientists crossed S. verrucosum with another wild potato species that is resistant to early blight, and then crossed the wild potato hybrid with the cultivated potato. They currently have seedlings in the greenhouse waiting to be tested in the field. Halterman and Jansky are also looking for resistance to Verticillium wilt, another fungal disease that can linger in the soil for up to 10 years. Halterman developed a molecular marker to screen potato germplasm for resistance against this disease, saving the scientists time and effort. They found resistance in the wild potato species S. chacoense and crossed it with the cultivated potato. According to Halterman, this could be a good, durable gene that may hold up over the long term.

High yield crops keep carbon emissions low

Tue, 15 Jun 2010 03:22:35 PDT

The Green Revolution of the late 20th century increased crop yields worldwide and helped feed an expanding global population. According to a new report published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, it also has helped keep greenhouse gas emissions at bay. The researchers estimate that since 1961 higher yields per acre have avoided the release of nearly 600 billion tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. "That's about 20 years of fossil fuel burning at present rates," says study co-author Steven Davis of the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology. "Our results dispel the notion that industrial agricultural with its petrochemicals are inherently worse for the climate than a more 'old-fashioned' way of doing things." Agriculture is a major source of greenhouse gases. The high-yield crop varieties developed during the Green Revolution produced a bounty of food, but they also increased agriculture's reliance on pesticides, fertilizers, and mechanization. The research team, which also included lead author Jennifer Burney and David Lobell of Stanford University, investigated the net effect of Green Revolution crops on greenhouse gas emissions during the period between 1961 and 2005. They found that although the various inputs to modern farms require more energy and greenhouse gas emissions per unit of food output than did the lower-input methods of the past, crop yields have increased by 135%, reducing the amount of cropland needed to produce the same amount of food. Without these advances, the conversion of vast natural areas to agriculture would have caused much more greenhouse gas emissions—the equivalent of nearly 600 billion tons of CO2 since 1961. "Converting a forest or some scrubland to an agricultural area causes a lot of natural carbon in that ecosystem to be oxidized and lost to the atmosphere" says Davis ."What our study shows is that these indirect impacts from converting land to agriculture outweigh the direct emissions that come from the modern, intensive style of agriculture." The researchers also calculated the benefits of investing in agricultural research as a strategy for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. They estimate that since 1961 agricultural research has averted carbon dioxide emissions at a cost of about $4 per ton of CO2. The potential for emissions reduction compares favorably with other strategies. Agricultural advances have prevented about 13 billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions each year, much more than the estimated 1.8 billion tons obtainable by improvements in energy supply or the estimated 1.7 billion from improved transportation systems. "Agricultural research is one of the cheapest ways of preventing greenhouse gas emissions," says Davis. "And if the past few decades are a guide, it is also a large source of potential reduction."

Collagen manufactured from transgenic tobacco plants at Hebrew University

Fri, 11 Jun 2010 03:40:29 PDT

A scientist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem's Robert H. Smith Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Environment has succeeded in producing a replica of human collagen from tobacco plants – an achievement with tremendous commercial implications for use in a variety of human medical procedures. Natural human type I collagen is the most abundant protein in the human body and is the main protein found in all connective tissue. Commercially produced collagen (pro-collagen) is used in surgical implants and many wound healing devices in regenerative medicine. The current market for collagen-based medical devices in orthopedics and wound healing exceeds US $30 billion annually worldwide. Currently, commercial collagen is produced from farm animals such as cows and pigs as well as from human cadavers. These materials are prone to harbor human pathogens such as viruses or prions (mad-cow disease). Human cadaver is scarce, and for certain indications possesses serious ethical issues. Producing human recombinant type I pro-collagen requires the coordinated expression of five different genes. Prof. Oded Shoseyov of the Robert H. Smith Institute of Plant Sciences and Genetics in Agriculture has established the only laboratory in the world that has reported successful co-expression all the five essential genes in transgenic tobacco plants for the production of processed pro-collagen. For this work, Shoseyov was one of the recipients of a Kaye Innovation Award during the Hebrew University Board of Governors meeting in June. Shoseyov's invention on has been patented, and the scientific findings behind it were published recently in the journal Biomacromolecules. A company, CollPlant Ltd., has been established based on patents and technology that were developed in Shoseyov's laboratory. It has raised US$15 million to establish the first commercial molecular farming company in Israel and is already manufacturing collagen-based products that have attracted collaborative commercial interest from companies in the US, Japan Europe and Israel. Yissum, the technology transfer company of the Hebrew University, is one of the shareholders of CollPlant.. CollPlant is a public company traded in "TASE", and the potential revenue for the Hebrew University from this invention is estimated to reach into the multi-million dollar range. The Kaye Awards have been given annually since 1994. Isaac Kaye of England, a prominent industrialist in the pharmaceutical industry, established the awards to encourage faculty, staff, and students of the Hebrew University to develop innovative methods and inventions with good commercial potential which will benefit the university and society.

With fungi on their side, rice plants grow to be big

Fri, 11 Jun 2010 03:27:23 PDT

By tinkering with a type of fungus that lives in association with plant roots, researchers have found a way to increase the growth of rice by an impressive margin. The so-called mycorrhizal fungi are found in association with nearly all plants in nature, where they deliver essential nutrients—specifically phosphate—to plants in return for sugar. The findings are nevertheless a surprise, according to researchers reporting online on June 10th in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, because there has been little evidence thus far to suggest that crop plants actually respond to the fungi. "Global reserves of phosphate are critically low, and because the demand for phosphate goes hand in hand with human population expansion, it is predicted that there will be major shortages in the next few decades," said Ian Sanders of the University of Lausanne in Switzerland. "Unfortunately, most of our important crop plants do not respond strongly, if at all, to inoculation with these fungi. This is especially so for rice, the most globally important food plant. There are no clear reports that rice benefits from inoculation with mycorrhizal fungi." That is, until now. In fact, the researchers started with a strain of mycorrhizal fungus of the species Glomus intraradices that clearly didn't benefit rice. They then took advantage of the fungus's unusual genetics. A single fungal filament can contain genetically distinct nuclei. Those distinct nuclei can fuse together, mixing genes up in different combinations, and fungal spores can also end up with different complements of genes, the new research shows. As such, the supposedly clonal fungi maintain a degree of genetic variation that had been overlooked. "It turns out we can very simply manipulate their genetics to produce fungi that induce up to a five-fold growth increase in this globally important food plant," Sanders said. The genetic changes that the researchers produced in the fungi led to changes in the activity of important genes in the rice, they report. Those affected genes are known to be involved in establishing the mutually beneficial relationship between plant and fungus and in the transport of phosphate at the interface between fungus and plant. Sanders emphasized that the genetic manipulation the researchers undertook didn't involve any insertion of new genes into the fungal genome. It rather relied on the same biological processes of genetic exchange and segregation that normally take place in the fungus. "What we have done with these fungi is not much different from what plant breeders, and farmers before them, have done to improve crops," he said. "The only difference is that the genetics of these fungi is a little bit more unusual, and no one thought it worth doing." On a cautionary note, Sanders did emphasize that the plants they studied were grown in a greenhouse in Switzerland under conditions that only mimicked those found in the tropics. "This is clearly not at all the same environment as a rice plant growing in a real paddy field," he said. It remains to be seen whether the same growth benefits will apply in practice. "However," Sanders said, "our study clearly shows that the potential is there to manipulate the genetics of the fungus to achieve greater crop yields."

New rust resistance genes added to common beans

Sat, 05 Jun 2010 03:18:08 PDT

New cultivars of common bean developed by Agricultural Research Service (ARS) and university scientists could shore up the legume crop's defenses against the fungal disease common bean rust. According to Talo Pastor-Corrales, an ARS plant pathologist in Beltsville, Md., the new cultivars possess two or more genes for resistance to the rust fungi. Most of the cultivars also harbor Ur-11, which is considered the most effective rust-resistance gene in the world. Pastor-Corrales and his colleagues at the University of Nebraska and Colorado State University resorted to this multi-gene strategy in response to the high diversity of strains of the bean rust pathogen. Lately, virulent new races of rust that have overcome the Ur-3 resistance gene appeared in Michigan and North Dakota. Until recently, this gene had been very effective in controlling rust in the United States, epecially in North Dakota and Michigan, the country's largest bean-growing states. Now, Ur-3-protected varieties that once withstood the disease are succumbing to it, and there's concern the new races will spread to other Northern Plains states where common beans are grown, such as Colorado and Nebraska. Pastor-Corrales' search for novel sources of rust resistance in dry-, snap- and other common beans has taken him to 21 countries in the Americas and 11 in Africa. The battle against rust is complicated by the fact that races present in crop fields can vary from one year to the next, adds Pastor-Corrales, who leads a bean breeding project at the ARS Soybean Genomics and Improvement Research Unit in Beltsville.

The dilemma of plants fighting infections

Thu, 03 Jun 2010 03:27:30 PDT

Individuals of one and the same plant species often differ greatly in their ability to resist pathogens: While one rose succumbs to bacterial infection, its neighbour blissfully thrives. Scientists from the Max Planck Institute of Developmental Biology in Germany have tracked down an explanation for this common phenomenon. Their conclusion: disease resistance can incur high costs. Especially resistant plants of mouse ear cress (Arabidopsis thaliana) produce fewer and smaller leaves, and have a competitive disadvantage in the absence of enemies. Whether it is better to invest in disease resistance or biomass is thus very much dependent on the unpredictable circumstances a plant may find itself in. Therefore both large, but vulnerable plants co-exist in nature with small, but well-protected ones (Nature, June 3rd 2010). In the course of evolution, plants have invented many ways to defend themselves against enemies. Some produce smelly or bad-tasting ingredients, others develop thorns or have a particular effective immune response to viruses and bacteria. If selection pressure is sufficiently high, one would thus expect only those individuals to survive that are best protected. Pathogens, in turn, should have a difficult time. Everybody knows that this is not the case. Indeed, plants vary tremendously in their ability to defend themselves, and this is true not only for different species, but also for members of the same species........> Full story

Genome of bacteria responsible for tuberculosis of olive tree sequenced

Wed, 02 Jun 2010 03:38:49 PDT

Researchers at the Public University of Navarra, the Polytechnic University of Madrid (CBGP), the University of Malaga, the University of Wisconsin and the Valencian Institute of Agricultural Research have managed to sequence the genome of the bacteria responsible for tuberculosis in the olive tree. The study, included in the June issue of Environmental Microbiology, represents the first sequencing of the genome of a pathogenic bacteria undertaken in Spain, being the first genome known worldwide of a pathogenic Pseudomonas in woody plants. The sequencing of the genome of this pathogen opens the doors to the identification of the genes responsible for the virulence of this bacteria and its survival on the philosphere (leaf surface), thus facilitating the design of specific strategies in the fight against the disease and enabling drawing up programmes for the genetic improvement of olive groves. Pseudomonas savastanoi is the agent that gives rise to tuberculosis in the olive tree, a disease that causes important losses in the olive crops in Spain. Trees affected present tumours (known as verrucas) that can grow to several centimetres diameter in trunks, branches, stalks and buds. Diseased trees are less robust and have less growth, to the point of being non-productive if the attack is very intense. To date, due to the absence of effective methods of control, preventive strategies have been carried out, reducing populations of bacteria with phytosanitary treatment.

New strategies

Plant diseases produced by pathogenic microorganisms not only reduce production but can also alter the quality of the food and drastically diminish the commercial value of the crops. The new strategies for disease control today involve the analysis of information contained in the genome of pathogenic organisms. Similar to what has happened with the human genome, this technology is generating a great amount of valuable information for the development of innovative technologies, that will enable identifying and controlling the pathogen as well as obtaining new varieties of the host plant that have greater resistance to the disease. Source

Rosewood trees face extinction amid Madagascar's chaos

Fri, 28 May 2010 03:21:50 PDT

Political and social chaos and a lack of international protections have put several species of rosewood trees in Madagascar in danger of becoming extinct from illegal logging, according to a policy forum paper in the latest issue of Science. "Forty-seven of Madagascar's 48 species of rosewood (Dalbergia) are found nowhere else in the world," said Duke University graduate student Meredith Barrett, the lead author on the May 27 article. Madagascar's military-backed change in leadership last year and a lucrative rosewood market based largely in China have created a dangerous situation for the endangered trees and the habitat that surrounds them, Barrett said. Duke researchers performed a sophisticated mapping and modeling study with the help of a French botanist to estimate historical and current distributions of the reddish hardwood, and to support their call for greater protections and enforcement. Barrett, whose dissertation research concerns the effects of human development on lemur health, has seen the illegal logging first-hand. "When we went there in October, it had become obvious that Madagascar's tourism had collapsed and that unrestricted logging was accelerating," she said. The market for lemur "bush meat" also has increased dramatically, particularly in the country's northeastern rainforests. Barrett and Duke Lemur Center director Anne Yoder, who is the senior author on the policy paper, hope they can call the international attention of scientists and conservation groups to protect the rosewood trees. Ideally, this would take the form of increased public pressure on the Malagasy government to step up enforcement and a formal listing under the Convention of International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), Barrett said. Brazilian rosewood gained CITES protection in 1992, which is believed to have put more pressure on the forests in Madagascar. The slow-growing rosewood trees are found in relative isolation from each other. They are too dense to float very well, so loggers will fell several trees along river banks to make skids and rafts for bringing the logs to market. Once the logs are floated and trucked to Malagasy ports, they are loaded onto container ships and hauled to China to make highly prized furniture and musical instruments. There are an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 metric tons of felled rosewood trees awaiting shipment from Madagascar's ports. The Malagasy logger who fells the tree is paid about 50 cents for "backbreaking work," Barrett said. A Chinese rosewood armoire retails for about $20,000. Enforcement of the Malagasy government's on-again, off-again policy against rosewood logging is pretty much nonexistent, Barrett said. Logging interests have threatened the safety of villages and at least one park office has been burned down. "If you protect the trees, you're also protecting habitat," Barrett said. "Seventy percent of Madagascar's species live in these forests."

Small mammals -- and rest of food chain -- at greater risk from global warming than thought

Mon, 24 May 2010 03:14:42 PDT

The balance of biodiversity within North American small-mammal communities is so out of whack from the last episode of global warming about 12,000 years ago that the current climate change could push them past a tipping point, with repercussions up and down the food chain, say Stanford biologists. The evidence lies in fossils spanning the last 20,000 years that the researchers excavated from a cave in Northern California. What they found is that although the small mammals in the area suffered no extinctions as a result of the warming that occurred at the end of the Pleistocene epoch, populations of most species nonetheless experienced a significant loss of numbers while one highly adaptable species – the deer mouse – thrived on the disruptions to the environment triggered by the changing climate. "If we only focus on extinction, we are not getting the whole story," said Jessica Blois, lead author of a paper detailing the study to be published online by Nature on May 23. "There was a 30 percent decline in biodiversity due to other types of changes in the small-mammal community." The double whammy of late Pleistocene warming, coupled with the coinciding arrival of humans on the North American continent, took a well-documented heavy toll on the large animals. Almost a third of the big, so-called "charismatic" animals – the ones with the most popular appeal for humans, such as mammoths and mastodons, dire wolves and short-faced bears – went extinct. But until now, little had been done to explore the effects of that climate shift on smaller fauna. "We were interested in the small animals because we wanted to know about the response of the survivors, the communities of animals that are still on the landscape with us today," said Elizabeth Hadly, professor of biology and a coauthor of the paper. "We focused not only on the Pleistocene transition, but also the last 10,000 or so years since then." Blois and Hadly excavated deposits in Samwell Cave, in the southern Cascades foothills. They also sampled the modern small-mammal community by doing some live trapping in the area of the cave. Blois was a graduate student in biology when they did the work and Hadly her adviser. Radiocarbon dating of the samples was done by Jenny McGuire, a graduate student at the University of California-Berkeley. The biggest change they saw in the fossil deposits was the manner in which different small-animal species were spread across the landscape. "In the Pleistocene, there were about as many gophers as there were voles as there were deer mice," Hadly said. "But as you move into the warming event, there is a really rapid reduction in how evenly these animals are distributed." Some species became extremely rare, others quite common. And the species that became king of the landscape – by virtue of its very commonness – was the deer mouse. "That is a pretty big, somewhat startling result," she said, noting that deer mice are so common in western landscapes that most people assume they have virtually always been so. "What these data tell us is that in the Pleistocene they were not dominant at all." Prior to this study, Hadly said most researchers would not have expected species that survived the warming to show any effects. After all, they survived. "What we are saying is there was a big effect," she said. And as some species such as deer mice flourished, many other species declined. "Local declines of species are the precursor of local extinction," said Rodolfo Dirzo, a biology professor at Stanford who was not involved in the study. Local population declines also imply disruption of the local ecosystem even without extinctions, he said. "Small mammals are so common, we often take them for granted," Blois said. "But they play important roles within ecosystems, in soil aeration and seed dispersal, for example, and as prey for larger animals." And different small mammals play those roles differently. "Deer mice just kind of eat everything, they live everywhere and they don't operate with the same complexity in an ecosystem that these other animals take as their roles," said Hadly. She said deer mice are considered a "weedy" species and, like the plants, don't have a strong habitat preference – they are generalists that will move in wherever there is an opening. When they replace other small-mammal species, the effects ripple through the ecosystem. Deer mice don't dig the elaborate deep burrows that gophers do, so the mice don't aerate soils as effectively. They also don't disperse seeds the same way as tree squirrels, the consummate hoarders – and forgetters – of seeds; each forgotten cache is another colonization opportunity for the trees. Nor do the nocturnal mice feed predators the same way as ground squirrels or chipmunks, which are active in the daytime. If those species are supplanted by deer mice, the change can affect the food supply of hawks and other creatures that feed in the daytime. "Even though all of the species survived, small-mammal communities as a whole lost a substantial amount of diversity, which may make them less resilient to future change," Blois said. And according to Hadly, an extraordinarily rapid change is looming. "The temperature change over the next hundred years is expected to be greater than the temperature that most of the mammals that are on the landscape have yet witnessed as a species," she said. "The small-mammal community that we have is really resilient, but it is headed toward a perturbation that is bigger than anything it has seen in the last million years."

Using remote sensing to track invasive trees

Sat, 22 May 2010 06:07:52 PDT

A team of Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists has refined remote sensing tools for identifying invasive Ashe juniper shrubs and trees in central Texas and nearby regions. These findings can help rangeland managers determine the extent and severity of Ashe juniper infestations and boost mitigation efforts. Over the past century, the expansion of Ashe juniper has reduced the production and diversity of other rangeland plant species. Because Ashe juniper has little nutritional value for grazing animals, the vegetative shift has also reduced forage options for livestock and wildlife. ARS agricultural engineer Chenghai Yang and rangeland scientist James Everitt evaluated remotely sensed data to pinpoint the most accurate “signal” for identifying Ashe juniper stands, which often grow within an assortment of other woodland plants. Yang and Everitt work at the ARS Kika de la Garza Subtropical Agricultural Research Center in Weslaco, Texas.......> Full story

Proteins in unroasted coffee beans may become next-generation insecticides

Fri, 21 May 2010 04:21:51 PDT

Scientists in Brazil are reporting for the first time that coffee beans contain proteins that can kill insects and might be developed into new insecticides for protecting food crops against destructive pests. Their study, which suggests a new use for one of the most important tropical crops in the world, appears in ACS' Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, a bi-weekly publication. Peas, beans and some other plant seeds contain proteins, called globulins, which ward off insects. Coffee beans contain large amounts of globulins, and Paulo Mazzafera and colleagues wondered whether those coffee proteins might also have an insecticidal effect. The high heat of roasting destroys globulins, so that they do not appear in brewed coffee. Their tests against cowpea weevil larva, insects used as models for studying the insecticidal activity of proteins, showed that tiny amounts of the coffee proteins quickly killed up to half of the insects. In the future, scientists could insert genes for these insect-killing proteins into important food crops, such as grains, so that plants produce their own insecticides, the researchers suggest. The proteins appear harmless to people.

New methods developed to detect, measure potato phytonutrients

Thu, 20 May 2010 03:22:32 PDT

Potatoes come in all shapes, sizes and colors-including tubers with red, yellow, orange and purple flesh. This diversity also applies to phytonutrients, Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists in Prosser, Wash., are discovering. Together with colleagues, they've devised new analytical procedures for rapidly detecting and measuring phytonutrient concentrations in the tubers. Phytonutrients are plant compounds that are of particular interest for their potential to help diminish the risk of cardiovascular disease, respiratory problems and certain cancers, note Roy Navarre and Chuck Brown, geneticists with the ARS Vegetable and Forage Crop Research Unit in Prosser. Using the new analytic methods, Navarre and Brown profiled the phytonutrient contents of several hundred lines of wild and cultivated potato. For example, their analysis of phytonutrients known as phenolics showed concentrations that ranged from 100 to more than 1,500 milligrams per 100 grams dry weight in the potatoes. One type of phenolic, called chlorogenic acid, is being tested by university cooperators for its potential to lower blood pressure. Also of interest are potatoes with high antioxidant activity, which is credited with helping neutralize cell-damaging molecules in the body called free radicals. Some potatoes boast antioxidant levels that rival vegetables such as spinach, Navarre reports. Read more about the phytonutrient studies, as well as other potato research being conducted by ARS scientists at other locations, in the May/June 2010 issue of Agricultural Research magazine. ARS is the principal intramural scientific research agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The research also supports the USDA priority of improving nutrition and health.

Protein power for Jack and the beanstalk

Tue, 18 May 2010 03:13:44 PDT

Plant geneticists are on a determined quest — to control auxin, a powerful plant growth hormone. Auxin tells plants how to grow, where to lay down roots, how to make tissues, and how to respond to light and gravity. Knowing how to manipulate auxin could thus have enormous implications for the production of biofuel, making plants grow faster and better.

A recent publication in the journal PLoS Biology from the laboratory of Prof. Shaul Yalovsky of Tel Aviv University's Molecular Biology and Ecology of Plants Department describes a special protein, the ICR1, found to control the way auxin moves throughout a plant affecting its development. When this protein is genetically engineered into valuable biofuel crops such as corn, sugarcane or experimentals like switchgrass, farmers can expect to get a far larger yield than what they harvest today, Prof. Yalovsky has found.

In short, much more biofuel for the buck.

"We've found a mechanism that helps the shoot and root talk to each other," says Prof. Yalovsky. "Somehow both parts of the plant need to speak to each other to say: 'Hey down there, I'm up here and there's lots of sun,' or 'I'm down here in the roots and it's too dry." The plant's shoots need to respond to its environment. We've discovered the mechanism that helps auxin do its job.".......> Full story

Growers can boost benefits of broccoli and tomatoes

Sun, 16 May 2010 04:19:11 PDT

A University of Illinois study has demonstrated that agronomic practices can greatly increase the cancer-preventive phytochemicals in broccoli and tomatoes. "We enriched preharvest broccoli with different bioactive components, then assessed the levels of cancer-fighting enzymes in rats that ate powders made from these crops," said Elizabeth Jeffery, a U of I professor of food science and human nutrition. The highest levels of detoxifying enzymes were found in rats that ate selenium-treated broccoli. The amount of one of the cancer-fighting compounds in broccoli was six times higher in selenium-enriched broccoli than in standard broccoli powder, she said. Selenium-treated broccoli was also most active in the liver, reaching a level of bioactivity that exceeded the other foods used in the experiment. "We were intrigued to find that selenium initiated this amount of bioactivity," she said. Along with garlic and other plants of the allium family, broccoli and other plants of the brassica family are unique in having a methylating enzyme that enables plants to store high concentrations of selenium, she said. "Our bodies need a certain amount of selenium, but many areas of the world, including parts of the United States and vast areas of China, have very little selenium in the soil," she said. "Not only could selenium in broccoli deliver this necessary mineral, it also appears to rev up the vegetable's cancer-fighting power," she added. Jeffery is now working to determine whether selenium compounds are directly responsible for the increase in bioactivity or if selenium acts indirectly by directing new synthesis of the broccoli bioactives called glucosinolates. In a previous study, Jeffery and U of I colleague John W. Erdman Jr. showed that tomato and broccoli powders eaten together are more effective in slowing prostate cancer in laboratory rats than either tomato or broccoli alone. In their current research, they are experimenting with ways to increase the bioactive components in these foods in order to test the efficacy of enriched broccoli and tomatoes in a new prostate cancer study. Rats were fed diets with food powders containing 10 percent of either standard broccoli; standard tomato; lycopene-enriched tomato; tomato enriched with lycopene and other carotenoids; broccoli sprouts, which contain very high levels of cancer-fighting compounds; or broccoli grown on soil treated with selenium. The scientists found that greater amounts of bioactive components in the food powders translated into increased levels of the compounds in body tissue and increased bioactivity in the animals. Carotenoid-enriched tomatoes produced more bioactivity in the liver than lycopene-enriched or standard tomatoes, yielding the most cancer-preventive benefits. "Carotenoids, which are phytochemical pigments found in fruits and vegetables, are thought to be excellent antioxidants and effective in cancer prevention," said Ann G. Liu, a U of I graduate student who worked on the study. "A good rule is: the brighter the color, the higher the carotenoid content. If you're growing or buying tomatoes, select plants or produce that are a very bright red. High-lycopene tomatoes are now available through garden catalogs," she added. "This research shows that you can greatly increase a food's bioactive benefits through normal farming practices, without resorting to genetic engineering. Farmers have traditionally been more concerned about yield than nutritional composition. Now we're asking, can we grow more nutritional broccoli and tomatoes? And the answer is a definite yes," said Jeffery.

Linnaeus 2.0: First E-publication of new plant species

Thu, 06 May 2010 03:43:19 PDT

Four new Neotropical plant species in the hyperdiverse genus Solanum (Solanaceae), which includes plants as diverse as the deadly nightshade as well as the more palatable tomato have been published in the open access online-only journal PLoS ONE by Dr. Sandra Knapp of the Natural History Museum, London. Although several thousand new plant species are described each year, this paper represents a botanical pioneer: it is the first to be published in an online-only journal whilst adhering to the strict botanical code that sets out how new species can be named. The naming of new taxa in plants is governed by the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature (ICBN), which has traditionally been thought to not allow publication of new names in anything other than print on paper. This article provides a solution to this conundrum by separating the printing process from the publisher and enabling the author to print their own copies and distribute them to relevant museums and institutions on the day of publication. As such, it is the first to effectively publish new plant names in an online-only journal while complying with the rules and recommendations of the ICBN. Because PLoS ONE is also an open-access journal, the article and the associated guidelines are freely available for the community to download and use as the 'type-specimen' for such a publication. Dr Knapp is a leading plant taxonomist, author of numerous books and a world authority on Solanaceae, the nightshade family which includes potatoes and tomatoes. She is well acquainted with the Codes of Nomenclature, of which the ICBN is one (the others govern cultivated plant, animals and bacterial names).......> Full story

How Grass Buffers Keep Agricultural Herbicides at Bay

Tue, 27 Apr 2010 03:51:51 PDT

2010-Grass buffer strips are commonly used in crop production to reduce herbicide runoff. These practices are encouraged through incentives, regulations or laws, and are effective at lowering herbicide concentration in runoff. However, subsurface filtration (under the buffer strips) is not as well documented, and neither are the effects of trees integrated into buffer strips with grasses. Understanding these effects is crucial as agriculture producers continue to adopt these strategies.

Researchers studied the impact of grass and grass/tree buffer strips on three herbicides commonly used in agriculture. The scientists studied the transport of the herbicides in both surface runoff and subsurface infiltration during two growing seasons.

Vegetative barriers reduce herbicide concentrations in runoff, but movement of herbicides through subsurface filtration actually increased. Total export of herbicides was reduced through the use of grass and grass/tree barriers. The research was conducted by Emmanuelle Caron, Pierre Lafrance, Jean-Christian Auclair of the University of Quebec, and Marc Duchemin of the Institute of Research and Development in Agri-Environment.

The results are reported in the March/April 2010 edition of the Journal of Environmental Quality, published by the American Society of Agronomy, the Crop Soil Science Society of America, and the Soil Science Society of America.......Read more

Micro-RNA Can Move, New Evidence in Plants Shows

Sun, 25 Apr 2010 04:41:20 PDT

Ever since tiny bits of genetic material known as microRNA were first characterized in the early 1990s, scientists have been discovering just how important they are to regulating the activity of genes within cells. A new study now shows that microRNAs don't just control the activity of genes within a given cell, they also can move from one cell to another to send signals that influence gene expression on a broader scale. Researchers at the Duke Institute for Genome Sciences & Policy (IGSP), in collaboration with groups at the Universities of Helsinki and Uppsala and the Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research at Cornell University, made the discovery while working out the intricate details of plant root development in Arabidopsis, a highly-studied mustard plant. Although they still don't know exactly how the microRNAs travel, it appears that this mobility allows them to play an important developmental role in sharpening the boundaries that define one plant tissue from another. "To our knowledge, this is the first solid evidence that microRNAs can move from one cell to another," said Philip Benfey, director of the Duke IGSP Center for Systems Biology.......> Full story

Plant growth aided by insect-feeding animals

Thu, 08 Apr 2010 03:29:02 PDT

Add insect-feeding birds, bats and lizards to the front lines of the battle against global climate change.

Summarizing the results of more than 100 experiments conducted on four continents, UC Irvine ecologist Kailen A. Mooney and colleagues found that these insect-gobbling animals increase plant growth by reducing the abundance of plant-feeding insects and the damage they do to the plant life that helps mitigate global warming. Our efforts solidify the importance of birds, bats, lizards and other similar animals to ecosystem health, and underscores the importance of conserving these species in the face of global change,” said Mooney, an assistant professor in ecology and evolutionary biology. The results come at a time when the importance of birds and other insectivores as plant protectors has come into doubt, Mooney added. Studies on bird, bat and lizard diets show they devour both plant-feeding insects and the spiders and other insect predators that eat plant feeders. Recognizing these complex feeding relationships, Mooney said it had become unclear whether animals like birds reduce plant-feeding insect populations, or whether they might in fact be protecting them from spiders and the like.......> Full story

Genetic key discovered to dramatically increase yields and improve taste of hybrid tomato plants

Wed, 07 Apr 2010 03:31:13 PDT

Spectacularly increased yields and improved taste have been achieved with hybrid tomato plants by researchers at the Robert H. Smith Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Environment at the Hebrew University and the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL), New York. The researchers have discovered the yield-boosting power of a single gene, which controls when plants make flowers and that works in different varieties of tomato and, crucially, across a range of environmental conditions. The discovery was patented by Yissum, the technology transfer arm of the Hebrew University, which is seeking potential partners for further development and commercialization. "This discovery has tremendous potential to transform both the billion-dollar tomato industry, as well as agricultural practices designed to get the most yield from other flowering crops," says CSHL's Dr. Zach Lippman, one of the three authors of the study, which appears in the magazine Nature Genetics online . The study is co-authored by Dr. Uri Krieger and Prof. Dani Zamir of the Hebrew University.......> Full story

Doubled haploid technology for quickly developing inbred corn lines offered at ISU

Tue, 06 Apr 2010 03:19:38 PDT

Agronomists at Iowa State University are offering doubled haploid technology that allows corn breeders to more quickly produce inbred lines for research or private use. Thomas Lübberstedt, associate professor and K.J. Frey chair in agronomy and director of the R.F. Baker Center for Plant Breeding, has launched a Doubled Haploid Facility at ISU that can develop pure, inbred corn lines in less time than traditional methods. Inbred corn lines have two copies of the same genome. They are sometimes called pure lines, because after self-pollination (same plant is both male and female) all offspring are identical to the parent plant. They are an exact replica of the single parent and are valuable for research or commercial use. These homozygous plants have two identical copies per gene, while heterozygous plants, such as hybrids, frequently have two different copies per gene.......> Full story

Longer-lasting flowers: Fresh ideas from ARS researchers

Sat, 03 Apr 2010 03:43:50 PDT

Tomorrow's fragrant bouquets and colorful potted plants might last longer, thanks to floriculture research by Agricultural Research Service (ARS) plant physiologist Cai-Zhong Jiang. His investigations might help boost the vase life of favorite cut flowers and shelf life of prized potted plants. Jiang is with the ARS Crops Pathology and Genetics Research Unit at Davis, Calif. He's collaborating with researchers from the University of California-Davis (UCD) and elsewhere. In ongoing studies, Jiang, UCD colleague Michael S. Reid and co-researchers have shown that spraying low concentrations of a compound known as thidiazuron (TDZ) has significant, sometimes spectacular effects in extending the life of potted plants' leaves and flowers. For example, in tests with greenhouse-grown cyclamen plants, TDZ-treated plants had a significantly longer life than did unsprayed plants, according to Jiang. Leaves of TDZ-treated cyclamen plants took longer to yellow and fall off than those of untreated plants.......> Full story

Biologists discover an on/off button on plants' alarm system

Fri, 02 Apr 2010 04:52:05 PDT

Plants respond to attacks by herbivores or pathogens by activating defense programs that drive off or even kill the attackers. These defense responses require a great deal of the plant's energy and reserves, which would otherwise be invested in growth and reproduction. So, it's very important to strictly control the activity of defense genes. Hormones, such as the jasmonates, are crucial in this process – and the plant produces these hormones when subjected to stress conditions. The presence of the jasmonates sets a complex chain reaction in motion, starting with the degradation of the so-called JAZ proteins. This in turn frees up another protein (MYC2), which is the signal for launching the genetic defense programs and stopping the plant's growth. The presence of the JAZ proteins keeps the defense mechanism 'turned off'. Until now, it has been unclear how the JAZ proteins are able to block the MYC2 protein's activity.......> Full story

Peach DNA unraveled: Clemson University plays major role

Fri, 02 Apr 2010 04:37:07 PDT

As peach trees go, it doesn’t look much different from its kin at the Clemson University Musser Fruit Research Farm, but appearances can be deceiving. This one, a Lovell variety, has a unique genetic characteristic that made it a standout in the orchard. Its DNA — its genetic set of instructions for living — has been sequenced by scientists, enabling further research to identify beneficial traits to grow better trees and fruit. The tree’s DNA sequence is being published worldwide April 1, opening a new era in fruit-tree research that could have far-reaching implications for the future of peaches, as well as many other valuable plants. The research is available online at http://www.peachgenome.org. This genome sequence is the culmination of an extensive research program pioneered at Clemson University under the leadership of Albert “Bert” Abbott, who holds the Robert and Lois Coker Trustees Chair in Molecular Genetics and is a professor in the genetics and biochemistry department. The research goal is to establish the peach as a model tree genome for identifying and understanding genes that are critical for deciduous tree growth and development.......> Full story

Proteins in unroasted coffee beans may become next-generation insecticides

Thu, 01 Apr 2010 03:33:35 PDT

Model predicts shifts in carbon absorption by forest canopies

Thu, 01 Apr 2010 03:28:52 PDT

An Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientist participated in a project to fine-tune computer models that can indicate when forest "carbon sinks" become net carbon generators instead. The results will help pinpoint the effectiveness of trees in offsetting carbon releases that contribute to higher atmospheric temperatures and global climate change. ARS plant physiologist Erik Hamerlynck teamed up with Rutgers University biologist Karina Schafer and U.S. Forest Service colleagues Kenneth Clark and Nicholas Skowronski to calibrate the Canopy Conductance Constrained Carbon Assimilation (4C-A) model, a computer program that generates carbon balance estimates for tree canopies. Hamerlynck works at the ARS Southwest Watershed Research Center in Tucson, Ariz. In the summer of 2006, the team measured tree sap flow and leaf-level photosynthetic gas exchange at different canopy levels in a stand of oaks and pines in the New Jersey Pine Barrens. These data were used to calibrate the 4C-A model to simulate the amount of carbon the tree canopy absorbs and releases into the atmosphere via photosynthesis and respiration.......> Full story

Second plant pathway could improve nutrition, biofuel production

Thu, 01 Apr 2010 03:24:56 PDT

Purdue University scientists have defined a hidden second option plants have for making an essential amino acid that could be the first step in boosting plants' nutritional value and improving biofuel production potential. The amino acid phenylalanine is required to build proteins and is a precursor for more than 8,000 other compounds essential to plants, including lignin, which allows plants to stand upright but acts as a barrier in the production of cellulosic ethanol. It had been believed that plants could use two pathways to create phenylalanine. Natalia Dudareva, a professor of horticulture, and Hiroshi Maeda, a postdoctoral researcher in Dudareva's laboratory, have confirmed that while plants predominantly use one pathway, they have another at their disposal. The existence of this second pathway might one day allow scientists to increase a plant's production of the essential amino acid. Their research was published in the early online version of the journal Plant Cell.......> Full story

Fabled 'vegetable lamb' plant contains potential treatment for osteoporosis

Thu, 01 Apr 2010 03:22:42 PDT

The "vegetable lamb" plant — once believed to bear fruit that ripened into a living baby sheep — produces substances that show promise in laboratory experiments as new treatments for osteoporosis, the bone-thinning disease. That's the conclusion of a new study in ACS' monthly Journal of Natural Products. Young Ho Kim and colleagues point out that osteoporosis is a global health problem, affecting up to 6 million women and 2 million men in the United States alone. Doctors know that the secret to strong bones involves a delicate balance between two types of bone cells: Osteoblasts, which build up bone, and osteoclasts, which break down bone. Seeking potential medications that might tip the balance in favor of bone building, the researchers turned to the "vegetable lamb" plant as part of a larger study plants used in folk medicine in Vietnam.......> Full story

The forests of the Basque Autonomous Community are progressing

Tue, 30 Mar 2010 03:37:06 PDT

Ecosystems are essential for preserving the quality of life of human beings, and society should be aware of this, according to Ms Miren Onaindia, biologist and person responsible for the Forest Ecology and Natural Resources research team at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU). This group has been investigating the woods and forest of the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country (CAV-EAE) for twenty years now. In recent times they have focused on evaluating the situation of ecosystems, concentrating on biodiversity. “If trees are healthy then the mountains are protected. The soil maintains itself in a good state and this protects from erosion, in case of floods”. With this simple example, Ms Onaindia explained why it is so important that society as a whole maintains ecosystems in an optimum state. Ms Onaindia and six other members of the Department of Plant Biology and Ecology make up this working group devoted to examining forests, currently focused on evaluating the ecosystems of the CAV-EAE. With this goal, they analyse plants indicative of the biodiversity and the internal structure in each forest investigated. “Some species have the ability to indicate that a forest is in a good state and other, on the other hand, that the woodland is degrading”, explained Ms Onaindia.......> Full story

Single gene dramatically boosts yield, sweetness in tomato hybrids, CSHL-Israeli study finds

Mon, 29 Mar 2010 03:34:36 PDT

Giving tomato breeders and ketchup fans something to cheer about, a Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) scientist and his colleagues at the Hebrew University in Israel have identified a gene that pushes hybrid tomato plants to spectacularly increase yield. The yield-boosting power of this gene, which controls when plants make flowers, works in different varieties of tomato, and crucially, across a range of environmental conditions. "This discovery has potential to have a significant impact on both the billion-dollar tomato industry, as well as agricultural practices designed to get the most yield from other flowering crops," says CSHL's Zach Lippman, Ph.D., one of the three authors on the study, which appears in the journal Nature Genetics online on March 28th. The study is co-authored by Israeli scientists Uri Krieger and Professor Dani Zamir. The team made the discovery while hunting for genes that boost hybrid vigor, a revolutionary breeding principle that spurred the production of blockbuster hybrid crops like corn and rice a century ago. Hybrid vigor, also known as heterosis, is the miraculous phenomenon by which intercrossing two varieties of plants produces more vigorous hybrid offspring with higher yields. First observed by Charles Darwin in 1876, heterosis was rediscovered by CSHL corn geneticist George Shull 30 years later, but how heterosis works has remained a mystery........> Full story

Fast plant growth or pest defense, but not both

Fri, 26 Mar 2010 03:46:59 PDT

There's a war occurring each day in our backyards — plant versus plant-eating insect versus insect-eating insect. Research by UC Irvine's Kailen Mooney suggests the outcome — of interest to farmers — is a stalemate. For a study published online Friday (March 26) in the journal Science, Mooney and colleagues studied 16 species of milkweed, a group of flowering plants found throughout the Western hemisphere. The scientists sought to determine the relationship among plant growth, how plants defend themselves against plant-eaters (with thorns and toxins, for example) and the protection plants receive from predators such as ladybugs that eat plant-hungry insects. The herbivores — in this case bright yellow aphids — damage plants; ladybugs can act as bodyguards, helping plants by eating aphids. The researchers asked: Can plants have it all? Can they grow quickly and defend themselves against herbivores while at the same time solicit protection from ladybugs and other bodyguards?......> Full story

Chance discovery leads to plant breeding breakthrough

Thu, 25 Mar 2010 03:51:54 PDT

A reliable method for producing plants that carry genetic material from only one of their parents has been discovered by plant biologists at UC Davis. The technique, to be published March 25 in the journal Nature, could dramatically speed up the breeding of crop plants for desirable traits.The discovery came out of a chance observation in the lab that could easily have been written off as an error. "We were doing completely 'blue skies' research, and we discovered something that is immediately useful," said Simon Chan, assistant professor of plant biology at UC Davis and co-author on the paper. Like most organisms that reproduce through sex, plants have paired chromosomes, with each parent contributing one chromosome to each pair. Plants and animals with paired chromosomes are called diploid. Their eggs and sperm are haploid, containing only one chromosome from each pair.......> Full story

Global warming threatens plant diversity

Wed, 24 Mar 2010 03:43:51 PDT

In the coming decades, climate change is set to produce worldwide changes in the living conditions for plants, whereby major regional differences may be expected to occur. Thus today´s cool, moist regions could in future provide habitats for additional species, and in arid and hot regions the climatic prerequisites for a high degree of plant diversity will deteriorate. This is the conclusion reached in a new study by scientists at the Universities of Bonn, Göttingen and Yale, and published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society London. The study was funded by the Academy of Sciences and Literature Mainz and the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF). Dr. Jan Henning Sommer of Bonn University´s Nees Institute for Biodiversity of Plants asserts, "climate change could bring great confusion to the existing pattern of plant diversity, with scarcely predictable consequences for our ecosystems and mankind". The potential impact of climate change on global plant diversity has now, for the first time, been quantified and modeled on a regional basis.......> Full story

Bringing better grapes a step closer to reality

Wed, 24 Mar 2010 03:32:54 PDT

Grapes are one of the world's most economically important fruit crops, but the woody perennial takes three years to go from seed to fruit, and that makes traditional breeding expensive and time-consuming. A team of Agricultural Research Service (ARS) researchers has found a way to speed things up by developing a way to identify genetic markers in the grapevine's genome that can be linked with specific traits, such as fruit quality, environmental adaptation, and disease and pest resistance. Computational biologist Doreen Ware, geneticists Edward Buckler and Charles Simon, and research leader Gan-Yuan Zhong have developed a relatively fast and inexpensive way to identify genetic markers not only in grapes, but also in other crops by using modern sequencing approaches. Ware and Buckler work at the ARS Robert W. Holley Center for Agriculture and Health in Ithaca, N.Y.; Simon works at the ARS Plant Genetic Resources Unit at Geneva, N.Y., and Zhong is at the ARS Grape Genetics Research Unit, also at Geneva.......> Full story

A sweet problem: Princeton researchers find that high-fructose corn syrup prompts considerably more weight gain

Tue, 23 Mar 2010 03:18:47 PDT

A Princeton University research team has demonstrated that all sweeteners are not equal when it comes to weight gain: Rats with access to high-fructose corn syrup gained significantly more weight than those with access to table sugar, even when their overall caloric intake was the same. In addition to causing significant weight gain in lab animals, long-term consumption of high-fructose corn syrup also led to abnormal increases in body fat, especially in the abdomen, and a rise in circulating blood fats called triglycerides. The researchers say the work sheds light on the factors contributing to obesity trends in the United States. "Some people have claimed that high-fructose corn syrup is no different than other sweeteners when it comes to weight gain and obesity, but our results make it clear that this just isn't true, at least under the conditions of our tests," said psychology professor Bart Hoebel, who specializes in the neuroscience of appetite, weight and sugar addiction. "When rats are drinking high-fructose corn syrup at levels well below those in soda pop, they're becoming obese -- every single one, across the board. Even when rats are fed a high-fat diet, you don't see this; they don't all gain extra weight.".......> Full story

URI pharmacy researcher finds beneficial compounds in pure maple syrup

Mon, 22 Mar 2010 03:29:16 PDT

Before you dig in to your next stack of French toast or waffles, you might want to pour on pure maple syrup. That's because University of Rhode Island researcher Navindra Seeram, who specializes in medicinal plant research, has found more than 20 compounds in maple syrup from Canada that have been linked to human health, 13 of which are newly discovered in maple syrup. In addition, eight of the compounds have been found in the Acer (maple) family for the first time. The URI assistant professor of biomedical and pharmaceutical sciences in URI's College of Pharmacy presented his findings Sunday, March 21 at the American Chemical Society's Annual Meeting in San Francisco. The project was made possible by Conseil pour le développement de l'agriculture du Québec (CDAQ), with funding provided by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada's Advancing Canadian Agriculture and Agri-Food (ACAAF) program.......> Full story

Microscopic photography reveals bacteria destroying cell wall in wine grape vines

Tue, 16 Mar 2010 03:23:49 PDT

Like a band of detectives surveying the movement of a criminal, researchers using photographic technology have caught at least one culprit in the act. In this case, electron microscopy was used to watch a deadly bacteria breakdown cell walls in wine grape plants – an image that previously had not been witnessed. The study will be published in Botany. "Basically, we've been interested in determining how the bacteria moves," said Dr. B. Greg Cobb, Texas AgriLife Research plant physiologist in College Station. "How do they go from one part of the plant to another?" The death of wine grape plants from Pierce's Disease is a serious threat to wineries from Texas to California, Cobb noted, and no one has been able to stop or reverse the effects of the bacteria that is injected into the vines by an insect known as the glassy-winged sharpshooter.......> Full story

New defenses deployed against plant diseases

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 03:51:45 PDT

An international team led by scientists at the Sainsbury Laboratory in Norwich,UK, have transferred broad spectrum resistance against some important plant diseases across different plant families. This breakthrough provides a new way to produce crops with sustainable resistance to economically important diseases. Food insecurity is driving the search for ways to increase the amount of food we grow, whilst at the same time reducing unsustainable agricultural inputs. One way to do this is to increase the innate ability of crops to fight off disease-causing pathogens. Increased disease resistance would reduce yield losses as well as reduce the need for pesticide spraying.......> Full story

Plant hormone increases cotton yields in drought conditions

Thu, 11 Mar 2010 03:31:36 PDT

A naturally occurring class of plant hormones called cytokinins has been found to help increase cotton yields during drought conditions, according to Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists. Cytokinins promote cell division and growth in plants. In cotton, cytokinins stimulate the growth of the main plant stem and branches. Commercially produced cytokinins are routinely applied in apple and pistachio orchards to promote fruit growth. John Burke, director of the ARS Cropping Systems Research Laboratory in Lubbock, Texas, found that applying cytokinins to cotton crops can increase yields in water-limited environments with reduced irrigation or no irrigation. Burke was granted a patent for his discovery.......> Full story

Asexual plant reproduction may seed new approach for agriculture

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 03:27:00 PDT

Farmers throughout the world spend an estimated $36 billion a year to buy seeds for crops, especially those with sought after traits such as hardiness and pest-resistance. They can't grow these seeds themselves because the very act of sexual reproduction erases many of those carefully selected traits. So year after year, farmers must purchase new supplies of specially-produced seeds. This problem is sidestepped by some plants—such as dandelions and poplar trees—that reproduce asexually by essentially cloning themselves. Jean-Philippe Vielle-Calzada, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) international research scholar, wondered whether he could learn enough about the genetics of asexual reproduction to apply it to plants that produce sexually. In an advance online publication in Nature on March 7, 2010, Vielle-Calzada and his colleagues report that they have moved a step closer to turning sexually-reproducing plants into asexual reproducers, a finding that could have profound implications for agriculture........> Full story

Study shows woody plant encroachment has increased stream flow in the Edwards Plateau

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 03:44:33 PDT

A new study by Texas AgriLife Research scientists finds that contrary to widespread perceptions, springs in the Edwards Plateau, which provide much of the stream flows, have not been declining as a result of increased encroachment of woody plants. In fact, spring flows are twice as high as they were prior to 1950. The study found that the landscape is actually recovering from intensive livestock grazing in Texas that dates back to the late 1800s. Large numbers of cattle, sheep and goats continuously grazing rangelands led to widespread soil degradation, partly hindering the amount of water recharging springs and groundwater, said Dr. Bradford Wilcox, a professor in the Department of Ecosystems Science and Management at Texas A&M University and one of the authors of the study, which is to be published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, a publication of the American Geophysical Union.......> Full story

A new energy source from the common pea

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 03:41:21 PDT

If harnessing the unlimited solar power of the sun were easy, we wouldn't still have the greenhouse gas problem that results from the use of fossil fuel. And while solar energy systems work moderately well in hot desert climates, they are still inefficient and contribute only a small percentage of the general energy demand. A new solution may be coming from an unexpected source — a source that may be on your dinner plate tonight. "Looking at the most complicated membrane structure found in a plant, we deciphered a complex membrane protein structure which is the core of our new proposed model for developing 'green' energy," says structural biologist Prof. Nathan Nelson of Tel Aviv University's Department of Biochemistry. Isolating the minute crystals of the PSI super complex from the pea plant, Prof. Nelson suggests these crystals can be illuminated and used as small battery chargers or form the core of more efficient man-made solar cells........> Full story