[Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences | 2.09]
Filling our fuel tanks with cellulosic ethanol instead of gasoline or corn-based ethanol may have health as well as environmental benefits, according to a study co-authored by Jason Hill and Stephen Polasky from the Department of Applied Economics and David Tilman, Regents Professor in the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior.
The study finds that cellulosic ethanol is less detrimental to human health because it produces smaller amounts of fine particulate matter, a harmful component of air pollution. Earlier work showed that cellulosic ethanol and other next-generation biofuels also emit lower levels of greenhouse gases.
“Our work highlights the need to expand the biofuels debate beyond its focus on climate change to air quality and other effects,” says Hill, lead author of the paper and a resident fellow in the University of Minnesota’s Institute on the Environment.
The study is the first to estimate the economic costs to human health and well-being from gasoline, corn-based ethanol and cellulosic ethanol made from biomass. The authors found that depending on the materials and technology used in production, cellulosic ethanol’s environmental and health costs are less than half the costs of gasoline, while corn-based ethanol’s costs range from roughly equal to about double those of gasoline.
[Structure | 12.12.08]
Anja Bielinsky was part of a collaborative effort, along with researchers at Vanderbilt University, to produce a detailed three-dimensional image of the structure of the Mcm10 protein, which is integral to molecular machinery used for cell reproduction. Bielinsky’s lab handled the functional validation of the structural data. “We introduced mutations at sites where the structure would predict impediment in DNA binding and tested these predictions in a biological assay,” she says.
Bielinsky’s group had previously shown that inhibition of Mcm10 drives proliferating cells into apoptosis (cell death), a finding that suggests the protein might make a good drug target in cancer cells. “I think the most important implication,” she says, “is that we could now ‘design’ small molecule inhibitors and test whether they are effective at inhibiting proliferation.” Bielinsky is an associate professor in the Department of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Biophysics.
George Weiblen, associate professor of plant biology, received a $400,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to establish a study in Papua New Guinea. The study looks at how forests maintain biodiversity over time and how much carbon they remove from the atmosphere.
Weiblen and colleagues will survey a 125-acre plot located in Wanang. Every tree will be mapped, tagged, identified and measured every five years. Insects such as termites, moths, butterflies, ants and bees will also be inventoried. Much of the work will be carried out by local scientists and villagers. The plot will be part of a global network representing 18 forests worldwide established by the Center for Tropical Forest Science, which is part of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute.
[PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases | 12.9.08]
A study authored by Distinguished McKnight University Professor Craig Packer suggests a new strategy for vaccinating humans and animals against sleeping sickness (trypanosomiaisis), which is a major health threat in Africa. Development of a vaccine has been hampered by the diversity of surface proteins of T. brucei, a parasite that causes the illness. Packer and colleagues found that lions might gain cross-immunity to T. brucei from repeated exposure to the more genetically diverse T. congolense through frequent consumption of infected prey animals. Packer is a professor in the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior.
Jeff Gralnick, an assistant professor with the BioTechnology Institute, is among several University of Minnesota scientists researching bacteria found at the lowest levels of the abandoned Soudan mine in northern Minnesota. Extremely salty oxygen-less water is seeping out of the bedrock and producing dynamic, colorful iron-oxide structures after contact with air. “This ancient water is teeming with bacteria, and we suspect bacteria may be playing a role in the formation of these iron structures,” says Gralnick, who sees potential to develop commercial applications based on further research.
[American Journal of Primatology | 2.09]
Among most mammals, the biggest and fiercest male claims the role of alpha male and gets his choice of food and females. But a new study led by students and faculty in the Jane Goodall Institute Center for Primate Studies shows that smaller males employ political strategies, such as grooming other chimpanzees, to achieve alpha status.
The finding was gleaned from 10 years of behavioral data on three alpha male chimpanzees in Gombe National Park, Tanzania. Frodo, weighing in at about 112 pounds, achieved his status through bullying and aggression. Wilkie, who weighed only 82 pounds, obsessively groomed male and female chimpanzees to gain broad support. And Freud, who weighed about 99 pounds, used a combination of the two strategies. The findings are reported in the American Journal of Primatology and cited in Nature News.
While other primatologists have shown that grooming plays a role in chimpanzee social interaction, this study is the first to show that dominance style is closely related to body size. The study was led by former undergraduate student Mark Foster. Anne Pusey, director of the Goodall Center, which is housed in the College of Biological Sciences, was senior author. Graduate students Ian Gilby, Carson Murrow and Emily Wroblewski also contributed to the study.
Two grants totaling more than $3 million—one from the University of Minnesota and Mayo Clinic for $1.8 million and a large-equipment grant for $1.3 million from the National Institutes of Health—were used to purchase a Rigaku robotic protein crystallization system. The new system allows U researchers to automate the process of growing crystals of proteins in order to study their structures.
Douglas Ohlendorf, who led the effort, says that the new system is much faster, more efficient and cost-effective than manual protocols. He notes that it requires a much smaller protein sample and automates experiments from beginning to end. This will allow U researchers to quickly determine if their protein can be easily crystallized using samples consisting of less than one milligram. Ohlendorf is a professor in the Department of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Biophysics, and director of the Kahlert Laboratory for X-Ray Crystallography.
Jeannine Cavender-Bares is leading an international research study investigating the evolutionary potential of trees to respond to climate change. The research team, which includes investigators from Cornell University and the University of Minnesota-Duluth, was recently awarded a five-year grant from the National Science Foundation. The project examines short-term physiological changes as well as the potential for long-term evolutionary changes in response to experimental manipulations of precipitation in populations of a Central American tropical oak species. Cavender-Bares is an assistant professor in the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior.
