October 10, 2007, 7:08 PM CT

Increase in ethanol production from corn

If projected increases in the use of corn for ethanol production occur, the harm to water quality could be considerable, and water supply problems at the regional and local levels could also arise, says a new report from the National Research Council. The committee that wrote the report examined policy options and identified opportunities for new agricultural techniques and technologies to help minimize effects of biofuel production on water resources.

Recent increases in oil prices in conjunction with subsidy policies have led to a dramatic expansion in corn ethanol production and high interest in further expansion over the next decade, says the report. Indeed, because of strong national interest in greater energy independence, in this year's State of the Union address, President Bush called for the production of 35 billion gallons of ethanol by 2017, which would equal about 15 percent of the U.S. liquid transportation fuels.

A National Research Council committee was convened to look at how shifts in the nation's agriculture to include more energy crops, and potentially more crops overall, could affect water management and long-term sustainability of biofuel production. Based on findings presented at a July colloquium, the committee came to several conclusions about biofuel production and identified options for addressing them......... Posted by: Kevin      Read more         Source

Tue, 02 Oct 2007 03:39:24 GMT

Rehmannia elata

Botany Photo of the Day will have brief written entries on weekends, holidays and my vacations from April through September. – Daniel

Another thank you to Lotus J. aka ngawangchodron@Flickr for sharing a photograph with us (original via the BPotD Flickr Group Pool). Much appreciated!

There are six species within the genus Rehmannia, and they are collectively known as the Chinese foxgloves. Rehmannia currently resides in taxonomic limbo; no one is quite certain as to what plant family it should belong to. Both Wikipedia and the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group comment on its uncertain familial placement.

Paghat writes about Rehmannia elata in the garden. Posted by: Daniel Mosquin      Read more     Source

September 27, 2007, 9:43 PM CT

Solving A Dragonfly Flight Mystery

Dragonflies adjust their wing motion while hovering to conserve energy, as per a Cornell University study of the insect's flight mechanics. The revelation contradicts prior speculation that the change in wing motion served to enhance vertical lift.

The Cornell physicists came to their conclusions after analyzing high speed images of dragonflies in action. The insects have two pairs of wings, which sometimes move up and down in harmony. At other times the front set of wings flap out of sync with the back set.

The physicists observed that dragonflies maximized their lift, when accelerating or taking off from a perch, by flapping both sets of wings together. When they hover, however, the rear wings flap at the same rate as the front, but with a different phase (imagine two people clapping at the same speed, but with one person's clap delayed relative to the other).

The physicists' analysis of the out-of-sync motion showed that while it didn't help with lift, it minimized the amount of power they had to expend to stay airborne, allowing them to conserve energy while hovering in place.

The research will be detailed in a forthcoming issue of Physical Review Letters. The authors are Z. Jane Wang and David Russell......... Posted by: Ashley      Read more         Source

September 26, 2007, 8:23 PM CT

Ancient whale fall found from Ano Nuevo Island

A fossilized whale skeleton excavated 20 years ago amid the stench and noise of a seabird and elephant seal rookery on California's Ano Nuevo Island turns out to be the youngest example on the Pacific coast of a fossil whale fall and the first in California, as per University of California, Berkeley, paleontologists.

Whale falls, first recognized in the 1980s, are whale carcasses that fall to the deep-ocean floor where, like an oasis in the desert, they attract a specialized group of clams, crabs and worms that feed for up to decades on the oil-rich bones and tissues.

Some researchers think these random, deep-ocean oases are stepping stones for organisms moving from one ocean floor environment to another - whether a hot vent, a cold seep or a whale carcass - in search of sustenance from energy-rich chemicals.

"The fossil whale fall shows that these deep-sea communities didn't need particularly large whales as a source of nutrients - in fact, the fossil whale from Año Nuevo Island was no longer than a VW bug," said Nick Pyenson, a graduate student in UC Berkeley's Department of Integrative Biology.

Pyenson and museum scientist David M. Haasl, both of UC Berkeley's Museum of Paleontology, published their findings in this week's online edition of the journal Biology Letters......... Posted by: William      Read more         Source

September 12, 2007, 5:48 PM CT

First Prehistoric Reptiles To Possess Modern Ears

The discovery of the first anatomically modern ear in a group of 260 million-year-old fossil reptiles significantly pushes back the date of the origin of an advanced sense of hearing, and suggests the first known adaptations to living in the dark.

In a new study published in PLoS One, Johannes Müller and Linda Tsuji, paleobiologists at the Natural History Museum of the Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany report that these fossil animals, found in deposits of Permian age near the Mezen River in central Russia, possessed all the anatomical features typical of a vertebrate with a surprisingly modern ear.

When vertebrates had conquered land and the ancestors of modern day mammals, reptiles, and birds first began to diversify, hearing was not of high importance. The first fully terrestrial land vertebrates were, in fact, largely deaf, and lacked any of the anatomical features that would indicate the possession of what is termed impedance-matching hearing - the mechanism by which modern land vertebrates are able to transmit airborne sounds into the inner ear by means of small bony connections.

The ability of modern animals to hear a wide range of frequencies, highly important for prey capture, escape, and communication, was long assumed to have only evolved shortly before the origin of dinosaurs, not much longer than 200 million years ago, and therefore comparatively late in vertebrate history......... Posted by: William      Read more         Source

Sun, 02 Sep 2007 02:41:42 GMT

Worms and webs

The forests around Roundrock are full of this stuff right now. Last year (or perhaps the year before) I made the mistake of calling this the work of tent caterpillars, and I was gently corrected by one of my gracious commentors.

This is more correctly the work of fall webworms. I can’t tell you the distinction other than that one appears more in the spring and the other appears in late summer and early fall.

They’re numbers seem especially high this year. I’ve never taken any kind of systematic survey, but based on impressions after going to the woods for a decade, I’d say this is a big year for them. I don’t know why that is, but I suspect the conditions favor them in some complex combination of heat and rain and drought and maybe moon phases. (Perhaps this also explains the apparent rise in the numbers and malevolence of the horseflies this year.)

The worms build their webs around the ends of branches so that they can reside within, happily munching on the tender leaves without being disturbed by predators. It seems to be an effective system but I wonder what the physiological cost of producing all of that webbing is.

I understand that these worms generally will not kill a tree that is hosting them unless that tree is in a weakened state. A good many trees were hurt by the late frost last spring. That came after they had already brought out leaves, so for many of them, they had to bring out a second generation of leaves. That had to have had a physiological cost as well. Then came the torrents of rain in June. Then came the drought and intense heat of July and August. So I wouldn’t be surprised if a few of my thousands and thousands of trees at Roundrock meet their ends this year.

That’s only natural, of course, and a dead tree can host an entirely different set of guests, so the circle turns.

Missouri calendar:

• Thirteen-lined ground squirrels begin to gorge.

Today’s bonus photo:

This picture was taken on the back deck of my home in suburbia (through two panes of glass, btw). This ground squirrel (I didn’t stop to count the lines on its back) had long ago discovered our caged bird feeder. We keep it filled with safflower seeds since starlings tend not to like that seed and don’t come in great flocks to clean it out. Ground squirrels, however, do like safflower seeds, and this little guy spends a good part of the day inside the feeder, stuffing his cheeks with them. He then works his swollen face through the cage and scurries off to bury the seeds here and there in the yard.

We might get upset about this if he weren’t so cute. Posted by: Roundrockjournal      Read more     Source

Sat, 01 Sep 2007 12:17:57 GMT

Verbesina serrata

Thanks again to David Tarrant for today's photograph from Mexico.

Douglas Justice and I were discussing the numbers cited about the Asteraceae in yesterday's entry after I mentioned to him that many of the plants that David photographs in Mexico have little or no presence online. Today's photograph is another example; of the few search engine results, many only have scant information on this Mexican endemic (e.g., checklists or name databases). Fortunately, Mexico's Conabio provides a detailed factsheet and comprehensive photographs, otherwise this scanned text from the “Trees and Shrubs of Mexico” is some of the best information available online (via Botanicus). To be fair, the original description of the plant by de Cavanilles is available online in this PDF from the University of Valencia in Spain (pages 18 and 83, by the way), but it isn't exactly what I would call accessible. It truly helps one begin to understand the scope of projects like the Global Biodiversity Information Facility, where huge efforts are required to construct and maintain only the barest subset of all published information about plants. The Encyclopedia of Life project will, one day, provide “an online reference source and database for every one of the 1.8 million species that are named and known on this planet, as well as all those later discovered and described”. Let's all keep our fingers crossed and support this ambitious venture.

Environment resource link: EarthPortal is a “comprehensive resource for timely, objective, science-based information about the environment. It is a means for the global scientific community to come together to produce the first free, expert-driven, massively scaleable information resource on the environment, and to engage civil society in a public dialogue on the role of environmental issues in human affairs.”. See “Conservation and Management of Rare Plant Species” and “Global Marine Biodiversity Trends” for two stellar examples. Posted by: Daniel Mosquin      Read more     Source

Sun, 26 Aug 2007 19:14:31 GMT

Bug juice bio fuel

Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble - there's a new genetically enhanced bacteria strain that literally craps ethanol at high temperatures. The bacteria strain, called TM242, is particularly special because it can eat any kind of organic waste and metabolize it into ethanol, so long as it's kept "snug as a bug in a rug" at a sizzling 65 degrees Celcius.

Britain's TMO Renewables is looking to mass produce this bug juice in many regions, with the feed dependent on what the area has in excess. For instance, U.S. production will utilize the five and a half feet of corn stalk that isn't edible - a definite advantage over current ethanol production methods.

TMO Renewables seems to be leaps and bounds ahead of the competition in terms of a green and economically sound method for production - but they can't quite compete with the massive volume other methods put out.... yet.
"We have an interesting beasty that was found on the side of a volcano in Montserrat just before it exploded (in 1995)," said Curran. "That one eats vegetable oil, drinks methanol and shits biodiesel."
Oh how cute - I want one! Posted by: Miche      Read more     Source

Tue, 21 Aug 2007 03:22:42 GMT

Lilium 'Orange Pixie'

Botany Photo of the Day will have brief written entries on weekends, holidays and my vacations from April through September. – Daniel

kai kane@Flickr, aka Peter F. from Gloucestershire, England is the photographer behind today's BPotD (original via BPotD Flickr Group Pool). Thanks, Peter!

As the cultivar name implies, these diminutive lilies grow to a height of only 30-45cm (12-18in). Paghat writes about her experiences with Lilium 'Orange Pixie' (and includes some history of the plant, as well). Posted by: Daniel Mosquin      Read more     Source

July 30, 2007, 7:45 PM CT

Pathway To Cell Size And Division

Organisms precisely regulate cell size to ensure that daughter cells have sufficient cellular material to thrive or to create specific cell types: a tiny sperm versus a gargantuan egg for example. In single-celled organisms such as yeast and bacteria, nutrient availability is the primary determinant of cell size. In animal cells, size is controlled in large part by a molecule that senses the blood sugar-dependent hormone insulin.

Petra Levin, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Biology at Washington University in St. Louis, and her laboratory have recently identified a trio of enzymes that act in concert to link nutrient availability to cell size in the soil bacterium Bacillus subtilis.

Levin and her lab are looking into the factors that control the timing and position of cell division in B. subtilis. B. subtilis serves as the model system for a large family of bacteria that includes the causative agents of several important diseases, including anthrax and botulism. By learning how these simple organisms regulate division, she hopes to better understand why this process goes awry in cancer cells resulting in uncontrolled growth and aberrant division.

A primary focus of the Levin lab's research is a protein called FtsZ. FtsZ is an ancestor of tubulin, the protein that is responsible for distributing duplicated chromosomes between dividing human cells. In bacteria, FtsZ forms a ring at the future division site. The FtsZ ring then recruits all other components necessary for cell division and serves as the scaffolding for the entire division process......... Posted by: Ashley      Read more         Source