Forensic fingerprinting of plant DNA is being investigated as a way to identify offending poisonous plants – a major cause of death in livestock in countries such as Ghana. Dr Domozoro will describe how he uses plant DNA from the animal’s stomach for forensic fingerprinting on Thursday 6th April at the Society for Experimental Biology’s Annual Main Meeting, Canterbury [session P6]. “Knowing the offending plants will help us to manage the poisoning outbreak by targeting specific treatment rout

Green fingered amateur gardeners often talk to their plants; now the plants can talk back. Scientists have developed a system that picks up the subtle cues of plant communication helping plant growers to monitor the crop’s state of health and will result in optimal environmentally-friendly growing conditions.

The scientists, working together in a project called PLANTS, sought to develop a unique system that linked plants, technology and people to continuously assess the state o

Sample sizes were small, but eyebrow-raising results from a study on a western Illinois farm have researchers and veterinarians taking a broader look at how swine producers battle an endemic viral disease that adds to their costs and threatens reproduction in their herds.

A new approach (acclimatization) has producers inoculating newly arrived pigs with the wild-type strain of the porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRS) already existing on a farm. The hope is that

Gas leaks can be potentially life threatening in the home, but the presence of gas stresses out plants too. Professor Mike Steven and colleagues from the University of Nottingham have found that changes in the physical properties of plants can act as an early warning of leaks in natural gas pipelines. “Our study was about testing the ability of satellite remote systems to monitor gas leaks via the spectrum of reflected light from plants, which changes when the plants are stressed”, says Steven.

Lethal measures to control wolf attacks on cattle and sheep are ineffective in the long-term, new study finds

Costly and time-consuming efforts to eliminate wolves that prey on sheep, cattle and other domestic animals are ineffective on a long-term, regional scale, according to an examination of wolf control methods in Alberta and several U.S. states by University of Calgary researchers.

Results of the study were presented today at an annual meeting of wolf scientists,

As long-lived predators at the top of the marine food chain, albatrosses accumulate toxic contaminants such as PCBs, DDT, and mercury in their bodies. A new study has found dramatic differences in contaminant levels between two closely related albatross species that forage in different areas of the North Pacific. Researchers also found that levels of PCBs and DDT have increased in both species over the past ten years.

The differences in contaminant levels between black-footed and

Scientists studying the potentially devastating animal disease, bluetongue, are calling for the assistance of farmers to help them understand the distribution of the potential carriers, certain species of Culicoides biting midges, across the UK.

Although bluetongue has not been recorded in the UK, the last eight years have seen it spread throughout much of southern and eastern Europe and climate change is allowing it to extend into more northerly areas than ever before. Recent outbreaks ha

FOR decades it has been known as the red river, the stream running through a former mining village overlooking the North Sea.

But now scientists at the University of Teesside in Middlesbrough, England, believe they have the answer to the rust-coloured staining of the river caused by ochre – the earthy pigment containing ferric oxide – that leeches out of the old underground workings 40 years after the last mines closed.

The team from Teesside University’s Clean Envir

The Canadian prairies are facing an unprecedented water crisis due to a combination of climate warming, increase in human activity and historic drought, says new research by the University of Alberta’s Dr. David Schindler, one of the world’s leading environmental scientists.

“The western prairies are worse than other areas of Canada,” said Schindler, co-author of a paper published in the journal “Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences,” early online edition. “One of the r

85 percent of respondents said global warming ’probably been happening’ but only 38 percent ’extremely or very sure about it’

Most Americans are pessimistic about the state of the environment and want action taken to improve its health, according to a new national survey conducted by Stanford University’s Woods Institute for the Environment.

Fifty-five percent of Americans surveyed said they expect the world’s natural environment to be in wors

Mango is one of the most widely grown fruit trees in Burkina Faso, with national output running at around 50 000 tonnes/year. Fresh Burkinese mangoes face strong competition on the export market from mangoes from Mali and Ivory Coast. To use up the resulting production surplus, cut fruit losses and gain access to new markets, the first drying units were set up in Burkina Faso in 1980, with the support of the authorities and NGOs. The country’s dried mango sector now concerns around fifty small

“The further birds migrate north for the summer, the faster they put on weight”, says Dr Williams (Simon Fraser University, Canada) who has been tracking migrating birds for several years. “This research may have implications for the designation of protected areas which will ensure birds can complete their spring and autumn migrations.” Dr Williams will present his research on Tuesday 4th April at the Society for Experimental Biology’s Annual Main Meeting in Canterbury [session A4].

“O

Large quantities of Saharan dust are helping to fertilize the massive plankton blooms that occur in the tropical eastern Atlantic, a research project has confirmed.

A team including researchers from the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia has been studying the desert dust, which is rich in nitrogen, iron and phosphorus, and its effect on the ocean’s nutrients, plankton production and the food chain.

The £600,000 project, is part of the Sur

Scientists at CEFAS (UK) have found that the migration pattern of wild cod is much less restricted by environmental temperature than laboratory studies suggest. Previously, research in the lab indicated that the preferred temperature range of cod was between 11-15ºC. However scientists following movements of wild cod equipped with electronic tags that record depth and temperature have found that whilst some fish prefer deeper cooler waters, others tagged at the same time prefer to swim in shallowe

The Bronx Zoo-based Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) today applauded a decision today by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to list the Tibetan antelope, also known as “chiru,” as an endangered species. Through a series of expeditions to China’s windswept Chang Tang Reserve over the past two decades, WCS had played a key role in sounding the alarm about the dramatic decline of this elegant animal due to poaching.

The antelope’s wool, considered the finest in the world, is used for “sh

Ecologists have long asked, Why is the world green? In other words, why aren’t herbivores, such as insects and grazing animals, more successful at eating the world’s green leaves, also known as plant biomass? In the May 2006 issue of American Naturalist, Steven D. Allison (University of California, Irvine) asks the same questions a different way: Why is the ground brown? Why don’t the organisms that break down the carbon in the soil consume it all?

Some of the same ecologic