A participatory methodology for large scale field trials in the UK

Farmer participation was essential in developing a uniquely useful set of wheat variety trials data on a wide range of organic farms over two years. Although the trials were successful, it became clear that some of the participating farmers felt there were some limitations in the process. These included a lack of ownership in the project and a concern for more researcher help. It was clear that a greater time in-vestment was needed at the start of the project to help with farmer understanding and ownership. De-spite the negative comments, farmers appreciated their involvement, particularly in contrasting their own views and information with that from the wider scene. Farmer participation is essential for systems-level research and this project helped to develop a small core of trained farmers and researchers

A participatory approach to variety trials for organic systems

A participatory research methodology was used to compare the performance of UK wheat varieties under organic conditions. Plots of three breadmaking winter wheat varieties (Hereward, Solstice and Xi19) and a mixture (1:1:1) of the varieties were grown at 19 UK farms in two seasons (2003/04 and 2004/05). Meas-urements were taken of growth habit, yield and grain quality. Grain yields in both seasons showed significant site by variety interactions, although the variation among sites was greater than among varieties in both instances. Wheat grown at Western sites was significantly shorter and higher-yielding than that grown at Eastern sites in 2003/04 but significantly taller in 2004/05. As with grain yield, greater variation among site than variety was found in the Hagberg Falling Number and protein concentra-tion results in both seasons. The results from the two years of trials illustrate the variability of organic systems and the difficulty in selecting a single variety suitable for organic farms

Evolutionary breeding of wheat for low input systems

Genetically diverse Composite Cross Populations (CCPs) may be useful in environmentally variable low-input systems as an alternative to pure varieties. They are formed by assembling seed stocks with diverse evolutionary origins, recombining these stocks by hybridisation, bulking the F1 progeny, and subsequent natural selection of the progeny in suc-cessive natural cropping environments. CCPs derived from either 10 high yielding parents (YCCPs), 12 high quality parents (QCCPs), or all 22 parents (YQCCPs), were grown at four sites (2 organic, 2 conventional) in the UK. The YCCPs out yielded the QCCPs, which had higher protein concentrations and Hagberg falling numbers. Although the CCPs performed within the range of the parents, they often performed better than the mean of the parents

Elm Farm Organic Research Centre Bulletin 83 April 2006

Regular bulleting with technical updates from Organic Advisory Service Issue contains: Testing for Tolerance - a pragmatic view GM Debate Vaccination nation - to jab or not to jab Future shape of OCIS Evolutionary wheat makes the grade? NIAB tracks health of organic cereal seed Stopping erosion of soil quality - the organic way Care needed to halt butterfly collapse Aspects of poultry behaviour: How free range is free range? On choosing an organic wheat A local education challenge New Wakelyns Science Building Organic vegetable market growt

Ten per cent polarized optical emission from GRB 090102

The nature of the jets and the role of magnetic fields in gamma-ray bursts (GRB) remains unclear. In a baryon-dominated jet only weak, tangled fields generated in situ through shocks would be present. In an alternative model, jets are threaded with large scale magnetic fields that originate at the central engine and which accelerate and collimate the jets. The way to distinguish between the models is to measure the degree of polarization in early-time emission, however previous claims of gamma-ray polarization have been controversial. Here we report that the early optical emission from GRB 090102 was polarized at the level of P=10+/-1%, indicating the presence of large-scale fields originating in the expanding fireball. If the degree of polarization and its position angle were variable on timescales shorter than our 60-s exposure, then the peak polarization may have been larger than 10 per cent.Comment: 16 pages, 4 figures. Published in Nature (2009), Vol. 462, p767-76

A viscoelastic deadly fluid in carnivorous pitcher plants

Background : The carnivorous plants of the genus Nepenthes, widely distributed in the Asian tropics, rely mostly on nutrients derived from arthropods trapped in their pitcher-shaped leaves and digested by their enzymatic fluid. The genus exhibits a great diversity of prey and pitcher forms and its mechanism of trapping has long intrigued scientists. The slippery inner surfaces of the pitchers, which can be waxy or highly wettable, have so far been considered as the key trapping devices. However, the occurrence of species lacking such epidermal specializations but still effective at trapping insects suggests the possible implication of other mechanisms. Methodology/Principal Findings : Using a combination of insect bioassays, high-speed video and rheological measurements, we show that the digestive fluid of Nepenthes rafflesiana is highly viscoelastic and that this physical property is crucial for the retention of insects in its traps. Trapping efficiency is shown to remain strong even when the fluid is highly diluted by water, as long as the elastic relaxation time of the fluid is higher than the typical time scale of insect movements. Conclusions/Significance : This finding challenges the common classification of Nepenthes pitchers as simple passive traps and is of great adaptive significance for these tropical plants, which are often submitted to high rainfalls and variations in fluid concentration. The viscoelastic trap constitutes a cryptic but potentially widespread adaptation of Nepenthes species and could be a homologous trait shared through common ancestry with the sundew (Drosera) flypaper plants. Such large production of a highly viscoelastic biopolymer fluid in permanent pools is nevertheless unique in the plant kingdom and suggests novel applications for pest control

Nanoscale phase-engineering of thermal transport with a Josephson heat modulator

Macroscopic quantum phase coherence has one of its pivotal expressions in the Josephson effect [1], which manifests itself both in charge [2] and energy transport [3-5]. The ability to master the amount of heat transferred through two tunnel-coupled superconductors by tuning their phase difference is the core of coherent caloritronics [4-6], and is expected to be a key tool in a number of nanoscience fields, including solid state cooling [7], thermal isolation [8, 9], radiation detection [7], quantum information [10, 11] and thermal logic [12]. Here we show the realization of the first balanced Josephson heat modulator [13] designed to offer full control at the nanoscale over the phase-coherent component of thermal currents. Our device provides magnetic-flux-dependent temperature modulations up to 40 mK in amplitude with a maximum of the flux-to-temperature transfer coefficient reaching 200 mK per flux quantum at a bath temperature of 25 mK. Foremost, it demonstrates the exact correspondence in the phase-engineering of charge and heat currents, breaking ground for advanced caloritronic nanodevices such as thermal splitters [14], heat pumps [15] and time-dependent electronic engines [16-19].Comment: 6+ pages, 4 color figure

Posterior reversible encephalopathy syndrome in a child with cyclical vomiting and hypertension: a case report

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Introduction</p> <p>Posterior reversible encephalopathy syndrome is characterized by headache, nausea and vomiting, seizures and visual disturbances. It has certain characteristic radiological features, which allow diagnosis in the appropriate clinical setting and enable appropriate clinical therapy to be instituted.</p> <p>Case presentation</p> <p>A 10-year-old Caucasian girl who was hospitalized due to recurrent vomiting was diagnosed as having posterior reversible encephalopathy syndrome after an initial diagnosis of cyclical vomiting and hypertension was made.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Posterior reversible encephalopathy syndrome is a rare disorder in children. Early recognition of characteristic radiological features is key to the diagnosis as clinical symptoms may be non-specific or mimic other neurological illnesses. To the best of our knowledge this is the first case to report an association between posterior reversible encephalopathy syndrome, cyclical vomiting and hypertension. Furthermore, in this case, the resolution of the abnormalities found on magnetic resonance imaging over time did not appear to equate with clinical recovery.</p