" I heard it through the AgLine"

October 23, 2009

 

 

·        Advanced biofuels will stoke global warming

·        Senate food safety bill needs more bite – FDA

·        Scientists unravel secrets of drought resistance

·        USDA taps Arrayit to help protect bees and plants

·        Bioinsecticide appears to control Med fruit fly

 

 

Advanced biofuels will stoke global warming

 

(Reuters via Yahoo! News) – A new generation of  biofuels, meant to be a low-carbon alternative, will on average emit more carbon dioxide than burning gasoline over the next few decades, a study published in Science found on Thursday

 

Governments and companies are pouring billions of research dollars into advanced fuels made from wood and grass, meant to cut carbon emissions compared with gasoline, and not compete with food as corn-based biofuels do now.

 

But such advanced, "cellulosic" biofuels will actually lead to higher carbon emissions than gasoline per unit of energy, averaged over the 2000-2030 time period, the study found.

 

That is because the land required to plant fast-growing poplar trees and tropical grasses would displace food crops, and so drive deforestation to create more farmland, a powerful source of carbon emissions.

 

Biofuel crops also require nitrogen fertilisers, a source of two greenhouse gases: carbon dioxide (CO2) and the more powerful nitrous oxide.

 

"In the near-term I think, irrespective of how you go about the cellulosic biofuels programme, you're going to have greenhouse gas emissions exacerbating the climate change problem," said lead author, Jerry Melillo, from the U.S. Marine Biological Laboratory.

 

Without steps to protect forests and cut fertilizer use, gasoline out-performs biofuels from 2000-2050 as well.

 

The paper did not mean cellulosic biofuels had no place.

 

"It is not an obvious and easy win without thinking very carefully about the problem," said Melillo. "We have to think very carefully about both short and long-term consequences."

 

A related study, also published in the journal Science on Thursday, said the United Nations had exaggerated carbon savings from biofuels and biomass, in a mistake copied by the European Union in its cap and trade law, by ignoring deforestation and other land use changes.

 

The mistake was carried into draft U.S. climate legislation as well, and would worsen as governments put a price on carbon, driving more biofuel use, it said.

 

FOOD

 

"There will be increasing pressure to convert the biomass of the world into an energy source," said Steve Hamburg, chief scientist at green group the Environmental Defense Fund and co-author of the second Science paper.

 

"Then it competes with agriculture, water protection, biodiversity, a whole host of things, and that doesn't provide benefits to the atmosphere," he told Reuters.

 

It was also important to take account of how the land had been managed before it was grown with biofuels, said Hamburg. A previous farming practice may have been better for the planet, he said, underlining the complexity of calculating benefits.

 

Advocates hope that forthcoming talks to agree a new global climate deal in Copenhagen in December will protect forests, by rewarding land owners to store carbon in their trees.

 

The first paper did not explicitly consider the food production impact of ramping up advanced biofuels. The U.N.'s food agency says that global food output will have to increase 70 percent by 2050 to feed a growing, more affluent population.

 

The world's forests, rather than farmland, would have to make way for biofuels which would consume by 2100 more land than all food crops now, the first study found.

 

"We think there is space on earth for both food crops and the biofuels but there are consequences of using that space," in lost forest, Melillo said. "You've got to lose something."

 

Return to Top

 

 

Senate food safety bill needs more bite – FDA

 

(Reuters via Yahoo! News) – WASHINGTON – A Senate bill that would expand U.S. Food and Drug Administration oversight and give it the power to recall food is a step forward but needs to be stronger, the head of the agency told lawmakers on Thursday.

 

Dr Margaret Hamburg, the FDA commissioner, said the legislation does not include several crucial measures, including giving FDA better access to company food records during routine inspections and enough money to do the job.

 

"The legislation is a major step in the right direction," Hamburg told the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. "We are concerned that the bill does not provide a guaranteed consistent funding source to help FDA fulfill its new responsibilities."

 

The U.S. food supply has been battered by a series of high-profile outbreaks involving lettuce, peppers, peanuts and spinach since 2006. Consumer groups, lawmakers and the Obama administration have demanded an overhaul of the antiquated food safety system and reform of the FDA.

 

The Senate bill is similar to legislation that passed the House in July, which gave FDA mandatory recall authority, increased the frequency of food inspections and required all facilities to have a food safety plan in place.

 

The FDA now can only recommend food recalls in most cases.

 

Hamburg urged the committee to adopt some of the same provisions as the House bill, including charging new fees for the higher inspection costs and giving it greater access to records at food production facilities.

 

The Senate bill would allow FDA access to company records, but only in a food emergency.

 

The FDA, which oversees the bulk of the U.S. food supply, including fruits, vegetables and processed foods that do not contain meat, has pressed Congress for more funding and authority. An overhaul of the country's food safety system would be the most sweeping reform in close to 50 years.

 

An estimated 76 million people in the United States get sick every year with foodborne illness and 5,000 die, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

 

Return to Top

 

 

Scientists unravel secrets of drought resistance

 

(Wire Services) – A team of biologists in California led by researchers at The Scripps Research Institute and the UCSD has solved the structure of a critical molecule that helps plants survive during droughts.

 

Understanding the inner workings of this molecule may help scientists design new ways to protect crops against prolonged dry periods, potentially improving crop yields worldwide, aiding biofuels production on marginal lands and mitigating drought's human and economic costs.

 

The findings were described in the journal Science Express, an advance online issue of the prestigious journal Science, on Oct. 22.

 

"This molecular structure helps explain the mechanism behind drought tolerance in plants," said Elizabeth Getzoff, a Scripps Research scientist who led the team from Scripps Research, UCSD, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and UC Riverside. "We're very excited by the findings."

 

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), major droughts in the last three years alone have collectively caused more than $10 billion in losses to crops and other damages in the United States. The problem is particularly pronounced in western farm areas such as those in California, which is now three years into a severe drought.

 

The newly solved structure shows a three-dimensional representation of a critical plant hormone called abscisic acid, attached to its "target" protein called PYR1. Abscisic acid is key to many plant processes, including to survival tactics in challenging environmental conditions.

 

"In revealing how a plant hormone functions under stressful conditions, this work provides important clues about how hormones might regulate crucial physiological responses in humans," said Jean Chin, a program director with the National Institutes of Health's National Institute of General Medical Sciences.

 

A Mysterious Hormone

 

When drought-tolerant plants detect dry conditions, they synthesize abscisic acid, which causes changes from root tips to leaves and flowers. Plants under the influence of this hormone begin to conserve water. Their seeds lie dormant in the ground. Their leaves close microscopic pores to stop water loss. They slow their own growth, and they signal numerous genetic changes, reprogramming themselves to accomplish their single most pressing goal - survival.

 

"Abscisic acid triggers an array of plant drought-tolerance mechanisms," said co-investigator Julian Schroeder of UCSD.

 

The hormone abscisic acid was discovered in the early 1960s, and plant biologists have known for decades that it plays this crucial role in keeping plants alive during drought. Despite this fact, says Getzoff, who is a professor in the Department of Molecular Biology and The Skaggs Institute for Chemical Biology at Scripps Research, nobody has understood how the hormone functions.

 

"That has been pretty mysterious," Getzoff says, "yet solving this mystery is key to controlling drought responses to protect plants."

 

Earlier this year, however, the picture of how abscisic acid works became clearer when two separate groups of scientists discovered a cluster of genes associated with the hormone. Simultaneous mutations in four of these related genes led to a greatly impaired abscisic acid response and reduced drought resistance. Scientists suspected it was because the genes produced proteins that are normally targets of the hormone - an association that the mutations disrupted. One of the groups was a team of researchers led by Sean Cutler of UC Riverside, whose initial work on the protein PYR1 led to the current study.

 

"This early research with Sean led to important new questions," said Schroeder, who together with Getzoff initiated the current study. "We wanted to know if abscisic acid bound specifically to the PYR1 protein as a hormone receptor or whether it acted like a glue between PYR1 and partner proteins."

 

Structure Revealed

 

Collaborating closely with Schroeder and his lab, Getzoff and her group decided to try to figure out exactly how PYR1 was involved in drought resistance by looking at PYR1 and abscisic acid molecules on the micro-and nano-scales.

 

"Team researchers Noriyuki Nishimura of UCSD, Kenichi Hitomi, Andrew Arvai, and Chiharu Hitomi of Scripps Research, and Robert Rambo of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory used a multi-disciplinary attack to overcome challenges in characterizing the abscisic acid sensor and to decipher its mechanism," said Getzoff.

 

First, Getzoff's lab enlisted the use of a technique called x-ray crystallography. X-ray crystallography is a method that can determine three-dimensional positions for the individual atoms of a protein's structure. To make the technique work, scientists manipulate a protein or some other molecule so that a crystal forms, which is often extremely difficult. If the scientists are successful in making a crystal, it is then placed in front of a beam of x-rays, which diffract when they strike the crystal's atoms. Based on the pattern of diffraction, scientists can reconstruct the shape of the original molecule.

 

In this case, the team tried to make crystals of PYR1 bound to abscisic acid. They succeeded and were able to solve and analyze the structure.

 

In addition, Schroeder's lab studied the association of these molecules inside living plant cells. And Rambo did complementary structural studies with x-rays to look at how the binding of hormone to PYR1 caused the protein to change shape in solution.

 

The research showed that two copies of PYR1 fit snugly together in plant cells. There, they are targeted by abscisic acid. Each copy of the PYR1 molecule has an internal open space like the inside of a tin can, and when a hormone molecule comes along, it fits neatly into one of the two spaces. This induces part of the PYR1 protein that the team calls the "lid" to close. Further structural changes to other parts of the PYR1 molecule initiate interactions with other proteins thus triggering plant processes for resisting drought.

 

Tantalizing Possibilities

 

The structure may reveal new ways of improving drought tolerance in plants, notes Getzoff. Such improvements would be a boon for agriculture, which is the single largest use for water in most of the world, consuming up to 90 percent of available water in some of the hottest and most arid parts of the world, which are often prone to drought.

 

One possible way to translate this research to agricultural products, says Getzoff, would be to design chemicals to mimic the action of abscisic acid. Such chemicals would then be sprayed on crops to protect them in the face of looming drought. The hormone itself would not work for this purpose because industrial-scale production of abscisic acid would be very expensive and sunlight can convert it into an inactive form. Getzoff cautions, however, it would likely take years before such substances were ready for widespread commercial use. Schroeder adds that understanding the structure of the abscisic acid binding site could conceivably help in redesigning the receptor itself to be bound and activated by known cheap and environmentally safe chemicals. That could be a future boon to agriculture.

 

The article, "Structural Mechanism of Abscisic Acid Binding and Signaling by Dimeric PYR1," has four co-first authors Nishimura, Hitomi, Arvai, and Rambo, emphasizing the teamwork involved.

 

This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, and The Skaggs Institute for Chemical Biology.

 

More information on drought in the United States is available at www.drought.gov/portal/server.pt/community/drought_gov/202 .

 

Return to Top

 

 

USDA taps Arrayit to help protect bees and plants

 

(Wire Services) SUNNYVALE, CA – Arrayit Corporation, a proprietary life sciences technology leader, announced Wednesday that the US Department of Agriculture in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, purchased Arrayit's proprietary technology to assist the USDA in fighting off honeybee extinction and the catastrophic loss of America's crop plants.

 

The USDA is deploying Arrayit's proprietary SpotLight microarray scanning technology and high-speed BioBlue computers to identify biomarkers in the honeybee genome that confer resistance to varroa and tracheal mites, the parasites that threaten the worldwide honeybee population. Honeybee numbers have recently dwindled by 60-70% in some regions of the United States, and honeybees pollinate an estimated $14 billion worth of American crop plants including many essential fruits, seeds and vegetables.

 

"We are pleased that the USDA is using our scanning and computing technology for this important project," states Rene Schena, CEO of Arrayit Corp. "Arrayit is dedicated to protecting American agriculture for the benefit of farmers and consumers."

 

About Arrayit Corporation

 

Arrayit Corporation, headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, leads and empowers the genetic, research, pharmaceutical, and diagnostic communities through the discovery, development and manufacture of proprietary life science technologies and consumables for disease prevention, treatment and cure. It now offers over 650 products to a customer base, including most every major university, pharmaceutical and biotech company, major agricultural and chemical company, government agency, national research foundation and many private sector enterprises. Please visit www.arrayit.com for more information.

 

Return to Top

 

 

Bioinsecticide appears to control Med fruit fly

 

(University of Granada via ScienceDaily.com) – The Mediterranean fruit fly, Ceratitis capitata, is a world plague which represents one of the most serious problems for agriculture. However, the control methods currently present in the market for this plague are ineffective.

 

The research group of the Institute of Biotechnology of the University of Granada (Spain) has isolated and identified a stump of the genus Bacillus, extremely toxic for larvae of C. capitata. After subjecting such stump to a specific treatment, protected by a patent, they have managed to increase notably its toxicity against this fly.

 

According to Dr. Susana Vilchez (hired by the Ramón y Cajal), the Mediterranean fruit fly has a special economic relevance in the Mediterranean countries, like Spain. Given the capacity of the C. capitata to tolerate colder climates than the rest of the species of flies and their wide range of host plants, the C. capitata has been considered as one of the most important species from  an economic point of view. This plague attacks more than 260 species of fruits, flowers or nuts of agricultural fruits and it has been estimated that it causes losses assessed in hundreds of millions of dollars annually in the countries where it becomes established.

 

Biological alternative

 

Chemical insecticides such as malatión have been traditionally used, but they are not effective for the control of the C. capitata. In addition, their use presents a series of drawbacks such as environmental pollution, dangerousness for the staff, the need of safety periods before the commercialization of the fruit, insects-resistance phenomena, etc.

 

As the European legislation is getting increasingly strict with regard to the use of chemical insecticides -- the use of malatión has been forbidden since June of 2007 --  the alternative of biological control is gaining prominence.

 

The results obtained by the scientists from Granada are promising, as at present there is not any bio-insecticide in the market based on bacteria and active against this plague. In addition, this is a new technique for the Mediterranean fruit fly, environmentally friendly, non-toxic, easy to produce, and one that can be supplied by conventional methods.

 

The researchers maintain that the development of a commercial product based on these bacteria will mean an important advance for the agricultural industry.

 

Return to Top

 

End Transmission