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Tag: "potato" at biology news

Researchers find gene that may be at root of potato blight

... in triggering the blight that wiped out Ireland's potato crops a century-and-a-half ago. And the pathogen ..., a devastating disease that can destroy fields of potato and tomato plants. Plant pathogens contain a diverse set of such avirulence genes which, depending o...

15 generations of untrained jocks, couch potatoes show big physiological adaptations

.... Similarly, if you're a practiced and proud couch potato who suddenly woke up to the fact that you're a "natural" athlete, the credit could also belong to your genes. Exercise research traditionally has focused on the effects of training, rather than underlying genetic mechanisms. But physiologists wonder...

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

...example, in order to increase starch production in potato or maize, endocitosis would have to be encouraged through the stimulation of the genes involved in the formation of the vesicles ?a hypothesis that is currently being verified. ...

A slight difference and significant similarities

...ormation of inulin sugars were introduced into the potato as these polysaccharides have a beneficial effect ...ith colleagues from the University of Wales to the potato varieties listed above. "Our methods can of course be adapted for comparing other food plants," says...

Exercise aside, genes may ultimately dictate seniors' mobility

...se who exercised stayed healthier than their couch potato peers, but those born with a certain gene benefited the most from physical activity, said Marco Pahor, M.D., director of University of Florida's Institute on Aging and the multi-institutional study's senior author. "To our knowledge, this is the fir...

New discovery: If it weren't for this enzyme, decomposing pesticide would take millennia

...nzyme inside a bacterium that grows in the soil of potato fields can -- in a split second -- break down resi.... And the chemical would remain in the soil of the potato fields where it is now used in colossal amounts, contaminating groundwater and posing a threat to hu...

New classification of eukaryotes has implications for AIDS treatment, agriculture and beyond

...men is needed. 2) Phytophtora, an organism causing potato blight, such as the one that caused the Irish famine in the 19th century, is now known not to be a fungus, which explains why fungicides are not effective treatments. 3) Plasmodium, the causative agent of malaria, is now known to share ancestry with ...

Scientists determine structure of enzyme that disrupts bacterial virulence

...ious studies to significantly decrease soft rot in potato plants. The Brandeis and University of Texas team purified the enzyme and identified its structure using X-ray crystallography, an essential step toward developing drugs that may reduce the pathogenicity of bacteria involved in biowarfare threats su...

Plants have a double line of defence

...her pests ?for example, the pathogens causing late potato blight. PEN2 is therefore a basic component of the plant's immune system with a broad range of effects. However if PEN2 is missing, the plant is not completely helpless against fungal diseases. There is still another line of defence which they have ...

Finding rewrites the evolutionary history of the origin of potatoes

...tional Academies of Sciences, a team led by a USDA potato taxonomist stationed at the University of Wisconsi...analyzed DNA markers in 261 wild and 98 cultivated potato varieties to assess whether the domestic potato arose from a single wild progenitor or whether it ar...

Malaria, potato famine pathogen share surprising trait

...ia in humans and the microbe that caused the Irish potato famine use identical protein signals to start an i...moun says not to worry ?there's no chance that the potato pathogen will jump to humans, nor is it likely that the malaria parasite will start infecting plants...

Pollutant haze heats the Arctic

... is the same physical behavior that explains why a potato cooks faster in a microwave oven if it is cut into...cient cooking, because more of the interior of the potato is exposed to the penetrating microwave radiation," Garrett says. ...

Potato blight pathogenicity explained by genome plasticity

...enetic fingerprint in the pathogen responsible for potato blight. Some strains of the pathogen possess mult...other strains possess only a single copy. Certain potato plants do not recognize strains of the pathogen with only the single gene copy, making them suscepti...

Biotech cotton provides same yield with fewer pesticides

...otton pests. To control the other two pests, sweet potato whitefly (Bemisia tabaci) and the western tarnished plant bug (Lygus hesperus), growers use broad-spectrum insecticides and other types of insecticides known as insect growth regulators. Carrière and his colleagues studied how Arizona farmers actua...

Spud origin controversy solved

...ts of the earliest known landraces of the European potato are of Andean and Chilean origin. They report thei...Chilean potatoes as breeding stock after the Irish potato famine in the 1840s. Using molecular markers, the scientists found that the Canary Island landrac...

Potato wart eyed as risk to potato production

While many may be familiar with potato late blight, the plant disease responsible for widespread potato shortages, the lesser known potato wart has the potential to be as devastating to economies that dep...

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