The Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation is now accepting nominations for their annual Village Awards.
Awwarded in June, Village Awards are given to buildings, businesses, individuals and organizations that have impacted Greenwich Village, the East Village and NoHo. The first set were awarded in 1991.
?The Village Awards? main purpose is to highlight and celebrate the great people, places, businesses and groups that have contributed to the special quality of life in our neighborhoods,? GVSHP Executive Director Andrew Berman said. ?We try to make sure that special contributions that people have made in one way or another are recognized.?
Berman said the society typically receives over a hundred nominations and gives out about six awards each year. There is a ceremony with a video presentation that recognizes the recipient for their work, and then they are presented with the award.
Recipients are chosen by a committee comprised of GVSHP members, past winners, community leaders and small business owners.
?It?s a good assortment of people of various facets of life in the neighborhoods we represent,? Berman said. ?The competition is fierce.?
Past winners include Caffe Reggio, dancer Merce Cunningham, Washington Square Hotel and Film Forum. Another award called the Regina Kellerman Award, formerly known as the Front Stoop Award, is given to those that have restored or handled changes to a building in what Berman has called a ?sensitive and appropriate way.?
?The Village Awards help save and bring attention to buildings that add to the antique yet modern facade that is known to characterize much of Greenwich Village,? Gallatin freshman Rayne Holm said.
Berman stated that GVSHP has given awards to community members who have worked against NYU projects in the Village but also gave NYU a Village Award in 1998 for their historic house restorations.
?There are people who have won awards, community activists who part of what they were recognized for was in fighting certain NYU expansion projects that we thought were bad,? Berman said. ?When NYU has done a good job of restoring a building, we?ve given them awards for that as well.?
According to its website, the ?GVSHP founded in 1980 to preserve the architectural heritage and cultural history of Greenwich Village, the East Village and NoHo.? GVSHP releases newsletters, annual reports and has a blog. NYU professor of social and cultural analysis Harvey Molotch noted that part of the problem with Village preservation are changes in the financial worth of the areas.
?I think the Village is one of the treasures of world culture and it needs to be ?preserved,??? Molotch said. ?The problem is how to do that. Landmarking and associated preservation tools at least help preserve the physical aspects of the history, rather than losing them to the wrecking ball and replacement by high-rise structures.?
Emily Bell is a deputy city/state editor. Email her at ebell@nyunews.com.
Emily Bell is deputy city/state editor. Email her at ebell@nyunews.com
Mar. 28, 2013 ? Poor children who move three or more times before they turn 5 have more behavior problems than their peers, according to a new study by researchers at Cornell University and the National Employment Law Project. The study is published in the journal Child Development.
Moving is a fairly common experience for American families; in 2002, 6.5 percent of all children had been living in their current home for less than six months. Among low-income children, that number rose to 10 percent. In addition, in 2002, 13 percent of families above poverty moved once, but 24 percent of families below poverty moved. Research has shown that frequent moves are related to a range of behavioral, emotional, and school problems for adolescents.
Using national data on 2,810 children from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, a longitudinal, representative study of children born in 20 large U.S. cities between 1998 and 2000, researchers sought to determine how frequent moves relate to children's readiness for school. Parents were interviewed shortly after the birth of their children, then again by phone when the children were 1, 3, and 5; in-home assessments were done when the children were 3 and 5. The study also looked at the children's language and literacy outcomes, as well as behavior problems reported by mothers.
The study found that 23 percent of the children had never moved, 48 percent had moved once or twice, and 29 percent had moved three or more times. Among children who moved three or more times before age 5, nearly half (44 percent) were poor; poverty was defined based on the official federal threshold. Moving three or more times was not related to the children's language and literacy outcomes.
But children who moved three or more times had more attention problems, anxiousness or depression, and aggressiveness or hyperactivity at age 5 than those who had never moved or those who had moved once or twice. These increases in behavior problems occurred only among poor children, the study found, suggesting that frequent moves early in life are most disruptive for the most disadvantaged children.
"The United States is still recovering from the great recession, which has taken a major toll on the housing market," notes Kathleen Ziol-Guest, postdoctoral associate at Cornell University, who led the study. "As housing markets have collapsed across communities, highly mobile low-income families have moved in search of work and less expensive housing.
"The findings in this study suggest that the housing crisis and its accompanying increase in mobility likely will have negative effects on young children, especially poor children."
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Society for Research in Child Development, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
Kathleen M. Ziol-Guest, Claire C. McKenna. Early Childhood Housing Instability and School Readiness. Child Development, 2013; DOI: 10.1111/cdev.12105
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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.
HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) ? Zimbabwe's High Court on Wednesday freed on bail four senior officials from Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's party accused of illegally collecting information on high level corruption.
Their arrests and detention are widely seen by critics of President Robert Mugabe as political intimidation ahead of crucial elections scheduled around July.
The four were arrested at offices of Tsvangirai's communications unit on March 17. They were denied bail by a Harare magistrate on March 20 on grounds they "impersonated police officers and posed a serious threat to national security." They were ordered to reappear in the same court on April 3.
Police allege the officials, Thabani Mpofu and Felix Matsinde, both former state prosecutors, and Mehluli Tshuma and Warship Dumba on Tsvangirai's staff possessed police files on corruption cases.
High court judge Chinembiri Bhunu on Wednesday ordered the four to post $500 bail each. He said they should not have been denied bail because they were well-known public figures unlikely to abscond from justice.
In ordering them held in custody, the magistrate "grossly misdirected" her ruling, said the judge.
"The magistrate's conduct betrayed the country's guiding principles on the application of the law and failed to follow laid down procedures of the presumption of innocence of the accused," Bhunu said.
He also said such a ruling is a "serious infringement of rights should the persons turn out to be innocent."
Defense attorney Chris Mhike praised Bhunu's ruling.
"We are encouraged as lawyers to see that there are still moments in the administration of justice when the law is applied as it should be," Mhike said.
Prominent Zimbabwe human rights lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa, also arrested by police while trying to represent the four officials, was released on bail Monday after spending eight nights in jail.
Mtetwa and the four officials deny any wrongdoing.
On her release, also on $500 bail, Mtetwa described the arrests as being orchestrated by police and judicial officials loyal to President Robert Mugabe.
"There will be many more arrests to follow as we near elections," Mtetwa said.
This year, police have mounted a series of raids on rights and pro-democracy groups searching for alleged subversive materials and have removed documents and equipment from their offices.
Mugabe and Tsvangirai met for their weekly consultation on Monday where the clampdown was discussed, said Luke Tamborinyoka, Tsvangirai's spokesman.
They are to schedule a meeting with police Commissioner-General Augustine Chihuri and "agreed that the behavior of the police was tainting the image of the country and it was creating the impression that the country is not ready for a peaceful poll," Tamborinyoka said.
HAVOK? LIBERATES MOBILE DEVELOPERS WITH PROJECT ANARCHY!
COMPLETE 3D MOBILE GAME DEVELOPMENT ENGINE AVAILABLE FOR FREE THIS SPRING
SAN FRANCISCO, CA-March 26, 2013-At the 2013 Game Developers Conference today, Havok? unveiled Project Anarchy, a complete end-to-end mobile 3D game production engine. Havok announced that developing and releasing a game with the technology will be free on many leading mobile platforms, without commercial restrictions on company size or revenue.
Project Anarchy will include Havok's Vision Engine together with access to Havok's industry-leading suite of Physics, Animation and AI tools as used in cutting-edge franchises such as Skyrim?, Halo, Assassin's Creed?, Uncharted and Skylanders. The free download will also include a broad range of game samples and tutorials to help the mobile development community hit the ground running. Havok will be giving open previews of the technology on the main show floor throughout GDC.
As part of this initiative, Havok will launch an online community to proactively promote and support developers through all stages of production via a dedicated website www.projectanarchy.com. Project Anarchy will also encourage free sharing and collaborative development of extensions and customizations by the community.
"We're consistently blown away by what the AAA industry creates with our technology," said Ross O'Dwyer, Head of Developer Relations at Havok. "We're really delighted to be able to offer these professional grade tools to mobile developers for free and we look forward to supporting the mobile game development community to make some stunning games with the technology over the next few years."
Mar. 24, 2013 ? Semiconducting polymers are an unruly bunch, but University of Michigan engineers have developed a new method for getting them in line that could pave the way for cheaper, greener, "paint-on" plastic electronics.
"This is for the first time a thin-layer, conducting, highly aligned film for high-performance, paintable, directly writeable plastic electronics," said Jinsang Kim, U-M professor of materials science and engineering, who led the research published in Nature Materials.
Semiconductors are the key ingredient for computer processors, solar cells and LED displays, but they are expensive. Inorganic semiconductors like silicon require high temperatures in excess of 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit and costly vacuum systems for processing into electronics, but organic and plastic semiconductors can be prepared on a basic lab bench.
The trouble is that charge carriers, like electrons, can't move through plastics nearly as easily as they can move through inorganic semiconductors, Kim said. Part of the reason for this is because each semiconducting polymer molecule is like a short wire, and these wires are randomly arranged.
"Charge mobility along the polymer chains is much faster than between the polymers," Kim said.
To take advantage of the good conduction along the polymers, research groups have been trying to align them into a charge-carrying freeway, but it's a bit like trying to arrange nanoscopic linguine.
Kim's group approached the problem by making smarter semiconducting polymers. They wanted a liquid polymer solution they could brush over a surface, and the molecules would automatically align with one another in the direction of the stroke, assembling into high-performance semiconducting thin-layer films.
First, they designed the polymers to be slippery -- ordinary polymers glom together like flat noodles left in the fridge, Kim said. By choosing polymers with a natural twist, the team kept them from sticking to one another in the solution. But in order to align during the brushstroke, the polymers needed to subtly attract one another. Flat surfaces would do that, so the team designed their polymer to untwist as the solvent dried up.
They stopped the unaligned polymers from forming large chunks by adding flexible arms that extended off to the sides of the flat, wire-like polymer. These arms prevented too much close contact among the polymers while the bulkiness of the arms kept them from snagging on one another. Polymers with these properties will line up in the direction of an applied force, such as the tug of a paintbrush.
"It's a big breakthrough," Kim said. "We established a complete molecular design principle of semiconducting polymers with directed alignment capability."
And it works. The team made molecules that matched their design and built a device for spreading the polymer solution over surfaces such as glass or a flexible plastic film. The force from the silicon blade, moving at a constant speed across the liquid polymer, was enough to align the molecules.
The team then built the semiconducting film into a simple transistor, a version of the electronic components that make up computer processors. The device demonstrated the importance of the polymer alignment by showing that charge carriers moved 1,000 times faster in the direction parallel to the silicon blade's brushstroke than they did when crossing the direction of the stroke.
"By combining the established molecular design principle with a polymer that has a very good intrinsic charge carrier mobility, we believe it will make a huge difference in organic electronics," he said. "We are currently developing a versatile fabrication method in order to realize high-performance and paintable plastic electronics in various length scales from nanometers to meters."
Kim believes that the technique will work equally well with atomic-scale pen nibs or large trowel-like applicators for making electronics of all sizes such as LED displays or light-absorbing coatings for solar cells.
The paper is titled "A molecular design principle of lyotropic liquid-crystalline conjugated polymers with directed alignment capability for plastic electronics."
The work is funded by the U.S. Department of Energy. Two authors of the paper were partly supported by National Science Foundation and WCU program of National Research Foundation of Korea. The university is pursuing patent protection for the intellectual property and is seeking commercialization partners to help bring the technology to market.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of Michigan.
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Journal Reference:
Bong-Gi Kim, Eun Jeong Jeong, Jong Won Chung, Sungbaek Seo, Bonwon Koo, Jinsang Kim. A molecular design principle of lyotropic liquid-crystalline conjugated polymers with directed alignment capability for plastic electronics. Nature Materials, 2013; DOI: 10.1038/nmat3595
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Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
When a fire broke out in a church in Mesa County, Colo., in September 2011, the police department was ready with its flight team. Strapping a thermal camera to a Draganflyer X6, they flew the drone above the burning building. Together, police and firemen identified hotspots in the structure, and traced the direction in which the fire was spreading.
In 2010, a 5-pound Marcus drone was loaned to forest rangers in West Virginia by University Cincinnati researchers, in order to monitor a controlled burn. Now the group is developing an unmanned system to help control wildfires.
Even the Global Hawk, used by the U.S. Army, has entered civilian life. NOAA and NASA have decked two out with all kinds of sensors to watch storms as they brew. The crafts can endure (comparatively) long missions, letting researchers study large-scale weather patterns, like how grains from a Sahara sandstorm can seed a new hurricane when they reach the ocean.
There's no doubt drones can do a world of good. They can get to places humans can't, and do many jobs quicker ? for a fraction of the cost. Benjamin Miller, who manages the Mesa County Sheriff?s Office drone program, estimates that drones can do "30 percent of the missions of manned aviation for 2 percent of the cost." The two Mesa County drones cost $25 for each hour they are used.
But state-level bills cropping up across the U.S. could ground virtuous drones used in rescue and research. Meanwhile, privacy advocates and legal experts disagree over how effective the proposed legislation really will be.
In Oregon, one proposed bill requires that anyone who operates a drone, whether it's a local police department or a hobbyist, get a license from the Oregon Department of Aviation first.
An Indiana state bill wouldn't let a news station survey traffic on a highway, or let law enforcement send out an unmanned search party for lost hikers, the American Civil Liberties Union's Allie Bohm explained to NBC News. And a Nebraska bill wouldn't allow law enforcement to gather evidence or information via drone except in the case of a terrorist threat.
Two bills on the governor's desk in Virginia propose drone restrictions, but exclude select cases, such as search and rescue. Same for a bill proposed in Massachusetts last December, which would require police to get a warrant before sending a drone to collect aerial photography or thermal data as part of a criminal investigation.
Privacy advocates told NBC News they support this type of drone law.
"With drones, we have arrived at a moment when it is technologically possible to engage in constant mass aerial surveillance," the ACLU's Jay Stanley told NBC News. But don't surveillance cameras do some of that already? "We don't like those either," Stanley added, "But I think that drones raise the stakes considerably from there."
There's currently a trade-off between how maneuverable a drone can be and how long it can stay in the air. You can't combine the endurance of the solar-panelled QinetiQ Zephyr ? which stayed aloft in the Nevada desert for two straight weeks, but whose view can be blocked by clouds ? with the steady gaze of the Pentagon?s 1.8-gigapixel drone camera. Not yet.
One drone that captured the attention of Wednesday's senate hearing was AeroVironment's Nano Hummingbird, which can fly sideways or vertically by flapping two tiny wings. It weighs less than a AA battery, but records video. Not especially well, mind you, but cameras are always improving.
Regardless of current limitations, drones great and small still give law enforcement more reach than it had before. Yet while new legislation will surely be required, existing law may address some concerns.
"I believe that existing frameworks will provide more protection than is generally appreciated," John Villasenor a policy expert with UCLA and the Brookings Institution, told NBC News via email. By that he means that, when drones start snooping, courts will uphold certain privacies thanks to the Fourth Amendment.
Others say that current laws may be insufficient, but targeting drones misses the point.
?Whether data's being collected by Google or from cellphones or bank cameras or traffic cameras, I don't think the medium is the essence," Michael Toscano, president of the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International, which represents drone manufacturers, told NBC News. "The question is what's being done with it, who's using it, who's collecting it, where's it being stored, where is it being deleted."
Toscano's organization may wish to keep drones out of legislation, but legal experts agree with the premise.
"Privacy law is not keeping up with surveillance technology, and drones are helping us see that," Ryan Calo, assistant professor of law at the University of Washington told NBC News. "But it's not limited to drones," he said, citing street cameras and vans like the ones driven by Google's mapping team.
"I think the good reason to get the privacy laws right here is to avail ourselves of this kind of technology," Calo said. And there's no time like the present, as the FAA has been asked to fully integrate drones into U.S. airspace by 2015.
More on drone policies: Lawmakers voice concerns on drone privacy questions
Nidhi Subbaraman writes about technology and science. Follow her on Twitter and Google+.
Twitter users looking to permanently house their missives in Russian, Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese and eight other languages have now been given the go-ahead. This third language expansion focuses on the east, although it does add Italian, Turkish and Danish support too. In short, it's another excuse to celebrate the microblogging network's seventh compleanno.
Mar. 21, 2013 ? Virginia Tech researchers successfully used a gene disruption technique to change the eye color of a mosquito -- a critical step toward new genetic strategies aimed at disrupting the transmission of diseases such as dengue fever.
Zach Adelman and Kevin Myles, both associate professors of entomology in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and affiliated researchers with the Fralin Life Science Institute, study the transmission of vector-borne diseases and develop novel methods of control, based on genetics.
In a groundbreaking study published this week in the journal PLOS One, the scientists used a pair of engineered proteins to cut DNA in a site-specific manner to disrupt a targeted gene in the mosquito genome. Science magazine heralded these transcription activator-like effector nuclease proteins, known as TALENS, as a major scientific breakthrough in 2012, nicknaming them "genomic cruise missiles" for their ability to allow researchers to target specific locations with great efficiency.
While TALENS have been previously used to edit the genomes of animal and human cell cultures, applying them to the mosquito genome is a new approach, according to Adelman.
"Unlike model organisms with large collections of mutant strains to draw upon, the lack of reverse genetic tools in the mosquito has made it is very difficult to assign functions to genes in a definitive manner," Adelman said. "With the development of this technology, our understanding of the genetic basis of many critical behaviors such as blood-feeding, host-seeking and pathogen transmission should be greatly accelerated."
To test the capability of TALENs to specifically edit the mosquito genome, the scientists designed a pair of TALENS to target a gene whose protein product is essential to the production of eye pigmentation in Aedes aegypti, a mosquito species known for its transmission of the viruses that cause dengue fever.
Using the TALEN pair to edit the gene in the mosquito's germ cells early in development, they were able to change the eye color of a large percentage of the mosquitoes arising in the next generation from black to white.
"To date, efforts to control dengue transmission through genetics have focused entirely on adding material to the mosquito genome. Ensuring that this added material is expressed properly and consistently has been a challenge," Adelman said. "This technology allows us to pursue the same goals, namely, the generation of pathogen-resistant mosquitoes, through subtraction. For example, removing or altering a gene that is critical for pathogen replication."
"Aedes mosquitoes have become increasingly important as vectors of disease from a public health perspective," said George Dimopoulos, a professor of molecular microbiology and immunology at John Hopkins University who was not involved in the study. "The lack of vaccines and drugs for dengue has left the mosquitoes that carry the virus as one of the most promising targets for controlling the disease. A better understanding of how the virus infects the mosquito and other biological properties of the insect will be required to develop intervention strategies that can block virus transmission by the mosquito. The ability to genetically engineer mosquitoes is essential for the study of such biological functions. The TALEN-based system in mosquitoes that that was developed by Dr. Adelman provides this important capacity."
Co-authors of the study include Azadeh Aryan, a Ph.D. student in the department of entomology in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, and Michelle A.E. Anderson, a research technician in the department of entomology in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Virginia Tech (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University), via Newswise.
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Journal Reference:
Azadeh Aryan, Michelle A. E. Anderson, Kevin M. Myles, Zach N. Adelman. TALEN-Based Gene Disruption in the Dengue Vector Aedes aegypti. PLoS ONE, 2013; 8 (3): e60082 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0060082
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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.
Contact: Susan Jongeneel sjongene@illinois.edu 217-333-3291 University of Illinois College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences
URBANA As escalating corn prices have encouraged many farmers to switch to growing corn continuously, they wonder why they have been seeing unusually high yield reductions over the past several years. The University of Illinois conducted a six-year study that identified three key factors affecting yield in continuous corn (CC) systems.
"Prior to this study, the most common management recommendations for continuous corn production were to apply an additional 45 pounds of nitrogen per acre and reserve your best crop land for it," said U of I soil scientist and lead author Laura Gentry. "Very little was known about the agents or mechanisms causing reduced yields in continuous corn systems."
Although corn can be cropped continuously, it is widely accepted that there is a yield reduction compared to corn rotated with soybean (CS). This difference is referred to as the continuous corn yield penalty (CCYP), which is generally in the range of 20 to 30 bushels per acre. The 2012 growing season marked the third consecutive year of unusually high CCYP values in the U.S. Midwest, often with corn yields that were 30 to 50 bushels per acre less than corn following soybean.
The researchers conducted the experiment from 2005 to 2010 in east-central Illinois, beginning with corn produced in a third-year CC system or a CS rotation, at six N fertilizer rates. The study investigated: 1) how the yield penalty changed with time in CC, 2) under what conditions increasing the nitrogen (N) fertilizer rate reduced the penalty, and 3) what causes the penalty?
Each year, they determined an "agronomically optimum N rate" and corresponding yield value for each rotation (CC and CS). On average, corn yield at the agronomically optimum N rate for CC was 167 bushels, compared to 192 bushels per acre for CS a CCYP of 25 bushels per acre. CCYP values ranged yearly from 9 to 42 bushels per acre.
Matias Ruffo, a co-author of the paper and Worldwide Agronomy Manager at The Mosaic Co., said, "To explore the causes of the CCYP, we tested a number of different weather- and yield-related measurements for their relationships with the CCYP. We found that with just three predictors, we could estimate the CCYP with almost 100 percent accuracy." The predictors were: 1) unfertilized CC yield, 2) years in CC, and 3) the difference between CC and CS delta yields.
The researchers found that the best predictor of the CCYP was unfertilized CC yield. In years when unfertilized CC yields were relatively high, the yield penalty was low, and vice versa. Unfertilized CC yield is an indicator of how much N the soil is supplying to the corn crop, either from residual fertilizer N or from decomposition of previous crop residues and other organic matter (N mineralization).
The second predictor of the CCYP, years in CC, was also strongly correlated with the CCYP. CCYP got worse with each additional year in the CC system through the seventh year, when the study was terminated.
This conclusion is at odds with the claims of many Corn Belt farmers who argue that corn yields in CC eventually attain the same level as CS rotations. On average, the CCYP in this study increased by 186 percent from third-year CC to fifth-year CC and 268 percent from third-year CC to seventh-year CC.
"Yield reductions resulting from additional years of continuous corn production mirror the effects of residue accumulation when corn is cropped continuously," said U of I crop physiologist Fred Below, another co-author. "It is well documented that corn residues introduce a host of physical, chemical, and biological effects that negatively influence corn yields."
Effects of accumulated corn residues include reduced soil temperature, increased soil moisture, reduced N fertilizer availability, and production of autotoxic chemicals, all of which can negatively affect growth and future corn crop development.
The final predictor of the CCYP, difference in CC and CS delta yields (the difference between the yield where no N was applied and the maximum yield under non-N limiting conditions), is probably a function of weather conditions, particularly during critical growth periods such as ovule determination and grain fill. Drought and heat can disproportionately reduce yields of the CC system relative to the CS system. This principle was demonstrated during the 2012 drought, when farmers reported yield reductions as large as 50 bushels per acre for CC systems compared to CS.
Based on this study, the authors concluded that the CCYP persists for at least seven years. However, during very favorable growing seasons, increased N rates can overcome the CCYP. Unfortunately, higher N rates do not eliminate the CCYP during average or poor growing seasons. This study concluded that the primary causes of the CCYP are: N availability, corn stover accumulation, and unfavorable weather.
"Given that weather cannot be controlled, and the optimum N fertilizer rate can be determined only after crop harvest, managing corn stover has the greatest potential for reducing the CCYP," said Gentry. The same research team is collaborating on a follow-up study investigating the effect of stover removal and tillage on the CCYP.
###
"Identifying Factors Controlling the Continuous Corn Yield Penalty" was published in the January 2013 issue of Agronomy Journal (105:295-303). It is an open-access article available at: https://www.crops.org/publications/aj/articles/105/2/295.
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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.
Contact: Susan Jongeneel sjongene@illinois.edu 217-333-3291 University of Illinois College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences
URBANA As escalating corn prices have encouraged many farmers to switch to growing corn continuously, they wonder why they have been seeing unusually high yield reductions over the past several years. The University of Illinois conducted a six-year study that identified three key factors affecting yield in continuous corn (CC) systems.
"Prior to this study, the most common management recommendations for continuous corn production were to apply an additional 45 pounds of nitrogen per acre and reserve your best crop land for it," said U of I soil scientist and lead author Laura Gentry. "Very little was known about the agents or mechanisms causing reduced yields in continuous corn systems."
Although corn can be cropped continuously, it is widely accepted that there is a yield reduction compared to corn rotated with soybean (CS). This difference is referred to as the continuous corn yield penalty (CCYP), which is generally in the range of 20 to 30 bushels per acre. The 2012 growing season marked the third consecutive year of unusually high CCYP values in the U.S. Midwest, often with corn yields that were 30 to 50 bushels per acre less than corn following soybean.
The researchers conducted the experiment from 2005 to 2010 in east-central Illinois, beginning with corn produced in a third-year CC system or a CS rotation, at six N fertilizer rates. The study investigated: 1) how the yield penalty changed with time in CC, 2) under what conditions increasing the nitrogen (N) fertilizer rate reduced the penalty, and 3) what causes the penalty?
Each year, they determined an "agronomically optimum N rate" and corresponding yield value for each rotation (CC and CS). On average, corn yield at the agronomically optimum N rate for CC was 167 bushels, compared to 192 bushels per acre for CS a CCYP of 25 bushels per acre. CCYP values ranged yearly from 9 to 42 bushels per acre.
Matias Ruffo, a co-author of the paper and Worldwide Agronomy Manager at The Mosaic Co., said, "To explore the causes of the CCYP, we tested a number of different weather- and yield-related measurements for their relationships with the CCYP. We found that with just three predictors, we could estimate the CCYP with almost 100 percent accuracy." The predictors were: 1) unfertilized CC yield, 2) years in CC, and 3) the difference between CC and CS delta yields.
The researchers found that the best predictor of the CCYP was unfertilized CC yield. In years when unfertilized CC yields were relatively high, the yield penalty was low, and vice versa. Unfertilized CC yield is an indicator of how much N the soil is supplying to the corn crop, either from residual fertilizer N or from decomposition of previous crop residues and other organic matter (N mineralization).
The second predictor of the CCYP, years in CC, was also strongly correlated with the CCYP. CCYP got worse with each additional year in the CC system through the seventh year, when the study was terminated.
This conclusion is at odds with the claims of many Corn Belt farmers who argue that corn yields in CC eventually attain the same level as CS rotations. On average, the CCYP in this study increased by 186 percent from third-year CC to fifth-year CC and 268 percent from third-year CC to seventh-year CC.
"Yield reductions resulting from additional years of continuous corn production mirror the effects of residue accumulation when corn is cropped continuously," said U of I crop physiologist Fred Below, another co-author. "It is well documented that corn residues introduce a host of physical, chemical, and biological effects that negatively influence corn yields."
Effects of accumulated corn residues include reduced soil temperature, increased soil moisture, reduced N fertilizer availability, and production of autotoxic chemicals, all of which can negatively affect growth and future corn crop development.
The final predictor of the CCYP, difference in CC and CS delta yields (the difference between the yield where no N was applied and the maximum yield under non-N limiting conditions), is probably a function of weather conditions, particularly during critical growth periods such as ovule determination and grain fill. Drought and heat can disproportionately reduce yields of the CC system relative to the CS system. This principle was demonstrated during the 2012 drought, when farmers reported yield reductions as large as 50 bushels per acre for CC systems compared to CS.
Based on this study, the authors concluded that the CCYP persists for at least seven years. However, during very favorable growing seasons, increased N rates can overcome the CCYP. Unfortunately, higher N rates do not eliminate the CCYP during average or poor growing seasons. This study concluded that the primary causes of the CCYP are: N availability, corn stover accumulation, and unfavorable weather.
"Given that weather cannot be controlled, and the optimum N fertilizer rate can be determined only after crop harvest, managing corn stover has the greatest potential for reducing the CCYP," said Gentry. The same research team is collaborating on a follow-up study investigating the effect of stover removal and tillage on the CCYP.
###
"Identifying Factors Controlling the Continuous Corn Yield Penalty" was published in the January 2013 issue of Agronomy Journal (105:295-303). It is an open-access article available at: https://www.crops.org/publications/aj/articles/105/2/295.
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?
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.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama, who vastly expanded U.S. drone strikes against terrorism suspects overseas under the cloak of secrecy, is now openly seeking to influence global guidelines for their use as China and other countries pursue their own drone programs.
The United States was the first to use unmanned aircraft fitted with missiles to kill militant suspects in the years after the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington.
But other countries are catching up. China's interest in unmanned aerial vehicles was displayed in November at an air show . According to state-run newspaper Global Times, China had considered conducting its first drone strike to kill a suspect in the 2011 murder of 13 Chinese sailors, but authorities decided they wanted the man alive so they could put him on trial.
"People say what's going to happen when the Chinese and the Russians get this technology? The president is well aware of those concerns and wants to set the standard for the international community on these tools," said Tommy Vietor, until earlier this month a White House spokesman.
As U.S. ground wars end - over in Iraq, drawing to a close in Afghanistan - surgical counterterrorism targeting has become "the new normal," Vietor said.
Amid a debate within the U.S. government, it is not yet clear what new standards governing targeted killings and drone strikes the White House will develop for U.S. operations or propose for global rules of the road.
Obama's new position is not without irony. The White House kept details of drone operations - which remain largely classified - out of public view for years when the U.S. monopoly was airtight.
That stance is just now beginning to change, in part under pressure from growing public and Congressional discomfort with the drone program. U.S. lawmakers have demanded to see White House legal justifications for targeting U.S. citizens abroad, and to know whether Obama thinks he has the authority to use drones to kill Americans on U.S. soil.
On Friday, a three-judge federal appeals court panel unanimously ruled that the CIA gave an inadequate response to a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union seeking records about drone strikes. The CIA had said it could neither confirm nor deny whether it had drone records because of security concerns.
The judge who wrote the ruling noted that the president had publicly acknowledged that the United States uses drone strikes against al Qaeda.
LETHAL ACTION
Strikes by missile-armed Predator and Reaper drones against terrorism suspects overseas began under former President George W. Bush and were expanded by Obama.
The ramp-up started in 2008, the last year of Bush's term, when there were 35 air strikes in Pakistan, and escalated under Obama to a peak of 117 in 2010, according to The Long War Journal ( http://www.longwarjournal.org/pakistan-strikes.php ).
That jump in use of armed drones resulted from the authorization to use "signature" strikes, which allowed targeting terrorism suspects based on behavior and other characteristics without knowing their actual identity, a U.S. official said on condition of anonymity.
Caitlin Hayden, a spokeswoman for the White House National Security Council, said the administration is committed to explaining to Congress and the public as much as possible about its drone policies, including how decisions to strike are made.
"We are constantly working to refine, clarify, and strengthen the process for considering terrorist targets for lethal action," Hayden said.
The administration recognizes "we are establishing standards other nations may follow," she said.
James Lewis, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank, said other countries, including Russia, have unarmed reconnaissance drones. China says it has an armed drone, but "we don't know if it works," he said.
"Getting agreement on the applicability of existing humanitarian law to the new technologies is crucial," he said, because China and Russia do not endorse applying laws of armed conflict to new military technologies.
One of the Obama administration's goals is to "regularize" the drone program, making it more a part of accepted U.S. practice in the future, Lewis said. "This is going to be part of warfare."
While the Obama administration moves toward refinement and transparency of standards, drone strikes continue to spark outrage in countries where they are conducted. Washington has sought to portray civilian casualties from drone strikes as minimal, but groups collecting data on these attacks say they have killed hundreds of civilians.
A U.N. human rights investigator who is looking into drone strikes worldwide said on Friday the U.S. campaign had violated Pakistan's sovereignty.
INTERNAL DEBATES
One focus of U.S. officials' internal debate is whether to shift drone operations to the Pentagon from the CIA.
That would allow the CIA to return to more traditional operations of espionage and intelligence analysis, and put the killing of terrorism targets in the hands of the military.
It would probably be a "phased approach" that would account for differences in the threat and political sensitivities, said a second U.S. official. "There would have to be some tailoring."
In Pakistan, where the U.S. military is not in ground combat, the Obama administration would probably not want drone strikes to appear as being conducted by the military.
In Yemen, there may not be the same sensitivities. U.S. military personnel are on the ground working with Yemenis in counterterrorism operations.
The United States has also carried out drone strikes in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Somalia.
"I think if they moved it, not as a covert action program, but one of the tools of the warfighter, then the result of it is probably going to be more public exposure about what they are doing," Stephen Hadley, national security adviser under Bush, said.
The "center of gravity" in internal administration debates is the goal of greater consistency on how drone strikes are managed, decided upon, and executed, the second official said.
The Lord Nelson pub in south London is doing a roaring trade in horse meat burgers (Picture: Google Maps)
Horse meat burgers are proving to be popular in some London pubs, despite the huge furore this year over the discovery of the meat?in beef products sold in British supermarkets.
One establishment benefiting from the rise in demand for steed meat is the Lord Nelson in Southwark, which is reportedly selling more than 100 a week.
Co-owner Benito Priolo said: ?It?s leaner and denser than beef and points in the direction of liver.?
You can pick up a 8oz burger for ?11 or a special 50/50 offering which has both horse and beef for ?16.
The South London pub is not by itself in trying out the meat either, with Hackney?s?The Three Compasses also serving the burger dish.
It was described as ?very much like beef in texture and ever so slightly gamey? by the pub?s chef, Michael Brown.
The Three Compasses? owner Lauren Johns added: ?All across Europe, horse is considered a high-quality meat.
?We thought it?d be nice for people to try it and realise it?s really nice if prepared and sourced properly.?
Mar. 12, 2013 ? In laboratory studies, Johns Hopkins researchers say they have found that stem cells from a patient's own fat may have the potential to deliver new treatments directly into the brain after the surgical removal of a glioblastoma, the most common and aggressive form of brain tumor.
The investigators say so-called mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have an unexplained ability to seek out damaged cells, such as those involved in cancer, and may provide clinicians a new tool for accessing difficult-to-reach parts of the brain where cancer cells can hide and proliferate anew. The researchers say harvesting MSCs from fat is less invasive and less expensive than getting them from bone marrow, a more commonly studied method.
Results of the Johns Hopkins proof-of-principle study are described online in the journal PLOS ONE.
"The biggest challenge in brain cancer is the migration of cancer cells. Even when we remove the tumor, some of the cells have already slipped away and are causing damage somewhere else," says study leader Alfredo Quinones-Hinojosa, M.D., a professor of neurosurgery, oncology and neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. "Building off our findings, we may be able to find a way to arm a patient's own healthy cells with the treatment needed to chase down those cancer cells and destroy them. It's truly personalized medicine."
For their test-tube experiments, Quinones-Hinojosa and his colleagues bought human MSCs derived from both fat and bone marrow, and also isolated and grew their own stem cell lines from fat removed from two patients. Comparing the three cell lines, they discovered that all proliferated, migrated, stayed alive and kept their potential as stem cells equally well.
This was an important finding, Quinones-Hinojosa says, because it suggests that a patient's own fat cells might work as well as any to create cancer-fighting cells. The MSCs, with their ability to home in on cancer cells, might be able to act as a delivery mechanism, bringing drugs, nanoparticles or some other treatment directly to the cells. Quinones-Hinojosa cautions that while further studies are under way, it will be years before human trials of MSC delivery systems can begin.
Ideally, he says, if MSCs work, a patient with a glioblastoma would have some adipose tissue (fat) removed -- from any number of locations in the body -- a short time before surgery. The MSCs in the fat would be drawn out and manipulated in the lab to carry drugs or other treatments. Then, after surgeons removed the brain tumor, they could deposit these treatment-armed cells into the brain in the hopes that they would seek out and destroy the cancer cells.
Currently, standard treatments for glioblastoma are chemotherapy, radiation and surgery, but even a combination of all three rarely leads to more than 18 months of survival after diagnosis. Glioblastoma tumor cells are particularly nimble, migrating across the entire brain and establishing new tumors. This migratory capability is thought to be a key reason for the low cure rate of this tumor type.
"Essentially these MSCs are like a 'smart' device that can track cancer cells," Quinones-Hinojosa says.
Quinones-Hinojosa says it's unclear why MSCs are attracted to glioblastoma cells, but they appear to have a natural affinity for sites of damage in the body, such as a wound. MSCs, whether derived from bone marrow or fat, have been studied in animal models to treat trauma, Parkinson's disease, ALS and other diseases.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Johns Hopkins Medicine, via Newswise.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
Courtney Pendleton, Qian Li, David A. Chesler, Kristy Yuan, Hugo Guerrero-Cazares, Alfredo Quinones-Hinojosa. Mesenchymal Stem Cells Derived from Adipose Tissue vs Bone Marrow: In Vitro Comparison of Their Tropism towards Gliomas. PLoS ONE, 2013; 8 (3): e58198 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0058198
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.
FILE - In this Dec. 13, 2012 file-pool photo, Army Maj. Gen. Robert Abrams is seen at Kandahar Airfield in Kandahar, Afghanistan. Villagers in an area of southern Afghanistan that was the birthplace of the Taliban movement two decades ago have staged a first-of-its-kind uprising against the insurgents, a senior American commander said Wednesday. Abrams said in a video teleconference with reporters at the Pentagon that this was a new and promising development in Kandahar province with the potential to spread to other districts even as U.S. and allied forces are playing more of a back seat role in fighting the insurgency. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, Pool, File)
FILE - In this Dec. 13, 2012 file-pool photo, Army Maj. Gen. Robert Abrams is seen at Kandahar Airfield in Kandahar, Afghanistan. Villagers in an area of southern Afghanistan that was the birthplace of the Taliban movement two decades ago have staged a first-of-its-kind uprising against the insurgents, a senior American commander said Wednesday. Abrams said in a video teleconference with reporters at the Pentagon that this was a new and promising development in Kandahar province with the potential to spread to other districts even as U.S. and allied forces are playing more of a back seat role in fighting the insurgency. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, Pool, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Villagers in an area of southern Afghanistan that was the birthplace of the Taliban movement two decades ago have staged a first-of-its-kind uprising against the insurgents, a senior American commander said Wednesday.
Army Maj. Gen. Robert B. Abrams said in a video teleconference with reporters at the Pentagon that this was a new and promising development in Kandahar province with potential to spread even as U.S. and allied forces are playing more of a back-seat role in fighting the insurgency.
"This is absolutely the first time that we have seen this sort of an uprising, where the people have said, 'Enough is enough,'" Abrams said, speaking from his headquarters in Kandahar city. He commands 14,000 U.S. troops in southern Afghanistan whose role has switched from direct combat to helping Afghan forces take the lead.
Abrams said the uprising in the Panjwai district of Kandahar province began about one month ago, and at this point the Taliban have been "kicked out" of all but about four villages ? not at the initiative of Afghan or coalition troops but that of the villagers. "I suspect the rest of those villages will fall here in short order," Abrams said.
Abrams said Afghan officials told him there were two main triggers of the uprising. One was the arrival about six weeks ago of a new district police chief with "a renewed energy, vigor, an offensive mindset." The second was the beating of a villager by Taliban fighters who, when reprimanded by the village elder, proceeded to humiliate the elder.
"That was the straw that broke the camel's back," Abrams said. He identified the village as Peshigan.
There have been local anti-Taliban uprisings elsewhere in Afghanistan in recent years ? most notably in Andar district of the eastern province of Ghazni last year ? but they have not developed into anything close to a national movement.
Seth G. Jones, a counterinsurgency and counterterrorism expert at the RAND Corp. and a frequent visitor to Afghanistan, said he thinks the Panjwai and other local uprisings are significant even if they are not decisive.
"It does show some of the weaknesses of a (Taliban) movement that is not that popular," Jones said in an interview. "What this may suggest is that for the foreseeable future the struggle in rural parts of Afghanistan, including districts like Panjwai, will see-saw back and forth between insurgents, the government and then locals."
A distinguishing feature of the Panjwai uprising is its location in a traditional Taliban stronghold. Mullah Omar, who founded the Taliban movement in the early 1990s, is originally from nearby Zhari district. Panjwai has been the scene of fierce battles between Taliban and U.S.-led coalition forces for the past six years. It was the scene of killings in March 2012, allegedly by Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, of 16 Afghan civilians, mostly women and children, in two Panjwai villages. Bales is scheduled to be court-martialed in September.
Abrams called the uprising "a long time coming," adding, "In short, the people have said, 'Enough is enough,' and they became fed up with the Taliban. They have asked for the support of their government."
Abrams said there is no formula for triggering popular uprisings against the Taliban.
"If there was a magic recipe, we would have figured it out years ago and sprinkled it throughout the (south)," he said. "So it's really based on the individual nuances and tribal customs and so forth, as well as the security environment inside each of the districts."
Kimberly Kagan, president of the Institute for the Study of War and an occasional adviser to U.S. commanders in Afghanistan, said in an interview that Panjwai is "one of the most unlikely" places for a popular uprising, given the Taliban's strong influence there and the risk villagers take by standing up to the militants.
It suggests to her that the Taliban have overstepped the boundaries of what ordinary Afghans will tolerate even in an area where the Taliban traditionally enjoyed sympathy and support.
___
Follow Robert Burns on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/robertburnsAP
LONDON (Reuters) - Britain has shelved a plan to introduce a minimum price for alcohol, a move aimed at clamping down on binge drinking but which was opposed by drinks manufacturers and some senior politicians, British media reported on Tuesday.
A consultation on the plan to set a minimum price of 0.45 pounds per unit of alcohol closed last month, the measure meant to help tackle anti-social behaviour but which critics said punished responsible drinkers and the poor.
British media outlets said the plan was dropped due to government divisions on the issue, but cited no sources.
The proposal also reputedly was opposed by the Treasury due to its likely negative impact on tax revenues at a time of strained public finances.
A spokesman for Prime Minister David Cameron's office declined to comment on the reports.
"We've consulted on proposals on minimum alcohol pricing, and the results of that consultation will be announced in due course," the spokesman said.
The plan's cancellation could trigger a backlash by health campaigners and people affected by heavy drinking in urban centres, where problems arising from cheap alcohol have strained medical and police services.
A unit is defined, in Britain, as 1 centilitre of alcohol. A 0.5 litre can of beer with a 5 percent alcohol content has 2.5 units.
(Reporting by Mohammed Abbas; Editing by Michael Roddy)
MOSCOW (Reuters) - The confession of a top dancer to plotting an attack on the artistic director of the Bolshoi Theatre's ballet company may not be the final twist in a scandal that has shocked Russia.
The arrest of Pavel Dmitrichenko and two suspected accomplices over the January 17 attack on Sergei Filin has failed to put a lid on simmering tension and rivalries at the theatre, where there is talk of a wider conspiracy behind the scenes.
Dmitrichenko has a reputation for having a sharp tongue and some of his best performances have been as villains, but some of his colleagues in the ballet troupe have expressed doubt that he could have been the mastermind, sources at the Bolshoi say.
Police investigators say Dmitrichenko, 29, paid two men 50,000 roubles ($1,600) to attack Filin, 42, who had the power to assign roles and had a hand on some of the Bolshoi's purse strings.
Filin, who was nearly blinded when his assailant splashed a jar of acid in his face, is being treated in Germany.
Hours before he was charged with a crime punishable by up to 12 years in prison, Dmitrichenko told a judge from a courtroom cage last Thursday that he had given consent for a beating but not for an acid attack.
According to the sources at the Bolshoi, dancers turned the tables and questioned investigators about their evidence in a tense and heavily attended meeting at the theatre near the Kremlin on the same day that Dmitrichenko appeared in court.
"The investigator who said the crime had been solved was asked whether there were clues, and he was asked other questions for which he also had no answer," a Bolshoi performer who attended the meeting said on condition of anonymity.
"The whole troupe said that we know Dmitrichenko as an honest person," the performer said.
WIDER CONSPIRACY?
Administrators at the theatre, whose reputation has been tarnished by the scandal, have suggested Dmitrichenko was a pawn and that somebody else was the mastermind of the attack.
"Nobody doubts Dmitrichenko's guilt, he is involved in this terrible crime and must bear responsibility. But it seems that he is not alone - that there was someone else standing behind him," state-run RIA news agency quoted Bolshoi Theatre spokeswoman Katerina Novikova as saying.
The Bolshoi is no stranger to scandal - it has been repeatedly dogged by intrigue since the theatre company was founded under Empress Catherine the Great in 1776, and the ballet troupe has had five artistic directors since 1995.
Anatoly Iksanov, the longtime Bolshoi general manager, has depicted the acid attack as an effort to blacken the reputation of the theatre's leadership and said he doubts that Dmitrichenko alone was behind it.
"He was prompted to do this, the whole collective is convinced of that. So it seems that in reality he was not the person who ordered the attack," Iksanov said of Dmitrichenko, according to a report on state-run television on Sunday.
"He was also a performer. There was a puppeteer, and investigators must find out the identity of this person," Iksanov was quoted as saying.
Neither administrators nor police have named anyone else as a possible suspect, but such remarks may cause tension between members of the theatre's leadership, including both Iksanov and Filin, and some of its artists.
Many crimes in Russia go unsolved for years, but Moscow police said they figured this one out quickly.
The Bolshoi performer who attended the meeting on Thursday said investigators acted rudely and warned the dancers: "Don't forget that there are still organizers (of the acid attack) remaining in this collective."
"This could be construed as a threat," the performer said.
Some Bolshoi artistes have hinted that they believe Dmitrichenko's confession, captured on a videotape distributed by police, was the result of long and tough interrogation. He looked haggard and unkempt and had dark rings under his eyes.
SPECULATION OVER MOTIVE
There is also lively debate over the potential motive, which police have so far given only as personal hostility based on a conflict at work - broad language that could refer to anger over love, money, fame or many other things.
Sources close to the Bolshoi and Russia media reports have said Dmitrichenko was angry that his partner, Bolshoi ballerina Anzhelina Vorontsova, had missed out on top roles including the lead in the ballet classic Swan Lake.
But some at the theatre - both dancers and administrators - have expressed doubt this could have been the motive.
"Threats against people who worked and still work at the Bolshoi Theatre began long ago ... One should not speak now of only one motive, that it all occurred because of Ms. Vorontsova," Filin's lawyer, Tatyana Stukalova, said.
Dmitrichenko made no mention of Vorontsova in his court appearance but accused Filin of playing favorites in the distribution of financial grants.
Filin's aide at the Bolshoi, Dilyara Timergazina, said that Dmitrichenko and ballet troupe manager Ruslan Pronin had demanded the redistribution of grants at a tense meeting last year but suggested the dancer's accusations were unfounded.
In court last week, Dmitrichenko and his alleged accomplices were ordered to remain in custody for six more weeks while the investigation continues.
Filin, in an interview published in the Russian news magazine Itogi on Monday but conducted before Dmitrichenko's arrest, said he hoped "those who ordered and carried out the attack will be punished harshly for what they did".
"If you look at the big picture, this is not acid in Sergei Filin's face. It is a challenge - an insolent and unceremonious challenge - to our entire society," he said.
($1 = 30.8145 Russian roubles)
(Additional reporting by Sonia Elks; Writing by Steve Gutterman, Editing by Timothy Heritage and Giles Elgood)
Promising new drug treats and protects against radiotherapy-associated oral mucositisPublic release date: 12-Mar-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Garth Sundem garth.sundem@ucdenver.edu University of Colorado Denver
Mouse model studies show that administered genetically or topically, protein Smad7 protects against or heals mouth sores commonly associated with cancer treatment
Mouse model studies show that administered genetically or topically, protein Smad7 protects against or heals mouth sores commonly associated with cancer treatment.
In some cancer patients treated with radiation, the mouth sores known as oral mucositis become so severe that feeding tubes are required for nutrition and narcotics are needed for pain. In fact, 40-70 percent of patients treated with upper-body radiation develop the condition to some degree. Currently, there is no FDA approved treatment. A University of Colorado Cancer Center study published this week in the journal Nature Medicine takes an important step toward changing that.
"We developed a genetically engineered mouse that produces a protein called Smad7 in the surface layers of its mouth. With this protein expressed, mouse models were dramatically more resistant to the development of oral mucositis than were controls," says Xiao-Jing Wang, PhD, CU Cancer Center investigator and John S. Gates endowed Chair of Cancer Stem Cell Biology at the Charles C. Gates Center for Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Biology.
Wang and collaborators including Qinghong Zhang, PhD, Yosef Refaeli, PhD, and radiation oncologist David Raben, MD, are pursuing further research with the goal of developing Smad7 as a therapeutic agent for human oral mucositis. For example, the group joined Smad7 in with a short peptide that allows the protein to cross through cell membranes, and produced this combination protein from cultured bacteria. When they applied the engineered compound directly to the mouse oral cavity, it both protected against the development of oral mucositis and worked to heal existing ulcers. Importantly, it revived wounded normal cells but not cancer cells, avoiding a major problem of growth factors currently used to promote the cell growth that heals ulcers.
"It's very reasonable to hope that this line of research will result in a drug that patients can self-administer topically to oral mucositis sores, or use to prevent them altogether, thus significantly improving the quality of life for many cancer patients," Wang ways.
Additionally, Wang points out that the mouse model engineered to develop human-like oral mucositis in the presence of radiation treatment is a useful tool for studying the disease offering opportunities to search for biomarkers and test experimental therapies.
###
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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.
Promising new drug treats and protects against radiotherapy-associated oral mucositisPublic release date: 12-Mar-2013 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Garth Sundem garth.sundem@ucdenver.edu University of Colorado Denver
Mouse model studies show that administered genetically or topically, protein Smad7 protects against or heals mouth sores commonly associated with cancer treatment
Mouse model studies show that administered genetically or topically, protein Smad7 protects against or heals mouth sores commonly associated with cancer treatment.
In some cancer patients treated with radiation, the mouth sores known as oral mucositis become so severe that feeding tubes are required for nutrition and narcotics are needed for pain. In fact, 40-70 percent of patients treated with upper-body radiation develop the condition to some degree. Currently, there is no FDA approved treatment. A University of Colorado Cancer Center study published this week in the journal Nature Medicine takes an important step toward changing that.
"We developed a genetically engineered mouse that produces a protein called Smad7 in the surface layers of its mouth. With this protein expressed, mouse models were dramatically more resistant to the development of oral mucositis than were controls," says Xiao-Jing Wang, PhD, CU Cancer Center investigator and John S. Gates endowed Chair of Cancer Stem Cell Biology at the Charles C. Gates Center for Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Biology.
Wang and collaborators including Qinghong Zhang, PhD, Yosef Refaeli, PhD, and radiation oncologist David Raben, MD, are pursuing further research with the goal of developing Smad7 as a therapeutic agent for human oral mucositis. For example, the group joined Smad7 in with a short peptide that allows the protein to cross through cell membranes, and produced this combination protein from cultured bacteria. When they applied the engineered compound directly to the mouse oral cavity, it both protected against the development of oral mucositis and worked to heal existing ulcers. Importantly, it revived wounded normal cells but not cancer cells, avoiding a major problem of growth factors currently used to promote the cell growth that heals ulcers.
"It's very reasonable to hope that this line of research will result in a drug that patients can self-administer topically to oral mucositis sores, or use to prevent them altogether, thus significantly improving the quality of life for many cancer patients," Wang ways.
Additionally, Wang points out that the mouse model engineered to develop human-like oral mucositis in the presence of radiation treatment is a useful tool for studying the disease offering opportunities to search for biomarkers and test experimental therapies.
###
[ | 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.
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Public release date: 21-Mar-2013
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