Apr. 29, 2013 ? A team of bioengineers at Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) is the first to report creating artificial heart tissue that closely mimics the functions of natural heart tissue through the use of human-based materials. Their work will advance how clinicians treat the damaging effects caused by heart disease, the leading cause of death in the United States.
"Scientists and clinicians alike are eager for new approaches to creating artificial heart tissues that resemble the native tissues as much as possible, in terms of physical properties and function," said Nasim Annabi, PhD, BWH Renal Division, first study author. "Current biomaterials used to repair hearts after a heart attack and other cardiovascular events lack suitable functionality and strength. We are introducing an alternative that has the mechanical properties and functions of native heart tissue."
The study was published online on April 26, 2013 in Advanced Functional Materials.
The researchers created MeTro gel -- an advanced rubber-like material made from tropoelastin, the protein in human tissues that makes them elastic. The gel was then combined with microfabrication techniques to generate gels containing well-defined micropatterns for high elasticity.
The researchers then used these highly elastic micropatterned gels to create heart tissue that contained beating heart muscle cells.
"The micropatterned gel provides elastic mechanical support of natural heart muscle tissue as demonstrated by its ability to promote attachment, spreading, alignment, function and communication of heart muscle cells," said Annabi.
The researchers state that MeTro gel will provide a model for future studies on how heart cells behave. Moreover, the work lays the foundation for creating more elaborate 3D versions of heart tissue that will contain vascular networks.
"This can be achieved by assembling tandem layers of micropatterned MeTro gels seeded with heart muscles cells in different layers," said Ali Khademhosseini, PhD, BWH Division of Biomedical Engineering, co-senior study author. "As we continue to move forward with finding better ways to mend a broken heart, we hope the biomaterials we engineer will allow us to successfully address the limitations of current artificial tissues."
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Brigham and Women's Hospital, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.
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Journal Reference:
Nasim Annabi, Kelly Tsang, Suzanne M. Mithieux, Mehdi Nikkhah, Afshin Ameri, Ali Khademhosseini, Anthony S. Weiss. Highly Elastic Micropatterned Hydrogel for Engineering Functional Cardiac Tissue. Advanced Functional Materials, 2013; DOI: 10.1002/adfm.201300570
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.
Director Hasraf HaZ Dulull posits that question in his fantastic short work, Project Kronos. The mocumentary film follows an international team of of researchers describing the massive technological efforts that went into engineering a next-generation deep space probe and the even greater efforts that went into just comprehending what it found.
Stonehenge may have been built on a site occupied by hunters for?roughly?5,000 prior to its construction.
By Tia Ghose,?LiveScience Staff Writer / April 24, 2013
Visitors are dwarfed by the Stonehenge monument in southern England.
Max Nash/AP/File
Enlarge
A site near Stonehenge has revealed archaeological evidence that hunters lived just a mile from Stonehenge roughly 5,000 years prior to the construction of the first stones, new research suggests.
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What's more, the site, which was occupied continuously for 3,000 years, had evidence of burning, thousands of flint tool fragments and bones of?wild aurochs?, a type of extinct giant cow. That suggests the area near Stonehenge may have been an auroch migration route that became an ancient feasting site, drawing people together from across different cultures in the region, wrote lead researcher David Jacques of the Open University in the United Kingdeom, in an email.
"We may have found the cradle of?Stonehenge, the reason why it is where it is," Jacques wrote. [In Photos: A Walk Through Stonehenge]
The new discovery may also identify the people who first erected structures at Stonehenge. A few gigantic pine posts, possibly totem poles, were raised at Stonehenge between 8,500 and 10,000 years ago, but until now there was scant evidence of occupation in the area that long ago. The new research suggests those ancient structures may perhaps have been raised to honor a sacred hunting ground.
Mysterious monument
For decades, people have wondered at the enigmatic stone structures erected roughly 5,000 years ago in the plains of Wiltshire, England. No one knows why ancient people built the structure: some believe it was a place of ancient worship or a sun calendar, whereas still others think it was a symbol of unity or even that?Stonehenge was inspired by a sound illusion.
The large megaliths, known as sarsens, are up to 30 feet tall and weigh up to 25 tons, while the smaller bluestones weigh up to 4 tons. Researchers think the?giant boulders?came from a quarry near Marlborough Downs, just 20 miles (32 kilometers) from the iconic site, while the bluestones likely came from Preseli Hills in Wales, nearly 156 miles (250 km) away from Stonehenge.
Old photographs
Jacques was looking through archival photographs of the region surrounding Stonehenge when he spotted a site known as Vespasian's Camp, just a mile from Stonehenge in nearby Amesbury.
Realizing that it hadn't been fully surveyed, Jacques began to investigate the area, which harbored a freshwater spring.
Because animals like to stop and drink at such watering holes, Jacques wondered whether ancient man may have settled nearby as well.
The team uncovered roughly 350 animal bones and 12,500 flint tools or fragments, as well as lots of evidence of burning. Carbon dating suggested the area was occupied by humans from 7500 B.C. to 4700 B.C. ? roughly 5,000 years prior to the erection of the?first stones at Stonehenge. [See Photos of the Stonehenge Hunting Ground?]
"The spring may have originally attracted large animals to it, which would have aided hunting and may have led to associations that the area was a sacred hunting ground," Jacques wrote.
In addition, the researchers found tools made from stone from one region of England, but fashioned in the style of another region (for instance, a?stone tool?made from Welsh or Cornwall slate, but made in a style typical of Sussex). That suggests the people from different regions were coming together at the site, Jacques wrote.
Ancient builders?
The findings could help researchers pinpoint why the ancient builders of Stonehenge chose the place they did, Jacques said.?
"We have found a bridge from which transmission of cultural memory about the 'specialness' of the place where the stones were later being put up was possible," Jacques wrote. "We are getting closer to understanding their reasons for putting it up ? it is all to do with ancestors, but those ancestors go much further back than has previously been realised."
The findings show "there was a substantial interest in the Stonehenge landscape well before the stones were hauled there and erected," said Timothy Darvill, an archaeologist at Bournemouth University in the U.K., who was not involved in the study.
Excavations dating to 2008 at Stonehenge also confirm earlier use at the?megalithic site, Darvill wrote. However, what makes the Amesbury discovery special is the large trove of auroch bones found in the area, which suggests the spring was on a natural migration route for the wild aurochs, he said.
A program about the Amesbury site will air on BBC 4 on April 29.
Follow Tia Ghose on Twitter?@tiaghose.?Follow?LiveScience?@livescience,?Facebook?&?Google+. Original article on?LiveScience.com.
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MADRID, April 25 (Reuters) - Liverpool goalkeeper Pepe Reina said the 10-match ban given to his team mate Luis Suarez for biting an opponent was 'absurd' and 'excessive'. Uruguay international Suarez was punished on Wednesday by the English Football Association (FA) after he bit the arm of Chelsea defender Branislav Ivanovic at the weekend. "He knows he is in the wrong, and that it was a mistake, but the 10-game punishment seems absurd to me, excessive and unfair," Spanish international Reina was quoted as telling radio station Cadena Cope by sports daily AS on Thursday. ...
Mail Pilot has just received an update which adds the much requested support for Exchange accounts that are IMAP enabled. Other features in the update include an improved add account system, bug fixes, enhancements, and more. Mail Pilot was also nice enough to give us some codes to give out to our readers...
If you'd like to try out Mail Pilot now, you can download it via the link below. We've also been given six codes to give out to our readers. All you have to do is leave a comment below to enter. Winners will be announced next week!
This Jan. 30, 2012 photo, shows the sign for the ExxonMobil Torerance Refinery in Torrance, Calif. Exxon Mobile reports quarterly financial results before the market opens on Thursday, April 25, 2013. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon)
This Jan. 30, 2012 photo, shows the sign for the ExxonMobil Torerance Refinery in Torrance, Calif. Exxon Mobile reports quarterly financial results before the market opens on Thursday, April 25, 2013. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon)
NEW YORK (AP) ? Exxon Mobil Corp. said earnings rose slightly in the first quarter as profits from chemicals production surged enough to offset declining production of oil and gas. Lower taxes also helped.
The Irving, Texas, company reported Thursday that net income totaled $9.5 billion in the quarter, or $2.12 per share, on revenue of $108.8 billion. During last year's quarter, Exxon earned $9.45 billion, or $2 per share, on revenue of $124.1 billion.
Analysts expected Exxon to earn $2.05 per share, on average.
Exxon's chemicals and U.S. refining operations took advantage of the same low prices that dented revenue and profitability in its oil and gas production operations.
Prices of oil and natural gas in the U.S. have been lower in recent months than prices abroad. That has reduced Exxon's earnings from U.S. oil and gas production, and forced the company to cut back natural gas production.
But those low prices meant lower raw material costs for the company's U.S. refineries and chemicals operations, which consume enormous amounts of natural gas. Exxon was then able to sell those cheaply-produced chemicals and fuels around the world at enormous profit.
"It's just a huge cost advantage," said Brian Youngberg, an energy analyst at Edward Jones, of the low domestic natural gas prices.
Profit at Exxon's global chemicals operation grew 62 percent in the quarter, to $639 million. U.S. refining profit grew 72 percent to $1 billion.
Exxon's results were also helped by a sharp decline in corporate and financing expenses, which Exxon attributed to "favorable tax impacts."
The company's per share earnings grew faster than net income because the company has been aggressively buying back shares from investors.
Exxon, the nation's largest oil and gas company and the world's most valuable company by market capitalization, produced 3.5 percent less oil and gas in the quarter, an acceleration of a long-term trend in declining production at the company that worries investors. Oil production slipped as its oil fields experienced natural declines from peak production. Natural gas output in the U.S. was cut back in the face of low prices.
"This company has been very growth-challenged for some time," Youngberg said. "If they can get to the point they could keep (production) flat investors would look very positively at that."
Exxon shares slipped 94 cents, or 1.1 percent, to $88.49 in morning trading Thursday. They are still near the high end of their 52-week range of $77.13 to $93.67.
Follow Jonathan Fahey at http://twitter.com/JonathanFahey .
MOBILE, Ala. (AP) ? A large fire that began with explosions aboard two fuel barges in Mobile, Ala., was rocked by a seventh explosion early Thursday and fire officials said they planned to let the fire, which has injured three, burn overnight.
Firefighters from Mobile and U.S. Coast Guard officials responded after 8:30 p.m. CDT Wednesday to a pair of explosions involving the gas barges in an area of the Mobile River east of downtown, authorities said.
As they were responding, a third explosion occurred around 9:30 p.m., Mobile Fire and Rescue spokesmanSteve Huffman wrote in an email to The Associated Press. Additional explosions followed over the next few hours.
The Coast Guard said early Thursday that a one-nautical-mile safety zone had been established around one barge, which it said was "at the dock for cleaning."
Authorities said three people were transported to University of South Alabama Medical Center after suffering burn-related injuries. Huffman identified them as workers with Oil Recovery Co. The three were in critical condition early Thursday, according to hospital nursing administrator Danny Whatley.
Across the river, the Carnival Triumph, the cruise ship that became disabled in the Gulf of Mexico last February before it was towed to Mobile's port, was evacuated, said Alan Waugh, who lives at the Fort Conde Inn in downtown Mobile, across the river from the scene of the explosions. Waugh saw the blasts and said throngs of Carnival employees and others were clustered on streets leading toward the river as authorities evacuated the shipyard.
"It literally sounded like bombs going off around. The sky just lit up in orange and red," he said, "We could smell something in the air, we didn't know if it was gas or smoke." Waugh said he could feel the heat from the explosion and when he came back inside, his partner noticed he had what appeared to be black soot on his face.
U.S. Coast Guard Petty Officer Carlos Vega said the initial blast took place in a ship channel near the George C. Wallace Tunnel ? which carries traffic from Interstate 10 under the Mobile River. The river runs south past Mobile and into Mobile Bay, which in turn flows into the Gulf of Mexico.
Video from WALA-TV (http://bit.ly/15NEYJl) showed flames engulfing a large section of the barge, and a video that a bystander sent to AL.com (http://bit.ly/13vWz4G) showed the fiery explosions and billowing smoke over the river.
The cause of the explosion was not immediately clear, Huffman and Vega said.
"Once (the fire) is out and safe, a full investigation will take place," Huffman wrote.
Mobile Fire Chief Steve Dean told AL.com he was confident the fire wouldn't spread to nearby industrial properties, including the shipyard where the Carnival cruise ship is docked.
Huffman said the ship is directly across the river from the incident ? about two football fields in length.
The barges are owned by Houston-based Kirby Inland Marine, company spokesman Greg Beuerman said. He said the barges were empty and being cleaned at the Oil Recovery Co. facility when the incident began. He said the barges had been carrying a liquid called natural gasoline ? which he said is neither liquefied natural gas or natural gas. He said the company has dispatched a team to work with investigators to determine what caused the fire.
The explosion comes two months after the 900-foot-long Carnival Triumph was towed to Mobile after becoming disabled on the Gulf during a cruise by an engine room fire, leaving thousands of passengers to endure cold food, unsanitary conditions and power outages for several days. The ship is still undergoing repairs there, with many workers living on board.
Carnival didn't immediately respond to an emailed request for comment late Wednesday.
Earlier this month, the cruise ship was dislodged from its mooring by a windstorm that also caused, in a separate incident, two shipyard workers to fall into Mobile Bay. While one worker was rescued, the other's body was pulled from the water more than a week later.
___
Associated Press writer Phillip Lucas in Atlanta contributed to this report.
Last In, First Out has been in place for quite a long time. On the surface, the policy is fair. If implemented consistently, it is a cut and dry policy in which the most recently hired teacher is the first one to lose her/his job in times of downsizing. It does not consider who is affected.
However, is the best way to determine which teacher is cut from a district to base it on who was last hired?
The ease of application of Last In, First Out has allowed a difficult conversation to be avoided?the discussion of how to evaluate teachers. Rather than simply looking at hire date, why not have a conversation about the quality of teachers, not the longevity of teachers? time in a classroom?
?
?
The solution is complex and goes beyond a one-size fits all approach. However, there are various points that should be considered.
If promoting the best educational experience for students is the answer, Last In, First Out needs to be reconsidered.
First, what do communities, including parents and educational unions, value in their educators? Ultimately, the answer should drive the discussion. If protecting teachers with ?tenure? is the response, Last In, First Out is the way to go. If promoting the best educational experience for students is the answer, Last In, First Out needs to be reconsidered.
Experience cannot be manufactured. In-class practice is invaluable, but it is not the end all, be all for teachers. Novice teachers often arrive with a set of tools that veteran teachers may not have. However, one set of tools is not better than another; they are simply different.
Another component of the discussion that must be in place is an objective vetted method of evaluating teachers. This part must include a variety of parameters that are measurable and that is developed with all vested parties participating.
What is the answer? Every community has to determine this on its own in proactive conversations before staff cuts are made.
Districts should have those conversations with all stakeholders?administrators, district officials, parents, students and teachers?and arrive at an objective way to determine the reduction in force procedure.?
Some things to keep in mind during those conversations:?
What is most valuable when looking at staffing schools?? Can a local rubric be developed to determine which teachers are most effective and create a positive learning environment for students?? Veteran status should play a role during those conversations, but to utilize that as the only factor when determining the staffing does our students a disservice.? Effectiveness with students is paramount when we look at the protection of teachers when we must lose educators.
One of the criticisms of education and the teaching profession is the lack of accountability and the inability to remove ineffective teachers once they earn tenure. Tenure is a dirty word to some education critics.
I feel there is a place for tenure. It offers protection from vindictive administrators and allows teachers to have some job security. It places the impetus on administrators to document struggling teachers and their challenges and to be present in classrooms of teachers who are having a difficult time.?
Tenure should provide educators with a chance to hone their craft without losing their livelihood. Other professions, such as lawyers and doctors, have performance reviews and professional institutions that support and advise them throughout their careers. Education should be the same, a profession that supports people in the field and helps those struggling.
This position may not be popular with some of my colleagues in the education community. Some feel that experience trumps all else when it comes to the role of unions or tenure programs. However, that is not the case everywhere, nor should it be.
Education policy is a complex one, and the discussions surrounding Last In, First Out must involve all stakeholders and include appropriate teacher evaluation and the role of tenure.
Related Stories on TakePart:
? Is It Time We Said Goodbye to Teacher Tenure?
? The Push for Tenure Reform?Not Tenure Elimination
? Teacher Evaluations: Where They Went Awry
Douglas Hodum is a science teacher and the science department head at Mt. Blue High School in Farmington, Maine. He is a Hope Street Group National Teacher Fellow and current president of the Maine Science Teachers? Association (MSTA). TakePart.com
Just what makes that little old ant change a flower's nectar content?Public release date: 24-Apr-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Richard Hund rhund@botany.org 314-577-9557 American Journal of Botany
Ants foraging on nectar transmit yeasts that change sugar-chemistry and may affect subsequent pollinator visitations and plant fitness
Ants play a variety of important roles in many ecosystems. As frequent visitors to flowers, they can benefit plants in their role as pollinators when they forage on sugar-rich nectar. However, a new study reveals that this mutualistic relationship may actually have some hidden costs. By transmitting sugar-eating yeasts to the nectar on which they feed, ants may be indirectly altering the nectar-chemistry and thus affecting subsequent pollinator visitations.
Many species of plants benefit from interacting with ants, and some even secrete special sugary substances to attract ants. Plants produce sugar, in the form of nectar, and in exchange ants provide services such as pollination or protection from herbivores.
The main components of nectar that attract pollinators include three dominant sugarssucrose, fructose, and glucoseand amino acids (or proteins). The chemical composition of nectar differs among plant species and has been thought to be a conservative trait linked to pollinator type. For example, plants pollinated by hummingbirds tend to have nectar with high amounts of sucrose. In addition, nectar composition is thought to be regulated by the plant.
"When people think about how flowers are pollinated, they probably think about bees," notes Clara de Vega, a postdoctoral researcher at the Estacin Biolgica de Doana, Spain. "But ants also pollinate flowers, and I am interested in the role ants play in pollination since it is still poorly understood."
De Vega joined forces with Carlos M. Herrera, an evolutionary ecologist at the Estacin Biolgica de Doana, to investigate the relationship between ant pollinators and nectarivorous yeasts. Nectar-dwelling yeasts, which consume sugars, have recently been discovered in the flowers of many temperate and tropical plant species. De Vega and Herrera have already discovered that some ant species not only carry certain types of sugar-metabolizing yeasts on their bodies, but they also effectively transmit these yeasts to the nectar of flowers they visit.
In their most recent work, published in the American Journal of Botany (http://www.amjbot.org/content/100/4/792.full.pdf+html), De Vega and Herrera investigated whether flowers visited by these ants differed from flowers that were not visited by ants in their sugar chemistry, and whether sugar-chemistry was correlated with the abundance of ant-transmitted yeasts found in the nectar.
By excluding ants from visiting inflorescences of a perennial, parasitic plant, Cytinus hypocistis, and comparing the nectar chemistry to inflorescences that were visited by ants, the authors tested these ideas experimentally.
When the authors compared the sugar content in the nectar of flowers visited by ants versus those enclosed in nylon mesh bags to exclude ants, they found that nectar of flowers exposed to ants had higher levels of fructose and glucose, but lower levels of sucrose compared with the ant-excluded flowers.
Interestingly, in flowers visited by ants, there was a high correlation between yeast cell density and sugar content. Nectar that had higher densities of yeast had more fructose and less sucrose, suggesting that the types of yeasts change the sugar content of the nectar. Flowers that were excluded from ants did not have any yeast in their nectar.
"Our study has revealed that ants can actually change the nectar characteristics of the flowers they are pollinating," says de Vega. "The microorganisms, specifically yeasts, that are present on the surface of ants change the composition of sugar in the flowers nectar."
"This means that nectar composition is not completely controlled by the flowerit is something created in cooperation with the ants that visit the flower," she notes. "We also think that these ant-transported yeasts might have the potential to affect plant reproduction."
Indeed, if a plant cannot control the sugar content of its nectar, then it may lose some of its target pollinators, which would potentially affect overall seed set and plant fitness.
Moreover, if introducing these yeasts to nectar changes the chemistry of the very components that serve to attract pollinators, then perhaps ants are indirectly changing the foraging behavior of subsequent flower visitors and thereby affecting seed dispersal patterns.
This study has revealed an additional layer in the complex association between ants and flowering plants, as pollinating ants alter sugar-nectar chemistry in flowers via sugar-consuming yeasts. But the story does not end here. De Vega plans to continue researching the role that these nectarivorous yeasts play on the reproduction of plants.
"I plan to study the whole interaction of plants, yeasts, and pollinatorshow are they interrelated and what mechanisms shape these relations?"
###
Clara de Vega and Carlos M. Herrera. 2013. Microorganisms transported by ants induce changes in floral nectar composition of an ant-pollinated plant. American Journal of Botany 100(4): 792-800. DOI: 10.3732/ajb.1200626
The full article in the link mentioned is available for no charge for 30 days following the date of this summary at http://www.amjbot.org/content/100/4/792.full.pdf+html. After this date, reporters may contact Richard Hund at ajb@botany.org for a copy of the article.
The Botanical Society of America (http://www.botany.org) is a non-profit membership society with a mission to promote botany, the field of basic science dealing with the study and inquiry into the form, function, development, diversity, reproduction, evolution, and uses of plants and their interactions within the biosphere. It has published the American Journal of Botany (http://www.amjbot.org) for nearly 100 years. In 2009, the Special Libraries Association named the American Journal of Botany one of the Top 10 Most Influential Journals of the Century in the field of Biology and Medicine.
For further information, please contact the AJB staff at ajb@botany.org.
[ | 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.
Just what makes that little old ant change a flower's nectar content?Public release date: 24-Apr-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Richard Hund rhund@botany.org 314-577-9557 American Journal of Botany
Ants foraging on nectar transmit yeasts that change sugar-chemistry and may affect subsequent pollinator visitations and plant fitness
Ants play a variety of important roles in many ecosystems. As frequent visitors to flowers, they can benefit plants in their role as pollinators when they forage on sugar-rich nectar. However, a new study reveals that this mutualistic relationship may actually have some hidden costs. By transmitting sugar-eating yeasts to the nectar on which they feed, ants may be indirectly altering the nectar-chemistry and thus affecting subsequent pollinator visitations.
Many species of plants benefit from interacting with ants, and some even secrete special sugary substances to attract ants. Plants produce sugar, in the form of nectar, and in exchange ants provide services such as pollination or protection from herbivores.
The main components of nectar that attract pollinators include three dominant sugarssucrose, fructose, and glucoseand amino acids (or proteins). The chemical composition of nectar differs among plant species and has been thought to be a conservative trait linked to pollinator type. For example, plants pollinated by hummingbirds tend to have nectar with high amounts of sucrose. In addition, nectar composition is thought to be regulated by the plant.
"When people think about how flowers are pollinated, they probably think about bees," notes Clara de Vega, a postdoctoral researcher at the Estacin Biolgica de Doana, Spain. "But ants also pollinate flowers, and I am interested in the role ants play in pollination since it is still poorly understood."
De Vega joined forces with Carlos M. Herrera, an evolutionary ecologist at the Estacin Biolgica de Doana, to investigate the relationship between ant pollinators and nectarivorous yeasts. Nectar-dwelling yeasts, which consume sugars, have recently been discovered in the flowers of many temperate and tropical plant species. De Vega and Herrera have already discovered that some ant species not only carry certain types of sugar-metabolizing yeasts on their bodies, but they also effectively transmit these yeasts to the nectar of flowers they visit.
In their most recent work, published in the American Journal of Botany (http://www.amjbot.org/content/100/4/792.full.pdf+html), De Vega and Herrera investigated whether flowers visited by these ants differed from flowers that were not visited by ants in their sugar chemistry, and whether sugar-chemistry was correlated with the abundance of ant-transmitted yeasts found in the nectar.
By excluding ants from visiting inflorescences of a perennial, parasitic plant, Cytinus hypocistis, and comparing the nectar chemistry to inflorescences that were visited by ants, the authors tested these ideas experimentally.
When the authors compared the sugar content in the nectar of flowers visited by ants versus those enclosed in nylon mesh bags to exclude ants, they found that nectar of flowers exposed to ants had higher levels of fructose and glucose, but lower levels of sucrose compared with the ant-excluded flowers.
Interestingly, in flowers visited by ants, there was a high correlation between yeast cell density and sugar content. Nectar that had higher densities of yeast had more fructose and less sucrose, suggesting that the types of yeasts change the sugar content of the nectar. Flowers that were excluded from ants did not have any yeast in their nectar.
"Our study has revealed that ants can actually change the nectar characteristics of the flowers they are pollinating," says de Vega. "The microorganisms, specifically yeasts, that are present on the surface of ants change the composition of sugar in the flowers nectar."
"This means that nectar composition is not completely controlled by the flowerit is something created in cooperation with the ants that visit the flower," she notes. "We also think that these ant-transported yeasts might have the potential to affect plant reproduction."
Indeed, if a plant cannot control the sugar content of its nectar, then it may lose some of its target pollinators, which would potentially affect overall seed set and plant fitness.
Moreover, if introducing these yeasts to nectar changes the chemistry of the very components that serve to attract pollinators, then perhaps ants are indirectly changing the foraging behavior of subsequent flower visitors and thereby affecting seed dispersal patterns.
This study has revealed an additional layer in the complex association between ants and flowering plants, as pollinating ants alter sugar-nectar chemistry in flowers via sugar-consuming yeasts. But the story does not end here. De Vega plans to continue researching the role that these nectarivorous yeasts play on the reproduction of plants.
"I plan to study the whole interaction of plants, yeasts, and pollinatorshow are they interrelated and what mechanisms shape these relations?"
###
Clara de Vega and Carlos M. Herrera. 2013. Microorganisms transported by ants induce changes in floral nectar composition of an ant-pollinated plant. American Journal of Botany 100(4): 792-800. DOI: 10.3732/ajb.1200626
The full article in the link mentioned is available for no charge for 30 days following the date of this summary at http://www.amjbot.org/content/100/4/792.full.pdf+html. After this date, reporters may contact Richard Hund at ajb@botany.org for a copy of the article.
The Botanical Society of America (http://www.botany.org) is a non-profit membership society with a mission to promote botany, the field of basic science dealing with the study and inquiry into the form, function, development, diversity, reproduction, evolution, and uses of plants and their interactions within the biosphere. It has published the American Journal of Botany (http://www.amjbot.org) for nearly 100 years. In 2009, the Special Libraries Association named the American Journal of Botany one of the Top 10 Most Influential Journals of the Century in the field of Biology and Medicine.
For further information, please contact the AJB staff at ajb@botany.org.
[ | 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.
Students in Chicago have had enough with their school system.
A group called Chicago Students Organizing to Save Our Schools boycotted the state-mandated test, PSAE, on Wednesday and protested citywide. Like many people against standardized testing, the students, which numbered in the hundreds, have had enough with test taking.
But their objections, however, go further.
?
?
They are also fed up with Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the public school system?s leaders in their attempts to shutter 54 school programs and 61 school buildings, mostly in underprivileged and minority neighborhoods.
Brian Sturgis, a senior at Chicago?s Paul Robeson High School and an organizer of the boycott, wrote in an Education Week blog, ?Mayor Emanuel and the Chicago Board of Education are supposed to make the CPS system work for all of us. But instead they are putting too much pressure on standardized testing and threatening to close schools that don't have high test scores. When schools are under so much pressure to raise test scores it leads to low-scoring students being neglected, not supported.?
The protestors posted frequently on social media to keep people updated on their activities. Their Twitter feed shows a picture of students lined up, arms interlocked, in front of school. One student held a sign that said, ?The best way to learn is by taking a test?No child ever said.?
The students? activities haven?t sat well with administrators.
Earlier this week, the school district made robocalls to students? parents, warning how important the test results are to a their children?s academic future.
Every student must take at least one day of the two-day exam to be promoted to 12th grade and graduate. The second part of the test, given on Wednesday, included science, math and reading. This part, in turn, gives a career-readiness certificate endorsed by employers to students.
Of course, as is the norm in America?s classrooms, the tests are also used to help evaluate each school and teacher.
Barbara Byrd-Bennett, the Chicago Public Schools CEO said on Wednesday, ?The only place that students should be during the school day is in the classroom with their teachers getting the education they need to be successful in life. Today's PSAE is one of the most critical exams our students will take. Every adult should support and encourage our students to make sure they are in school.?
Mark Naison, a Fordham University academic who monitors educational movements in the United States, compared the Chicago protest to the student?lunch counter sit-ins that began in Greensboro, North Carolina in 1960.
?In both instances, you had a situation that many people thought was outrageous?and yes, many people do think the level of testing in schools has become so intrusive and counterproductive that it is national tragedy?but people in elected office seemed unable to change, so young people decided to take history into their own hands,? he said. ?I would not be surprised to see these walkouts and boycotts multiply next year.?
Last week, New York parents, teachers, and students participated in a similar protest when students decidedly opted out of tests administered by the state of New York. An overabundance of testing has, according to critics, contributed to a rise in cheating by teachers and administrators, a segregation of students based on test scores, high teacher turnover, and the decrease of classes that teach enrichment, such as the arts.
Some see these protests as a last resort to help students and teachers in a broken system with few benefits.
Shaun Johnson, a Maryland-based teacher educator, former public school teacher, and blogger for At the Chalk Face, feels that while a boycott to prevent data from being collected may not be the most effective tool, it's perhaps all we have left.
Related Stories on TakePart:
? Op-Ed: Watching Our Chicago Schools Close Is ?Like Being Stuck in a Bad Dream?
? What Will the Closure of 61 Chicago School Buildings Mean for Kids?
? Op-Ed: It?s Not Always the Right Choice to Close a Failing School
Suzi Parker is an Arkansas-based?political and cultural journalist whose work frequently appears in?The Washington?Post?and?The Christian Science Monitor. She is the?author of two books. @SuziParker | TakePart.com?
Apr. 23, 2013 ? New scientific research published today in the journal PLoS Biology shows that bacteria can evolve resistance more quickly when stronger antibiotics are used.
Researchers from the University of Exeter and Kiel University in Germany treated E. coli with different combinations of antibiotics in laboratory experiments.
Unexpectedly they found that the rate of evolution of antibiotic resistance speeds up when potent treatments are given because resistant bacterial cells flourish most during the most aggressive therapies.
This happens because too potent a treatment eliminates the non-resistant cells, creating a lack of competition that allows resistant bacteria to multiply quickly. Those cells go on to create copies of resistance genes that help them rapidly reduce the effectiveness of the drugs. In tests this effect could even cause E.coli to grow fastest in the most aggressive antibiotic treatments.
In addition to evolution experiments, the results of this Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and Medical Research Council (MRC) funded research were confirmed using mathematical models and whole-genome sequencing of resistant and non-resistant E. coli.
Professor Robert Beardmore, EPSRC Research Fellow from the University of Exeter said: "We were surprised by how quickly the bacteria evolved resistance. We nearly stopped the experiments because we didn't think some of the treatments should be losing potency that fast, sometimes within a day. But we now know that the bacteria remaining after the initial treatment have duplicated specific areas of their genome containing large numbers of resistance genes. These gene copies appear more quickly when the antibiotics are combined, resulting in the rapid evolution of very resistant bacteria.
"Designing new treatments to prevent antibiotic resistance is not easy, as this research shows, and governments may need to increase their funding for antibiotics research if scientists are to be able to keep pace with the rapid evolution of bacterial pathogens that cause disease."
Dr Rafael Pena-Miller from Biosciences at the University of Exeter said: "The evidence that combining antibiotics to make a more potent therapy can lead to the creation of more copies of the genes the bacteria needs to be resistant is of real concern."
Professor Hinrich Schulenberg from Kiel University in Germany said: "The interesting thing is that the bacteria don't just make copies of the genes they need. Just in case, they copy other genes as well, increasing resistance to antibiotics the cells weren't even treated with."
About 440 000 new cases of drug-resistant tuberculosis emerge annually, causing around 150 000 deaths. Statistics like this recently lead the Department of Health to state that antibiotic resistance poses one of the greatest threats to human health.
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WASHINGTON (AP) ? After dozens of attempts to overturn the new health care law, House Republicans on Wednesday took a different tack, promoting legislation that would come to the rescue of a prominent program in the new law at the expense of another vital element of the law.
The House bill, named the "Helping Sick Americans Now Act," would prop up a faltering program that helps people with pre-existing conditions get insurance, doing so by taking money away from the 2010 law's main prevention fund.
The legislation is likely to be ignored by the Democratic-led Senate and was met by a veto threat from the White House, but it does give Republicans a platform to talk about an aspect of the Affordable Care Act, or "ObamaCare," that has not gone as well as hoped.
The Pre-existing Condition Insurance Plan was a stopgap measure intended to help people who have trouble getting private insurance because of a medical condition. This would assist people who have uninsured for at least six months to get coverage at average rates. The program is slated to disappear in 2014 when the consumer protections under the Affordable Care Act take full effect.
The original goal was to reach more than 300,000, but the program's costs were higher than anticipated and in February the administration said it would stop taking new applications. It has enrolled more than 100,000 people.
The GOP bill would extend the program through the end of the year by providing up to $3.6 billion and would eliminate the requirements that applicants be uninsured for six months. The money would come from the Prevention and Public Health Fund, which Republicans refer to as a "slush fund" for Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius but which the administration says is vital to promoting disease prevention programs and publicizing the new health insurance markets that will open this fall.
"We want to stop ObamaCare and that's why we're going to the fund, the slush fund, that Secretary Sebelius is using for the implementation of the bill," House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., said.
The White House, in its veto threat statement, says the legislation would effectively eliminate funding for three years for a program that "supports critical investments such as tobacco use reduction and programs to reduce health-care-associated infections and the national burden of chronic disease."
Republicans, said Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., are raiding the law's preventive health care fund "even though preventive care reduces costs while keeping Americans healthier."
Jeffrey Levi, executive director of Trust for America's Health, a group that has criticized the Obama administration for using prevention fund dollars to publicize the benefits of the new law, said the prevention account is not being misused as a slush fund as Republicans allege.
"The bulk of the funding in the prevention fund has indeed gone to the original intent of public health and prevention," he said. He said his organization, a nonprofit that focuses on promoting public health strategies to prevent disease, is opposed to the GOP bill, calling it a "foolish trade-off."
Democrats also point out that the Republican bill takes about $800 million more out of the prevention fund than is needed to keep the high-risk insurance plan going. Republicans say that money would go to reducing the deficit. Democrats have suggested sustaining the program through the end of the year through such means as raising tobacco taxes or rolling back oil and gas company tax breaks.
"My bill takes money from a wasteful, duplicative fund, moves it into a program that has bipartisan support and helps pay down the debt," the bill's sponsor, Rep. Joe Pitts, R-Pa., said after the measure cleared the House Energy and Commerce Committee last week.
But the bill also has its detractors on the right. The conservative Club for Growth on Tuesday urged House lawmakers to vote against the bill and said their votes would be a part of the organization's scorecard that determines conservative credentials. "The proposal would further extend the federal government's role in healthcare," it said, and by eliminating the six-month-wait requirement it "creates the moral hazard of avoiding insurance until it is needed."
__
AP reporter Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar contributed to this report.
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi forces stormed a Sunni Muslim protest camp on Tuesday, triggering a gunfight between troops and demonstrators that spread to army clashes with Sunni militants and killed more than 40 people.
The fighting was the bloodiest Iraq has seen since thousands of Sunni Muslims started staging protests in December to demand an end to perceived marginalization of their sect by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's Shi'ite-led government.
Sunni outrage and the violence across Iraq will only deepen already severe sectarian rifts in a country where Shi'ite and Sunni tensions simmer close to the surface just a few years after intercommunal slaughter killed tens of thousands.
Iraq's defense ministry said fighting erupted when troops opened fire early on Tuesday after coming under attack from gunmen during a raid on the makeshift protest camp in a square in Hawija, near Kirkuk, 170 km (100 miles) north of Baghdad.
"When the armed forces started... to enforce the law using units of riot control forces, they were confronted with heavy fire," the defense ministry said in a statement.
The defense ministry and military said troops found rocket-propelled grenades, sniper rifles, and other weapons. But protest leaders said they were unarmed when security forces stormed in and started shooting in the morning.
"When special forces raided the square, we were not prepared and we had no weapons. They crushed some of us in their vehicles," said Ahmed Hawija, a student.
The defense ministry said what is described as 20 gunmen were killed at the camp along with three of its officers. Military sources said 20 people and six soldiers died.
After the Hawija raid, security forces imposed a curfew in the surrounding province of Salahuddin, burned protesters' tents and cleared the square.
The United Nations envoy to Iraq called for talks to end violence and Maliki's office said it would set up a commission that included Sunni leaders to investigate the Hawija deaths.
But clashes inflamed tribal sensibilities in the Sunni Muslim heartland of western Iraq and violence spread with gunmen attacking army posts to the south of Kirkuk. At least 13 gunmen were killed in attacks, a ministry of defense official said.
Three soldiers were killed during clashes with protesters who attacked a passing army convoy and militants burned two army Humvees on the highway outside Ramadi, 100 km (60 miles) west of Baghdad, according to local authorities.
In a village outside Tuz Khurmato, 170 km (105 miles) north of the capital, militants used a mosque loudspeaker to call Sunnis to mobilize before clashing with troops, officials said. Four soldiers and one insurgent were killed in the fighting.
Throughout the day, mortar attacks, bombs and gunmen also killed at least 21 worshippers as they left two Sunni mosques in Baghdad and another in Diyala province in the north, according to police and medical sources.
TENSIONS, VIOLENCE
The Hawija raid and ensuing violence will likely worsen divisions in Maliki's government which has been deadlocked by fighting among Shi'ite, Sunni and ethnic Kurdish parties over how to share power since the last American troops left in 2011.
Iraq's education and science and technology ministers, both Sunni Muslims, offered to resign on Tuesday in protest over the Hawija incident, according to the deputy prime minister's office and their Iraqiya party.
Since the last U.S. troops left, Iraq's government has been mired in crisis over the power-sharing agreement along sectarian and ethnic lines. Maliki's critics accuse him of amassing power at their expense.
Many Iraqi Sunnis say they were sidelined after the U.S.-led 2003 invasion that ousted Sunni strongman Saddam Hussein and allowed the Shi'ite majority to gain power through elections.
Tuesday's fighting broke out shortly after a weekend provincial election that was the first in Iraq since U.S. troops withdrew. But voting was suspended in two predominantly Sunni provinces.
Violence has eased since the slaughter that erupted after al Qaeda militants bombed an important Shi'ite shrine in 2006 and triggered a wave of retaliation by Shi'ite militias against Sunni communities, but still claims dozens of lives.
On Tuesday, at least 10 worshippers were killed when mortar rounds landed on a Sunni mosque in Muqdadiya in Diyala province, 80 km (50 miles) northeast of Baghdad, police and medical sources said.
Earlier, two bombs killed seven people outside a Sunni mosque in southern Baghdad and police said gunmen killed four worshippers as they left prayers held in a Sunni mosque in an eastern district of the capital.
(Additional reporting by Kareem Raheem and Ahmed Rasheed in Baghdad and Gazwan Hassan in Samarra; Writing by Patrick Markey; Editing by Michael Roddy)
If you follow certain video or audio podcasts regularly, you can use Apple's Podcasts app to do so. For podcasts you listen to or watch on a regular basis, it's typically better to just subscribe to them. If there's ever a time when you want to download a single podcast episode without subscribing, you have the option to easily do so.
Here's how:
Launch the Podcasts app from the Home screen of your iPhone or iPad.
Tap on the Store icon in the upper left-hand corner.
Search for the podcast that you'd like to download an episode of.
You can either tap the download button next to the single item you'd like to download under the Episodes section or tap on the actual podcast under the Podcasts section.
If you're in the actual podcast screen, you can scroll through and view descriptions and summaries of each episode and tap the Download button next to only the ones you'd like to download without subscribing.
Last week, Google finally released the developer guides and other necessary documents that will allow developers to write apps for Glass. In some respects, the so-called Mirror API may have been a disappointment to developers who were expecting to run full-blown augmented-reality apps, but even in its current form, it will allow developers to create new experiences for their new and existing apps that just weren’t possible before. One thing many developers may not have realized before Google published these documents is that the API is essentially an old-school RESTful service. The only way to interact with Glass is through the cloud. The only apps you can build – at least for now – are web-based, and despite the fact that Glass runs Android, you can’t run any services directly on the hardware. Google may have made this choice for a number of reasons. It ensures that Glass’ battery life is reasonable (Google says it should last a full day, assuming you don’t record a lot of video), but this also means that if a service goes haywire and sends out a fresh cat picture to users every second, it can intervene and cut that service’s access off. Depending on how you look at this, that’s either a good or a bad thing, but Google is clearly interested in keeping some control over what’s happening on Glass for now. The way the API works, however, also means there are things you can’t quite do with Glass yet that are possible on any modern smartphone. You can’t write a real augmented-reality app, for example. It also doesn’t look as if you could easily stream audio or video from the device to your own services (though you can obviously use Hangouts on Glass). Because the platform is essentially web-based, you are also limited to HTML and CSS when it comes to styling your apps, and Google would prefer it if you didn’t write any custom CSS and just stuck with its own templates. For the most part, though, developers will be able to approximate the experience Google shared in its first Glass demo video last year. Assuming you have an Android phone, you will be able to create location-enabled apps. Users can send images to your service (so you could build a service that manipulates or analyzes these images in the cloud and then sends the results back to the user) and
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear a tobacco industry challenge to a federal law that expanded restrictions on the advertising and marketing of cigarettes.
The provisions of the 2009 Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act under attack included one requiring the display of a large health warning on packaging and another banning the sponsorship of public events.
The law also requires that before a tobacco product can be marketed, the manufacturer must prove to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that it is less dangerous than other tobacco products. This provision is aimed at descriptive marketing terms such as "light" and "mild."
Those challenging the provisions of the law included companies owned in part or in full by Reynolds American Inc, British American Tobacco Plc, Imperial Tobacco Group Plc and Lorillard Inc.
The companies claimed the law violates the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of speech, imposing "myriad restrictions on truthful, non-misleading speech to adult tobacco consumers."
In response, the Obama administration noted in court papers that the law was specifically drafted to battle a recognized public health problem. Congress was particularly interested in restricting the marketing of cigarettes to young people, government lawyers wrote.
The Cincinnati-based 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the law in full, saying the warnings "are reasonably related to the government's interest in preventing consumer deception."
The case is distinct from a separate industry challenge to regulations the FDA issued to implement the graphic warning requirement. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit tossed out the regulation. The FDA is currently drafting a new one.
The case is American Snuff Company v. United States, U.S. Supreme Court, No. 12-521.
(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Howard Goller, Gerald E. McCormick and John Wallace)
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Small groups of protesters dodged police and tried to reach the homes of India's leaders in the capital New Delhi on Sunday, in a third day of protests after the alleged rape and torture of a five-year old girl.
Police say the child was abducted on April 15, kept in captivity and raped by a neighbor near her north Delhi home. The accused, who had fled, was brought back to the capital on Saturday.
The girl, who suffered severe injuries, was slowly recovering after surgery despite an infection, a doctor at the hospital where she was being treated told reporters.
Public fury over the attack has echoed the response to the gang rape of a 23-year-old trainee physiotherapist on a bus on December 16. She later died of her injuries.
That case ignited big protests and provoked national debate about gender violence, putting the issue on the political agenda in the nation of 1.2 billion people a year before elections.
Police briefly detained dozens of women protesters from the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party who tried to reach the house of Sonia Gandhi, the head of the ruling Congress party. Another group was blocked trying to reach the prime minister's house.
Much of the protesters' anger was directed at police, after allegations officers tried to bribe the family of the victim to not file a case, and video footage showed an officer slapping a woman demonstrator on Friday.
Protesters burnt an effigy of the city's police chief outside the hospital where the girl was being treated, and demanded his resignation, television images showed. Another group shouted slogans outside police headquarters.
"Taxpayers' money is going towards their salaries, but they are doing nothing to protect us. We don't trust the police -- they are corrupt and lazy," said Surendra Kumar 35, who was protested outside the hospital.
Police invoked a law to stop protests near the heart of government in central Delhi, but hundreds of students were still on the streets near the heavily-guarded police headquarters at nightfall.
New Delhi has the highest number of sex crimes among India's major cities, with a rape reported on average every 18 hours, according to police figures.
However, most sex crimes in India go unreported, many offenders go unpunished, and justice is slow, according to social activists, who say successive governments have done little to ensure the safety of women and children.
(Additional reporting by Manoj Kumar; Writing by Frank Jack Daniel; Editing by Jason Webb)
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Last week, Google finally released the developer guides and other necessary documents that will allow developers to write apps for Glass. In some respects, the so-called Mirror API may have been a disappointment to developers who were expecting to run full-blown augmented-reality apps, but even in its current form, it will allow developers to create new experiences for their new and existing apps that just weren’t possible before. One thing many developers may not have realized before Google published these documents is that the API is essentially an old-school RESTful service. The only way to interact with Glass is through the cloud. The only apps you can build – at least for now – are web-based, and despite the fact that Glass runs Android, you can’t run any services directly on the hardware. Google may have made this choice for a number of reasons. It ensures that Glass’ battery life is reasonable (Google says it should last a full day, assuming you don’t record a lot of video), but this also means that if a service goes haywire and sends out a fresh cat picture to users every second, it can intervene and cut that service’s access off. Depending on how you look at this, that’s either a good or a bad thing, but Google is clearly interested in keeping some control over what’s happening on Glass for now. The way the API works, however, also means there are things you can’t quite do with Glass yet that are possible on any modern smartphone. You can’t write a real augmented-reality app, for example. It also doesn’t look as if you could easily stream audio or video from the device to your own services (though you can obviously use Hangouts on Glass). Because the platform is essentially web-based, you are also limited to HTML and CSS when it comes to styling your apps, and Google would prefer it if you didn’t write any custom CSS and just stuck with its own templates. For the most part, though, developers will be able to approximate the experience Google shared in its first Glass demo video last year. Assuming you have an Android phone, you will be able to create location-enabled apps. Users can send images to your service (so you could build a service that manipulates or analyzes these images in the cloud and then sends the results back to the user) and