New hope for powdery mildew resistant barley

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New research at the University of Adelaide has opened the way for the development of new lines of barley with resistance to powdery mildew.In Australia, annual barley production is second only to wheat with 7-8 million tonnes a year. Powdery mildew is one of the most important diseases of barley.Senior Research Scientist Dr Alan Little and team have discovered the composition of special growths on the cell walls of barley plants that block the penetration of the fungus into the leaf.The research, by the ARC Centre of Excellence in Plant Cell Walls in the University’s School of Agriculture, Food and Wine in collaboration with the Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research in Germany, will be presented at the upcoming 5th International Conference on Plant Cell Wall Biology and published in the journal New Phytologist.”Powdery mildew is a significant problem wherever barley is grown around the world,” says Dr Little. “Growers with infected crops can expect up to 25% reductions in yield and the barley may also be downgraded from high quality malting barley to that of feed quality, with an associated loss in market value.”In recent times we’ve seen resistance in powdery mildew to the class of fungicide most commonly used to control the disease in Australia. Developing barley with improved resistance to the disease is therefore even more important.”The discovery means researchers have new targets for breeding powdery mildew resistant barley lines.”Powdery mildew feeds on the living plant,” says Dr Little. “The fungus spore lands on the leaf and sends out a tube-like structure which punches its way through cell walls, penetrating the cells and taking the nutrients from the plant. The plant tries to stop this penetration by building a plug of cell wall material — a papillae — around the infection site. Effective papillae can block the penetration by the fungus.”It has long been thought that callose is the main polysaccharide component of papilla. But using new techniques, we’ve been able to show that in the papillae that block fungal penetration, two other polysaccharides are present in significant concentrations and play a key role.”It appears that callose acts like an initial plug in the wall but arabinoxylan and cellulose fill the gaps in the wall and make it much stronger.”In his PhD project, Jamil Chowdhury showed that effective papillae contained up to four times the concentration of callose, arabinoxylan and cellulose as cell wall plugs which didn’t block penetration.”We can now use this knowledge find ways of increasing these polysaccharides in barley plants to produce more resistant lines available for growers,” says Dr Little.Story Source:The above story is based on materials provided by University of Adelaide. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.


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Stroke survivors often return to driving without being evaluated for ability

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Date:February 13, 2014Source:American Heart AssociationSummary:Stroke survivors often resume driving without being formally evaluated for ability — though stroke can cause deficits that can impair driving, according to researchers.Stroke survivors often resume driving without being formally evaluated for ability — though stroke can cause deficits that can impair driving, according to research presented at the American Stroke Association’s International Stroke Conference 2014.Researchers surveyed 162 stroke survivors a year after their strokes and found:More than 51 percent returned to driving — many a month after suffering a stroke. Only 5.6 percent received a formal driving evaluation. Eleven percent of those who returned to driving reported their strokes had greatly impacted their abilities to perform important life activities. Among those who returned to driving and reported no effect on their abilities to perform important life activities, more than 45 percent limited their driving. Researchers suggest stroke survivors may benefit from formal evaluation before resuming driving.Story Source:The above story is based on materials provided by American Heart Association. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.Cite This Page:MLA APA Chicago American Heart Association. “Stroke survivors often return to driving without being evaluated for ability.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 13 February 2014. .American Heart Association. (2014, February 13). …


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Geographical passwords easier to remember

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It’s much easier to remember a place you have visited than a long, complicated password, which is why computer scientist Ziyad Al-Salloum of ZSS-Research in Ras Al Khaimah, UAE, is developing a system he calls geographical passwords.Writing in a freely available “open access” research paper in the International Journal of Security and Networks, Al-Salloum emphasizes how increasingly complicated our online lives are becoming with more and more accounts requiring more and more passwords. Moreover, he adds that even strong, but conventional passwords are a security risk in the face of increasingly sophisticated “hacker” tools that can break into servers and apply brute force to reveal passwords. Indeed, over the last few years numerous major corporations and organizations — LinkedIn, Sony, the US government, Evernote, Twitter, Yahoo and many others — have had their systems compromised to different degrees and overall millions of usernames and associated passwords have been harvested and even leaked online.Al-Salloum has devised geographical passwords as a simple yet practical approach to access credentials that could provide secure access to different entities and at the same time mitigate many of the vulnerabilities associated with current password-based schemes. The new “geo” approach exploits our remarkable ability to recall with relative ease a favorite or visited place and to use that place’s specific location as the access credentials. The prototype system developed at ZSS — Research has proven itself capable of protecting a system against known password threats. “Proposing an effective replacement of conventional passwords could reduce 76% of data breaches, based on an analysis of more than 47,000 reported security incidents,” Al-Salloum reports.The geographical password system utilizes the geographical information derived from a specific memorable location around which the user has logged a drawn boundary- longitude, latitude, altitude, area of the boundary, its perimeter, sides, angles, radius and other features form the geographical password. For instance, the user might draw a six-side polygon around a geographical feature such as the Eiffel Tower, Uluru (also known as Ayer’s Rock), a particular promontory on the Grand Canyon, a local church, a particular tree in the woodland where they walk their dog…or any other geographical feature. Once created, the password is then “salted” by adding a string of hidden random characters that are user-specific and the geographical password and the salt “hashed” together. Thus, even if two users pick the same place as their geographical password the behind-the-scenes password settings is unique to them.If the system disallowed two users from picking the same location, this will make it much easier for adversaries to guess passwords.The guessability, or entropy, of a geographical password would increase significantly if the password comprised two or more pinpointed locations. Al-Salloum explains that a whole-earth map might have 360 billion tiles at 20 degrees of “zoom,” which offers an essentially limitless number of essentially unguessable geographical passwords.Story Source:The above story is based on materials provided by Inderscience Publishers. …


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Superbright, fast X-rays image single layer of proteins

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In biology, a protein’s shape is key to understanding how it causes disease or toxicity. Researchers who use X-rays to take snapshots of proteins need a billion copies of the same protein stacked and packed into a neat crystal. Now, scientists using exceptionally bright and fast X-rays can take a picture that rivals conventional methods with a sheet of proteins just one protein molecule thick.Using a type of laser known as XFEL, the technique opens the door to learning the structural details of almost 25 percent of known proteins, many of which have been overlooked due to their inability to stack properly. The team of researchers led by the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories report their results with this unique form of X-ray diffraction in the March issue of the International Union of Crystallography Journal.”In this paper, we’re proving it’s possible to use an XFEL to study individual monolayers of protein,” said PNNL microscopist James Evans. “Just being able to see any diffraction is brand new.”Evans co-led the team of two dozen scientists with LLNL physicist Matthias Frank. The bright, fast X-rays were produced at the Linac Coherent Light Source at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in Menlo Park, Calif., the newest of DOE’s major X-ray light source facilities at the national laboratories. LCLS, currently the world’s most powerful X-ray laser, is an X-ray free-electron laser. It produces beams millions of times brighter than earlier X-ray light sources.Coming in at around 8 angstrom resolution (which can make out items a thousand times smaller than the width of a hair), the proteins appear slightly blurry but match the expected view based on previous research. Evans said this level of clarity would allow researchers, in some cases, to see how proteins change their shape as they interact with other proteins or molecules in their environment.To get a clearer view of protein monolayers using XFEL, the team will need to improve the resolution to 1 to 3 angstroms, as well as take images of the proteins at different angles, efforts that are currently underway.Not Your Family’s CrystalResearchers have been using X-ray crystallography for more than 60 years to determine the shape and form of proteins that form the widgets and gears of a living organism’s cells. The conventional method requires, however, that proteins stack into a large crystal, similar to how oranges stack in a crate. …


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Traditional Medicine: Environment change threatens indigenous know-how

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The way indigenous cultures around the globe use traditional medicines and pass on knowledge developed over centuries is directly linked to the natural environment, new research has found.This makes indigenous cultures susceptible to environmental change, a threat that comes on top of the challenges posed by globalisation.”Traditional medicine provides health care for more than half the world’s population, with 80 per cent of people in developing countries relying on these practices to maintain their livelihood. It is a very important part of traditional knowledge,” says Dr Haris Saslis-Lagoudakis, from The Australian National University’s (ANU) Research School of Biology.”This knowledge is typically passed down from generation to generation, or it is ‘borrowed’ from neighbours. Because of this borrowing, globalisation can homogenise medicinal practices of different communities, leading to loss of medicinal remedies.”But this is not the only challenge that indigenous cultures face.”Imminent changes in the environment also pose a threat to traditional knowledge,” explains Dr Saslis-Lagoudakis.”Traditional medicine utilises plants and animals to make natural remedies. Despite a lot of these species being under threat due to ongoing climatic changes and other human effects on the environment, the effect that these changes can have on traditional medicine is not thoroughly understood.”Dr Saslis-Lagoudakis and a team of international researchers led by the University of Reading (UK) investigated how the environment shapes medicinal plant use in indigenous cultures, specifically Nepal, a country in the Himalayans that has outstanding cultural, environmental and biological diversity.”By understanding the relationship between environment and traditional knowledge, we can then understand how cultures have responded to changes in the environment in the past,” he says.The team studied 12 ethnic groups from Nepal and recorded what plants different cultures use in traditional medicine. They calculated similarities in their medicinal floras and also calculated similarities in the floras these cultures are exposed to, how closely related they are, and their geographic separation.”We found that Nepalese cultures that are exposed to similar floras use similar plant medicines.”Although shared cultural history and borrowing of traditional knowledge among neighbouring cultures can lead to similarities in the plants used medicinally, we found that plant availability in the local environment has a stronger influence on the make-up of a culture’s medicinal floras.”Essentially, this means that the environment plays a huge role in shaping traditional knowledge. This is very important, especially when you think of the risks that these cultures are already facing.”Due to ongoing environmental changes we are observing across the globe, we might lose certain plant species which will lead to changed ecosystems, and an overall poorer natural environment. This will then affect what plants people can use around them.”We should be concerned about the fate of the traditional knowledge of these cultures. However, understanding the factors that shape traditional knowledge can provide the underpinnings to preserve this body of knowledge and predict its future.”Story Source:The above story is based on materials provided by Australian National University. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.


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How a few small diet changes can add up to big results

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Learn more about Herbalife – Follow @Herbalife on Twitter- Like Herbalife on Facebook- What is Herbalife? More fitness advice – Watch ‘Fit Tips’ Videos on YouTube- Straightforward exercise advice- Get fit = be happy. Positivity advice Nutrition advice for you – Watch ‘Healthy Living’ on YouTube- Dieting advice you might like- Interesting weight loss articles Copyright © 2013 Herbalife International of America, Inc.


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Nanomotors are controlled, for the first time, inside living cells

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For the first time, a team of chemists and engineers at Penn State University have placed tiny synthetic motors inside live human cells, propelled them with ultrasonic waves and steered them magnetically. It’s not exactly “Fantastic Voyage,” but it’s close. The nanomotors, which are rocket-shaped metal particles, move around inside the cells, spinning and battering against the cell membrane.”As these nanomotors move around and bump into structures inside the cells, the live cells show internal mechanical responses that no one has seen before,” said Tom Mallouk, Evan Pugh Professor of Materials Chemistry and Physics at Penn State. “This research is a vivid demonstration that it may be possible to use synthetic nanomotors to study cell biology in new ways. We might be able to use nanomotors to treat cancer and other diseases by mechanically manipulating cells from the inside. Nanomotors could perform intracellular surgery and deliver drugs noninvasively to living tissues.”The researchers’ findings will be published in Angewandte Chemie International Edition on 10 February 2014. In addition to Mallouk, co-authors include Penn State researchers Wei Wang, Sixing Li, Suzanne Ahmed, and Tony Jun Huang, as well as Lamar Mair of Weinberg Medical Physics in Maryland U.S.A.Up until now, Mallouk said, nanomotors have been studied only “in vitro” in a laboratory apparatus, not in living human cells. Chemically powered nanomotors first were developed ten years ago at Penn State by a team that included chemist Ayusman Sen and physicist Vincent Crespi, in addition to Mallouk. “Our first-generation motors required toxic fuels and they would not move in biological fluid, so we couldn’t study them in human cells,” Mallouk said. “That limitation was a serious problem.” When Mallouk and French physicist Mauricio Hoyos discovered that nanomotors could be powered by ultrasonic waves, the door was open to studying the motors in living systems.For their experiments, the team uses HeLa cells, an immortal line of human cervical cancer cells that typically is used in research studies. …


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Cochlear implant with no exterior hardware can be wirelessly recharged

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Cochlear implants — medical devices that electrically stimulate the auditory nerve — have granted at least limited hearing to hundreds of thousands of people worldwide who otherwise would be totally deaf. Existing versions of the device, however, require that a disk-shaped transmitter about an inch in diameter be affixed to the skull, with a wire snaking down to a joint microphone and power source that looks like an oversized hearing aid around the patient’s ear.Researchers at MIT’s Microsystems Technology Laboratory (MTL), together with physicians from Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary (MEEI), have developed a new, low-power signal-processing chip that could lead to a cochlear implant that requires no external hardware. The implant would be wirelessly recharged and would run for about eight hours on each charge.The researchers describe their chip in a paper they’re presenting this week at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference. The paper’s lead author — Marcus Yip, who completed his PhD at MIT last fall — and his colleagues Rui Jin and Nathan Ickes, both in MIT’s Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, will also exhibit a prototype charger that plugs into an ordinary cell phone and can recharge the signal-processing chip in roughly two minutes.”The idea with this design is that you could use a phone, with an adaptor, to charge the cochlear implant, so you don’t have to be plugged in,” says Anantha Chandrakasan, the Joseph F. and Nancy P. Keithley Professor of Electrical Engineering and corresponding author on the new paper. “Or you could imagine a smart pillow, so you charge overnight, and the next day, it just functions.”Adaptive reuseExisting cochlear implants use an external microphone to gather sound, but the new implant would instead use the natural microphone of the middle ear, which is almost always intact in cochlear-implant patients.The researchers’ design exploits the mechanism of a different type of medical device, known as a middle-ear implant. Delicate bones in the middle ear, known as ossicles, convey the vibrations of the eardrum to the cochlea, the small, spiral chamber in the inner ear that converts acoustic signals to electrical. In patients with middle-ear implants, the cochlea is functional, but one of the ossicles — the stapes — doesn’t vibrate with enough force to stimulate the auditory nerve. A middle-ear implant consists of a tiny sensor that detects the ossicles’ vibrations and an actuator that helps drive the stapes accordingly.The new device would use the same type of sensor, but the signal it generates would travel to a microchip implanted in the ear, which would convert it to an electrical signal and pass it on to an electrode in the cochlea. …


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Beauty and Stress: Chill out to look and feel your best

Learn more about Herbalife – Follow @Herbalife on Twitter- Like Herbalife on Facebook- What is Herbalife? More fitness advice – Watch ‘Fit Tips’ Videos on YouTube- Straightforward exercise advice- Get fit = be happy. Positivity advice Nutrition advice for you – Watch ‘Healthy Living’ on YouTube- Dieting advice you might like- Interesting weight loss articles Copyright © 2013 Herbalife International of America, Inc.


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Beauty and Stress: Chill out to look and feel your best

Learn more about Herbalife – Follow @Herbalife on Twitter- Like Herbalife on Facebook- What is Herbalife? More fitness advice – Watch ‘Fit Tips’ Videos on YouTube- Straightforward exercise advice- Get fit = be happy. Positivity advice Nutrition advice for you – Watch ‘Healthy Living’ on YouTube- Dieting advice you might like- Interesting weight loss articles Copyright © 2013 Herbalife International of America, Inc.


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Beauty and Stress: Chill out to look and feel your best

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Learn more about Herbalife – Follow @Herbalife on Twitter- Like Herbalife on Facebook- What is Herbalife? More fitness advice – Watch ‘Fit Tips’ Videos on YouTube- Straightforward exercise advice- Get fit = be happy. Positivity advice Nutrition advice for you – Watch ‘Healthy Living’ on YouTube- Dieting advice you might like- Interesting weight loss articles Copyright © 2013 Herbalife International of America, Inc.


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