There are 19 new papers on ONE that were published this week (thus breaking the 600 papers number). Here are a couple that caught my eye (apart from those I already blogged about or will soon):
Imitation as Faithful Copying of a Novel Technique in Marmoset Monkeys:
This evidence of imitation in non-human primates questions the dominant opinion that imitation is a human-specific ability. Furthermore, the high matching degree suggests that marmosets possess the neuronal mechanism to code the actions of others and to map them onto their own motor repertoire, rather than priming existing motor-templates.
We found the highest opportunity for total selection and the strongest selection on earlier age at first reproduction in women of the poorest wealth class, whereas selection favoured older age at reproductive cessation in mothers of the wealthier classes. We also found clear differences in female life-history traits across wealth classes: the poorest women had the lowest age-specific survival throughout their lives, they started reproduction later, delivered fewer offspring during their lifetime, ceased reproduction younger, had poorer offspring survival to adulthood and, hence, had lower fitness compared to the wealthier women. Our results show that the amount of wealth affected the selection pressure on female life-history in a pre-industrial human population.
Genetic Variation for Cardiac Dysfunction in Drosophila:
A screen of fifty inbred wild-type lines revealed a continuous spectrum of pacing-induced heart failure that generally increases in frequency with age. High-speed video analysis of the inbred lines with high rates of inducible heart failure indicates specific defects in cardiac function, including arrhythmias and contractile disorders ('cardiomyopathies'). A combination of bulked segregant analysis and single feature polymorphism (SFP) detection localizes one of the cardiac susceptibility loci to the 97C interval on the fly genome.
Locating Pleistocene Refugia: Comparing Phylogeographic and Ecological Niche Model Predictions:
Ecological niche models (ENMs) provide a means of characterizing the spatial distribution of suitable conditions for species, and have recently been applied to the challenge of locating potential distributional areas at the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) when unfavorable climate conditions led to range contractions and fragmentation. Here, we compare and contrast ENM-based reconstructions of LGM refugial locations with those resulting from the more traditional molecular genetic and phylogeographic predictions. We examined 20 North American terrestrial vertebrate species from different regions and with different range sizes for which refugia have been identified based on phylogeographic analyses, using ENM tools to make parallel predictions. We then assessed the correspondence between the two approaches based on spatial overlap and areal extent of the predicted refugia. In 14 of the 20 species, the predictions from ENM and predictions based on phylogeographic studies were significantly spatially correlated, suggesting that the two approaches to development of refugial maps are converging on a similar result. Our results confirm that ENM scenario exploration can provide a useful complement to molecular studies, offering a less subjective, spatially explicit hypothesis of past geographic patterns of distribution.
The Importance of Poisoning vs. Road Traffic Injuries as a Cause of Death in Rural Sri Lanka:
Road traffic crashes are considered by the WHO to be the most important global cause of death from injury. However, this may not be true for large areas of rural Asia where road vehicles are uncommon. The issue is important, since emphasising the importance of road traffic crashes risks switching resources to urban areas, away from already underfunded rural regions. In this study, we compared the importance of road traffic crashes with other forms of injury in a poor rural region of South Asia.
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In poor rural regions of South Asia, fatal self-harm and pesticide self-poisoning in particular are significantly more important than road traffic injuries as a cause of death. It is possible that the data used by the WHO to calculate global injury estimates are biased towards urban areas with better data collection but little pesticide poisoning. More studies are required to inform a debate about the importance of different forms of injury and how avoidable deaths from any cause can be prevented. In the meantime, marked improvements in the effectiveness of therapy for pesticide poisoning, safer storage, reduced pesticide use, or reductions in pesticide toxicity are required urgently to reduce the number of deaths from self-poisoning in rural Asia.
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Bora,
Something was closed prematurely as the title of the last paper is missing.
Scientists Estimate That Pesticides are Reducing Crop Yields by ONE-THIRD Through Impaired Nitrogen Fixation - July 2007
http://www.organic-center.org/science.hot.php?action=view&report_id=99
Over the last forty years nitrogen fertilizer use has increased seven-fold and nearly every acre of intensively farmed, conventional cropland is treated with pesticides. A team of scientists explored the impact of pesticides and other environmental toxicants on symbiotic nitrogen fixation (SNF) brought about by Rhizobium bacteria (Fox et al., 2007). Their findings were published June 12, 2007 in the prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/104/24/10282
The team describes the critical role played by SNF in supporting crop yields and environmental quality. SNF has great potential to reduce farm production costs � a factor of growing importance as rising natural gas prices push upward the cost of nitrogen fertilizers. In Brazil, SNF from soybeans reduces production costs an estimated $1.3 billion per year. The research by Fox et al. (2007) explored in depth the signaling processes between plants and bacteria colonizing plant roots � processes that govern the degree of SNF and the production of certain phytochemicals. They focused on the ways that pesticides can disrupt signaling and impair the efficiency of SNF. Some 30 pesticides are known to disrupt SNF; the most widely used pesticide in the United States, glyphosate (Roundup) is known to be toxic to nitrogen fixing bacteria.
The "Conclusions" section of the paper begins by stating: "The results of this study demonstrate that one of the environmental impacts of pesticides and contaminants in the soil environment is disruption of chemical signaling between the host plants and N-fixing Rhiz(obia) necessary for efficient SNF and optimal plant yield."
Drawing on their recent work and other published studies, the team projected that pesticides and other contaminants are reducing plant yield by one-third as a result of impaired SNF. This remarkable conclusion suggests one mechanism, or explanation of the yield-enhancing benefits of well-managed, long-term organic farming systems.
Source: "Pesticides reduce symbiotic efficiency of nitrogen-fixing rhizobia and host plants"
Authors: Jennifer E. Fox, Jay Gulledge, Erika Engelhaupt, Matthew E. Burrow, and John A. McLachlan.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 104, No. 24, June 12, 2007. .............................................................................................................................
How to kill pests without killing yourself or the earth......
There are about 50 to 60 million insect species on earth - we have named only about 1 million and there are only about 1 thousand pest species - already over 50% of these thousand pests are already resistant to our volatile, dangerous, synthetic pesticide POISONS. We accidentally lose about 25,000 to 100,000 species of insects, plants and animals every year due to "man's footprint". But, after poisoning the entire world and contaminating every living thing for over 60 years with these dangerous and ineffective pesticide POISONS we have not even controlled much less eliminated even one pest species and every year we use/misuse more and more pesticide POISONS to try to "keep up"! Even with all of this expensive pollution - we lose more and more crops and lives to these thousand pests every year.
We are losing the war against these thousand pests mainly because we insist on using only synthetic pesticide POISONS and fertilizers There has been a severe "knowledge drought" - a worldwide decline in agricultural R&D, especially in production research and safe, more effective pest control since the advent of synthetic pesticide POISONS and fertilizers. Today we are like lemmings running to the sea insisting that is the "right way". The greatest challenge facing humanity this century is the necessity for us to double our global food production with less land, less water, less nutrients, less science, frequent droughts, more and more contamination and ever-increasing pest damage.
National Poison Prevention Week, March 18-24,2007 was created to highlight the dangers of poisoning and how to prevent it. One study shows that about 70,000 children in the USA were involved in common household pesticide-related (acute) poisonings or exposures in 2004. It is estimated that 300,000 farm workers suffer acute pesticide poisoning each year in the United States - No one is checking chronic contamination.
In order to try to help "stem the tide", I have just finished re-writing my IPM encyclopedia entitled: THE BEST CONTROL II, that contains over 2,800 safe and far more effective alternatives to pesticide POISONS. This latest copyrighted work is about 1,800 pages in length and is now being updated at my new website at http://www.stephentvedten.com/ .
This new website at http://www.stephentvedten.com/ has been basically updated; all we have left to update is Chapter 39 and to renumber the pages. All of these copyrighted items are free for you to read and/or download. There is simply no need to POISON yourself or your family or to have any pest problems.
Stephen L. Tvedten
2530 Hayes Street Marne, Michigan 49435
1-616-677-1261
"An invasion of armies can be resisted, but not an idea whose time has come." --Victor Hugo
It seems Mr. Tvedten is not a fan of pests, yet many may consider him a pest themselves when they consider his apparent issue with comment SPAM.
If you visit his website you can email him and ask what non-toxic pest control measures he would recommend to resolve annoyances like himself.