(Press-News.org) Rubisco is arguably the most abundant--and most important--protein on Earth. This enzyme drives photosynthesis, the process that plants use to convert sunlight into energy to fuel crop growth and yield. Rubisco's role is to capture and fix carbon dioxide (CO2) into sugar that fuels the plant's activities. However, as much as Rubisco benefits plant growth, it also can operate at a notoriously slow pace that creates a hindrance to photosynthetic efficiency.
About 20 percent of the time Rubisco fixes oxygen (O2) molecules instead of CO2, costing the plant energy that could have been utilized to create yield. This time- and energy-consuming process is called photorespiration, where the plant sends its enzymes through three different compartments within the plant cell.
"However, many photosynthetic organisms have evolved mechanisms to overcome some of Rubisco's limitations," said Ben Long who led this END
Rubisco proton production can enhance CO2 acquisition
2021-05-24
[Attachments] See images for this press release:
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Can antibiotics treat human diseases in addition to bacterial infections?
2021-05-24
According to researchers at the University of Illinois Chicago, the antibiotics used to treat common bacterial infections, like pneumonia and sinusitis, may also be used to treat human diseases, like cancer. Theoretically, at least.
As outlined in a new Nature Communications study, the UIC College of Pharmacy team has shown in laboratory experiments that eukaryotic ribosomes can be modified to respond to antibiotics in the same way that prokaryotic ribosomes do.
Fungi, plants, and animals -- like humans -- are eukaryotes; they are made up of cells that have a clearly defined nucleus. Bacteria, on the other hand, are prokaryotes. They are made up of cells, which do not have a nucleus and have a different structure, size and properties. The ribosomes of eukaryotic and procaryotic cells, ...
Columbia Engineering team builds first hacker-resistant cloud software system
2021-05-24
New York, NY--May 24, 2021--Whenever you buy something on Amazon, your customer data is automatically updated and stored on thousands of virtual machines in the cloud. For businesses like Amazon, ensuring the safety and security of the data of its millions of customers is essential. This is true for large and small organizations alike. But up to now, there has been no way to guarantee that a software system is secure from bugs, hackers, and vulnerabilities.
Columbia Engineering researchers may have solved this security issue. They have developed SeKVM, the ...
RMRS scientists recommend approach to adapt to uncertainty in wildland management
2021-05-24
MISSOULA, Mont., May 24, 2021 -- Scientists from the Rocky Mountain Research Station collaborated to explore how research and management can confront increasing uncertainty due to climate change, invasive species, and land use conversion.
Wildland management and policy have long depended on the idea that ecosystems are fundamentally static, and periodic events like droughts are just temporary detours from a larger, stable equilibrium. However, ecosystems are currently changing at unprecedented rates. For example, bark beetle infestations, droughts, and severe wildfires have killed large numbers of trees across the western ...
Storytelling reduces pain and stress, and increases oxytocin in hospitalized children
2021-05-24
A new research, carried out by the D'Or Institute for Research and Education (IDOR) and the Federal University of ABC (UFABC), has shown for the first time that storytelling is capable of providing physiological and emotional benefits to children in Intensive Care Units (ICUs). The study was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the official scientific journal of the National Academy of Sciences of the U.S. The study was led by Guilherme Brockington, PhD, from UFABC, and Jorge Moll, MD, PhD, from IDOR.
"During storytelling, something happens that we call 'narrative ...
Enzymes of a feather: CRISPR-Cas components work together to enhance protection from viruses
2021-05-24
Researchers from Skoltech and their colleagues from Russia and the US have shown that the two components of the bacterial CRISPR-Cas immunity system, one that destroys foreign genetic elements such as viruses and another that creates "memories" of foreign genetic elements by storing fragments of their DNA in a special location of bacterial genome, are physically linked. This link helps bacteria to efficiently update their immune memory when infected by mutant viruses that learned to evade the CRISPR-Cas defense. The paper was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
CRISPR-Cas, a defense mechanism that provides bacteria with resistance to their viruses (bacteriophages), destroys DNA from ...
Lundquist investigator Wei Yan solves longstanding fallopian tube transport debate
2021-05-24
LOS ANGELES (May 24, 2021) -- Today, The Lundquist Institute announced that Wei Yan, MD, PhD, and his research group have solved a longstanding mystery and scientific debate about the mechanism underlying the gamete and embryo transport within the Fallopian tube. Using a mouse model where the animals lacked motile cilia in the oviduct, Dr. Yan's group demonstrated that motile cilia in the very distal end of the Fallopian tube, called infundibulum, are essential for oocyte pickup. Disruptions of the ciliary structure and/or beating patterns lead to failure in oocyte pickup and consequently, a loss of female fertility. Interestingly, motile cilia in other parts of the oviduct can facilitate sperm ...
Facilitating speech comprehension in rare inherited hearing loss patients
2021-05-24
Hearing loss is a disability that affects approximately 5% of the world's population. Clinically determining the exact site of the lesion is critical for choosing a proper treatment for hearing loss. For example, the subjects with damage in sound conduction or mild outer hair cell damage would benefit from hearing aids, while those with significant damage to outer or inner hair cells would benefit from the cochlear implant. On the other hand, the subjects with impairments in more central structures such as the cochlear nerve, brainstem, or brain do not benefit from either hearing aids or cochlear implants. However, the role of impairments in cochlear glial cells in hearing loss is not as well known. While it is known that connexin channels in cochlear glial ...
Dual impacts of extreme heat, ozone disproportionately hurt poorer areas
2021-05-24
Scientists at UC San Diego, San Diego State University and colleagues find that extreme heat and elevated ozone levels, often jointly present during California summers, affect certain ZIP codes more than others.
Those areas across the state most adversely affected tend to be poorer areas with greater numbers of unemployed people and more car traffic. The science team based this finding on data about the elevated numbers of people sent to the hospital for pulmonary distress and respiratory infections in lower-income ZIP codes.
The study identified hotspots throughout ...
Evacuating under dire wildfire scenarios
2021-05-24
In 2018, the Camp Fire ripped through the town of Paradise, California at an unprecedented rate. Officials had prepared an evacuation plan that required 3 hours to get residents to safety. The fire, bigger and faster than ever before, spread to the community in only 90 minutes.
As climate change intensifies, wildfires in the West are behaving in ways that were unimaginable in the past--and the common disaster response approaches are woefully unprepared for this new reality. In a recent study, a team of researchers led by the University of Utah proposed a framework for simulating dire scenarios, which the authors define as scenarios where there is less time to ...
Sterilizing skeeters
2021-05-24
Mosquitoes are one of humanity's greatest nemeses, estimated to spread infections to nearly 700 million people per year and cause more than one million deaths.
UC Santa Barbara Distinguished Professor Craig Montell has made a breakthrough in one technique for controlling populations of Aedes aegypti, a mosquito that transmits dengue, yellow fever, Zika and other viruses. The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, documents the first use of CRISPER/Cas9 gene editing to target a specific gene tied to fertility in male mosquitoes. The researchers were then able to discern how this mutation can suppress ...