PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

Two teosintes made modern maize

2023-11-30
(Press-News.org) Broad genetic sampling of maize and its teosinte grass ancestors reveals evidence of wild admixture during the crop’s initial domestication and dispersal, according to a new study. The findings clarify the contentious origin of modern maize and raise new questions about the anthropogenic mechanisms underlying its spread throughout the Americas. The domestication of crops transformed human culture. For many crops, the wild plants that modern domesticates are most closely related to can be readily identified by morphological and genetic similarities. Yet, despite its global agricultural importance, the ancestry of modern maize has long been debated. The most widely accepted model suggests that maize was domesticated from a wild grass commonly known as teosinte. However, none of the proposed models for the origin of maize can explain conflicting archaeological, genetic, and geographic evidence. Recent studies have shown a potential genetic contribution from another wild relative, Zea mays spp. mexicana (mexicana). Here, Ning Yang and colleagues present a detailed population genetic analysis of maize origins and propose a new model of domestication and dispersal. Yang et al. examined more than 1000 genomes of domesticated maize and related wild teosinte grasses, including 338 newly sequenced traditional varieties, and found evidence that 4,000 years after initial domestication, introgression from wild mexicana occurred in the highlands of Mexico before the crop spread across the Americas, either replacing or hybridizing with preexisting maize populations. The alleles contributed by mexicana appear to affect plant photoperiodicity and flowering time, suggesting that these traits from this wild relative may have been beneficial during domestication. “These results not only highlight the past importance of crop wild relatives but also point to their potential as a source of adaptative diversity for future breeding,” write Yang et al.

END


ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

A mixed origin made maize successful

A mixed origin made maize successful
2023-11-30
Maize is one of the world’s most widely grown crops. It is used for both human and animal foods and holds great cultural significance, especially for indigenous peoples in the Americas. Yet despite its importance, the origins of the grain have been hotly debated for more than a century. Now new research, published Dec. 1 in Science, shows that all modern maize descends from a hybrid created just over 5000 years ago in central Mexico, thousands of years after the plant was first domesticated. The ...

Discovery of planet too big for its sun throws off solar system formation models

Discovery of planet too big for its sun throws off solar system formation models
2023-11-30
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – The discovery of a planet that is far too massive for its sun is calling into question what was previously understood about the formation of planets and their solar systems, according to Penn State researchers. In a paper published online today (Nov. 30) in the journal Science, researchers report the discovery of a planet more than 13 times as massive as Earth orbiting the “ultracool” star LHS 3154, which itself is nine times less massive than the sun. The mass ratio of the newly found planet with its host star is more than 100 times higher than that of Earth and the sun. The finding reveals the most massive known ...

Early rhythm control, lifestyle modification and more tailored stroke risk assessment are top goals in managing atrial fibrillation

Early rhythm control, lifestyle modification and more tailored stroke risk assessment are top goals in managing atrial fibrillation
2023-11-30
The American College of Cardiology (ACC) and the American Heart Association (AHA), along with several other leading medical associations, have issued a new guideline for preventing and optimally managing atrial fibrillation (AFib). The guideline was jointly published today in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology and Circulation. Atrial fibrillation, or AFib, is the most common type of heart rhythm disorder (arrhythmia), affecting over 6 million Americans, and the number is expected to double by 2030. AFib causes a variety of symptoms, including fast ...

Carbon dioxide becomes more potent as climate changes, study finds

Carbon dioxide becomes more potent as climate changes, study finds
2023-11-30
Embargoed: Not for Release Until 2:00 pm U.S. Eastern Time Thursday, 30 November 2023. A team of scientists found that carbon dioxide becomes a more potent greenhouse gas as more is released into the atmosphere. The new study, led by scientists at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, Science, was published in Science and comes as world leaders meet in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, this week for the United Nations Climate Change Conference COP28.  “Our finding means that ...

Researchers extend non-line-of-sight imaging towards longer wavelengths

Researchers extend non-line-of-sight imaging towards longer wavelengths
2023-11-30
WASHINGTON — Emerging technologies for non-line-of-sight imaging can detect objects even if they are around a corner or behind a wall. In new work, researchers use a new type of detector to extend this method from visible light into near and mid-infrared wavelengths, an advance that could be especially useful for unmanned vehicles, robotic vision, endoscopy and other applications. “Infrared non-line-of-sight imaging can improve the safety and efficiency of unmanned vehicles by helping them detect and navigate around obstacles that are not directly visible,” said Xiaolong Hu from Tianjin University in China. His team collaborated with a group ...

EU/EEA: HIV diagnoses rise for the first time in a decade

EU/EEA: HIV diagnoses rise for the first time in a decade
2023-11-30
Across the 30 countries of the European Union and European Economic Area (EU/EEA), 22,995 new HIV diagnoses were reported in 2022. Almost every second new HIV diagnosis (49%, n=11,103) was among migrants, i.e. among people who were not born in in the country they were diagnosed in. born abroad from the country of their diagnosis. In the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, more than 4 million Ukrainians took refuge in countries of the European Union and European Economic Area (EU/EEA). In a rapid communication published in Eurosurveillance prior to World AIDS Day 2023 on 1 December, Reyes-Urueña et al. look at most recent surveillance data ...

2D material reshapes 3D electronics for AI hardware

2D material reshapes 3D electronics for AI hardware
2023-11-30
Multifunctional computer chips have evolved to do more with integrated sensors, processors, memory and other specialized components. However, as chips have expanded, the time required to move information between functional components has also grown. “Think of it like building a house,” said Sang-Hoon Bae, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering and materials science at the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis. “You build out laterally and up vertically to get more ...

George Demetri, MD, of Dana-Farber earns Lifetime Achievement Award in Medicine from Stanford University School of Medicine

George Demetri, MD, of Dana-Farber earns Lifetime Achievement Award in Medicine from Stanford University School of Medicine
2023-11-30
Boston – George Demetri, MD, director of the Sarcoma Center at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, is being awarded the prestigious J.E. Wallace Sterling Lifetime Achievement Award in Medicine from the Stanford Medicine Alumni Association (SMAA). Demetri, an alumnus of the Stanford University School of Medicine, Class of 1983, will be honored at a dinner held on the Stanford University School of Medicine campus on December 4, 2023. “Dr. Demetri is a leader in developing targeted therapeutics for cancer and has been pivotal in advancing oncology treatments ...

Snake skulls show how species adapt to prey

Snake skulls show how species adapt to prey
2023-11-30
By studying the skull shapes of dipsadine snakes, researchers at The University of Texas at Arlington have found how these species of snakes in Central and South America have evolved and adapted to meet the demands of their habitats and food sources. The research, conducted in collaboration with colleagues at the University of Michigan, was published in the peer-reviewed journal BMC Ecology and Evolution. “We now have evidence that this group of snakes is one of the most spectacular and largest vertebrate adaptive radiations currently known to science,” said Gregory Pandelis, collections manager at UTA’s Amphibian and Reptile Diversity ...

IU researchers develop new brain network modeling tools to advance Alzheimer's disease research

2023-11-30
INDIANAPOLIS—Indiana University researchers are collaborating on a novel approach to use neuroimaging and network modeling tools—previously developed to analyze brains of patients in the clinic—to investigate Alzheimer’s disease progression in preclinical animal models. The research team, led by Evgeny Chumin, PhD, a postdoctoral research fellow in the College of Arts and Sciences' Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at IU Bloomington, and Paul Territo, PhD, professor of medicine at the IU School of Medicine, published their findings in Alzheimer’s & Dementia: The Journal of ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Resistance training may improve nerve health, slow aging process, study shows

Common and inexpensive medicine halves the risk of recurrence in patients with colorectal cancer

SwRI-built instruments to monitor, provide advanced warning of space weather events

Breakthrough advances sodium-based battery design

New targeted radiation therapy shows near-complete response in rare sarcoma patients

Does physical frailty contribute to dementia?

Soccer headers and brain health: Study finds changes within folds of the brain

Decoding plants’ language of light

UNC Greensboro study finds ticks carrying Lyme disease moving into western NC

New implant restores blood pressure balance after spinal cord injury

New York City's medical specialist advantage may be an illusion, new NYU Tandon research shows

Could a local anesthetic that doesn’t impair motor function be within reach?

1 in 8 Italian cetacean strandings show evidence of fishery interactions, with bottlenose and striped dolphins most commonly affected, according to analysis across four decades of data and more than 5

In the wild, chimpanzees likely ingest the equivalent of several alcoholic drinks every day

Warming of 2°C intensifies Arctic carbon sink but weakens Alpine sink, study finds

Bronze and Iron Age cultures in the Middle East were committed to wine production

Indian adolescents are mostly starting their periods at an earlier age than 25 years ago

Temporary medical centers in Gaza known as "Medical Points" (MPs) treat an average of 117 people daily with only about 7 staff per MP

Rates of alcohol-induced deaths among the general population nearly doubled from 1999 to 2024

PLOS One study: In adolescent lab animals exposed to cocaine, High-Intensity Interval Training boosts aversion to the drug

Scientists identify four ways our bodies respond to COVID-19 vaccines

Stronger together: A new fusion protein boosts cancer immunotherapy

Hidden brain waves as triggers for post-seizure wandering

Music training can help the brain focus

Researcher develop the first hydride ion prototype battery

MIT researchers find a more precise way to edit the genome

‘Teen’ pachycephalosaur butts into fossil record

Study finds cocoa extract supplement reduced key marker of inflammation and aging

Obesity treatment with bariatric surgery vs GLP-1 receptor agonists

Nicotinamide for skin cancer chemoprevention

[Press-News.org] Two teosintes made modern maize