Agricultural and Forestry Science

The changing attitude of European society to research in food and agriculture demands that researchers pay more attention to the concerns of the public and other stakeholders

Today in Brussels, the annual Euragri conference, entitled “Science for Society – Science with Society” and sponsored by the European Commission, addressed European consumers’ concerns and proposed new goals, roles and rules to respond better and quicker to the needs of society. Research Commissioner Philippe Bu

One of the most widespread ways to protect wood from organisms’ attacks is to use chemicals. However, due to the risks its usage involves (toxic for the user, pollution of the environment…), the interest to obtain a more effective but non-polluting protector has increased.

Nowadays, the research of active matter with biocide effects has become one of the most interesting research lines to find new pesticides.

Objectives

The aim of the project the Basque Research Ce

Researchers from Imperial College London have published new results that suggest that over half of BSE cases went unrecognised or unreported during the epidemic in Great Britain. The new figures, to be published in a forthcoming Proceedings B, a learned journal published by the Royal Society, estimate that the total number of cattle infected during the epidemic was over two million.However the paper highlights the need for additional research to reduce the uncertainties in some key biological factors

Scientists have raised concerns following the discovery of a single gene that gives vinegar flies resistance to a wide range of pesticides, including the banned DDT.

Scientists are worried as this single mutation unexpectedly provides the fly (Drosophila melanogaster) with resistance to a range of commonly available, but chemically unrelated, pesticides. Significant also, is this species is rarely targeted with pesticides and many of the chemicals it is resistant to, it has never been expo

An international team of scientists have today reported the discovery of a protein, called DIR1, that is a key step in the pathways that enable plants to protect themselves against disease. DIR1 is involved in the transmission of a warning signal from plant cells infected by disease. The signal alerts cells, in areas remote from the infected site, that the plant is under attack and switches on defence mechanisms that prevent the disease establishing further infection sites. The report, from scientis

A University of Toronto botanist has identified a protein that ultimately could provide chemical-free ways to protect crops from disease.

“Finding this protein, called DIR1, could help make it possible to genetically engineer crops that resist disease-causing organisms,” says Robin Cameron, a professor of botany at U of T and the senior investigator of the study, which appears in the Sept. 26 issue of Nature. “In the long run, having a better understanding of the whole process of disease re