LAKE ALFRED, FL — Successful mechanical harvesting of perennial fruit crops requires efficient, economical harvesting systems that do not reduce trees’ production life or diminish fruit quality. Most of the world’s citrus is now harvested manua…
BATON ROUGE, LA — The ancient fig tree, first imported to the United States during the 16th century, thrives in areas of California and the South Atlantic and Gulf Coast areas of the U.S. One of the most popular trees grown in Southern backyards, f…
A team of University of Oklahoma researchers studying neurobiology in fruit flies (Drosophila) has developed a new method for understanding brain function with potential applications in studies of human neurological diseases.
The work is carried …
Johns Hopkins researchers have determined why certain stem cells are able to stay stem cells.
The report in the June 4 issue of Cell Stem Cell reveals that an enzyme that changes the way DNA is packaged in cells allows specific genes to be turne…
PULLMAN, Wash. — An international team of scientists from Italy, France, New Zealand, Belgium and the USA have published a draft sequence of the domestic apple genome in the current issue of Nature Genetics.
The availability of a genome sequence…
CAMDEN — When kitchens become infiltrated with fruit flies, especially during the dog days of summer, homeowners might wish that the flying pests would just turn to ice.
The fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster does boast a powerful genetic system …
Greater insight into human brain disease may emerge from studies of a new genetic mutation that causes adult fruit flies to develop symptoms akin to Alzheimer’s disease. “This is the first fruit fly mutant to show some of the outward, physical manifestations common to certain major human neurodegenerative diseases,” said principal investigator Michael McKeown, a biology professor at Brown University. A research team found the mutation in a gene they named “blue cheese.”
Researchers in Leicester, England and Michigan will begin tests on a new cancer prevention drug, based on a natural compound found in red wine. The compound, resveratrol, is a natural agent found in grapes, peanuts and several berries. It is present in fruit juice from these berries and in wine. Consumption of resveratrol has been proposed as one possible explanation for the low incidence of cardiovascular disease in Southern European countries with high red wine consumption, and resveratrol has been shown to possess anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer activity in experimental models.