Is nutrient loading a smaller problem than we think?
...es of coral reefs, rocky intertidal areas, and sea grass beds to support the claim. For example, the authors report that studies evaluating the relative effects of consumers and nutrient supplies on algal biomass have often concluded that consumer (top-down) effects are greater or equal to those of nutri...UC Davis is partner in new $125 million federal bioenergy research center
...n geneticengineering, breeding and genomics of the grass species that aremodels for key bioenergy crops. The Biomass and Bioenvironmental Engineering Laboratories in theDepartment of Biological and Agricultural Engineering study thethermochemical and biochemical biomass conversion for power, heat,fuels, ch...ORNL-led team wins DOE bioenergy center
...helped sequence last yearand switchgrass, a native grass that can be easily grown in most of the U.S. Such modification would decrease or eliminate the need for costly chemical pretreatments now required. Consolidated bioprocessing, which involves the use of a single microorganism or group of organisms ...UGA scientists receive $20M in federal bioenergy initiative
...focus on the poplar tree and switchgrass, a native grass that can be easily grown in most of the U.S., including Georgia. Such modification would decrease or eliminate the need for costly chemical pretreatments now required. Consolidated bioprocessing, which involves the use of a single microorganism ...On-farm research shows farmers that they can use less nitrogen
...ly planted in fields that grew alfalfa (a legume), grass or an alfalfa/grass mix the year before. None of...nt Joseph Lawrence. This indicates that the forage grass and/or legume gave enough nitrogen back to the soil to feed the following year's corn crop, he said....University of Colorado invention may allow thirsty crops to signal farmers
... be applicable to monitoring large swaths of urban grass like city parks, Stoner said. "This device is very precise, and will allow a plant to receive just the right amount of water," said Seelig. "If a plant can tell a water valve when to open and when to close, farmers are going to save a lot of mone...Study shows lizard moms dress their children for success
.... Sneaky yellow-throated males like to hide in the grass and need a barred pattern that breaks up the outline of their body so it blends in with the background. Aggressive orange males spend a lot of time in the open and need stripes to help them escape from predators (the optical effect of stripes on fast...Vets seeing more horses with nutritional issues this year
...ir horses. Horses that do not have access to green grass and that are being fed old yellow hay are at risk. Usually, by the time the horse is showing symptoms of either problem, it may be too late to reverse the disease completely, Johnson said. However, if a horse owner has other horses that are feeding...New screening method to help find better biofuel crops
...s switchgrass, Miscanthus (a subtropical perennial grass that can grow 13 feet high), corn, and poplar and willow trees. Lignin interferes with enzymatic conversion of polysaccharides to ethanol, so Smith will use the imaging to help select plant stocks that have low lignin content. We hope to find out ...Drylands are not the same as badlands
..., Reynolds said. And that decision may overtax the grass supply to the danger point, especially if a cycle of drought sets in. It cautions that human and environmental changes in drylands evolve slowly, confounding efforts to manage for quick results. "What managers need to do is be more patient and not ...Humans aren't the only ones with obesity problems
..., but what is fed to horses is genetically altered grass meant for food animals. "The paradigm is that we... animals," Johnson said. "The genetically designed grass we feed horses was designed to fatten food animals quicker." The genetics of horses, like many spe...Turtles are loyal in feeding as well as in breeding
...s. Green turtles have been observed cropping sea grass gardens to encourage new growth, so there could be a benefit to them returning to foraging grounds. Loggerheads have an omnivorous diet, including molluscs and crustacea, so the benefit to them revisiting feeding areas is unclear. Scientists do not y...Invasive grass may impede forest regeneration
The nonnative invasive grass Microstegium vimineum may hinder the regeneratio...west Tennessee to study the growth of the invasive grass under different levels of forest disturbance. Study results were published online in the journal For...Biofuels: More than just ethanol
...corn, soybean, alfalfa, hybrid poplar, reed canary grass and switchgrass. The results of the study showed that when compared with gasoline and diesel, ethanol and biodisel from corn and soybean rotations reduced greenhouse gas emissions by almost 40 percent, reed canarygrass by 85 percent. Greenhouse gas...Alternative-fuels pioneer receives first-ever $100,000 Lemelson-MIT Award for Sustainability
... could generate. I said, my goodness, that pile of grass and whatnot is four-feet high, and if you put a thermometer down into the bottom of that, its 150 degrees Fahrenheit, he recalled. At first, Lynd thought about using compost heaps as a source of heat. Although he soon realized that was not promisi......r body patterns to blend in with habitats from sea grass to rocky reefs. "The fact that we observed multiple camouflage pattern types, each effective in different microhabitats, provides two important insights into visual predator/prey interactions at night," says Hanlon. "First, it provides the first ...Genome sequencing reveals key to viable ethanol production
...that produces valuable ethanol from materials like grass and cornstalks. Waste products such as grass clippings and wood chipsonce thought too difficult to turn into ethanolmay soon be fodder for hungry...Mellow in Europe, crazy in America
... wetlands. Once praised as a fine forage crop, the grass is now considered an invasive pest in about ten states and its range is growing. Studying this grass as a model, Jane Molofsky, associate professor of plant biology at the University of Vermont and her...Birth rate, competition are major players in hominid extinctions
... them the animals that relied on large expanses of grass for grazing. These animals were the prime food source for Neandertal. At the same time, modern Homo sapiens experienced the same reduction in large animal game, but switched to also fishing, snaring small mammals like rabbits and capturing turtles ...... in San Francisco. The ideal plant: A perennial grass The body of a plant is composed of polysacchari...osic ethanol, he added, is Miscanthus, a perennial grass native to subtropical and tropical regions of Africa and southern Asia, which is used as an ornament...