Scientific American
By Holly Summers

A series of graduate student conversations with leading women biologists, at the Women in Science Symposium at Cornell April 2-3.

Prof. Pamela Ronald, a Professor in Plant Pathology at University of California, Davis and director of Grass Genetics at the Joint Bioenergy Institute, studies genes that control the plant response to stress.

In her presentation for the Frontiers in Life Sciences symposium at Cornell University, Ronald described the isolation of a novel bacterial signal that is key to bacterial communication. In a process called quorum sensing, bacteria use this molecule, called Ax21, to communicate with each other, essentially transforming these single celled organisms into a coordinated team of fierce invaders. Remarkably, the rice XA21 receptor can detect these small molecules. That detection triggers a robust defense response. As she said, “Bacteria talk, plants listen.”

In 1995, the Ronald Laboratory isolated and characterized the XA21 immune receptor (Song et al. Science 1995; Lee et al., Science 2009). Subsequent discoveries in flies (Lemaitre et al., 1996), humans (Medzhitov, et al. 1997), mice (Poltorak et al, 1998), and Arabidopsis (Gomez-Gomez, 2000) revealed that animals and other plant species also carry membrane-anchored receptors with striking structural similarities to XA21 and that these receptors also play key roles recognition of microbial signatures and host defense (Ronald and Beutler, Science 2010). The importance of this work is reflected in the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine to Beutler and Hoffman, who discovered the animal receptors. Read Full Article »

International Business Times
By Ryan Villarreal

Bioengineering agricultural giant Monsanto has touted the safety of genetically modified crops, but a new study has found that insecticide-containing corn can be harmful to the overall health of soil ecosystems.

Genetically modified corn has been linked to a decrease in a subterranean fungus that forms a symbiotic bond with plant roots, allowing them to draw in more nutrients and water from the surrounding soil in exchange for carbon.

Researchers at Portland State University conducted a study to examine the effects of corn genetically engineered with the bacteria-derived insecticidal toxin, Bacillus thuringiensis, or Bt, on growth of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF).

AMF is important for the overall health and fertility of soil ecosystems, and was found to form less bonds with the roots of Bt corn than with non-Bt corn. Read Full Article »

PR Web

Textile Exchange (TE) launches their sixth Farm & Fiber report giving an update on the organic production worldwide.

Lubbock, TX — Momentum to seriously address sustainability issues within the textile industry is gaining traction at the brand level. While initial surveys from the 2011 Cotton Market Report indicate the clear majority of responding brands and retailers are maintaining or increasing their organic cotton commitments, this message is not making it to the farmers.

Image Credit: Noam, yaymicro.com

Guaranteed subsidies or benefits from other sustainable cotton initiatives, especially coming out of a recession, are luring farmers away from planting organic on vague market signals or speculation. That coupled with several factors in India, the largest producer of organic cotton for four years running, is having the biggest effect on global organic fiber production.

Next year (2011/12) TE is expecting a further five percent decline, which is nowhere near as dramatic as the drop experienced this year. All the same, the future of organic cotton depends upon the sector undertaking some major changes immediately. Read Full Article »

The Washington Post
By Susan Freinkel

In a study published last year in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, researchers put five San Francisco families on a three-day diet of food that hadn’t been in contact with plastic. When they compared urine samples before and after the diet, the scientists were stunned to see what a difference a few days could make: The participants’ levels of bisphenol A (BPA), which is used to harden polycarbonate plastic, plunged — by two-thirds, on average — while those of the phthalate DEHP, which imparts flexibility to plastics, dropped by more than half.

The findings seemed to confirm what many experts suspected: Plastic food packaging is a major source of these potentially harmful chemicals, which most Americans harbor in their bodies. Other studies have shown phthalates (pronounced THAL-ates) passing into food from processing equipment and food-prep gloves, gaskets and seals on non-plastic containers, inks used on labels — which can permeate packaging — and even the plastic film used in agriculture.

The government has long known that tiny amounts of chemicals used to make plastics can sometimes migrate into food. The Food and Drug Administration regulates these migrants as “indirect food additives” and has approved more than 3,000 such chemicals for use in food-contact applications since 1958. It judges safety based on models that estimate how much of a given substance might end up on someone’s dinner plate. If the concentration is low enough (and when these substances occur in food, it is almost always in trace amounts), further safety testing isn’t required.

Meanwhile, however, scientists are beginning to piece together data about the ubiquity of chemicals in the food supply and the cumulative impact of chemicals at minute doses. What they’re finding has some health advocates worried. Read Full Article »

Pesticide Action Network

Hats off to this mother of three who got fed up and took charge. Sofía Gatica challenged powerful corporate interests to protect her family and community from pesticides — and won.

And now, the Argentine mother is one of six grassroots leaders from around the world being honored with the Goldman Environmental Prize.

Click here to view a video about Sofia and her activism. Read Full Article »