The banana apocalypse is near, but biologists might have found a key to their survival
The bananas in your supermarket and that you eat for breakfast are facing functional extinction due to the disease Fusarium wilt of banana (FWB), caused by a fungal pathogen called Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. cubense (Foc) tropical race 4 (TR4).
Agronomists save tomatoes from toxic aluminum with melatonin
RUDN University agronomists and colleagues from China and Iran have helped tomatoes cope with the toxic effect of aluminum in acidic soils with the help of melatonin. This hormone contributes to nitric oxide production, blocking the toxic metal and preventing it from destroying plant cells. The results are published in the South African Journal of Botany.
Beewolf symbiosis: Protective shield for allies
Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Jena and Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany, report in a new study in the journal PNAS that the symbiosis of beewolves with their bacterial helpers includes protection of the symbionts from toxic nitric oxide, which beewolf eggs release to disinfect the brood cavity. The white secretion from the antennae of female beewolves, which also contains the symbionts, provides an effective diffusion barrier.
Scientists enrich nitric oxide-reducing microbes in bioreactor
Nitric oxide (NO) is a fascinating and versatile molecule, important for all living things as well as the environment. It is highly reactive and toxic, organisms use it as a signaling molecule, it depletes the ozone layer in our planet's atmosphere, and it is the precursor of the greenhouse gas nitrous oxide (N2O). Moreover, NO might have played a fundamental role in the emergence and evolution of life on Earth, as it was available as a high-energy oxidant long before there was oxygen.
The life below our feet: Team discovers microbes thriving in groundwater and producing oxygen in the dark
Nearly a third of Earth's freshwater resources lie in groundwater—much more than in all lakes, rivers and the atmosphere combined, and exceeded only by the frozen water in polar ice caps. Accordingly, about half of humankind depends on groundwater as a source of drinking water.
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