By combining genetic data with the results of skin prick tests in allergic patients, more insight has been gained into the involvement of specific allergen genes in apple allergy. For his thesis at Wageningen University, Zhongshan Gao identified and localised genes which are involved in the allergenicity. The results represent a step forward in the identification, breeding and development of low allergenic apple varieties.

Approximately 2% of the West-European population has

The British Ecological Society supports the UK government’s initiative during its G8 Presidency to get world leaders to set out a clear direction for political action on climate change, based on the clear scientific evidence for climate change and its impacts.

Ecologists have shown that climate change is already affecting natural systems and are predicting significant impacts on the earth’s life support systems and on biodiversity in the future. The British Ecological Soci

According to a study by the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society, controlling the movements of wildlife in markets is a cost-effective means of keeping potential deadly pandemics such as SARS and influenza from occurring. The study appears in the July edition of the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases. The cost of controlling the spread of diseases afflicting both human and animal populations has reached hundreds of billions of dollars globally.

“Few threats to global h

The way aquatic plants respond to plant disease and climate change may have applications for managing land-based agriculture, say plant pathologists with The American Phytopathological Society (APS).

According to David Schmale III, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, many aquatic plants possess unique mechanisms of resistance to microbial attack. “Through further study, plant pathologists may be able to apply the novel mechanisms found in aquatic plants to land-based agricultural sy

Scientists at the University of Nottingham are working with researchers in Mexico to develop new varieties of wheat that could combine the best characteristics of British and Mexican types to bring about a quantum leap in yield while increasing the sustainability of UK agriculture.

The researchers are collaborating with the International Centre for Wheat and Maize Improvement (CIMMYT), a relationship strengthened by a recent workshop in Mexico supported by the Biotechnology and

G8 campaigning has raised awareness of the debt problems faced by African countries – but their inhabitants have also had to contend with severe climate change, with disastrous effects on water resources, agriculture and health. An international collaboration involving the University aims to discover what controls the volatile West African climate.

Dr Doug Parker believes that predictive global climate models will be ‘useless’ until detailed studies into the region’s tropospheric composit

Yorkshire Water has selected the University of Leeds to deliver much of its research requirement over the next five years. This exciting collaboration between the University and the country’s leading utility company gives researchers access to over £16m to bring even higher quality water and further improvements in services to the people of Yorkshire while protecting and enhancing the environment.

Leeds is one of only four universities selected as part of a strategic research partnership

The test phase of the engine ANTLE (Affordable Near Term Low Emissions) has concluded. It consists of an experimental vehicle for aeronautic motorisation technologies at medium term. This vehicle has been developed within the EEFAE project (Efficient and Environmentally Friendly Aircraft Engine), the largest aeronautic research programme launched by the European Union in the area of propulsion. The company Industria de Turbo Propulsores, S.A. (ITP) has designed manufactured and assembled the Lo

Identification of soils that inhibit a tiny soybean-destroying organism is an important tool in reducing yield losses, according to a Purdue University plant pathologist.

Soybean cyst nematodes cause between $800 million and $1 billion annually in crop losses in the United States, according the American Phytopathological Society. However, techniques are available to find soils that specifically suppress these microscopic roundworms, said Andreas Westphal, assistant professor of p

UK scientists have identified bioactive plant chemicals in the most practical of staple foods, the potato. These natural chemicals have been associated with reduced blood pressure and they selectively affect a chemotherapeutic target for trypanosomes and similar diseases such as sleeping sickness.

“Potatoes have been cultivated for thousands of years, and we thought traditional crops were pretty well understood”, says food scientist Dr Fred Mellon from the Institute of Food Res

Mobile atmospheric lab gathering climate data

Scientists sponsored by the Department of Energy are conducting a six-month atmospheric research campaign at the Point Reyes National Seashore, in Marin County, California. The experiment’s goal is to help researchers understand how aerosols –small particles such as soot, dust and smoke–influence the structure of marine stratus clouds, and how aerosols are associated with drizzle – the misty rain regularly produced by these types

Climate change and species extinction, two phrases that seem to be on everyone’s mind. But opinions diverge and even if the majority of us can no longer deny climate change – as the signing of the Kyoto agreement by most countries shows – its real dimension and impact on species extinction is still very controversial. But now scientists from Oxford University’s Biodiversity Research Group and colleagues decided to test our capacity to see the future by…going back to the past. And the conclusion i

The Atlantic Ocean plays a much larger role in controlling summer climate in Europe and North America than previously thought, say scientists in a paper published in the journal Science on 1 July 2005.

The scientists, from the NCAS Centre for Global Atmospheric Modelling in Reading, have shown that over the last 100 years several swings in the temperature of the North Atlantic Ocean, each lasting decades at a time, have affected summer climate on both sides of the Atlantic.

A study by a North Carolina State University zoologist and colleagues from the University of Florida and Allegheny College says that landscape corridors – strips of land connecting separated areas of similar habitat – are effective in promoting animal and plant seed movement to help sustain diversity and dispersal of native animals and plants.

In addition, says Dr. Nick Haddad, associate professor of zoology at NC State and a co-author of the paper describing the research, the

A new analysis based on animal studies suggests that showering in manganese-contaminated water for a decade or more could have permanent effects on the nervous system. The damage may occur even at levels of manganese considered safe by the Environmental Protection Agency, according to researchers from Wake Forest University School of Medicine.

“If our results are confirmed, they could have profound implications for the nation and the world,” said John Spangler, M.D., an asso

New technique developed to visualize colliding rock bodies

A team of geophysicists at the University of Colorado at Boulder has developed a new technique to visualize the colliding rock bodies beneath the Himalaya with unprecedented detail, answering a number of questions about the world’s highest mountains and providing a new tool for assessing earthquake hazards.

The study, “Imaging the Indian Subcontinent Beneath the Himalaya” appears in the June 30 issue of the j