Posts Tagged ‘organic chemistry’
“Plants can’t move, yet the insects come to them and spread their pollen”*…
The impact of climate change on agriculture is much discussed– but mostly at the level of yields. Carolyn Beans looks into what a warming planet means for fertilization and reproduction…
… heat is a pollen killer. Even with adequate water, heat can damage pollen and prevent fertilization in canola and many other crops, including corn, peanuts, and rice.
For this reason, many growers aim for crops to bloom before the temperature rises. But as climate change increases the number of days over 90 degrees in regions across the globe, and multi-day stretches of extreme heat become more common, getting that timing right could become challenging, if not impossible.
Faced with a warmer future, researchers are searching for ways to help pollen beat the heat. They’re uncovering genes that could lead to more heat-tolerant varieties and breeding cultivars that can survive winter and flower before heat strikes. They’re probing pollen’s precise limits and even harvesting pollen at large scales to spray directly onto crops when weather improves.
At stake is much of our diet. Every seed, grain, and fruit that we eat is a direct product of pollination…
Farmers and scientists are increasingly observing that unusually high springtime temperatures can kill pollen and interfere with the fertilization of crops. Researchers are now searching for ways to help pollen beat the heat, including developing more heat-tolerant varieties: “Pollen and Heat: A Looming Challenge for Global Agriculture,” from @carolynmbeans in @YaleE360.
* Nahoko Uehashi
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As we try to stay cool, we might recall that it was on this date in 1960 that chlorophyll– the green pigment responsible for photosynthesis in plants– was first synthesized. The feat was accomplished by Robert Burns Woodward, the preeminent synthetic organic chemist of the twentieth century, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1965 for this and other syntheses of complex natural compounds (including Vitamin b12).
“How is it that you keep mutating and can still be the same virus?”*…
A common plant has yielded insights that question a fundamental assumption in biology– more specifically, an assumption about the mechanism of natural selection…
A simple roadside weed may hold the key to understanding and predicting DNA mutation, according to new research from University of California, Davis, and the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology in Germany.
The findings, published today in the journal Nature, radically change our understanding of evolution and could one day help researchers breed better crops or even help humans fight cancer.
Mutations occur when DNA is damaged and left unrepaired, creating a new variation. The scientists wanted to know if mutation was purely random or something deeper. What they found was unexpected.
“We always thought of mutation as basically random across the genome,” said Grey Monroe, an assistant professor in the UC Davis Department of Plant Sciences who is lead author on the paper. “It turns out that mutation is very non-random and it’s non-random in a way that benefits the plant. It’s a totally new way of thinking about mutation.”
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Knowing why some regions of the genome mutate more than others could help breeders who rely on genetic variation to develop better crops. Scientists could also use the information to better predict or develop new treatments for diseases like cancer that are caused by mutation.
“Our discoveries yield a more complete account of the forces driving patterns of natural variation; they should inspire new avenues of theoretical and practical research on the role of mutation in evolution,” the paper concludes.
Evolutionary theory revised? A new study challenges the received wisdom that that DNA mutations are random. Read the underlying paper here.
* Chuck Palahniuk, Invisible Monsters
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As we contemplate change, we might send micro-biological birthday greetings to Ruth Sager; she was born on this date in 1918. A geneticist, she had two careers in science.
In the 1950s and 1960s, she pioneered the field of cytoplasmic genetics by discovering transmission of genetic traits through chloroplast DNA, the first known example of genetics not involving the cell nucleus. The academic community did not acknowledge the significance of her contribution until after the second wave of feminism in the 1970s.
Then, in the early 1970s, she moved into cancer genetics (with a specific focus on breast cancer); she proposed and investigated the roles of tumor suppressor genes.
“The Food of the Gods”*…
From Beyond Slow Motion, “Popcorn Popping (100,000 Frames Per Second)”
* both the title of an H.G. Wells novel and a description of the subject of today’s post.
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As we reach for the salt, we might spare a thought for Paul Sabatier; he died on this date in 1941. An organic chemist, he was instrumental in creating the process of hydrogenation, which allowed the development of margarine, hydrogenated oil, and synthetic methanol– two of the three of which frequently figure into the preparation and consumption of popcorn. Sabatier’s work earned him the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1912.
“You take the blue pill – the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill – you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes”*…
The Top Pharmaceutical Products by US Retail Sales in 2011
Compiled and Produced by the Njardarson Group (The University of Arizona): Edon Vitaku, Elizabeth A. Ilardi, Jon T. Njardarson
See the rest here along with many other Disease-Focused Pharmaceuticals.
click the image above or here, and again, to enlarge
via Medical School and Science Llama; top-most image, here.
* Morpheus to Neo, in The Matrix.
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As we swallow, we might spare a thought for Donald J. Cram; he died on this date in 2001. An organic chemist who specialized in the creation of molecules that mimic the chemical behaviour of molecules found in living systems, Cram shared a Nobel Prize for work that effectively founded the field of host-guest chemistry… and that led to advances in drug-delivery systems that enabled many of the products pictured above.
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