August 31, 2007, 5:03 AM CT

Sustainability Of The Bioeconomy

This spring farmers responded to the ethanol industry's demand for grain by increasing their corn acreage by 19 percent over last year, as per U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates.

What if that happens again next year?

What if farmers decide against crop rotations and plant corn on the same fields, year after year? Or, what if farmers begin growing biomass crops such as switchgrass for the production of ethanol from plant fiber?.

Will soil lose fertility? Will erosion increase? Will the amount of energy needed to produce biofuels go up or down? Will farm income increase or decrease?.

Will the bioeconomy be sustainable?

Robert Anex, an Iowa State associate professor of agricultural and biosystems engineering and associate director of Iowa State's Office of Biorenewables Programs, is working to answer those and other questions about the transition to an agriculture that produces biomass as well as food and fiber.

One answer is that American agriculture is likely to change.

"It may well be that the development of biomass-based crops production systems can have as profound an impact on agriculture and its environmental footprint as it does on energy security and the global climate," Anex and co-authors Andrew Heggenstaller and Matt Liebman of Iowa State's agronomy department and Lee Lynd and Mark Laser of Dartmouth College wrote in a recent paper. "Whether this is a positive impact or a negative impact will depend largely on how biomass feedstocks are produced and converted, and the extent to which these two activities are integrated"......... Posted by: Erica      Read more         Source

August 31, 2007, 4:56 AM CT

Small animal imaging facility is big boon

When powerful magnets line up the bodys protons before radiofrequency waves can grab their attention away, its called spin physics.

When signals generated by the movement are mathematically transformed into dramatic images of hearts, lungs and other organs its called a magnetic resonance image.

Protons normally would be pointing in many different directions, says Dr. Tom Hu, director of the Small Animal Imaging Program at the Medical College of Georgia. But if you put an object in the MRI, the magnet will line up the protons and what that does is generate the original, steady state. Then, by applying different radio frequencies, pretty much like what you do with a car antenna, you can pursue radio frequencies to perturb the system and you pretty much listen to it.

When Dr. Hu, a biochemist and biophysicist, tunes in he sees how calcium moves in and out of heart cells as the heart contracts and relaxes and how that movement doesnt work so well in heart failure, a condition resulting in oversized hearts with difficulty beating.

Hes looking at whether the metallic manganese ion, which can travel in the same circles as calcium, can enhance the signal and subsequent images he gets of how calcium cant get back into cells after a heart attack. Once its disturbed, the cells die and the myocardium dies and you have scar formation, says Dr. Hu whose ultimate goals include better ways to diagnose and treat heart failure, an increasingly common problem in the United States where improved cardiac treatment means many people are living with their heart disease. Not only can you look at a living organ, you can also study the molecular aspects of this like the calcium ion, says Dr. Hu who came to MCG in 2005 to start the Small Imaging Program in support of research initiatives, such as his, that have clinical promise......... Posted by: Kelly      Read more         Source

August 29, 2007, 9:48 PM CT

Researchers find new taste in fruit flies

That fruit fly hovering over your kitchen counter may be attracted to more than the bananas that are going brown; it may also want a sip of your carbonated water. Fruit flies detect and are attracted to the taste of carbon dioxide dissolved in water, such as water found on rotting fruits containing yeast, concludes a study appearing in the August 30 issue of the journal Nature. Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, who conducted the study, suggest that the ability to taste carbon dioxide may help a fruit fly scout for food that is nutritious over that which is too ripe and potentially toxic. The research is partly funded by the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD), one of the National Institutes of Health.

Fruit flies contain similar versions of a number of human genes, which is why we study them for a variety of health issues, including taste, says James F. Battey, Jr., M.D., Ph.D., director of the NIDCD. This research raises the question of whether people also may have the ability to taste carbon dioxide and perhaps other chemicals in food. If this were found to be true, our sense of taste could be even more complex than we realize. Currently, researchers recognize five tastes in humans: sweet, salty, bitter, sour, and umami, or savory. Before todays findings, fruit flies were known to be able to taste sweet, bitter, and salty......... Posted by: Kelly      Read more         Source

August 28, 2007, 9:21 PM CT

'Mighty mice' made mightier

The Johns Hopkins scientist who first showed that the absence of the protein myostatin leads to oversized muscles in mice and men has now found a second protein, follistatin, whose overproduction in mice lacking myostatin doubles the muscle-building effect.

Results of Se-Jin Lees new study, appearing on August 29 in the online, open-access journal PLoS ONE, show that while mice that lack the gene that makes myostatin have roughly twice the amount of body muscle as normal, mice without myostatin that also overproduce follistatin have about four times as much muscle as normal mice.

Lee, M.D., Ph.D., a professor of molecular biology and genetics, says that this added muscle increase could significantly boost research efforts to beef up livestock or promote muscle growth in patients with muscular dystrophy and other wasting diseases.

Specifically, Lee first discovered that follistatin was capable of blocking myostatin activity in muscle cells grown under lab conditions. When he gave it to normal mice, the rodents bulked up, just as would happen if the myostatin gene in these animals was turned off.

He then genetically engineered a mouse that both lacked myostatin and made extra follistatin. If follistatin was increasing muscle growth solely by blocking myostatin, then Lee surmised that follistatin would have no added effect in the absence of myostatin......... Posted by: Kelly      Read more         Source

August 28, 2007, 9:03 PM CT

Low oxygen in coastal waters impairs fish reproduction

TexasLow oxygen levels in coastal waters interfere with fish reproduction by disrupting the fishes hormones, a marine scientist from The University of Texas at Austin Marine Science Institute has found.

Incidents of seasonal low levels of oxygen, known as hypoxia, have increased dramatically in coastal waters throughout the world over the past few decades, largely as a result of increased run-off from human agricultural and industrial activities. Hypoxias long-term impact on marine animal populations is unknown.

Dr. Peter Thomas observed that both male and female fish collected from seasonally hypoxic waters in Floridas Pensacola Bay estuaries had little ovarian and testicular growth, low egg and sperm production, and low levels of reproductive hormones during a time a year when they would normally be increasing in preparation for reproduction.

This study provides the first clear evidence that a wild population of estuarine fish has experienced reproductive impairment through hypoxia, said Thomas, professor of marine science. We rarely find such a dramatic reproductive impairment in both male and female fish collected from degraded environments, such as those contaminated with pollutants.

Thomas research was published online this week in Proceedings of the Royal Society B......... Posted by: Kelly      Read more         Source

August 25, 2007, 7:21 AM CT

Monkeys use 'baby talk' to interact with infants

In order to determine if other primates also use special vocalizations while interacting with infants, scientists studied a group of free-ranging rhesus macaques, which live on an island off the coast of Puerto Rico. They studied the vocalizations exchanged between adult females and observed that grunts and girneys increased dramatically when a baby was present. They also observed that when a baby wandered away from its mother, the other females looked at the baby and vocalized, suggesting that the call was intended for the baby.

Adult females become highly aroused while observing the infants of other group members, explains lead author of the article, Jessica Whitham, a recent Ph.D. graduate of the University of Chicago, who investigated this topic as a doctoral student at the University and currently works at Brookfield Zoo near Chicago. While intently watching infants, females excitedly wag their tails and emit long strings of grunts and girneys.

The calls appear to be used to elicit infants attention and encourage their behavior. They also have the effect of increasing social tolerance in the mother and facilitating the interactions between females with babies in general. Thus, the attraction to other females infants results in a relatively relaxed context of interaction where the main focus of attention is the baby, Maestripieri and colleagues write in the article, Intended Receivers and Functional Significance of Grunt and Girney Vocalizations in Free-Ranging Rhesus Macaques reported in the current issue of the journal Ethology. In addition to Whitham and Maestripieri, Dr. Melissa Gerald, a researcher at the University of Puerto Rico, was also a co-author......... Posted by: Kelly      Read more         Source

August 25, 2007, 7:11 AM CT

Giant panda can survive

The giant panda is not at an evolutionary dead end and could have a long term viable future, as per new research involving researchers from Cardiff University.

Prior studies have observed that the giant pandas isolation, unusual dietary requirements and slow reproductive rates have led to a lack of genetic diversity that will inevitably lead the species to extinction.

Now a study by Professor Michael Bruford and Dr Benot Goossens from the School of Biosciences, in collaboration with Professor Fuwen Wei and his colleagues from the Institute of Zoology along with the China West Normal University in Sichuan, has observed that the decline of the species can be linked directly to human activities rather than a genetic inability to adapt and evolve.

Our research challenges the hypothesis that giant pandas are at an evolutionary dead end said Professor Bruford. It is however clear that the species has suffered demographically at the hands of human activities such as deforestation and poaching.

The study gives a new genetic perspective on the giant panda, as well as tracing its demographic history. The research also shows that in areas where habit conservation projects are in place, the giant panda is flourishing and population numbers are increasing......... Posted by: Kelly      Read more         Source

August 25, 2007, 6:21 AM CT

Does a summertime baby mean a myopic child?

Planning for a summer delivery for your child? You might want to choose an ophthalmologist along with an obstetrician.

If your child is born in the winter or fall, it will have better long-range eyesight throughout its lifetime and less chance of requiring thick corrective glasses, predicts a Tel Aviv University investigation led by Dr. Yossi Mandel, a senior ophthalmologist in the Israel Defense Forces Medical Corps.

Forming a large multi-center Israeli team, the researchers took data on Israeli youth aged 16-23 and retroactively correlated the occurence rate of myopia (short-sightedness) with their month of birth. The results were astonishing. Babies born in June and July had a 24% greater chance of becoming severely myopic than those born in December and January the group with the least number of severely myopic individuals. The researchers say that this evidence is likely applicable to babies born anywhere in the world.

The results of the study were published this month in the clinical eye journal Ophthalmology. The team interpolated data from a sample size of almost 300,000 young adults, making it one of the largest epidemiological surveys carried out in the world on any subject.

Is this great disparity in eyesight correlation to one's luck or astrological sign? "Nonsense," balks co-author of study Prof. Michael Belkin of Tel Aviv University's Goldschleger Eye Research Institute, the most prominent eye research organization in Israel and the region. Belkin is also Incumbent to the Fox Chair of Ophthalmology and one of the founders and first director of the Goldschleger Institute, established more than 25 years ago at the Sheba Medical Center. In November Prof. Belkin will attend the annual American Academy of Ophthalmology conference in New Orleans, La......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

August 25, 2007, 6:19 AM CT

Social parasites of the smaller kind

Cooperation is widespread in the natural world but so too are cheats mutants that do not contribute to the collective good but simply reap the benefits of others cooperative efforts. In evolutionary terms, cheats should indeed prosper, so how cooperation persists despite the threat of cheat takeover is a fundamental question. Recently, biologists at the Universities of Edinburgh and Oxford have observed that in bacteria, cheats actually orchestrate their own downfall.

In the study, published in the recent issue of The American Naturalist, the team explored the impact of cheats in populations of the notorious pathogen, Pseudomonas aeruginosa. These bacteria cooperate to scavenge iron from their environment, but mutant cheats do not contribute their fair share of scavenger molecules and instead simply steal the iron supplies of others.

Cheats are kept in check by simple frequency dependence, says Adin Ross-Gillespie, lead author of the study. When rare, cheats prosper at the expense of cooperators, but as they become more common, the profitability of their strategy declines. At equilibrium, neither strategy has the upper hand, so the two coexist.

But, the authors note, this pattern arises only under certain conditions. In this case, it arose because population productivity, too, was sensitive to the frequency of cheats. Cultures with few cheats grew rapidly and achieved larger absolute sizes in the time available, providing greater opportunity for cheats to exploit the situation. Meanwhile, cultures comprising high proportions of cheats grew poorly. Too a number of cheats spoil the broth, quips Ross-Gillespie......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

August 23, 2007, 10:34 PM CT

Condition of bluefin tuna in gulf of maine is declining

The quality of giant bluefin tuna caught in the Gulf of Maine has declined significantly since the early part of 1990s, scientists at the University of New Hampshire have found by analyzing detailed logbooks from a commercial tuna grader at the Yankee Fishermans Co-op. The findings, published this week in Fishery Bulletin, indicate potential changes in food sources, shifts in reproductive or migratory patterns, or the impact of fishing may be the cause of this decline.

Walter Golet, a Ph.D. candidate in UNHs Large Pelagics Research Lab, along with UNH research assistant professor Andy Cooper and Large Pelagics Lab director Molly Lutcavage, partnered with veteran tuna grader Robert Campbell at the Yankee Fishermans Co-op in Seakbrook, N.H. to analyze the quality of 3,082 Atlantic bluefin tuna (Thunnus thynnus). In a drawer, he had two or three notebooks with every fish he graded in the last 14 years, from 1991 2004, says Golet. Golets findings corroborated observations by fishermen, brokers and cooperative managers: Not only is the number of giant bluefin in the Gulf of Maine declining, the condition of those fish caught is of much lower quality.

Specifically, Golet and co-authors analyzed the fat and oil content and shape of the tuna. Fat content is in high demand for the market, because thats what makes the meat taste good, he says, noting that fish with well-marbled tail meat, fat in their mid-section muscle and belly, and a rotund shape can command upwards of $50 per pound on the sushi market......... Posted by: Kelly      Read more         Source