plant

Molecular biology fills gaps in knowledge of bat evolution

... to Springer. Bats play a major ecological role as plant pollinators and insect predators. For Springer, this latest research is significant because it shows that molecular information can contribute to resolving and illuminating long-standing problems in evolutionary biology. The current findings lay th...

Quantum Dots Research Leads to New Knowledge about Protein Binding in Plants

...ymerging areas of materials science, chemistry and plant biology.The findings are the result of an interdis...ps of stigma/stylarcysteine-rich adhesin (SCA) - a plant pollen tube adhesion protein.This labeled the protein molecules with fluorescent tags.Quantum dots a...

Plants, animals share molecular growth mechanisms

A newly discovered plant protein complex that apparently switches on plants...as opened a scientific toolbox to learn about both plant and animal development, according Purdue University scientists. The protein complex triggers commun...

Plants respond similarly to signals from friends, enemies

...dwelling strangers ?a friend and a foe ?approach a plant and communicate with it in order to enter a partne... found that the two strangers communicate with the plant in very similar ways. The plant's responses to both friend and foe are also remarkably similar. Usi...

Affymetrix Unveils Plans to Double Plant and Animal Genome Microarray Offering

... Inc.announced plans to make eight new GeneChip(R) plant and animal genomearrays available in 2005 as part ...gram is a collaborative initiativethat enables the plant and animal research communities to consolidatetheir sequence data on the Affymetrix industry-standar...

Poplar trees redirect resources in response to simulated attack

...adiotracer imaging can be a big help in unraveling plant biochemistry. Done in collaboration with scientis... carbon dioxide, soil toxins, and drought on vital plant processes." Ferrieri says scientists trying to improve plants' resistance to environmental challeng...

Plant hemoglobins: Oxygen handlers critical for nitrogen fixation

... bacteria, but until now the physiological role of plant hemoglobins has been unclear. A group of researchers reveal this week that one such mysterious plant hemoglobin serves to assist in the fixation of nitrogen in the root nodules of legumes through a pro...

Scientists identify genetic pathways essential to RNA interference

...fied in the C. elegans roundworm and the flowering plant Arabidopsis thaliana, both of which are common model organisms for biological research. The process interrupts the usual transfer of instructions from double-stranded DNA, through single-stranded messenger RNA and finally into proteins. Short, double...

Introduced foxes transformed vegetation on Aleutian Islands from lush grasslands to tundra

...raduate student Eric Danner, University of Montana plant ecologist John Maron, and USFWS biologist Vernon B...ng from offshore," Croll said. "It transformed the plant community from one that does well in nutrient-rich conditions to one that does well in nutrient-depl...

Scientists discover unique microbe in California's largest lake

... in the Pacific and must grow onor in an animal or plant to survive in nature," Wood says. "This newmicrobe..., whichitself is nutrient poor, the host animal or plant provided anutrient-rich environment with relatively high amounts of infraredlight; in the Salton Sea...

New protein discovered by Hebrew University researchers

...to cancer cells.In addition to being obtained from plant tissue, the protein can nowalso be produced in large quantities as a recombinant protein inbacteria, making it highly available for medicinal or otherapplications.Called SP-1, the protein has a nanometric, "bagel-shaped," circularform and is extremel...

The death of a very special chimpanzee

...to cancer cells.In addition to being obtained from plant tissue, the protein can nowalso be produced in large quantities as a recombinant protein inbacteria, making it highly available for medicinal or otherapplications.Called SP-1, the protein has a nanometric, "bagel-shaped," circularform and is extremel...

Plants defy Mendel's inheritance laws, may prompt textbook changes

...the inheritance mechanism we found in the research plant Arabidopsis exists in animals, too, it's possible ... Lolle found that Arabidopsis in which each parent plant had two copies of a mutant gene could produce progeny that didn't show the parents' deformity, but r...

Antibodies from plants protect against anthrax

... into a bacterium that transfers the gene into the plant cells. "The plant makes the antibody for you in a few days," says Baillie. The antibodies were then purified from lea...

New RNA polymerase discovered in plants

...achine" in plants that plays a significant role in plant flowering and DNA methylation, a key chemical proc...found only in plants and speculated to have been a plant feature for more than 200 million years. RNA polymerase is an enzyme, or protein machine, essential...

World's largest rainforest drying experiment completes first phase

... a serious threat to a forest that is home to more plant and animal species, and more indigenous cultures, than any other forest in the world. According to Nepstad, with the completion of this first phase of the experiment, attention will turn to another future scenario for the world's tropical rainforest...

Family trees of ancient bacteria reveal evolutionary moves

...t gave rise to chloroplasts, the oxygen factory in plant cells. A half billion years ago Cyanobacteria predated more complex organisms like multi-cellular plants and functioned in a world where the oxygen level of the biosphere was much less than it is today. Over their very long life span, Cyanobacteria h...

Scientists discuss improved biopesticides for locust control in West Africa

...iculture from other West African nations, national plant protection directors and locust control personnel, military officers in charge of locust control campaigns, representatives from regional and international organizations, and locust scientists. Vaughan spoke about the potential for operational use o...

Biodiversity hotspots identify conservation priorities

... Indian Ocean Islands Hotspot, for example, has 24 plant and vertebrate families that are found nowhere els...nserve this region for the benefit of not only its plant and animal species, but also for the millions of people whose well-being is tied to its ecological h...

Transgenic plants remove more selenium from polluted soil than wild plants, new tests show

...those in the lab," said Norman Terry, professor of plant and microbial biology at UC Berkeley's College of ...wly," said Terry. "So what we want to do is take a plant like Indian mustard, because it can grow quickly -- up to six to seven feet tall -- and it is tolera...

Researchers discover chemical compounds that affect plant growth

...ositively or negatively affect gravity's effect on plant growth, which is closely linked to the movement of proteins through plant cell membranes, a process known as endomembrane trafficking. "Well-characterized bioactive chemical...

Scientists discover how plants disarm the toxic effects of excessive sunlight

...tant implications for bioenergy sources, human and plant disease, and agricultural yields, a team of Univer... impact agriculture and the treatment of human and plant disease, and aid the effort to create alternative bioenergy sources," Donohue says. Donohue and his...

Light therapy may combat fungal infections, new evidence suggests

...man life as they lead to human disease, as well as plant disease and mold," said Idnurm, a post-doctoral fellow at Duke. "However, fungi also play important beneficial roles, for example, as a source of food and pharmaceuticals. "Therefore, an understanding of the role of environmental signals such as lig...

Researchers uncover sequence of major rice pathogen

...s for the first time lifted the veil from a fungal plant pathogen by sequencing the genome ?or set of all g... rice blast disease. Dr. Ralph Dean, professor of plant pathology and director of North Carolina State University's Center for Integrated Fungal Research, i...

Reservoirs may accelerate the spread of invasive aquatic species, researchers say

...makes a landscape susceptible to invasion by alien plant species, the construction of reservoirs around the globe could be contributing to the accelerating spread of exotic aquatic species, according to a Forum article in the June 2005 issue of BioScience. John A. Havel of Southwest Missouri State Universi...

To control germs, scientists deploy tiny agents provocateurs

...ful and beneficial. In one role, biofilms can coat plant roots and symbiotically aid ecological processes s.... Attempting to manipulate quorum sensing in both plant and animal bacteria, Blackwell and her team are designing new compounds that mimic acylated homoseri...

Scientists identify genetic pathways essential to RNA interference

...fied in the C. elegans roundworm and the flowering plant Arabidopsis thaliana, both of which are common model organisms for biological research. The process interrupts the usual transfer of instructions from double-stranded DNA, through single-stranded messenger RNA and finally into proteins. Short, double...

Revolutionary nanotechnology illuminates brain cells at work

...t's fascinating to see a tool that we are using in plant biology open new areas in neuroscience." ...

Defenseless plants arm themselves with metals

...ator - the one gene or group of genes that turns a plant into a hyperaccumulator," said David Salt, associate professor of plant molecular physiology in Purdue's horticulture department. "But we have no way to know what that gene...

Same-Sex Mating Discovered in a Toxic Fungus

...related individuals, known to occur in the fungal, plant and even animal kingdoms, the researchers said. Christina Hull, now at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, also contributed to the research. The work was supported by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, the Damon Runyon Cance...

Canada approves marijuana-based pain spray

...al product derived from components of the cannabis plant shown to have therapeutic properties. Sativex is administered via a spray into the mouth. Health Canada has approved Sativex with conditions, under the Notice of Compliance with Conditions (NOC/c) policy. This authorization reflects the promising na...

Study reveals new technique for fingerprinting environmental samples

...ture. For example, genes involved in breaking down plant material are over represented in soil and absent in the sea water, while in sea water, genes involved in the passage of sodium, a major chemical component of salt water, were particularly abundant. As light is a major energy source for microbes livin...

Shift of weather patterns necessitates rethinking of reforestation methods

...gs, the survival rate is higher and landowners can plant fewer trees to get the same stand density. On wet years, when a high percentage of bare root seedlings do survive, landowners find themselves paying for costly thinnings, Taylor said. Taylor's research is being conducted near the Texas A&M Univ...

Researchers unlock mechanism creating jigsaw puzzle-like plant cells

...f the journal Cell. Zhenbiao Yang, a professor of plant cell biology at the UCR's Center for Plant Cell Bi...that act as molecular switches, which regulate how plant cells grow into interlocking patterns resembling jigsaw puzzle pieces. These proteins tell one part...

The evolutionary triumph of flower power

... sense they're like dogs. They are the pets of the plant world." Psychologist Haviland-Jones had conducted three studies that tested the ability of flowers to induce positive emotion. The objective was to demonstrate the immediate, long-term and powerful effects of flowers on emotional reactions, mood, so...

At long last, scientists figure out how plants grow

It has been one of the great mysteries in plant science. Scientists have known since 1885 that the plant growth hormone auxin exists. They've known of its dramatic effects on plant growth and development s...

Roots Engage in Underground Chemical Warfare

...roviding physical support and taking in nutrients, plant roots secrete a wide variety of compounds that aff...xtensively investigated—until now. Using the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana, a relative of garden-variety cabbage, Jorge Vivanco and co-workers at Colorado...

What's really making you sick? Plant pathologists offer the science behind Sick Building Syndrome

... Building Syndrome may improve its management, say plant pathologists with The American Phytopathological S... is a common cause of SBS, said Mani Skaria, Ph.D, plant pathology professor and interim chair of the Department of Agronomy and Resource Sciences, Texas A&a...

Undesirable expatriates: Preventing the spread of invasive animals

...es risk assessment. The 1% probability is based on plant invasions. Introduced animals do not act like introduced plants-- they appear to have a much higher invasion success rate." Given that humans are the primary vehicles for transporting animals across the ocean, it's not surprising that animal introdu...

Plant Sacrifices Cells to Fight Invaders

...recently discovered a gene essential to one of the plant kingdom's key immune responses--programmed cell de...hat normally propagates a "pro-survival" signal in plant tissue. Without that input, an alternate "pro-death" signal moves out of the infected areas and dama...

Taking the piste out of Alpine vegetation

...sing significant changes in the number and type of plant species in the European Alps. Sonja Wipf of the S... and the University of Potsdam in Germany examined plant species at 12 Swiss ski resorts. They found that, compared with off-piste plots, there were 11% fewe...

Finding hidden invaders in a Hawaiian rain forest

...xplained: "We found chemical fingerprints from the plant leaves and used them to tell which species dominat...s: they located another invader, the Kahili ginger plant (Hedychium gardnerianum), growing under the forest canopy. Ginger cannot be detected from above the ...

Six million Africans face famine because of locusts, drought

...stock cheaply and eating the seed corn they should plant during next month's expected rains, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said today. "The combined effect of drought and locust attack, particularly in the more northerly districts of the counties affected ha...

Sugar beet virus mutation requires Texas touch

...of Texas in 1997 after the close of the processing plant at Hereford. But the growing research program within Texas Agricultural Experiment Station's plant pathology lab here didn't die. Just the opposite, said Dr. Charlie Rush, professor and director of ...

Researchers find gene that may be at root of potato blight

...e is the first avirulence gene identified from the plant pathogen that causes late blight, a devastating di...t of such avirulence genes which, depending on the plant variety, can either facilitate disease or trigger resistance. Avr3a scouts a potato plant on the ce...

Alarm pheromone causes aphids to sprout wings

... to produce winged offspring that leave their host plant when mature. Because some plants can also release (E)-â-farnesene, they could in theory manipulate aphids into flying away. However, aphids were shown to react mainly to the frequency of pheromone release and not the actual quantity present, possibl...

Bee mites suppress bee immunity, open door for viruses and bacteria

...g Yang, post doctoral researcher in entomology and plant pathology, who raised bees in China. "I do not recall seeing deformed wing bees in the Chinese bee. Chinese honey bees have grooming behavior which can remove the mites from the bees. They get rid of the mites." While researchers know that the Varro...

Primates on the brink

...but harbor well over 50 percent of all terrestrial plant and animal diversity. Eight of the hotspots are co...nvironments, primates help support a wide range of plant and animal life that make up the Earth's forests. The 2004-2006 list focuses on the severity of the...

Scientists identify genes responsible for 'black rot' disease in vegetables

Scientists at four major genomics and plant pathology laboratories in China have collaborated ...t comparative and functional genomics screen for a plant or animal bacterial pathogen to date, is published online today in the journal Genome Research. "Bl...

DOE JGI launches IMG public online microbial genome data clearinghouse

... like to read manuals." John Taylor, professor of plant and microbial biology at UC Berkeley, tried out the IMG system at a community workshop in February. "In evolutionary biology, comparative genomics has become the most powerful tool for understanding everything from the patterns of mutation to adaptat...

Experiment station researchers to explore genome of disease-fighting fungus

...irens, is used to protect field crops from various plant diseases. Researchers say the genome sequencing wo... Energy Joint Genome Institute. Experiment Station plant pathologists are Drs. Charles M. Kenerley, Daniel J. Ebbole, Heather H. Wilkinson and Michael Thon. ...

Scientists map the world for nature conservation

... in the Journal of Biogeography, of a world map of plant biodiversity. The atlas is arranged in 867 zones,...as ecoregions. "This makes the data on the world's plant diversity accessible in accordance with a common geographical standard," explains Gerold Kier, head ...

Best research work in the area of wine growing

...udy. The progression of the hydric deficit in each plant was assessed by means of the daily measurement of the hydric potential before dawn and, when a plant reached the stress interval, it was irrigated immediately. After two or four days after the recovery...

Unique library of plant genes germinates, takes root at UNC

... lover, but it eventually will please thousands of plant scientists around the world. Through such research... is a compilation of voluminous genetic data on 39 plant species. The list includes almost all the world's most valuable crops, among them rice, wheat, corn ...

Genome study of beneficial microbe may help boost plant health

...eeds from infection by harmful microbes that cause plant diseases. The genome paper will be published in Na...eficial microbes such as P. fluorescens to control plant pathogens is called "biological control." That method is gaining momentum as a way to grow healthy p...

Fungus-farming termites descend from an African rain forest Eve

... of mutualistic symbiosis. The termites use chewed plant material, such as wood and dry grass, to feed the ..., while the fungus converts otherwise indigestible plant material into nutrients the termites can utilize. Earlier work had shown that in the evolutionary pa...

UNC plant researchers discover proteins interact to form hair-trigger protection against invaders

...her in tug-of war or teeter totter-fashion to keep plant defenses in a state of constant readiness," said D...s, RAR1, HSP90 and SGT1 control whether or not the plant is about to recognize that it is under pathogen attack," Holt said. "So the emerging story is that R...

FDA approves more generic AIDS drugs

...her in tug-of war or teeter totter-fashion to keep plant defenses in a state of constant readiness," said D...s, RAR1, HSP90 and SGT1 control whether or not the plant is about to recognize that it is under pathogen attack," Holt said. "So the emerging story is that R...

Mechanism for the captation of nutrients in plants- unknown to date

...discovery breaks with a fundamental dogma in basic plant science holding that all substances penetrate the ...s involved in the process, in order to improve the plant varieties. For example, in order to increase starch production in potato or maize, endocitosis would...

It's electric: Cows show promise as powerplants

...'t need to use cellulose to feed microbes, as some plant material passes undigested through a cow. "We've run some of these trials well over 30 days without a decrease in the voltage output," Christy said. "Both studies suggest that cow waste is a promising fuel source. It's cheap and plentiful, and it ma...