Ablation of insulin-producing cells prevents obesity but not premature mortality caused by a high-sugar diet in Drosophila

Ageing can be modulated by genetic as well as nutritional interventions. In female Drosophila melanogaster, lifespan is maximized at intermediate concentrations of sucrose as the carbohydrate source, and yeast as the protein source. Dampening the signal through the insulin/IGF signalling (IIS) pathway, by genetic ablation of median neurosecretory cells (mNSCs) that produce insulin-like peptides, extends lifespan and counteracts the detrimental effects of excess yeast. However, how IIS reduction impacts health on a high-sugar diet remains unclear. We find that, while the ablation of the mNSCs can extend lifespan and delay the age-related decline in the health of the neuromuscular system irrespective of the amount of dietary sugar, it cannot rescue the lifespan-shortening effects of excess sugar. On the other hand, ablation of mNSCs can prevent adult obesity resulting from excess sugar, and this effect appears independent from the canonical effector of IIS, dfoxo. Our study indicates that while treatments that reduce IIS have anti-ageing effects irrespective of dietary sugar, additional interventions may be required to achieve full benefits in humans, where excessive sugar consumption is a growing problem. At the same time, pathways regulated by IIS may be suitable targets for treatment of obesity

Photocatalytic Degradation of Organic Pollutants in Water Using Graphene Oxide Composite

Developing sustainable and less-expensive technique is always challenging task in water treatment process. This chapter explores the recent development of photocatalysis technique in organic pollutant removal from the water. Particularly, advantages of graphene oxide in promoting the catalytic performance of semiconductor, metal nanoparticle and polymer based photocatalyst materials. Owing to high internal surface area and rapid electron conducting property of graphene oxide fostering as backbone scaffold for effective hetero-photocatalyst loading, and rapid photo-charge separation enables effective degradation of pollutant. This chapter summaries the recent development of graphene oxide composite (metal oxide, metal nanoparticle, metal chalcogenides, and polymers) in semiconductor photocatalysis process towards environmental remediation application

Rice production under climate change : adaptations and mitigating strategies

In the current scenario of global climate change, the utmost desire to ensure food security is to maintain and increase agricultural production. But, due to rapid climate change, many abiotic factors such as rainfall, drought, flooding, temperature and solar radiations are severely affecting the production of rice at various growth stages. It is predicted that almost 51% of rice cultivation and production would be reduced during the next century due to global climate change. However, agriculture activities are also contributing to global warming by 10-14% of total global greenhouse gas emissions and 18% of the total methane is emitted from paddy rice fields. Therefore, mitigating and adaptation strategies such as alternate wetting and drying, inter cropping with short term vegetation, limiting chemical fertilizers by precise farming, usage of rice cultivars with low methane emission, improved tillage, recycling of farm waste into organic fertilizers, and by developing integrated rice farming system, are needed to hinder greenhouse gas emissions from rice fields. Furthermore, strategies are required to cope with effects of climate change on rice production by application of anaerobic methanotrops to oxidize the CH4, and the development of high-yielding and abiotic stresses-tolerant (temperature, drought) and resistance rice cultivars by using different new breeding, genetic engineering and genomic tools. Besides that, other management options such as development of weather-proofed farm equipment, shifting of planting and adjustments in cropping dates and use of climate forecasting by using remote sensing and modeling can also be used to sought out the climatic issues