Biologists at the University of California, San Diego have discovered that Bacillus thuringiensis, or Bt — a bacterium that produces natural protein insecticides that have been used by organic farmers for five decades — can also produce similar natural proteins that kill nematodes.

The discovery could pave the way for the development of an inexpensive and environmentally safe means of controlling the parasitic roundworms that each year destroy billions of dollars in crops, cause debilitating

MTT Agrifood Research Finland and the University of Liège, Belgium, have worked together successfully in locating a gene that regulates total yield and protein and fat content of milk. The scientists found a variation in the growth hormone receptor gene in the bovine chromosome 20. The variation in the receptor gene is associated with a major effect on milk yield and composition in Ayrshire, Holstein and Jersey cows.

Dr Johanna Vilkki of MTT says that developing associated markers for genes

University of Leicester biologist Dr Paul Hart has been carrying out a study to reveal the “Biological and Socio-economic Implications of a Limited Access Fishery Management System”, detailing the arguments for and against keeping different methods of fishing apart.

His aim is to discover a fishery management system which will encourage co-operation between stake-holders using the coastal zone. Dr Hart is working on this with two leading scientists from the University of Wales, Bangor

Animals in the oceans surrounding Antarctica are under increasing threat. Fishery management organisations and governments need to do more to eliminate illegal fishing and regulate better legal fishing in Southern Ocean and adjacent areas according to Professor John Croxall speaking today (17 Feb) at a special symposium – Conserving Migratory Marine Organisms: Protecting animals with ocean-sized habitats organised by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

Charismatic

Warming land and ocean surfaces, melting glaciers, rising sea levels, and other recent evidence strongly suggest that Earth’s climate is already changing rapidly because of the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, according to Warren Washington, senior scientist and head of the Climate Change Research Group at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). Computer models of Earth’s climate support these observations, he says, and indicate more severe changes yet to come.

Powerful computer models predict that winter temperatures in the polar regions of the world could rise as much as 10 degrees centigrade in the next hundred years, if no efforts are made to control production of carbon dioxide, methane and other gasses.

“With projections to the year 2100, we can show what will happen if we continue with business as usual—if we don’t do anything to curb emissions of greenhouse gasses,” said Warren M. Washington, senior research scientist for the National Cent

How will global warming affect life on Earth? Uncertainties about future climate change and the impact of human activity make it difficult to predict exactly what lies ahead. But the past offers clues, say scientists who are studying a period of warming that occurred about 55 million years ago.

In a joint project of the University of Michigan, the University of New Hampshire and the Smithsonian Institution, researchers have been analyzing fossils from the badlands of Wyoming found in a dist

The idea of freezing and storing the genetic materials of endangered plants and animals in some offsite location sounds more like a Jurassic Park sequel than a reality, but it is something that is in the works.

Endangered species protection programs, zoos, and plant conservatories work to preserve the Earth’s animal and plant population, but in order to preserve the richness of biological diversity, alternatives such as gene banking must be used, scientist said today at the American As

Nitrogen is central to food production, helping feed almost 40 percent of the world’s growing population, but the element also starts a cascade that moves through the atmosphere, soils, and waters, dramatically altering the environment.

In order to meet future need and preserve the environment, new strategies and opportunities for improved nitrogen management must be developed, scientists said today at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Annual Meeting.

The U.S. Government is spending millions of dollars to research the feasibility of stuffing carbon dioxide into coal seams and fields of briny water deep beneath the Earth. But, a scientist at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Annual Meeting argues that the government isn’t thinking big enough in its plans to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Dissatisfied with the long-term potential of most current technologies for carbon sequestration, Klaus Lack

Scientists at the Department of Global Ecology of the Carnegie Institution of Washington in Stanford, California, have found that climate trends significantly affect corn and soybean yields. David Lobell and Dr. Gregory Asner analyzed 17 years of data on crop yields, temperature, precipitation, and solar radiation throughout the U.S. for their study and published their results in the February 14, 2003, issue of Science.

The investigation showed that gradual increases in temperature cause si

Smithsonian scientist challenges results of recent study

Late last year, Frédéric Achard and colleagues published a controversial article in which they contended that earlier estimates of worldwide tropical deforestation and atmospheric carbon emissions were too high. In the February 14 issue of Science, Philip Fearnside from the National Institute for Amazonian Research in Brazil, and William Laurance from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama argue that the Achard st

Troubled by slugs? The latest research suggests luring them away from crops and plants with clover. Slugs are major pests of many crops, but current methods of control are often unreliable, so researchers studied a number of different legumes to find one which slugs prefer to lure them away from crops. This research will be published online in the SCI journal Pest Management Science on 12 February 2003 and in the March 2003 print issue.

The common field slug (Deroceras reticulatum Müller) is

Brazil’s Pantanal, a vast wetland situated in the center of South America, has become the next frontier for leading-edge eco-tourists in search of ever more exotic flora and fauna. “It’s where people go after they’ve been to Africa,” says Shannon Bouton, a Ph.D. student in the School of Natural Resources and Environment (SNRE) at the University of Michigan.

This month, Bouton is publishing the results of her unique study of a wading bird colony in the Pantanal in the February

For the first time ever, a University of Alberta researcher has discovered that an animal species has changed its genetic make-up to cope with global warming. In the past, organisms have shown the flexibility–or plasticity–to adapt to their surroundings, but this is the first time it has been proven a species has responded genetically to cope with environmental forces.

Dr. Stan Boutin, from the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, has been studying a

Highlights, including authors and their institutions

The following highlights summarize research papers in Geophysical Research Letters (GL), Journal of Geophysical Research – Solid Earth (JB), Journal of Geophysical Research – Atmospheres (JD), and Journal of Geophysical Research – Planets (JE). The papers related to these Highlights are printed in the next paper issue of the journal following their electronic publication.

1. Another Great Salinity Anomaly?