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December 10, 2010
· Video games promote fruit, veg munching
· Beekeepers want pesticide off the market
· One million sign petition to halt GM crops
· Infrared sheds light on beneficial microbes
· Engineering designer molecules and cells
Video games promote fruit, veg munching
(Baylor University via Gamasutra.com) – A new study from the Baylor College of Medicine found that children who played two video games designed to promote positive nutrition ate more fruits and vegetables than those in a control group.
The study, which also included work from the USDA/ARS
Children's
Some of these children were assigned to play two games designed to promote healthy eating -- Archimage's Nanoswarm: Invasion from Inner Space and Escape from Diab -- and answer questions about their experience.
On average, the children who played these games ate 2/3rds of an additional serving of fruits and vegetables each day, compared to those in the control group. However, the children did not show any improvement in water consumption, physical activity or body composition, three other behavior change goals of the games.
“We believe that video games are among the most promising approaches to promoting behavior change in children,” said paper author and Baylor professor Dr. Tom Baranowski, in a statement. "We’re at the early stages of knowing how best to use video games to promote behavior change and more research is necessary to figure out how to better use the video games in this context."
Using games to promote healthy behavior has been a focus for many researchers, who have studied the physical and mental effects of everything from Konami's Dance Dance Revolution games to casual brain training simulations.
But games' ability to affect player behavior is also the subject of some controversy, with industry critics arguing that violent games can lead children to be more aggressive in real life. A recent study by the Australian government found evidence for such a link was inconclusive at best.
The fruits and vegetables study was published today in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.
Beekeepers want pesticide off the market
(The Palm Beach Post) – Beekeepers and environmentalists this week called on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to remove a pesticide that could be linked to colony collapse disorder from the market and to issue an order to stop its use.
The request to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson from the American Beekeeping Federation, headed by Florida beekeeper Dave Mendes, and five other groups follows the leak of a Nov. 2 EPA memo about the product.
The insecticide sold under the brand name Poncho has an
active ingredient called clothianidin. Bayer
CropScience AG obtained conditional EPA registration for the product in 2003.
The leaked memo identified a study that is the basis for the registration as
unsound, said
The study evaluated the wrong crop, using canola instead of corn, the major pollen-producing crop bees rely on for winter nutrition, beekeepers say.
“The EPA gave Bayer the OK to bring the stuff out as long as they got a core study,” Hackenberg said. “The scientists have been telling the EPA for several years this study is flawed.”
Jack Boyne, a spokesman for the Research Triangle Park, N.C.-based Bayer CropScience, said the company was recently made aware of the unauthorized release of a draft document from EPA.
“We strongly disagree with the conclusion reached by some
that suggest clothianidin is a threat to honeybees. Clothianidin is the leading seed treatment on corn in the
Hackenberg disagreed, saying, “If you use enough of it, it definitely kills bees.”
Hackenberg was the first beekeeper
in the nation to report a mysterious decline of honeybees beginning in 2006. It
came to be known as colony collapse disorder. While scientists say the
phenomenon appears to have multiple causes, including a mix of pathogens,
evidence points to pesticide exposure as a contributing factor, according to
the Pesticide Action Network,
Clothianidin is a member of a group of chemicals called neonicotinoids that are taken up by a plant’s vascular system and expressed through pollen, nectar and droplets that bees forage.
James Frazier, an entomology professor at
Hackenberg questions how long the beekeeping industry can survive losing more than a third of its colonies each winter. Bees pollinate about a third of the crops in the human diet.
“Another winter of 'more studies are needed’ so Bayer can keep their blockbuster products on the market and EPA can avoid a difficult decision, is unacceptable,” Hackenberg said.
One million sign petition to halt GM crops
(Reuters via Yahoo! News) – Campaigners presented a petition of more than a million signatures to the EU executive on Thursday, demanding a halt to approvals of new genetically modified (GM) crops.
The petition is seen as a test case for the "European citizen's initiative," introduced under the EU's new constitutional treaty, which enables a million or more people to jointly ask the European Commission to change EU legislation.
Organized by environmental campaigners Greenpeace, the petition calls on the Commission to stop approving GM crops and set up a new scientific body to study the impact of the technology and determine regulations.
It follows the Commission's decision in March to grant the first EU GM cultivation approval in 12 years for the "Amflora" potato.
"Over a million people across
"Until safety issues of GMs are examined by independent experts, all GM authorizations should stop."
Detailed rules for how the citizen's initiative will work are currently being finalized by EU governments and lawmakers, and are not expected to be in force until the end of next year, at the earliest.
As a result, the Commission has said the petition cannot officially be regarded as a European citizen's initiative, as the signatures were collected before the rules have been finalized.
A spokesman for the EU executive said it would treat the signatures "as a petition in the spirit of the citizen's initiative."
John Dalli, the EU commissioner responsible for GM policy, said: "I am committed to look seriously at the request made through this initiative."
Under draft rules for the initiative agreed by EU governments and lawmakers earlier this week, the Commission would have three months from receipt of a petition to decide what action to take.
This could include drafting new legislative proposals or taking other policy initiatives, but after considering a petition the Commission could also choose to ignore any requests for changes to EU rules.
GM crops are one of the most controversial areas of EU policy, with widespread public opposition to the technology in most EU countries.
Earlier this year the Commission proposed an overhaul of EU rules on GM cultivation, which would let governments decide individually whether or not to grow the technology, and Dalli pledged to press ahead with EU approvals while the plans are discussed
Infrared sheds light on beneficial microbes
(USDA-ARS) – Infrared spectroscopy can quickly spot beneficial fungi on roots in soil, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) soil scientist Francisco Calderon.
This type of spectroscopy has become established practice for quick and reliable analysis of grain and forage quality, as well as for other agricultural uses, thanks in part to work by scientists with the Agricultural Research Service (ARS), USDA's chief intramural scientific research agency.
But Calderon, who works at the ARS Central Great Plains
Resources Management Research Unit in
The ability to quickly analyze field soils for these
beneficial fungi, called mycorrhizae, would allow
scientists to judge which crop rotations or other farming practices increase mycorrhizal fungi. This is important nationwide to improve
crop yields, and especially critical in semi-arid areas like the
Mycorrhizal fungi live in a symbiotic relationship with plants. The fungi extend the reach of plants by taking up nutrients and water that would otherwise would be difficult for plant roots to reach. In exchange, the fungi feed on the carbon sources that plants provide.
Calderon says the test could simplify, speed, and make more
objective measurements of mycorrhizae in root samples
compared to the standard method of visual scoring through a microscope.
Calderon developed the technique with ARS soil scientists Veronica
Acosta-Martinez and Merle Vigil, at
The scientists measured the reflectance of infrared light from dried, powdered carrot root samples. They found that the cell wall chitin and fatty acids in mychorrhizal fungi have distinct spectral signatures, absorbing infrared at wavelengths different than standard chitin and fatty acid samples and different than non-mychorrhizal root samples.
They plan to study the spectral properties of other crop-fungal species to see whether there are universal spectral signatures for this important group of organisms.
Engineering designer molecules and cells
(Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory via PhysOrg.com) -- Will we one day design and create molecules, cells and microorganisms that produce specific chemical products from simple, readily-available, inexpensive starting materials? Will the synthetic organic chemistry now used to produce pharmaceutical drugs, plastics and a host of other products eventually be surpassed by metabolic engineering as the mainstay of our chemical industries? Yes, according to Jay Keasling, chemical engineer and one of the world's foremost practitioners of metabolic engineering.
In a paper published in the journal Science titled "Manufacturing molecules through metabolic engineering," Keasling discusses the potential of metabolic engineering – one of the principal techniques of modern biotechnology - for the microbial production of many of the chemicals that are currently derived from non-renewable resources or limited natural resources. Examples include, among a great many other possibilities, the replacement of gasoline and other transportation fuels with clean, green and renewable biofuels.
"Continued development of the tools of metabolic engineering will be necessary to expand the range of products that can be produced using biological systems, Keasling says. "However, when more of these tools are available, metabolic engineering should be just as powerful as synthetic organic chemistry, and together the two disciplines can greatly expand the number of chemical products available from renewable resources."
Keasling is the chief executive
officer for the Joint BioEnergy Institute, a U.S.
Department of Energy (DOE) bioenergy research center. He also holds joint
appointments with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab),
where he oversees that institute's biosciences research programs, and the
University of California (UC),
Metabolic engineering is the practice of altering genes and metabolic pathways within a cell or microorganism to increase its production of a specific substance. Keasling led one of the most successful efforts to date in the application of metabolic engineering when he combined it with synthetic organic chemistry techniques to develop a microbial-based means of producing artemisinin, the most potent of all anti-malaria drugs. He and his research group at JBEI are now applying that same combination to the synthesis of liquid transportation fuels from lignocellulosic biomass. In all cases, the goal is to engineer microbes to perform as much of the chemistry required to produce a desired final product as possible.
"To date, microbial production of natural chemical products has been achieved by transferring product-specific enzymes or entire metabolic pathways from rare or genetically intractable organisms to those that can be readily engineered," Keasling says. "Production of non-natural specialty chemicals, bulk chemicals, and fuels has been enabled by combining enzymes or pathways from different hosts into a single microorganism, and by engineering enzymes to have new function.
These efforts have utilized well-known, industrial microorganisms, but future efforts, he says, may include designer molecules and cells that are tailor-made for the desired chemical and production process.
"In any future, metabolic engineering will soon rival and potentially eclipse synthetic organic chemistry," Keasling says.
Keasling cites the production of active pharmaceutical ingredients as one area where metabolic engineering enjoys a distinct advantage over synthetic organic chemistry. This includes three specific classes of chemicals – alkaloids, which are primarily derived from plants; polyketides and non-ribosomal peptides, which are produced by various bacteria and fungi; and isoprenoids, which also are typically produced by microbes.
"Many of these natural products are too complex to be chemically synthesized and yet have a value that justifies the cost of developing a genetically engineered microorganism," Keasling says. "The cost of starting materials is generally a small fraction of the complete cost of these products, and relatively little starting material is necessary so availability is not an issue."
Keasling also says that metabolic engineering could provide a valuable alternative means of producing variations of terpenes, the hydrocarbon compounds common to the resins of conifers, in a form that could yield pharmaceuticals that are more effective for the treatment of human disease than the forms that nature has provided.
Perhaps the ripest targets of opportunity for future metabolic engineering efforts are petroleum-based bulk chemical products, including gasoline and other fuels, polymers and solvents. Because such products can be inexpensively catalyzed from petroleum, microbial production has until now been rare, but with fluctuating oil prices, dwindling resources and other considerations, the situation, Keasling says, has changed.
"It is now possible to consider production of these inexpensive bulk chemicals from low-cost starting materials, such as starch, sucrose, or cellulosic biomass with a microbial catalyst," he says. "The key to producing these bulk chemicals in metabolically-engineered cells will be our ability to make the exact molecule needed for existing products rather than something 'similar but green' that will require extensive product testing before it can be used."
In his Science paper, Keasling discusses the formidable roadblocks that stand in the way of a future in which microorganisms and molecules can be tailor-made through metabolic engineering, including the need for "debugging routines" that can find and fix errors in engineered cells. However, he is convinced these roadblocks can and will be overcome.
"One can even envision a day when cell manufacturing is done by different companies, each specializing in certain aspects of the synthesis, with one company constructing the chromosome, one company building the membrane and cell wall bag, and one company filling this bag with the basic molecules needed to boot up the cell."
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