Energy institute will put Illinois at forefront of farm bioenergy production
...ass, Miscanthus (Miscanthus x giganticus: a hybrid grass that can grow 13 feet tall), and other herbaceous ...e researchers have found that this hardy perennial grass is more than twice as productive as switchgrass, another biofuel source. This makes Miscanthus a fro...In many habitats, competition is the drama, but benefactors set the stage
...effects, or facilitation, of species such as marsh grass and mussels that create habitat. And what about situations where a player on the stage has positive effects of its own? "We call that chain of positive effects a 'facilitation cascade'," said Altieri. The researchers suggest that facilitation casc...Rotting leaf litter study could lead to more accurate climate models
...s pine needles, wheat straw, sugar maple leaves or grass roots. The samples were chosen to represent a wide range of chemical composition. At each site, dozens of bags were staked to the ground and left to rot. Every year, researchers at the sites would remove a subset of bags so their contents could be d...Alpine bird numbers on the slide due to high-altitude ski runs
...tificial seeding - if any - had produced very poor grass cover." Working at the top of the Susa Valley - the site of last year's Winter Olympics - and around the Monte Rosa and Monte Bianco massifs in the western Italian Alps, the team measured the number of birds and the number of bird species at seven s...Sniffers show that humans can track scents, and that two nostrils are better than one
...er) string in chocolate essence and laid it in the grass outside Barker Hall, located at the northwest corner of the UC Berkeley campus. They then garbed volunteers to block their senses of sight, hearing and touch, eliminating all clues other than smell to guide them along the trail. Sniffing like bloodho......t a chemical released from the roots of an African grass grown widely in South American pastures that naturally triggers biological nitrification inhibition (BNI). BNI slows the conversion of ammoniumthe form of nitrogen in most fertilizersfirst into nitrite and then into nitrate and nitrous oxide. Nitra...Intensified research effort yields climate-resilient agriculture to blunt impact of global warming
...isolated a naturally occurring chemical in African grass that inhibits the production of nitrous oxide. Better forecasts, policy options To help farmers make better planting decisions, a consortium of CGIAR-supported centers is working with national and international meteorological services and leading......ita National Forest to the shortleaf pine-bluestem grass ecosystems that existed before European settlement. SRS ecologists have been involved in a range of studies on the effects of restoration, including ongoing research on butterflies and their nectar resources. For the published study, researchers obs...Inventor helps grasslands go native
...kle may soon change the nation's market for native grass seed, a tricky-to-harvest crop worth hundreds of m...ast five years researching and developing a native grass seed harvester. The Arbuckle Native Seedster will be manufactured in Billings, with the first one on...Researchers report initial success in promising approach to prevent tooth decay
...if you use a dandelion-specific killer and let the grass fill in the lawn, the dandelions won't come back." Hoping to solve the selectivity issue, Shi and his colleagues began attaching toxins to the homing region of antibodies. They borrowed the concept from immunotherapy, an area of cancer research in ...New book uses ABCs to teach children microbiology
...all have an interest in, such as 'Why can cows use grass for food but humans can't?' and 'Why do we get gas after we eat beans?'" says author Rodney Anderson, a microbiologist and professor at Ohio Northern University, who presents photos he has collected of microorganisms shaped like letters of the alphab...Composting may be alternative in wake of horse slaughter bill
.... It'sthe whole circle of life thing. You grow the grass to feed the animals andthen turn around and use them to do the same thing for the nextgeneration."...Genome archaeology illuminates the genetic engineering debate
...new and important insights in the evolution of the grass species in general," Messing said. "The vast pool of genetic material in plants can be an important resource from which biotechnology can draw genes for insertion into an array of plants, generating unique genomes not achievable by conventional br...Glue made from ethanol-production leftovers may be worth more than the fuel itself
...eating it from corn, but that doesn't mean growing grass crops for fuel won't pay, says Paul Weimer. Rather than dwelling on finding ways to squeeze extra ethanol out of biomass from crops such as switchgrass, Weimer is concentrating his research on the leftovers. He thinks that the large heap of fermen...Republic of Congo announces two massive protected areas
... ancient sand dune system, and is covered by large grass and wooded savanna patches separated by fine lines of dense gallery forest, along with a multitude of small lakes and river valleys. The south and west of the new park supports an intact block of Chaillu forest and the Ougue River basin along which ...Ecological change, climate variation addressed at international conference, September 20-24
...vels--until a critical point is reached.When marsh grass production increases, so does trapping of sediments and production of organic matter, which raises the elevation of the marsh.But elevation eventually declines as the rate of sea level rise continues to increase.Ecologist James Morris of the Universi......d low water-use plans and sprinkler-irrigated turf grass xeric: low water-use plants (both native and non-native), individually drip-watered native: Sonoran Desert plants and no supplemental water "We wanted to explore how the surrounding landscape affects people, both in terms of their perc...Energy-rich portfolio of new genome sequencing targets for DOE JGI
...be sequencing Brachypodium distachyon, a temperate grass model system with a simple genome more amenable to sequencing. This choice responds to the urgent need for developing grasses into superior energy crops and improving grain crops and forage grasses for food production. Brachypodium will be undertake...From campfire to gas tank, Mesquite energy may be harvested for ethanol
...t with a harvest areaand be improved with enhanced grass growth and patterned harvest ofmesquite, he said. "The economics are good now," Ansley said. "It just looks tremendouslyprofitable to me today." The largest expense building a refinery is expected to be about $8million with a profitability ......ped areas provide an ideal environment for the new grass seedlings to establish and grow. Providing vegetation buffers reduces the runoff of rainwater even further, he said. Hoffman and his research group also will continue to monitor water quality in creeks. In addition, the group is hoping to establish...