EurekAlert from AAAS
Home About us
Advanced Search
20-Nov-2009 20:00
Eastern US Time

Username:

Password:

Register

Forgot Password?

Press Releases

Breaking News

Science Business

Grants, Awards, Books

Meetings

Multimedia Gallery

Science Agencies
on EurekAlert!

US Department of Energy

US National Institutes of Health

US National Science Foundation

Calendar

Submit a Calendar Item

Subscribe/Sponsor

Links & Resources

Portals

RSS Feeds

Accessibility Option On

News By Subject
Search this subject
Agriculture
Key: Meeting Journal Funder Dissertation
Public Release: 20-Nov-2009
Genetics
It's a gas: New discovery may lead to heartier, high-yielding plants
In a research report in the November 2009 journal Genetics, scientists show how a family of genes (1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylate synthase, or ACS genes), in the weed Arabidopsis thaliana, are responsible for production of ethylene. This gas affects many aspects of plant development, and this information, which will be applicable to other plants, lays the foundation for future genetic manipulation that could make plants disease resistant, able to survive and thrive in difficult terrain, and increase yields.

Contact: Tracey DePellegrin Connelly
td2p@andrew.cmu.edu
412-268-1812
Genetics Society of America

Public Release: 20-Nov-2009
2009 AGU Fall Meeting
New method to measure snow, vegetation moisture with GPS may benefit farmers, meteorologists
A research team led by the University of Colorado at Boulder has found a clever way to use traditional GPS satellite signals to measure snow depth as well as soil and vegetation moisture, a technique expected to benefit meteorologists, water resource managers, climate modelers and farmers.
National Science Foundation

Contact: Kristine Larson
Kristine.Larson@colorado.edu
303-492-6583
University of Colorado at Boulder

Public Release: 19-Nov-2009
Science
New maize map to aid plant breeding efforts
A massive survey of genetic diversity in maize has produced a gene map that should pave the way to significant improvements in a plant that is a major source of food, fuel, animal feed and fiber around the world.
National Science Foundation, US Department of Agriculture

Contact: Pat Bailey
pjbailey@ucdavis.edu
530-752-9843
University of California - Davis

Public Release: 19-Nov-2009
Darwin 2009
Science
Paleontologists find extinction rates higher in open-ocean settings during mass extinctions
Arnie Miller, University of Cincinnati professor of paleontology in the McMicken College of Arts & Sciences, and co-author Michael Foote of the University of Chicago publish their research in the Nov. 20 issue of Science with their paper, "Epicontinental Seas Versus Open-Ocean Settings: The Kinetics of Mass Extinction and Origination."
NASA, National Science Foundation

Contact: Wendy Beckman
wendy.beckman@uc.edu
513-556-1826
University of Cincinnati

Public Release: 19-Nov-2009
Science
New map of variation in maize genetics holds promise for developing new varieties
A new study of maize has identified thousands of diverse genes in genetically inaccessible portions of the genome. New techniques may allow breeders and researchers to use this genetic variation to identify desirable traits and create new varieties that were not easily possible before.
National Science Foundation, US Department of Agriculture

Contact: Blaine Friedlander
bpf2@cornell.edu
607-254-8093
Cornell University

Public Release: 19-Nov-2009
Plant Physiology
Maize cell wall genes identified, giving boost to biofuel research
Purdue University scientists have helped identify and group the genes thought to be responsible for cell wall development in maize, an effort that expands their ability to discover ways to produce the biomass best suited for biofuels production.

Contact: Brian Wallheimer
bwallhei@purdue.edu
765-496-2050
Purdue University

Public Release: 19-Nov-2009
ORNL, Los Alamos pioneer new approach to assist scientists, farmers
Sustainable farming, initially adopted to preserve soil quality for future generations, may also play a role in maintaining a healthy climate, according to researchers at the US Department of Energy's Oak Ridge and Los Alamos national laboratories.

Contact: Ron Walli
wallira@ornl.gov
865-576-0226
DOE/Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Public Release: 19-Nov-2009
Microorganism may provide key to combating giant salvinia throughout Louisiana
A team of researchers at Louisiana Tech University has found that a naturally occurring microorganism acts as a natural herbicide against giant salvinia.

Contact: Dave Guerin
dguerin@latech.edu
318-257-4854
Louisiana Tech University

Public Release: 19-Nov-2009
Science
Reference genome of maize, most important US crop, is published by team co-led by CSHL scientists
A four-year, multi-institutional effort co-led by three Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory scientists culminated today in publication of a landmark series of papers in the journal Science revealing in unprecedented detail the DNA sequence of maize. Maize, or corn, as it is commonly called by North American consumers, is one of the world's most important plants and the most valuable agricultural crop grown in the United States, representing $47 billion in annual value.
National Science Foundation, US Department of Agriculture, US Department of Defense

Contact: Peter Tarr
tarr@cshl.edu
516-367-8455
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory

Public Release: 19-Nov-2009
International Journal of Food Safety, Nutrition and Public Health
Let them eat snail
A nutritionist in Nigeria says that malnutrition and iron deficiency in schoolchildren could be reduced in her country by baking up snail pie. In a research paper to be published in the International Journal of Food Safety, Nutrition and Public Health, she explains snail is not only cheaper and more readily available than beef but contains more protein.

Contact: Ukpong Udofia
ukpyudofia@yahoo.com
Inderscience Publishers

Public Release: 19-Nov-2009
Why Israeli rodents are more cautious than Jordanian ones
A series of studies carried out at the University of Haifa have found that rodent, reptile and ant lion species behave differently on either side of the Israel-Jordan border. "The border line, which is only a demarcation on the map, cannot contain these species, but the line does restrict humans and their diverse impact on nature," says Dr. Uri Shanas.

Contact: Rachel Feldman
rfeldman@univ.haifa.ac.il
972-482-88722
University of Haifa

Public Release: 19-Nov-2009
Science
U of M plant scientist uncovers clues to yield-boosting quirks of corn genome
The offspring of two inbred strains tend to be superior to both of their parents. Characterizing the gene-level variability that leads to this phenomenon, known as heterosis or hybrid vigor, could boost our ability to custom-tailor crops for specific traits, such as high protein content for human consumption or high glucose content for biomass fuel.

Contact: Patty Mattern
mattern@umn.edu
612-624-2801
University of Minnesota

Public Release: 19-Nov-2009
Science
Scientists at UA, collaborating institutions decode maize genome
Scientists from the University of Arizona led by Arizona Genomics Institute director Rod A. Wing and from collaborating institutions have deciphered the complete genetic code of the maize plant for the first time.
National Science Foundation

Contact: Lori Stiles
lstiles@u.arizona.edu
520-626-4402
University of Arizona

Public Release: 19-Nov-2009
PLoS Genetics
PLoS Genetics 2009 maize genome collection
Maize is an important crop in many countries of the world. It is widely used for human consumption, animal feed and industrial materials. It also is considered an exemplar plant species for studying domestication, molecular evolution and genome architecture. The authors of the research presented in this special collection used the first description of the B73 maize genome to probe some of the most intriguing questions in genetics and plant biology.

Contact: Tamsin Milewicz
press@plos.org
44-122-346-3339
Public Library of Science

Public Release: 19-Nov-2009
Science
Sweet corn story begins in UW-Madison lab
This week, scientists are revealing the genetic instructions inside corn, one of the big three cereal crops. Corn, or maize, has one of the most complex sequences of DNA ever analyzed, says University of Wisconsin-Madison genomicist David Schwartz, who was one of more than 100 authors in the article in the journal Science.

Contact: David C. Schwartz
dcschwartz@wisc.edu
608-265-0546
University of Wisconsin-Madison

Public Release: 19-Nov-2009
Science
Like humans, ants use bacteria to make their gardens grow
Leaf-cutter ants, which cultivate fungus for food, have many remarkable qualities.
US Department of Energy, National Science Foundation

Contact: Cameron Currie
currie@bact.wisc.edu
608-265-8034
University of Wisconsin-Madison

Public Release: 19-Nov-2009
Science
After mastodons and mammoths, a transformed landscape
Roughly 15,000 years ago, at the end of the last ice age, North America's vast assemblage of large animals -- including such iconic creatures as mammoths, mastodons, camels, horses, ground sloths and giant beavers -- began their precipitous slide to extinction.
Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, National Science Foundation

Contact: John Williams
jww@geography.wisc.edu
608-265-5537
University of Wisconsin-Madison

Public Release: 19-Nov-2009
Science
Amaizing: Corn genome decoded
In recent years, scientists have decoded the DNA of humans and a menagerie of creatures but none with genes as complex as a stalk of corn, the latest genome to be unraveled. A team of scientists led by the Genome Center at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis published the completed corn genome in the Nov. 20 journal Science, an accomplishment that will speed efforts to develop better crop varieties to meet the world's growing demands for food, livestock feed and fuel.
National Science Foundation, US Department of Agriculture, US Department of Energy

Contact: Caroline Arbanas
arbanasc@wustl.edu
314-286-0109
Washington University School of Medicine

Public Release: 18-Nov-2009
American Journal of Botany
The benefits of stress ... in plants
This study finds that certain wild flax plants growing in poor soils have succeeded in balancing the stress in their lives -- these plants are less likely to experience infection from a fungal pathogen. This is the first study to attempt to quantitatively explain how plants have evolved a specialization to serpentine soils and ultimately may help to explain floristic diversity in these unique environments.
California Native Plant Society, Hardman Native Plant Research Fellowship, R. Poulin, UC Davis Genetic Resources Conservation Program

Contact: Richard Hund
rhund@botany.org
314-577-9557
American Journal of Botany

Public Release: 18-Nov-2009
Proceedings of the Royal Society B
Scientists unravel evolution of highly toxic box jellyfish
With thousands of stinging cells that can emit deadly venom from tentacles that can reach ten feet in length, the 50 or so species of box jellyfish have long been of interest to scientists and to the public. Yet little has been known about the evolution of this early branch in the animal tree of life. In a paper published today, researchers have unraveled the evolutionary relationships among the various species of box jellyfish, thereby providing insight into the evolution of their toxicity.
National Science Foundation, PADI Foundation

Contact: Shelley Dawicki
Shelley.Dawicki@noaa.gov
508-495-2378
NOAA Fisheries Northeast Fisheries Science Center

Public Release: 18-Nov-2009
Nature
UCR plant scientist's research spawns new discoveries showing how crops survive drought
Breakthrough research done earlier this year by a UC Riverside plant cell biologist has greatly accelerated scientists' knowledge on how plants and crops can survive difficult environmental conditions like drought. In only months since the discovery, six research papers in prestigious journals such as Science and Nature have been published that build on his work, a testament to the interest among plant scientists to nail down how exactly the stress signaling pathway works in plants.
National Institutes of Health

Contact: Iqbal Pittalwala
iqbal@ucr.edu
951-827-6050
University of California - Riverside

Public Release: 17-Nov-2009
Annual General Meeting of the Canadian Foundation for Dietetic Research
Canadians finding it tough to shake the salt habit
Canadians know that too much salt isn't good for their diets, but half still continue to shake it on, according to a new study by University of Alberta researchers.
Canadian Foundation for Dietetic Research, British Columbia Ministry of Healthy Living and Sport

Contact: Bev Betkowski
beverly.betkowski@ualberta.ca
780-492-3808
University of Alberta

Public Release: 17-Nov-2009
Physical Review Journals
Spotting evidence of directed percolation
Convincing experimental evidence has finally been found for directed percolation, a phenomenon that turns up in computer models of the ways diseases spread through a population or how water soaks through loose soil.

Contact: James Riordon
riordon@aps.org
301-209-3238
American Physical Society

Public Release: 17-Nov-2009
Oryx
Alternative animal feed part of global fisheries crisis fix: UBC study
Finding alternative feed sources for chickens, pigs and other farm animals will significantly reduce pressure on the world's dwindling fisheries while contributing positively to climate change, according to University of British Columbia researchers.

Contact: Brian Lin
brian.lin@ubc.ca
604-822-2234
University of British Columbia

Public Release: 17-Nov-2009
Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems
Is 80-year-old mistake leading to first species to be fished to extinction?
A species of common skate is to become the first marine fish species to be driven to extinction by commercial fishing, due to an error of species classification 80 years ago.

Contact: Ben Norman
Benorman@wiley.com
44-124-377-0375
Wiley-Blackwell