thuringiensis in Biological News

Entomological Society of America names 2008 award winners

... both in Vancouver and northeastern Costa Rica. She also worked with Dr. Judy Myers on viruses in natural tent caterpillar populations and Bacillus thuringiensis resistance in greenhouse populations of Trichoplusia ni. She received a Ph.D. from Rutgers University in 2008. Her thesis work focused on the ...

Researchers help develop pest-resistant eggplant for South Asia

... grown genetically altered cotton in India since 2002. The engineered eggplant expresses a natural insecticide derived from the bacteria Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), making it resistant to the fruit and shoot borer (FSB), a highly destructive pest. The tiny larvae account for up to 40 percent of eggplant ...

Most widely used organic pesticide requires help to kill

... insecticide, a plucky bacterium known as Bacillus thuringiensis or Bt for short, requires the assistance of other ... shown that the mechanism of killing for Bacillus thuringiensis is facilitated by the normal gut community," says ... known." First discovered in 1911, Bacillus thuringiensis was developed as a commercially important ...

Bt cotton in China fails to reap profit after seven years

... Beach, Calif., today (July 25), is that other pests are now attacking the GM cotton. The GM crop is known as Bt cotton, shorthand for the Bacillus thuringiensis gene inserted into the seeds to produce toxins. But these toxins are lethal only to leaf-eating bollworms. After seven years, populations of other ...

Insects develop resistance to engineered crops

... may more rapidly develop resistance to all the insect-killing plants, report Cornell University researchers. A soil bacterium called Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), whose genes are inserted into crop plants, such as maize and cotton, creates these toxins that are deadly to insects but harmless to humans. ...

Genetically modified rice in China benefits farmers' health, study finds

... two genetically modified rice strains: the Xianyou 63, created to be resistant to rice stem borer and leaf roller through insertion of a Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) gene, and the Youming 86 variety, which is insect-resistant due to introduction of a resistance gene from the cowpea plant. Both varieties have ...

UCSD discovery may help extend life of natural pesticide

... A team led by biologists at the University of California, San Diego has discovered a molecule in roundworms that makes them susceptible to Bacillus thuringiensis toxin, or Bt toxin--a pesticide produced by bacteria and widely used by organic farmers and in genetically engineered crops to ward off insect pests. ...