Agricultural Biotechnology Training for Extension Educators

Recent advances in plant biotechnology have led to significant changes in crop varieties and cropping systems in the United States, in particular the rapidly expanding cultivation of transgenic or genetically modified (GM) crops (Liu, 1999). Such crops, which contain artificially inserted genes, have been hailed as a major advance in agricultural technology and simultaneously condemned as a grave threat to the environment and to human health. In Europe, which represents a significant market for U.S. agricultural producers, widespread and vehement public opposition has effectively shut down importation and domestic production of GM crops, while in the U.S. public uncertainty is growing, together with calls for stricter regulation (Gaskell, Bauer, Durant, & Allum, 1999; National Academy of Sciences, 2000). With billions of dollars already invested in the development of GM crops and with over half of the soybean and cotton and a quarter of the corn grown in the U.S. in 1999 consisting of transgenic varieties, potential public opposition to GM crops is a major concern for U.S. agricultural producers and businesses (Ferber, 1999). It has been argued that public acceptance or rejection will be an extremely important factor in determining the future of GM technology (Saba, Moles, & Frewer, 1998). Yet many Americans feel themselves to be poorly educated about transgenic crops and GM foods and rely on the media for information (Frewer, Howard, & Aaron, 1998). Much of the information currently available through the Internet or media sources is either from the biotechnology industry itself and is unabashedly promotion, or it is from groups organized to campaign against GM technology and is clearly biased. Therefore, a group of plant breeders, nutritionists, and agricultural education specialists familiar with GM technology have initiated a project (through the support of a USDA IFAFS grant) to provide reliable, accessible, complete, and unbiased information on GM crops and foods to as wide an audience as possible. One of the first audiences receiving the information was composed predominately of Extension educators. In February, 2001, pre- and post-tests (Vestal & Briers, 1999) were administered to participants in a biotechnology workshop offered by faculty of the Soil and Crop Sciences Department at Colorado State University. Fifty-five of the 100 participants completed the instruments that measured awareness, attitude, delivery, and demographics. The vast majority (84% or 46) respondents described their primary occupational responsibility as Extension educator, of whom 33 (60%) had 11 or more years in that role

EIF3F-related neurodevelopmental disorder: refining the phenotypic and expanding the molecular spectrum.

BACKGROUND An identical homozygous missense variant in EIF3F, identified through a large-scale genome-wide sequencing approach, was reported as causative in nine individuals with a neurodevelopmental disorder, characterized by variable intellectual disability, epilepsy, behavioral problems and sensorineural hearing-loss. To refine the phenotypic and molecular spectrum of EIF3F-related neurodevelopmental disorder, we examined independent patients. RESULTS 21 patients were homozygous and one compound heterozygous for c.694T>G/p.(Phe232Val) in EIF3F. Haplotype analyses in 15 families suggested that c.694T>G/p.(Phe232Val) was a founder variant. All affected individuals had developmental delays including delayed speech development. About half of the affected individuals had behavioral problems, altered muscular tone, hearing loss, and short stature. Moreover, this study suggests that microcephaly, reduced sensitivity to pain, cleft lip/palate, gastrointestinal symptoms and ophthalmological symptoms are part of the phenotypic spectrum. Minor dysmorphic features were observed, although neither the individuals' facial nor general appearance were obviously distinctive. Symptoms in the compound heterozygous individual with an additional truncating variant were at the severe end of the spectrum in regard to motor milestones, speech delay, organic problems and pre- and postnatal growth of body and head, suggesting some genotype-phenotype correlation. CONCLUSIONS Our study refines the phenotypic and expands the molecular spectrum of EIF3F-related syndromic neurodevelopmental disorder

Oasis 2016

Literary Magazine with artwork, photographs submitted by students.English and Modern Languages DepartmentAngelo State Universit

Coronal Heating as Determined by the Solar Flare Frequency Distribution Obtained by Aggregating Case Studies

Flare frequency distributions represent a key approach to addressing one of the largest problems in solar and stellar physics: determining the mechanism that counter-intuitively heats coronae to temperatures that are orders of magnitude hotter than the corresponding photospheres. It is widely accepted that the magnetic field is responsible for the heating, but there are two competing mechanisms that could explain it: nanoflares or Alfv\'en waves. To date, neither can be directly observed. Nanoflares are, by definition, extremely small, but their aggregate energy release could represent a substantial heating mechanism, presuming they are sufficiently abundant. One way to test this presumption is via the flare frequency distribution, which describes how often flares of various energies occur. If the slope of the power law fitting the flare frequency distribution is above a critical threshold, $\alpha=2$ as established in prior literature, then there should be a sufficient abundance of nanoflares to explain coronal heating. We performed $>$600 case studies of solar flares, made possible by an unprecedented number of data analysts via three semesters of an undergraduate physics laboratory course. This allowed us to include two crucial, but nontrivial, analysis methods: pre-flare baseline subtraction and computation of the flare energy, which requires determining flare start and stop times. We aggregated the results of these analyses into a statistical study to determine that $\alpha = 1.63 \pm 0.03$. This is below the critical threshold, suggesting that Alfv\'en waves are an important driver of coronal heating.Comment: 1,002 authors, 14 pages, 4 figures, 3 tables, published by The Astrophysical Journal on 2023-05-09, volume 948, page 7