News & Events
In a ceremonial tasting held at the Department of Agriculture Philippine Rice Research Institute (DA-PhilRice) in Muñoz, Nueva Ecija, stakeholders including the country's Agriculture Secretary Dr. William Dar favored "Golden Rice" over ordinary white rice for its health benefits."It smells and tastes the same as ordinary rice, except it is colored yellow. But I will choose ‘Golden Rice' over white rice, because it has more health benefits." said Secretary Dar.
An exotic soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr.] accession, PI 567305, was reported to be highly resistant to three important nematode species, soybean cyst (SCN), root-knot (RKN), and reniform (RN) nematodes. However, genetic basis controlling broad-spectrum resistance in this germplasm has not been investigated. We report results of genetic analysis to identify genomic loci conferring resistance to these nematode species. A bi-parental population consisting of 242 F8-derived recombinant inbred lines (RILs) was developed from a cross of a nematode susceptible cultivar, Magellan, and resistant accession, PI 567305.
The potential of agribiotech to contribute to sustainable agriculture depends on research and development, as well as the integration of other factors, such as effective communication, science-based national regulatory frameworks, and an adequate understanding of international legal instruments. To foster strong collaboration and enrich knowledge among key players in the agri-biotech and biosafety arena
The part one of the UN Biodiversity Conference organized by the Convention on Biological Diversity has addressed critical areas of work and highlighted the capacity of countries to cope up with the changes and move forward towards global sustainability.The High-level Segment of the conference was held in Kunming, China on October 12-13, 2021 where the Kunming Declaration was adopted.
The coronaviruses responsible for severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS-CoV), COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2), Middle East respiratory syndrome-CoV, and other coronavirus infections express a nucleocapsid protein (N) that is essential for viral replication, transcription, and virion assembly. Phosphorylation of N from SARS-CoV by glycogen synthase kinase 3 (GSK-3) is required for its function and inhibition of GSK-3 with lithium impairs N phosphorylation, viral transcription, and replication. Here we report that the SARS-CoV-2 N protein contains GSK-3 consensus sequences and that this motif is conserved in diverse coronaviruses, raising the possibility that SARS-CoV-2 may be sensitive to GSK-3 inhibitors, including lithium.
In a rapidly changing world, agriculture remains the heart of sustainable development. The risks facing the world in this final decade left to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals are many, but the opportunities are equally numerous. Small-scale agricultural producers can only seize these opportunities, however, if they have adequate access to land, markets, capacity support, and finance.
A food system includes all the aspects of feeding and nourishing people: growing, harvesting, packaging, processing, transporting, marketing and consuming food. It encompasses all the interactions between people and the natural world – land, water, the climate, etc. – and the natural world’s effects on human health and nutrition. It also includes the inputs, institutions, infrastructure and services that support the functioning of all these aspects, as well as the role of diets and cultural practices in shaping outcomes.
The term “de-etiolation” refers to the light-dependent differentiation of etioplasts to chloroplasts in angiosperms. The underlying process involves reorganization of prolamellar bodies (PLBs) and prothylakoids into thylakoids, with concurrent changes in protein, lipid, and pigment composition, which together lead to the assembly of active photosynthetic complexes. Despite the highly conserved structure of PLBs among land plants, the processes that mediate PLB maintenance and their disassembly during de-etiolation are poorly understood. Among chloroplast thylakoid membrane–localized proteins, to date, only Curvature thylakoid 1 (CURT1) proteins were shown to exhibit intrinsic membrane-bending capacity.
The World Health Organization (WHO) and the State of Qatar today launched a new multiyear collaboration to make the 2022 FIFA World Cup, being held in Qatar, a beacon for physical and mental health promotion, and also a model for ensuring future mega sport events are healthy and safe. The three-year joint project, titled "Healthy 2022 World Cup - Creating Legacy for Sport and Health," was announced at a joint ceremony at WHO’s headquarters,
COVID-19 has had a wide-ranging impact on all areas of society, leading to setbacks in health gains and efforts to achieve universal health coverage (UHC). The diversion of health system resources to address COVID-19 care led to a protracted disruption of essential health services. New barriers to accessing health care, such as restricted movements, reduced ability to pay and fear of infection, have posed additional and unprecedented challenges in many countries.
Faba bean (Vicia faba L., 2n = 12) is an important food legume crop that is widely grown for multiple uses worldwide. However, no reference genome is currently available due to its very large genome size (approximately 13 Gb) and limited single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers as well as highly efficient genotyping tools have been reported for faba bean. In this study, 16.7 billion clean reads were obtained from transcriptome libraries of flowers and leaves of 102 global faba bean accessions
"It eats everything, leaves nothing and reproduces very quickly," laments Mouradh, a fisherman from the Tunisian islands of Kerkennah. For the country’s fishers, the blue crabs that were being hauled out of the water, tangled up in their broken nets, were a disaster. An invasive species introduced into the Mediterranean through the Suez Canal, the blue crab threatened the artisanal fishing techniques used along the Tunisian coastline,