March 22, 2009, 9:43 PM CT

Garden pea may help fight high blood pressure

Scientists in Canada are reporting that proteins found in a common garden pea show promise as a natural food additive or new dietary supplement for fighting hypertension and chronic kidney disease (CKD). Those potentially life-threatening conditions affect millions of people worldwide.

The study, which will be presented here today at the American Chemical Society's 237th National Meeting, is the first reporting that a natural food product can relieve symptoms of CKD, the researchers say.

Peas long have been recognized as nutritional superstars, with healthful amounts of protein, dietary fiber, and vitamins wrapped in a low-fat, cholesterol-free package. The new research focuses on the yellow garden pea, one of the majorstay pea variety enjoyed as a veggie side-dish and used as an ingredient in dozens of recipes around the world.

"In people with high blood pressure, our protein could potentially delay or prevent the onset of kidney damage," says study presenter Rotimi Aluko, Ph.D., a food chemist at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada. "In people who already have kidney disease, our protein may help them maintain normal blood pressure levels so they can live longer."

High blood pressure, or hypertension, is a major risk factor for CKD, a condition that has been affecting an increasing number of people in the United States and other countries. Estimates suggest that 13 percent of American adults about 26 million people have chronic kidney disease, up from 10 percent, or about 20 million people, in the 1990s. CKD is difficult to treat, and may progress to end-stage kidney disease that requires kidney dialysis or a kidney transplant. That situation is fostering a search for new ways of treating CKD and preserving kidney function......... Posted by: Erica      Read more         Source

March 22, 2009, 9:41 PM CT

Low-cost DNA sequencing

A ghostly property of matter, called quantum tunneling, may aid the quest for accurate, low-cost genomic sequencing, as per a new paper in Nature Nanotechnology Letters by Stuart Lindsay and his collaborators at the Biodesign Institute of Arizona State University. Tunneling implies that a particle, say an electron, can cross a barrier, when, as per classical physics, it does not have enough energy to do so.

Unraveling the DNA sequences of the human genome a decade ago was a remarkable achievement. Today, the task of sequencing some 3 billion chemical base pairs of the genomeenough information to fill a 20-volume encyclopediaremains a daunting challenge, thus far accomplished largely through brute force means. Such methods are typically slow and extravagantly expensive, (though costs have dropped considerably from the initial sequencing of the human genome, which took 11 years at a cost of $1 billion.).

Bringing the power of DNA sequencing to every individual will require new, affordable technologies to help mine the wealth of information DNA can provide concerning morphology, hereditary traits and predisposition to disease.

Various techniques for sequencing DNA have been used to determine the identities of the four nucleotide basesadenine, thymine, cytosine and guaninewhich make up the ladder rungs of the DNA's double helical structure. Most of these require snipping DNA into hundreds of thousands of short fragments, unzipping the helix and reading a few hundred to a few thousand bases at a time. Finally, all of the information from the DNA pieces is reassembled into a picture of the complete genome, with the help of massive computing power......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

March 16, 2009, 8:21 PM CT

Historical Increase in Corn Yield

One of the most significant developments in agricultural growth in modern times has been the continuous and substantial increase in corn yield over the past 80 years in the U.S. Corn Belt.

This extraordinary yield advance has been linked to both breeding of improved hybrids and the ability to grow them at increased density. In a newly released study, reported in the January-recent issue of Crop Science, scientists have investigated the importance of the effects of leaves and roots on this dramatic increase in yield in the U.S. Corn Belt, and have observed that the root structure appears to be the key to understanding how these crops have grown so efficient.

One associated change in the traits of these corn crops has been a more erect leaf angle, which is known to create greater efficiency in converting incident light to biomass. Over the years, detailed studies have shown that the increase in total biomass accumulated through sustained photosynthesis is one of the key factors explaining the yield increase.

However, some studies have also shown that changes in the root system also have an effect, as newer hybrids appear more effective at extracting soil water from deep in the soil profile. There is some evidence suggesting that hybrids with narrower root angle have this capability. It is also plausible that decrease in root angle combined with growing plants at higher density could cause the increase in biomass accumulation. Root systems with improved occupancy of the soil at depth can extract more water to sustain biomass increase......... Posted by: Erica      Read more         Source

March 6, 2009, 9:26 PM CT

Synthetic Biology Can Help Extend Anti-Malaria Drug Effectiveness

In addition to providing a simple and much less expensive means of making artemisinin, the most powerful anti-malaria drug in use today, synthetic biology can also help to extend the effectiveness of this drug. Fermenting artemisinin via engineered microbes, such as yeast, can be done at far lower costs than extracting the drug from Artemsisia annua, the sweet wormwood tree, making microbial-based artemisinin a much cheaper but equally effective therapy. Restricting access to this technology to responsible manufacturers who will bundle artemisinin as part of an anti-malarial drug "cocktail" rather than selling it as a monotherapy should delay or even prevent malaria parasites from developing resistance. Recently, there have been reports of malaria parasites in West Africa showing some signs of resistance to artemisinin.

"The problem has been that some manufacturers have sold artemisinin as a monotherapy rather than as a co-therapy as is recommended by the World Health Organization," said Jay Keasling, a chemical engineer with joint appointments at Berkeley Lab and UC Berkeley, who led the development of this microbial-based method of producing artemisinin. "Any drug that is used as a monotherapy raises the possibility of microbes developing resistance to it. Right now artemisinin is grown by farmers all over the world and sold to anybody. Through the synthetic biology technique, access to the cheapest artemisinin can be restricted to manufacturers who agree to sell it as part of a co-therapy drug"......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

March 5, 2009, 6:09 AM CT

The blind mole rat and the fight against cancer

If someone ever calls you a "dirty rat," consider it a compliment. A new discovery published online in the FASEB Journal (http://www.fasebj.org) shows that cellular mechanisms used by the blind mole rat to survive the very low oxygen environment of its subterranean niche are the same as those that tumors use to thrive deep in our tissues. The net effect of this discovery is two-fold: first the blind mole rat can serve a "living tumor" in cancer research; andperhaps more importantthat unique gene in the blind mole rat becomes a prime target for new anti-cancer drugs that can "suffocate" tumors.

"President Obama said in his February 24 address to the U.S. Congress that he wants to put an end to cancer, and the boost to basic science in the stimulus package is a great start," said Gerald Weissmann, M.D., Editor-in-Chief of the FASEB Journal "But if he wants to end the longest ongoing war in U.S. historya War on Cancer we've been fighting since before Nixon declared it in 1971then building on this discovery is a good place to start".

To reach their finding, American and Israeli scientists from the Universities of Illinois and Haifa conducted experiments in multiple groups of "dirty" mole rats and "regular" rats. For each type of animal, a control group was exposed to normal levels of oxygen while the experimental groups were exposed to oxygen levels ranging from 3 percent to 10 percent. In the regular rats exposed to low levels of oxygen, the gene that becomes active to protect their bodies from low oxygen (BNIP3) was shown to be active in heart and skeletal muscles. In the mole rats, however, it was discovered that their version of the BNIP3 gene was much more effective at helping them tolerate low levels of oxygen than the version of the gene in "regular" rats......... Posted by: Kelly      Read more         Source

February 27, 2009, 6:30 AM CT

Desert ants smell their way home

Humans lost in the desert are well known for going around in circles, prompting researchers to ask how desert creatures find their way around without landmarks for guidance. Now research published in BioMed Central's open access journal Frontiers in Zoology shows that Desert Ants input both local smells and visual cues into their navigation systems to guide them home.

Until now scientists thought that the Desert Ant Cataglyphis fortis, which makes its home in the inhospitable salt pans of Tunisia, was a pure vision-guided insect. But Kathrin Steck, Bill Hansson and Markus Knaden from the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Jena, Gera number of used gas chromatography to verify that desert microhabitats do have unique odour signatures that can guide the ants back to the nest.

After having identified some odours of these signatures the scientists trained ants in field experiments to recognise these odours pointing to a hidden nest entrance. Ants learned to associate their nest entrance with a single odour and discriminated the training odour against non-training odours. They even picked out the training odour from a four-odour blend. The ants were less focused when faced with a blend rather than the pure scent of home, but still performed better in their search than those tested with the solvent control......... Posted by: Kelly      Read more         Source

February 27, 2009, 6:07 AM CT

Georgia goes bananas

Bananas, known most often as a healthy, convenient food, are also popular ornamental plants in the southern United States. Banana plants are highly prized by a number of as one of the most beautiful ornamentals used for creating a subtropical ambiance in gardens and pool environments.

A research study reported in the American Society for Horticultural Science journal HortTechnology detailed a study of 33 commercial banana cultivars grown near Savannah, Georgia. The study was designed to determine suitability for ornamental and nursery production and to observe the bananas' fruit production.

Gerard Krewer, Esendugue Greg Fonash, Mark Rieger, David Linvill, and Ben Mullinax of the University of Georgia, and Richard Wallace of Armstrong Atlantic University, undertook the multi-year research project with the objective of finding recommendations for income-producing ornamental banana cultivars for use by gardeners and nurseries in southern Georgia.

A number of of the cultivars flowered and began producing fruit in late summer during the second year of the study. Of particular note were two cultivars named 'Manzano' and '1780', which produced more than six high-quality suckers for nursery propagation, resulting in a potential income of more than $60 per plant......... Posted by: Erica      Read more         Source

February 27, 2009, 6:02 AM CT

Software to analyze tomato color and quality

When it comes to fresh vegetables and fruits, color is one of the best indicators of quality. Along with texture, size, and flavor, color plays an important role in the business of horticultural crop production and marketing.

In tomatoes, for example, color and color uniformity contribute directly to quality and marketability. The presence of yellow shoulder disorder, or YSD, a ripening disorder that results in blotchy discoloration under the skin of the tomato, is a major quality issue.

Color disorders are also an economic problem. U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) "grades" are largely determined by the amount of off-color tissue in products, and growers can receive premiums for fruit based on color and uniformity. Discoloration due to YSD also reduces concentrations of nutrients such as lycopene and beta-carotene. Clearly, reducing YSD in tomatoes could benefit producers, processors, and consumers alike.

In an issue of the Journal of the American Society of Horticultural Science (ASHS) David Francis and colleagues at The Ohio State University's Agricultural Research and Development Center and the College of Wooster describe the use of a new tool they implemented in the Tomato Analyzer (TA) software called Color Test (CT). This remarkable tool allows scanning devices to be calibrated using color standards. The objective of the research was to implement a new digital image analysis tool......... Posted by: Erica      Read more         Source

February 27, 2009, 5:58 AM CT

Crafty Australian crayfish cheat

Nestled just off the east coast of Australia, picturesque North Stradbroke Island is a haven for local wildlife. Yet some of the inhabitants of the island's creeks and swamps are far from peaceful. Slender crayfish are aggressive territorial creatures, explains ecologist Robbie Wilson of the University of Queensland, Australia. When two crayfish catch sight of one another, they size each other up in a ritualistic display, which can quickly escalate from careful tapping of their opponent's chelae (enlarged front claws) to a full-blown fight. Studying these fascinating animals, Wilson discovered that crayfish decide whether to flee or fight based on the size of their adversary's chelae, and that victorious females always have larger and stronger claws. But to his dismay, he observed that some males with weaker claws cheat; they defeat stronger foes despite having a weaker albeit larger claw. 'Theory does not predict such dishonesty,' Wilson says. Deceptive signals of weapon strength should not exist, as opponents would quickly stop taking notice of an unreliable cue. Wilson wondered how the crafty males get away with it and publishes his results on Friday 27th February 2009 in The Journal of Experimental Biology at http://jeb/biologists.org.

Teaming up with Candice Bywater, Wilson first took a closer look at the relationship between claw size and strength in female crayfish, to compare them to the males. 'We knew that male signalling is unreliable, so we expected to see more variability in weapon strength in males than in females,' Wilson explains. To measure crayfish claw strength, Frank Seebacher of the University of Sydney, Australia, helped Wilson design a custom-made apparatus consisting of two thin parallel beams with external force transducers. Luckily, it wasn't too tricky to entice the animals to clamp down on the contraption. Crayfish are 'very enthusiastic about biting,' says Wilson. 'We just had to direct their claws to the device and they'd bite.' The team observed that, for a given claw size, males had huge variation in claw strength compared with females. This makes it hard for males to size each other up using claw size alone, which allows males to cheat when it comes to advertising their strength......... Posted by: Kelly      Read more         Source

February 26, 2009, 11:16 PM CT

US shiitake market mushrooming

Shiitake mushrooms are the third most popular mushroom species in the U.S. In addition to taste, shiitake have a multitude of health benefits. Low in calories, glucose and sodium, shiitake are high in potassium, phosphorus, copper, and zinc.

Beyond those positive nutritional factors, shiitake also contain elements that lower blood cholesterol and improve the immune system. It's no wonder that demand is increasing for these nutritional powerhouses.

Native to Asian forests, shiitake are cultivated in two ways in the United States. The first takes place in forests, often applying an agroforestry technique known as forest farming, in which the forest canopy is altered to provide the appropriate amount of shade to grow crops below. The mushrooms grow on hardwood logs. This method results in a higher-quality product with minimal capital investment. The disadvantages of this method are weather dependence, seasonal production with lower yields, longer production cycles, and a heavier workload.

Shiitake can also be cultivated indoors, grown on logs or blocks of sawdust in environmentally controlled buildings. The distinct advantage of this process is the ability to produce shitake year-round with shorter production cycles and higher yields. The downside to indoor cultivation is increased cost and a lower-quality product......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source