Getting Atop Climbing Fern

A team of two tiny moths might help stop the spread of Old World climbing fern, an aggressive vine that’s on the march in central and south Florida. With further research, a third moth, a hungry mite, a small beetle, and perhaps other hardworking organisms as well may qualify to join the coterie of pint-sized weedeaters. Known to botanists as Lygodium microphyllum, Old World climbing fern makes its way up stems and trunks of other plants, forming blankets of lightgreen vegetation. On the ground, climbing fern creates tough, spongy mats that can easily smother grasses, low-growing shrubs, and small trees. Today, it infests more than 100,000 acres in Florida and shows no sign of slowing its advance. ARS scientists based at research laboratories in Florida and Australia are scrutinizing natural enemies of the fern. They’re searching the globe for promising organisms, then subjecting them to rigorous tests in their laboratories. Some of the studies are host-specificity experiments. They are designed to determine whether the moths will munch on climbing fern alone and not harm native ferns or other vegetation

Getting Atop Climbing Fern

A team of two tiny moths might help stop the spread of Old World climbing fern, an aggressive vine that’s on the march in central and south Florida. With further research, a third moth, a hungry mite, a small beetle, and perhaps other hardworking organisms as well may qualify to join the coterie of pint-sized weedeaters. Known to botanists as Lygodium microphyllum, Old World climbing fern makes its way up stems and trunks of other plants, forming blankets of lightgreen vegetation. On the ground, climbing fern creates tough, spongy mats that can easily smother grasses, low-growing shrubs, and small trees. Today, it infests more than 100,000 acres in Florida and shows no sign of slowing its advance. ARS scientists based at research laboratories in Florida and Australia are scrutinizing natural enemies of the fern. They’re searching the globe for promising organisms, then subjecting them to rigorous tests in their laboratories. Some of the studies are host-specificity experiments. They are designed to determine whether the moths will munch on climbing fern alone and not harm native ferns or other vegetation

Emerging Enemy of Veggies Unmasked

Chic, trendy veggies like arugula and baby broccoli, and familiar stand-bys like Brussels sprouts and cauliflower, are vulnerable to attack by a once-puzzling pathogen. Agricultural Research Service plant pathologist Carolee T. Bull and colleagues have, in laboratory, greenhouse, and field research, detected, identified, renamed, and classified the plant-killing microbe that’s now officially known as Pseudomonas cannabina pv. alisalensis. “Pv.” stands for “pathovar” and indicates that the microbe is a specific pathogenic form, or strain, of a species. Their work has sorted out some of the taxonomic confusion surrounding classification of the large, complex group of harmful bacteria in the genus Pseudomonas, to which P. cannabina pv. alisalensis properly belongs. In so doing, the team has helped growers, vegetable processors, fellow scientists, and anyone who enjoys eating good-for-you cruciferous veggies

Savvy Seed Sorter Gains New Fans

Simple, swift, and comparatively inexpensive, a color-image-based seed sorter is helping plant breeders and others separate the seeds they want from those they don’t—with an impressive degree of accuracy. Agricultural Research Service agricultural engineer Thomas C. Pearson, based at the agency’s Center for Grain and Animal Health Research in Manhattan, Kansas, developed the sorter in collaboration with National Manufacturing in Lincoln, Nebraska. The company has marketed the device to customers in the United States and abroad since 2010. In tests, the compact, portable sorter— a simpler and faster version of other machine-vision equipment that Pearson developed in 2009—speedily differentiated kernels of hard red wheat from kernels of hard white winter wheat with 98.6 percent accuracy. Says Pearson, “Breeders cross red and white varieties of these bread-making wheats to transfer desirable traits from one to another. Test fields are planted with both hard red and hard white wheat. At harvest, the seeds have to be separated.” The sorter is also skilled at separating yellow from brown flax and barley from durum wheat. Pearson explains that yellow flax is used somewhat like sesame seeds as a tasty, nut-flavored garnish for breads and other baked goods, while brown flax is harvested for its oil. The sorter was accurate 94 percent of the time in detecting yellow flax seeds from brown ones in Pearson’s tests. Barley plants can sometimes turn up as unwanted “rogues” or “volunteers” in neighboring test rows of candidate durum wheats. The sorter system detected durum kernels with 93 percent accuracy, Pearson reports

How Does a Mom\u27s Nutrition Affect Her Children\u27s Health?

In some rural villages of the tiny West African nation of The Gambia, food is generally less available during August and September—the peak of the rainy season—than during a typically dry March through May. Now, a study led by molecular geneticist Robert A. Waterland of the USDA-ARS Children’s Nutrition Research Center in Houston, Texas, has shown that functioning of certain genes in kids conceived during the rainy season differs from that in children conceived during the dry season. The difference may be explained by a relatively new science referred to as “epigenetics.” The variation appears to be permanent, and in the case of two of the five genes in which it was detected, the variation may affect the kids’ risk of certain diseases. Waterland and coinvestigators have attributed the epigenetic variation to the dramatic seasonal differences in the kinds and amounts of foods available to soonto- be moms in the days and weeks around the time of conception, or what’s referred to as their “periconceptional nutrition.” The results of the study are of interest to healthcare professionals involved in improving the prenatal nutrition of these Gambian women, many of whom are, along with other family members, subsistence farmers living at or below the poverty level. But Waterland’s study is also of worldwide interest to geneticists, because it presents new, unique evidence of nutritional influences on the development of epigenetic mechanisms in humans

Enhancing Yogurt With Healthful Fiber From Oats

Adding about one-quarter teaspoon of a fiber-rich component of oats boosts the nutritional value of low-fat yogurt without noticeably affecting the taste or texture of this increasingly popular dairy food. Oat fiber is of interest to foodmakers and nutritionists alike. Studies with volunteers have shown that it can lower serum cholesterol, which may help improve heart health. Agricultural Research Service food technologist Mukti Singh, chemist Sanghoon Kim, and their colleagues experimented with adding fiber-containing oat beta-glucan to what’s known in the dairy industry as “low-fat yogurt mix.” It is made up of low-fat milk and a selection of common, safe-to-eat bacteria that ferment the milk. Best known bacteria include Lactobacillus acidophilus or various Bifidobacterium species. Singh’s intent was to see how much fiber she could add without altering key qualities of yogurt, including texture, viscosity, color, pH, and fermentation time

BIOL 404- Dual nature of phytoestrogens as both procancer and anticancer agents

Phytoestrogens are plant-derived, xenoestrogenic dietary compounds found in various fruits, vegetables, soy products, teas, grains, beans, and more. There are different classes of phytoestrogens, including flavonoids, isoflavonoids, lignans, and coumestans, all of which can affect estrogen-mediated responses in different ways (Bilal et al, 2014). The aim of this project is to investigate the potential duality of phytoestrogens as both estrogen receptor antagonists in cancer cells, but also as potential activators of myeloid-derived suppressor cells. Understanding the complex role phytoestrogens play in cancer progression will prove valuable in the potential development of novel phytoestrogen-base cancer drug therapies

High-resolution Near-Infrared Images and Models of the Circumstellar Disk in HH 30

We present Hubble Space Telescope (HST) Near-Infrared Camera and Multi-object Spectrometer (NICMOS) observations of the reflection nebulosity associated with the T Tauri star HH 30. The images show the scattered light pattern characteristic of a highly inclined, optically thick disk with a prominent dustlane whose width decreases with increasing wavelength. The reflected nebulosity exhibits a lateral asymmetry in the upper lobe on the opposite side to that reported in previously published Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2) images. The radiation transfer model which most closely reproduces the data has a flared accretion disk with dust grains larger than standard interstellar medium grains by a factor of approximately 2.1. A single hotspot on the stellar surface provides the necessary asymmetry to fit the images and is consistent with previous modeling of the light curve and images. Photometric analysis results in an estimated extinction of Av>~80; however, since the photometry measures only scattered light rather than direct stellar flux, this a lower limit. The radiative transfer models require an extinction of Av = 7,900.Comment: Accepted for publication in Ap.