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Sunday, May 5, 2013
Solar Impulse airplane begins fuel-free odyssey across America
A Swiss-made, solar-powered airplane called Solar Impulse took off Friday on the first leg of an aerial odyssey across America, beginning what's expected to be the slowest flight from San Francisco to Phoenix with nary a drop of fuel.
Adventurer Bertrand Piccard piloted the craft, which has the wingspan of a jumbo jet but the weight of a typical passenger car, from Moffett Field into the Bay Area's skies at 6:12 a.m. ET (9:12 a.m. ET) and headed south toward Arizona.
"Everything looking fine down here," Mission Control told Piccard after takeoff.
The trip is due to take about 19 hours. You could drive that distance in two-thirds that time ? but that's not the point.
"A flying laboratory for clean technologies, this prototype is the result of seven years of intense work in the fields of materials science, energy management and man-machine interface," Andre Borschberg, Solar Impulse's co-founder and CEO, said before the flight.
Borschberg and Piccard will be taking turns in the pilot's seat for a months-long series of flights that should end up in New York around the Fourth of July. Each leg of the odyssey will be covered with streaming video, and the project plans to collect thousands of names that will be added to a "Clean Generation" list of supporters carried in the cockpit.
All of Solar Impulse's power comes from its solar cells, which soak up sunlight and store the electrical energy in batteries for when the sun isn't shining. The plane generates as much power as a motor scooter for its four 10-horsepower motors. That's why the carbon-fiber craft has to be so big and light.
The "Across America" mission builds upon Piccard's experience as a record-setting, round-the-world balloonist, and draws upon financial backing from Swiss business concerns. In 2010, Solar Impulse took on on the world's first solar-powered night flight, a 26-hour affair in Switzerland. The next year, it made the first international solar flight, from Switzerland to Belgium to France. And in 2012, it took on the first solar-powered intercontinental flight, from Europe to North Africa.
Over the next couple of months, Solar Impulse is due to fly from Phoenix to Dallas-Fort Worth, then to St. Louis, then Washington, then New York. As ambitious as this odyssey is, it's just a warm-up for the venture's ultimate goal: circumnavigating the world with solar power.
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Saturday, May 4, 2013
New mechanism discovered in meiosis
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Public release date: 3-May-2013[ | E-mail |
Share ] Contact: Andrea Pichler
pichler@ie-freiburg.mpg.de
49-076-151-08777
Max-Planck-Gesellschaft
Inactivated, but still active -- how modification of an enzyme governs critical processes in sexual reproduction
This news release is available in German.
The Research Group headed by molecular biologist Andrea Pichler from the Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics in Freiburg has made an important discovery in meiosis research. Pichler and her group have identified a new mechanism that plays an important role in meiosis.
Meiosis, also called reductional division, is a key process in sexual reproduction. It shuffles parental genetic material and thus guarantees genetic variety.
In order to control various biological processes, cells are able to selectively alter properties of their proteins, such as their lifespan, activity level, binding partners, or localization of the proteins. This is accomplished, for example, by attaching one or more Small Ubiquitin-like Modifier (SUMO) proteins. This takes place in three sequential enzyme-dependent steps. Scientists have assumed that the enzyme for step 2 was solely an intermediate.
As the scientists in Freiburg have now discovered, the step-2 enzyme is itself modified by the SUMO protein and thereby alters how it functions. The surprising effect: the conventional activity of the enzyme is switched off by this change and instead, a new function gained. It works together with the activated, unaltered enzyme in the formation of SUMO chains. If this effect is blocked, there are serious consequences: the protein structure (synaptonemal complex) that forms between the homologous chromosomes can no longer be established.
A tiny amount less than one percent of the SUMO-modified step-2 enzyme is sufficient to form a normal protein structure (left image). Researcher Helene Klug from Pichler's team: "The smallest amount of the altered enzyme together with the unmodified enzyme is sufficient to form an activated complex, which then carries out the meiosis specific SUMO modifications."
"In the beginning, the results of the biological and biochemical experiments were completely contradictory, although the data were absolutely sound. We were therefore convinced that both sets of observations were correct. Explaining this contradiction led us then to the new mechanism," according to Pichler, who heads the study. In extensive and complicated biochemical experiments, the researchers were additionally able to reveal, for the first time, how this enzyme complex carries out the formation of SUMO chains.
After fifty years of research on the synaptonemal complex, these new insights are setting a new course: "This is the first time we can study the loss of the synaptonemal complex with practically no secondary effects and we hope to unveil its secret. That allows us to investigate the consequences for meiosis and thus for development of the gametes", say Franz Klein and Martin Xaver, collaborators and meiosis researchers at the Max F. Perutz Laboratories in Vienna.
Pichler and her team were already able to demonstrate in 2008 that self-tagging by the step-2 enzyme in mammalian cells has an influence on precisely which proteins are tagged with SUMO. In order to uncover the biological function for this form of regulation, the research team switched to baker's yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae), a simpler organism. "Now that we know where we need to search, we also want to switch back again to the mammalian system and investigate the role of this enzyme regulation more closely there", says Pichler. "In addition, we want to better understand the function of the discovered baker's yeast enzyme complex in the meiotic chromosomal structure."
###
Scientists at the Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics (MPI-IE) in Freiburg, founded in 1961, investigate how the immune system has developed over the course of evolution and how it changes during life. The focus on epigenetics was added in 2007. Researchers in this area investigate changes to inheritable characteristics that are not based upon changes to the DNA sequence.
Original publication:
Klug H, Xaver M, Chaugule V K, Koidl S, Mittler G, Klein F, and Pichler A: Ubc9 Sumoylation Controls SUMO Chain Formation and Meiotic Synapsis in Saccharomyces cerevisiae (2013). Molecular Cell, 2 May 2013 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.molcel.2013.03.027
[ | E-mail | Share ] ?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Public release date: 3-May-2013[ | E-mail |
Share ] Contact: Andrea Pichler
pichler@ie-freiburg.mpg.de
49-076-151-08777
Max-Planck-Gesellschaft
Inactivated, but still active -- how modification of an enzyme governs critical processes in sexual reproduction
This news release is available in German.
The Research Group headed by molecular biologist Andrea Pichler from the Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics in Freiburg has made an important discovery in meiosis research. Pichler and her group have identified a new mechanism that plays an important role in meiosis.
Meiosis, also called reductional division, is a key process in sexual reproduction. It shuffles parental genetic material and thus guarantees genetic variety.
In order to control various biological processes, cells are able to selectively alter properties of their proteins, such as their lifespan, activity level, binding partners, or localization of the proteins. This is accomplished, for example, by attaching one or more Small Ubiquitin-like Modifier (SUMO) proteins. This takes place in three sequential enzyme-dependent steps. Scientists have assumed that the enzyme for step 2 was solely an intermediate.
As the scientists in Freiburg have now discovered, the step-2 enzyme is itself modified by the SUMO protein and thereby alters how it functions. The surprising effect: the conventional activity of the enzyme is switched off by this change and instead, a new function gained. It works together with the activated, unaltered enzyme in the formation of SUMO chains. If this effect is blocked, there are serious consequences: the protein structure (synaptonemal complex) that forms between the homologous chromosomes can no longer be established.
A tiny amount less than one percent of the SUMO-modified step-2 enzyme is sufficient to form a normal protein structure (left image). Researcher Helene Klug from Pichler's team: "The smallest amount of the altered enzyme together with the unmodified enzyme is sufficient to form an activated complex, which then carries out the meiosis specific SUMO modifications."
"In the beginning, the results of the biological and biochemical experiments were completely contradictory, although the data were absolutely sound. We were therefore convinced that both sets of observations were correct. Explaining this contradiction led us then to the new mechanism," according to Pichler, who heads the study. In extensive and complicated biochemical experiments, the researchers were additionally able to reveal, for the first time, how this enzyme complex carries out the formation of SUMO chains.
After fifty years of research on the synaptonemal complex, these new insights are setting a new course: "This is the first time we can study the loss of the synaptonemal complex with practically no secondary effects and we hope to unveil its secret. That allows us to investigate the consequences for meiosis and thus for development of the gametes", say Franz Klein and Martin Xaver, collaborators and meiosis researchers at the Max F. Perutz Laboratories in Vienna.
Pichler and her team were already able to demonstrate in 2008 that self-tagging by the step-2 enzyme in mammalian cells has an influence on precisely which proteins are tagged with SUMO. In order to uncover the biological function for this form of regulation, the research team switched to baker's yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae), a simpler organism. "Now that we know where we need to search, we also want to switch back again to the mammalian system and investigate the role of this enzyme regulation more closely there", says Pichler. "In addition, we want to better understand the function of the discovered baker's yeast enzyme complex in the meiotic chromosomal structure."
###
Scientists at the Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics (MPI-IE) in Freiburg, founded in 1961, investigate how the immune system has developed over the course of evolution and how it changes during life. The focus on epigenetics was added in 2007. Researchers in this area investigate changes to inheritable characteristics that are not based upon changes to the DNA sequence.
Original publication:
Klug H, Xaver M, Chaugule V K, Koidl S, Mittler G, Klein F, and Pichler A: Ubc9 Sumoylation Controls SUMO Chain Formation and Meiotic Synapsis in Saccharomyces cerevisiae (2013). Molecular Cell, 2 May 2013 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.molcel.2013.03.027
[ | E-mail | Share ] ?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-05/m-nm050313.php
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Malaria: A vector infecting both apes and humans
May 3, 2013 ? In 2010, a study revealed that the main agent of malaria in humans, called Plasmodium falciparum, arose from the gorilla. Today, the vector which transmitted the parasite from apes to humans has just been identified. A Franco-Gabonese research consortium has determined which species of anopheles mosquitoes transfer the disease to apes. Among them is Anopheles moucheti, known for biting humans. Therefore, it appears to be the species which originally infected us through our cousins. And it could do it again today.
The same vector
IRD and CNRS researchers, in addition to their Gabonese partners based in the CIRMF in Franceville, wanted to determine the identity of the mosquitoes which transmit malaria to apes. To this end, they caught a thousand mosquitoes of the Anopheles genus, in close proximity to groups of wild or semi-wild primates. They then conducted analyses on the insects collected, belonging to fifteen different species, in order to detect which ones were infected by the Plasmodium malaria parasites. Two species of mosquitoes were thus revealed to be contaminated by these pathogenic agents. Anopheles moucheti was one of them -- a major vector for humans in Central Africa. This species is therefore both primatophilic and anthropophilic. Since gorillas are the origin of the disease in humans, this species would have enabled the transmission of the infection from apes to humans thousands of years ago.
A relatively unknown disease
Despite its major impact on public health, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, there are still several grey areas regarding the parasite and its vector. In particular, how the disease is transmitted to great apes was a controversial question until now. By analogy with the transmission methods observed in humans, scientists guessed that the mosquitoes concerned belonged to the Anopheles genus. However, they still needed to identify the species responsible for contamination among great apes, or those species that transferred the infectious agents from gorillas to humans in the past.
The same parasites
Not long ago, the evolutionary history of pathogens was also unknown. Over the last 5 years, several species of Plasmodium were discovered in our close cousins, gorillas and chimpanzees. Researchers believed that some of them were specific to humans. In gorillas, they recently described P. praefalciparum, which is the closest genetic relative of P. falciparum, the most virulent infectious agent.
Anopheles moucheti could continue to transfer parasites from one mammal to another even today. As such, apes could be a reservoir for humans. The increasingly close interaction between humans and apes, due to deforestation and hunting activities, once again raises the question of the possible eradication of the disease. Conversely, the already documented transfer of the disease from humans to apes could also occur, thereby threatening populations that are already highly endangered.
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Story Source:
The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Institut de Recherche pour le D?veloppement (IRD).
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
- Christophe Paupy, Boris Makanga, Benjamin Ollomo, Nil Rahola, Patrick Durand, Julie Magnus, Eric Willaume, Fran?ois Renaud, Didier Fontenille, Franck Prugnolle. Anopheles moucheti and Anopheles vinckei Are Candidate Vectors of Ape Plasmodium Parasites, Including Plasmodium praefalciparum in Gabon. PLoS ONE, 2013; 8 (2): e57294 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0057294
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_health/~3/LEed0ZFGUxo/130503094708.htm
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Friday, May 3, 2013
New 'Star Trek' movie shows franchise could still live long
By Rollo Ross
LONDON (Reuters) - The crew of USS Enterprise beamed into London for the premiere of the sci-fi sequel "Star Trek Into Darkness" with critics saying on Friday that the eagerly-awaited film proved the franchise could still live long and prosper.
The film, starring Chris Pine as Captain James T. Kirk and Zachary Quinto as First Officer Spock, is a 3D follow-up to director J.J. Abrams' 2009 reboot of the popular franchise starring a new cast of spacefarers.
The action kicks off with a terrorist attack in London against Starfleet and the man responsible is the one-man killing machine John Harrison played by up-and-coming British actor Benedict Cumberbatch.
Soon the crew of the Starship Enterprise, including Nyota Uhura played by Zoe Saldana and Karl Urban as Bones, are on his tail but things are not all what they seem with some moral dilemmas and life-changing decisions to be made.
Early reviews have been positive about Abrams' second movie but he is unlikely to direct a third Star Trek film as he has signed up to start work on the next "Star Wars" movie.
Abrams was named in January by Walt Disney Co as the director of "Star Wars: Episode VII" due out in 2015, but he said he would like to stay involved in future Star Trek films by Viacom Inc. studio Paramount Pictures.
"No matter what, if the third is in the offering, if they do a third, definitely we'd be involved as producers on the movie," he told Reuters television on the red carpet at the premiere.
"Depending on what the timing would be and everything but there would be no more fun thing to do than work with this group again. They're amazing."
Critics gave positive reviews to "Star Trek Into Darkness" that opens in Britain on May 9 and in the United States on May 17, the 12th film in the Star Trek franchise that was created about 50 years ago by Gene Roddenberry and led to six TV series.
To date, the 11 Star Trek movies have grossed more than $1 billion in the United States since 1979, including $256 million from Abrams's 2009 film.
But critics were not as glowing in their praise as for Abrams' 2009 movie "Star Trek", describing it was an exciting action movie that did not take itself too seriously.
"People are unlikely to charge out of the cinema with quite the same level of glee as they did in 2009; but this is certainly an astute, exhilarating concoction," wrote Andrew Culver in The Guardian.
Time Out London wrote: "The result is a stop-gap tale that's modest, fun and briefly amusing rather than one that breaks new ground or offers hugely memorable set pieces."
The new villain, Cumberbatch, 36, who shot to fame playing the detective Sherlock Holmes in the BBC television drama "Sherlock", received glowing reviews.
Critic Chris Tookey writing in the Daily Mail, said Cumberbatch was a worthy successor to some illustrious forebears.
"(He) delivers a silky, sinister baddie with commendable, if computer-enhanced, athleticism and an attitude that makes him one of the great movie villains," he wrote.
(Editing by Belinda Goldsmith)
(This story was refiled to fix typo in the name in paragraph 4)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/star-trek-movie-shows-franchise-could-still-live-121947823.html
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Tablets with Windows RT see slow sales, IDC says
NEW YORK (AP) ? Microsoft is seeing slow sales of a version of Windows designed for thin and light tablets, even as the tablet market as a whole is growing, a research firm reported Wednesday.
Researchers at IDC said manufacturers shipped 200,000 tablets running Windows RT, the special version of Windows for iPad-style tablets, in the January to March period. That's down from about 900,000 shipped in the fourth quarter.
Microsoft Corp. launched Windows RT in October, along with the Surface tablet. The software runs on a few tablets from other manufacturers as well. Windows RT is designed to run on phone-style chips, of the kind used in the iPad, rather than PC-style chips, which tend to use more energy and require bigger batteries. Using Windows RT means the tablets can be thinner and lighter, but it also means regular Windows programs won't run on Windows RT. That's caused some confusion and limited the appeal of Windows RT, analysts say.
Microsoft's larger Surface Pro tablets, which run standard Windows 8, did better in the quarter. IDC didn't specify how many, but it's at least 700,000 based on the figures provided.
Microsoft has said it plans to release a series of smaller tablets in coming months, apparently to compete with Apple's iPad Mini and Amazon.com Inc.'s Kindle Fire. Windows RT is the likely software choice for the tablets.
Meanwhile, the global tablet market more than doubled to 49.2 million units, according to IDC's estimate. That means nearly two tablets were sold for every three PCs, a record level.
Apple Inc. remained the largest maker of tablets, but its market share shrank to 39 percent, the lowest yet. Samsung Electronics Co. is cementing its position as the second-largest maker of tablets, with 18 percent market share, according to IDC.
Microsoft's market share was 1.8 percent, with 900,000 Windows RT and Windows 8 tablets shipped. It's at No. 5, behind AsusTek Computer Inc. and Amazon.
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Amphibians living close to farm fields are more resistant to common insecticides
Thursday, May 2, 2013
Amphibian populations living close to agricultural fields have become more resistant to a common insecticide and are actually resistant to multiple common insecticides, according to two recent studies conducted at the University of Pittsburgh.
In a study published today in Evolutionary Applications, the Pitt researchers demonstrate, for the first time, that tadpoles from populations close to farm fields are more resistant to chlorpyrifos?one of the most commonly applied insecticides in the world, often sold as "Dursban" or "Lorsban." In addition, a related study published in February shows that tadpoles resistant to chlorpyrifos are also resistant to other insecticides.
"While we've made a lot of progress in understanding the ecological consequences to animals that are unintentionally exposed to insecticides, the evolutionary consequences are poorly understood," said study principal investigator Rick Relyea, Pitt professor of biological sciences and director of the University's Pymatuning Laboratory of Ecology. "Our study is the first to explore how amphibian populations might evolve to be resistant to insecticides when they live in places that have been sprayed for many years."
The Pitt researchers used newly hatched tadpoles collected from nine populations of wood frogs living at different distances from agricultural fields. They tested the frogs' resistance when exposed to chlorpyrifos, which is used against insects, and Roundup Original MAX?, which is a common herbicide used against weeds.
Relyea and his Pitt collaborators exposed the tadpoles from each of the nine populations to environments containing either no pesticides, chlorpyrifos, or Roundup?. After 48 hours, they measured how well the populations survived.
"Wood frogs living close to agricultural land were more likely to have been exposed to pesticides for many generations compared to those living far from agriculture; the latter frog populations likely experienced little or no exposure to pesticides," said Rickey Cothran, the lead author of the study and a postdoctoral researcher in Relyea's lab. "Although populations differed in their resistance to Roundup?, populations closer to fields were not more resistant to the herbicide."
"Because chlorpyrifos kills in a way that is similar to many other insecticides, higher resistance may have been favored each time any insecticide was sprayed," said Pitt alumnus Jenise Brown (A&S '09), a coauthor of the study and a former undergraduate researcher in Relyea's lab. "In contrast, herbicides have a variety of ways that they kill organisms, which may make it harder for animals to be resistant when exposed to different herbicides over many years."
In a related study, published online Feb. 21 in Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, Relyea's Pitt research team examined whether wood frog populations that were resistant to chlorpyrifos might also be resistant to other insecticides. This phenomenon, said Relyea, happens commonly in pest species when farmers switch pesticides from year to year, but little is known about how this switching of pesticides affects amphibians.
Using three commonly applied pesticides that have similar chemical properties? chlorpyrifos, carbaryl, and malathion?the Pitt researchers exposed 15 populations of wood frog tadpoles to high concentrations of each insecticide. They found that wood frog populations with resistance to one insecticide also had resistance to the other insecticides.
"This has a beneficial outcome," said Jessica Hua, the lead author of the second study and a graduate student in Relyea's lab. "While it doesn't mean that pesticides are beneficial to amphibians, our work does suggest that amphibians can evolve to resist a variety of pesticides and therefore improve their survival."
As they hypothesized in the study published today, the researchers suspect that the reason for this cross-resistance is that chlorpyrifos kills in a way that is similar to many other insecticides. Thus, evolving higher resistance to one insecticide may provide higher resistance to others.
"This finding may buffer an amphibian population from suffering the consequences of exposures to new, but similar-acting chemicals," said Aaron Stoler, a coauthor of the second paper and a graduate student in Relyea's lab.
In the future, Relyea and his team plan to study the genetic mechanisms that underlie increased resistance in amphibians and determine whether increased resistance occurs in additional animal species that are not the targets of pesticides.
The article published today in Evolutionary Applications is titled "Proximity to agriculture is correlated with pesticide tolerance: Evidence for the evolution of amphibian resistance to modern pesticides." The article published Feb. 21 in Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry is titled "Cross-tolerance in amphibians: Wood frog mortality when exposed to three insecticides with a common mode of action."
###
University of Pittsburgh: http://www.pitt.edu
Thanks to University of Pittsburgh for this article.
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