News & Events
Human activity threatens whales. Whale populations face indirect impacts such as ocean noise and pollution, as well as direct impacts from whaling, fishing gear entanglements, and ship collisions. Such collisions are believed to kill about 80 whales on the US West Coast each year. Although precise estimates have not been tabulated, whale deaths likely amount to several thousand annually worldwide.
Plant nucleotide-binding and leucine-rich repeat (NLR) receptors recognize avirulence effectors directly through their integrated domains (IDs) or indirectly via the effector-targeted proteins. Previous studies have succeeded in generating designer NLR receptors with new recognition profiles by engineering IDs or targeted proteins based on prior knowledge of their interactions with the effectors. However, it is yet a challenge to design a new plant receptor capable of recognizing effectors that function by unknown mechanisms.
One cannot refute the contribution women provide to the agriculture sector where they constitute 43% of the agricultural labor force. 79% of these women depend on agriculture as their primary source of income. In addition to the agricultural activities which span from production, post-harvest, marketing, and agro-processing activities, women are also actively involved in other unpaid domestic activities.
Mars Chocolate North America, LLC and ICRISAT launched a new research project to deploy advanced sequencing tools and genomics approaches for developing low aflatoxin contamination (LAC) peanut. The four-year US$ 1 million project aims to identify superior LAC lines, pyramid superior haplotypes for aflatoxin contamination in market-preferred peanut varieties and mine additional superior haplotypes for aflatoxin contamination, seed features and yield related traits through germplasm sequencing and analysis.
Biotic stresses, including diseases, severely affect rice production, compromising producers' ability to meet increasing global consumption. Understanding quantitative responses for resistance to diverse pathogens can guide development of reliable molecular markers, which, combined with advanced backcross populations, can accelerate the production of more resistant varieties. A candidate gene (CG) approach was used to accumulate different disease QTL from Moroberekan,
For another year, millions of small-scale farmers have been bearing the brunt of Climate Change and COVID19. Despite the challenges, they have been using everything from boats to goats to build resilience. IFAD was there to support them
2021 brought immense challenges to all corners of the world. Nevertheless, IFAD has been busy doing what we always do: supporting projects that improve the lives of rural small-scale farmers. As the year comes to a close, let’s zoom in on some of those projects – from Asia to Africa and on to Latin America – and meet some of the people we’ve helped along the way.
Replacing synthetic insecticides with transgenic crops for pest management has been economically and environmentally beneficial, but these benefits erode as pests evolve resistance. It has been proposed that novel genomic approaches could track molecular signals of emerging resistance to aid in resistance management. To test this, we quantified patterns of genomic change in Helicoverpa zea, a major lepidopteran pest and target of transgenic Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) crops,
CGIAR urged global leaders today to ensure the 500 million smallholder farmers responsible for up to a third of global food production can adapt to climate change-induced loss and damage while curbing their greenhouse gas emissions. Innovations are needed that can both reduce the contribution of global agriculture to climate change, and adapt to its increasingly evident consequences while also supporting livelihoods, nutrition and equality.
The heads of the International Monetary Fund, World Bank Group, World Health Organization and World Trade Organization held high-level consultations with Gavi and UNICEF on 17 December, 2021 aimed at increasing the use of COVID-19 vaccines and other critical medical countermeasures in low-income (LIC) and lower middle-income (LMIC) countries and supporting countries to be better prepared, resourced, and ready to roll out vaccines.
Enrichment or depletion ranging from −40 to +100% in the major isotopes 16O and 24Mg were observed experimentally in solids condensed from carbonaceous plasma composed of CO2/MgCl2/Pentanol or N2O/Pentanol for O and MgCl2/Pentanol for Mg. In NanoSims imaging, isotope effects appear as micrometer-size hotspots embedded in a carbonaceous matrix showing no isotope fractionation.
In PNAS, Xu et al. (1) report that a member of the Argonaute family of proteins, Argonaute 1 (AGO1), is an essential actor in the gene control of flowering. In Arabidopsis thaliana, flowering is inhibited when the floral repressor gene FLOWERING LOCUS C (FLC) is expressed. Therefore, repression of FLC expression is necessary to trigger flowering. Repressors of FLC expression include evolutionary conserved RNA binding proteins such as FCA, FPA, and FLK as well as factors that regulate messenger RNA (mRNA) processing and chromatin structure.