World Food Prize Winner dies...

Prof. Monty Jones was the first African to be awarded the World Food Prize. He won the award in 2004 for his discovery of the genetic process to create the New Rice for Africa (NERICA). In 2007, Time Magazine named him one of the 100 most influential persons in the world under SCIENTISTS & THINKERS category.

The ability of the African rice to grow under low input conditions makes it an especially useful genetic resource for developing stress-tolerant rice varieties for rainfed ecosystems in Africa. In 1992, a team led by Dr Monty Jones, a senior rice breeder of AfricaRice, decided to work on interspecific hybridization to develop varieties that might combine the high yield potential of Asian rice with the local adaptation of African rice.

 

The African rice varieties show strong adaptability to harsh environments, strong ability to compete with weeds, resist local diseases and pests, and withstand drought, flood, infertile soils, and iron toxicity.

 

Several attempts to exploit the African rice genome through interspecific crossing had  failed due to incompatibility barriers.AfricaRice circumvented the sterility barrier between the two species by using anther culture and embryo rescue techniques, coupled with back-crossings to the Asian rice parent. Several hundred interspecific progenies with promising agronomic performance were generated, increasing the biodiversity of rice.

 

The interspecific lines were evaluated across Africa by farmers through participatory varietal selection (PVS), which is an innovative approach that allows farmers to select their preferred varieties that match their needs and growing conditions, and that generates valuable feedback on farmers’ preference criteria for rice breeders.

 

The most successful lines, based on their performance and popularity among upland rice farmers, were named the NERICA varieties. The first NERICA varieties were released in Côte d’Ivoire in 2000. The development of the upland NERICA earned AfricaRice several international awards including the World Food Prize in 2004 to Monty Jones.

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Thallium poisoning case of Zhu Ling

Zhu Ling (24 April 1973 – 22 December 2023) is best known as the victim of an unsolved 1995 thallium poisoning case in Beijing, China. Her symptoms were posted to the Internet via a Usenet newsgroup by her friend from Peking University, Bei Zhicheng, and were subsequently proven to be caused by thallium poisoning. Her case was then reviewed by physicians in many different countries who examined her symptoms and made suggestions as to diagnoses and treatment. This effort was recognized as the first large-scale tele-medicine trial. Her life was ultimately saved, but she suffered serious neurological damage and permanent physical impairment.

This case drew great attention in the Chinese media, because the victim and the suspect were living in the same dormitory in the most prestigious university in the People's Republic of China, and in addition the case was never solved. Internet discussion of the crime has continued since then and became a hot topic on major online Chinese communities very frequently as a high-profile cold case.

Read more here.

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Regeneron Science Talent Search

Dasia Taylor, 17, was named a finalist in the 2021 Regeneron Science Talent Search for her use of beet extract on sutures to detect wound infection. (Society for Science/(Courtesy of Society for Science)

A high-schooler wanted infection-detecting sutures to be more accessible. She used beets.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/04/01/high-schooler-wanted-infection-detecting-sutures-be-more-accessible-she-used-beets/

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Alpha-gal syndrome

Amblyomma americanum, a vector for the allergy

I met someone today with Alpha-gal syndrome. He was an Eagle Scout and probably got bit by a tick while outdoors. He was one of the first people in the state of Missouri "officially" diagnosed with the condition.

Alpha-gal syndrome is a type of food allergy to red meat and other products made from mammals. In the United States, the condition most often begins when a Lone Star tick bites someone. The bite transmits a sugar molecule called alpha-gal into the person's body. In some people, this triggers an immune system reaction that later produces mild to severe allergic reactions to red meat, such as beef, pork or lamb, or other mammal products.

The Lone Star tick is found predominantly in the southeastern United States, and most cases of alpha-gal syndrome occur in this region. The tick can also be found in the eastern and south central United States. The condition appears to be spreading farther north and west, however, as deer carry the Lone Star tick to new parts of the United States. Alpha-gal syndrome also has been diagnosed in Europe, Australia and Asia, where other types of ticks carry alpha-gal molecules.

Researchers now believe that some people who have frequent, unexplained anaphylactic reactions — and who test negative for other food allergies — may be affected by alpha-gal syndrome. There's no treatment other than avoiding red meat and other products made from mammals.

Read more here.

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Synesthesia

Synesthesia or synaesthesia is a perceptual phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway. People who report a lifelong history of such experiences are known as synesthetes. Awareness of synesthetic perceptions varies from person to person. In one common form of synesthesia, known as grapheme–color synesthesia or color–graphemic synesthesia, letters or numbers are perceived as inherently colored. In spatial-sequence, or number form synesthesia, numbers, months of the year, or days of the week elicit precise locations in space (for example, 1980 may be "farther away" than 1990), or may appear as a three-dimensional map (clockwise or counterclockwise). Synesthetic associations can occur in any combination and any number of senses or cognitive pathways.

Little is known about how synesthesia develops. It has been suggested that synesthesia develops during childhood when children are intensively engaged with abstract concepts for the first time. This hypothesis – referred to as semantic vacuum hypothesis – explains why the most common forms of synesthesia are grapheme–color, spatial sequence and number form. These are usually the first abstract concepts that educational systems require children to learn.

Difficulties have been recognized in adequately defining synesthesia. Many different phenomena have been included in the term synesthesia ("union of the senses"), and in many cases the terminology seems to be inaccurate. A more accurate but less common term may be ideasthesia.

The earliest recorded case of synesthesia is attributed to the Oxford University academic and philosopher John Locke, who, in 1690, made a report about a blind man who said he experienced the color scarlet when he heard the sound of a trumpet. However, there is disagreement as to whether Locke described an actual instance of synesthesia or was using a metaphor. The first medical account came from German physician Georg Tobias Ludwig Sachs in 1812. The term is from the Ancient Greek σύν syn, 'together', and αἴσθησις aisthēsis, 'sensation'.

Read more here.

Some notable synesthetes include Billy Joel, Itzhak Perlman, and Nikola Tesla.

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Soda-lime glass

Soda-lime glass is the most prevalent type of glass, used for windowpanes and glass containers (bottles and jars) for beverages, food, and some commodity items. Some glass bakeware is made of soda-lime glass, as opposed to the more common borosilicate glass. Soda–lime glass accounts for about 90% of manufactured glass.

Ordinary soda-lime glass appears colorless to the naked eye when it is thin, although iron oxide impurities produce a green tint which becomes evident in thick pieces or can be seen with the aid of scientific instruments. A number of additives are used to reduce the green tint, particularly if the glass is to be used for plain window glass, rather than stained glass windows. Additives that reduce the green tint include manganese dioxide which produces sodium permanganate, and may result in a slightly mauve tint, characteristic of the glass in older houses in New England. Selenium has been used for the same purpose.

More here.

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Other types of glass here (such as: milk glass, cranberry glass, uranium glass)..

Dr. Corrie Moreau

See her bio here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corrie_Moreau

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Read the graphic novel about her: The Romance of Ants

Bacterial/fungal infestations and parasites

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Soundscape ecology

The term “soundscape” has been used by a variety of disciplines to describe the relationship between a landscape and the composition of its sound. 

From the article: Soundscape Ecology: The Science of Sound in the Landscape

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Johannes Kepler

Johannes Kepler was a German astronomer, mathematician, and astrologer.

Johannes Kepler considered volcanoes as conduits for the tears and excrement of the Earth, voiding bitumen, tar and sulfur. Descartes, pronouncing that God had created the Earth in an instant, declared he had done so in three layers; the fiery depths, a layer of water, and the air. Volcanoes, he said, were formed where the rays of the sun pierced the earth.

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Mutations in cats

Thanks, Happy! So interesting.

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