martes, 25 de enero de 2011

Lack of Sex Among Grapes Tangles a Family Vine


Lack of Sex Among Grapes Tangles a Family Vine

For the last 8,000 years, the wine grape has had very little sex. This unnatural abstinence threatens to sap the grape’s genetic health and the future pleasure of millions of oenophiles.
Multimedia
The lack of sex has been discovered by Sean Myles, a geneticist at Cornell University. He developed a gene chip that tests for the genetic variation commonly found in grapes. He then scanned the genomes of the thousand or so grape varieties in the Department of Agriculture’s extensive collection.
Much to his surprise he found that 75 percent of the varieties were as closely related as parent and child or brother and sister. “Previously people thought there were several different families of grape,” Dr. Myles said. “Now we’ve found that all those families are interconnected and in essence there’s just one large family.”
Thus merlot is intimately related to cabernet franc, which is a parent of cabernet sauvignon, whose other parent is sauvignon blanc, the daughter of traminer, which is also a progenitor of pinot noir, a parent of chardonnay.
This web of interrelatedness is evidence that the grape has undergone very little breeding since it was first domesticated, Dr. Myles and his co-authors report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The reason is obvious in retrospect. Vines can be propagated by breaking off a shoot and sticking it in the ground, or onto existing rootstock. The method gives uniform crops, and most growers have evidently used it for thousands of years.
The result is that cultivated grapes remain closely related to wild grapes, apart from a few improvements in berry size and sugar content, and a bunch of new colors favored by plant breeders.
Cultivated grapes have almost as much genetic diversity as wild grapes. But because there has been very little sexual reproduction over the last eight millenniums, this diversity has not been shuffled nearly enough. The purpose of sex, though this is perhaps not widely appreciated, is recombination, the creation of novel genomes by taking some components from the father’s and some from the mother’s DNA. The new combinations of genes provide variation for evolution to work on, and in particular they let slow-growing things like plants and animals keep one step ahead of the microbes that prey on them.
The grapevine fell extinct through much of Europe in the phylloxera epidemic of the 19th century. The French wine industry recovered from this disaster only by grafting French scions, as the grape’s shoots are called, onto sturdy American rootstock resistant to the phylloxera aphid.
Despite that close call, grape growers did not rush to breed disease resistance into their vines. One obstacle is that wine drinkers are attached to particular varieties, and if you cross a chardonnay grape with some other variety, it cannot be called chardonnay. In many wine-growing regions there are regulations that let only a specific variety be grown, lest the quality of the region’s wine be degraded. More than 90 percent of French vineyards are now planted with clones — genetically identical plants — certified to possess the standard qualities of the variety.
The consequence of this genetic conservatism is that a host of pests have caught up with the grape, obliging growers to protect their vines with a deluge of insecticides, fungicides and other powerful chemicals.
This situation cannot be sustained indefinitely, in Dr. Myles’s view. “Someday, regulatory agencies are going to say ‘No more,’ ” he said. “Europeans are gearing up for the day, which will come earlier there than in the U.S., for laws that reduce the amount of spray you can put on grapes.”
At that point growers will have three options. One is to add genes for pest resistance, risking consumer resistance to genetically modified crops. A second is to go organic, which may be difficult for a plant as vulnerable as the grape. A third is to breed sturdier varieties.
Breeding new grapes takes time and money. The grower has to plant a thousand seedlings, wait three years for them to mature, and then select the few progeny that have the desired traits. But a new kind of plant breeding now offers hopes of an efficient shortcut.
The new method depends on gene chips, like the one developed by Dr. Myles, that test young plants for the desired combination of traits. The breeder can thus discard 90 percent of seedlings from a cross, without waiting three years while they grow to maturity.
The new method, called marker-assisted breeding, or genomic selection, is already being used in breeding corn. “We can predict flowering within a couple of days by looking at the DNA,” said Edward S. Buckler, a leading corn geneticist at the Agriculture Department’s research lab at Cornell.
Multimedia
Dr. Buckler said he felt the government’s large collections of crop plants could be used much more efficiently by analyzing the genomes of each species. He recruited Dr. Myles to work on the grape genome.
In major crops like corn, rice and wheat, “everyone is shifting to these new technologies,” Dr. Buckler said. He expects grape growers to follow the trend. Wine drinkers’ insistence on their favorite varieties need not necessarily be a problem, because with enough genetic markers the breeder could identify and maintain the genes responsible for the taste of varieties like chardonnay or merlot. Genomically selected grape varieties may be ready for market in about a decade, said Dr. Buckler, who is a co-author on Dr. Myles’s report.
M. Andrew Walker, an expert grape breeder at the University of California, Davis, said that there are “ample pest- and disease-resistance genes” in the grapevine genus, which has about 60 species, but few in Vitis vinifera, the particular species to which wine and table grapes belong. He agreed that it will be necessary to introduce many of these genes from other Vitis species into vinifera. “Consumers and wine promoters will have to move beyond dependence on traditional vinifera varieties,” Dr. Walker said.
So far Dr. Myles has only 6,000 useful genetic markers on his grape gene chip, and needs a larger chip to identify all the traits of interest to breeders. He started his scientific career working on human genetics at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. On a bicycle tour of German vineyards he decided the grape’s genome might hold as many surprises as the human one. The pursuit fit in well with another aspect of his life — his wife is a winemaker in Nova Scotia.
Canada might seem too far north for vineyards to thrive, but the growing season is like that of Champagne in France, Dr. Myles said. “For high-acid grapes that don’t fully ripen, which is the Champagne strategy, you can make fantastic sparkling wines in Nova Scotia and lots of good whites.”

En este día...


On This Day in HistoryTuesday, January 25th
The 025th day of 2011.
There are 340 days left in the year.
Go to a previous date.
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Today's Highlights in History
Buy a Reproduction
NYT Front PageSee a larger version of this front page.
On Jan. 25, 1915, the inventor of the telephone, Alexander Graham Bell, inaugurated U.S. transcontinental telephone service. (Go to article.)On Jan. 25 , 1882Virginia Woolf ,the British novelist , was born.Following her death on March 28 ,1941her obituary appeared in The Times. (Go to obit. | Other Birthdays)
Editorial Cartoon of the Day

On January 25, 1879Harper's Weekly featured a cartoon about military spending by Congress. (See the cartoon and read an explanation.)

On this date in:
1533England's King Henry VIII secretly married Anne Boleyn, his second wife.
1759Scottish poet Robert Burns was born in Alloway.
1787Shays' Rebellion suffered a setback when debt-ridden farmers led by Capt. Daniel Shays failed to capture an arsenal at Springfield, Mass.
1890The United Mine Workers of America was founded in Columbus, Ohio.
1947Gangster Al Capone died at age 48.
1959American Airlines opened the jet age in the United States with the first scheduled transcontinental flight of a Boeing 707.
1961President John F. Kennedy held the first presidential news conference carried live on radio and TV.
1971Charles Manson and three female followers were convicted in Los Angeles of murder and conspiracy in the 1969 slayings of seven people, including actress Sharon Tate.
1988Vice President George Bush and Dan Rather clashed on "The CBS Evening News" as the anchorman attempted to question the Republican presidential candidate about his role in the Iran-Contra affair.
1994Singer Michael Jackson settled a child molestation lawsuit against him.
1995The defense gave its opening statement in the O.J. Simpson trial in Los Angeles, saying Simpson was the victim of a "rush to judgment" by authorities.
2006The Islamic militant group Hamas won a large majority of seats in Palestinian parliamentary elections.
2007Ford Motor Co. said it had lost a staggering $12.7 billion in 2006, the worst loss in the company's 103-year history.

Current Birthdays
Alicia Keys turns 30 years old today.

AP Photo/Evan Agostini R&B singer Alicia Keys turns 30 years old today.

83Eduard Shevardnadze
Former president of Georgia
80Dean Jones
Actor
73Etta James
Blues singer
53Dinah Manoff
Actress ("Empty Nest," "Soap")
32Christine Lakin
Actress ("Step by Step")
Historic Birthdays
Virginia Woolf
 
1/25/1882 - 3/28/1941
British author 

(Go to obit.)

71Giovanni Morone
1/25/1509 - 12/1/1580
Italian cardinal and diplomat

64Robert Boyle
1/25/1627 - 12/30/1691
Anglo-Irish chemist

77Joseph-Louis Lagrange
1/25/1736 - 4/10/1813
Italian-French mathematician

37Robert Burns
1/25/1759 - 7/21/1796
Scottish national poet

60Benjamin Robert Haydon
1/25/1786 - 6/22/1846
English historical painter/writer

77Dan Rice
1/25/1823 - 2/22/1900
American clown

50George Edward Pickett
1/25/1825 - 7/30/1875
American Confederate Army officer

76Charles Curtis
1/25/1860 - 2/8/1936
American 31st vice president

85Rufus Matthew Jones
1/25/1863 - 6/16/1948
American Quaker and author

91W. Somerset Maugham
1/25/1874 - 12/16/1965
English novelist/playwright

76William C. Bullitt
1/25/1891 - 2/15/1967
U.S. diplomat

73Paul-Henri Spaak
1/25/1899 - 7/31/1972
Post-World War II statesmen from Belgium

54Viljo Revell
1/25/1910 - 11/8/1964
Finnish architect

Go to a previous date.
SOURCE: The Associated Press
Front Page Image Provided by UMI

domingo, 23 de enero de 2011

La red social Facebook integra las llamadas de voz, así como el correo electrónico

La red social Facebook integra las llamadas de voz, así como el correo electrónico

La estrategia de Facebook es, desde siempre, permitir que terceras empresas puedan desarrollar aplicaciones sobre su plataforma para, de esta forma, convertirse en el eje central de las comunicaciones de los usuarios a través de Internet. Ahora, además de integrar un sistema de correo electrónico instantáneo, dará paso a las conversaciones de voz por el protocolo de Internet. El objetivo es que los internautas no salgan de Facebook ni cuando hablan por el móvil.


http://www.consumer.es/web/es/tecnologia/internet/2010/12/20/197500.php

Hackers, programadores y fabricantes trabajan en aplicaciones y dispositivos con control gestual basados en el desarrollo de Microsoft

Hackers, programadores y fabricantes trabajan en aplicaciones y dispositivos con control gestual basados en el desarrollo de Microsoft
Twittéalo

El pasado mes de noviembre, Microsoft puso a la venta Kinect, el periférico externo para la XboX 360 que permite controlar la videoconsola y los juegos asociados sin necesidad de un mando. Todo ello gracias a sus sensores y cámaras, que detectan el movimiento de las personas que se sitúan delante del dispositivo. En los primeros 25 días, Microsoft ha anunciado la venta de 2,5 millones de unidades de Kinect en todo el mundo, aunque algunos analistas amplían la cifra a ocho millones hasta finales de 2010.


http://www.consumer.es/web/es/tecnologia/hardware/2011/01/18/198227.php

Cómo incrementar tu índice h gracias a Google Scholar


Cómo incrementar tu índice h gracias a Google Scholar

A través del blog “la Ciencia de la Mula Francis”  he descubierto este interesante “post” publicado el 14 de enero que a continuación reproduzco:
“El informático Ike Antkare tiene 111 artículos en Google Scholar y un índice h de 94 (atesora 94 artículos con al menos 94 citas). Un genio, si no fuera porque Ike Antkare no existe, es una invención de Cyril Labbé del Laboratorio de Informática de Grenoble en la Universidad Joseph Fourier, Francia. Todos los artículos de Antkare han sido generados por ordenador gracias a Scigen y todas las citas a sus artículos son autocitas (como es obvio). Google Scholar no distingue entre artículos escritos por un científico o generados por un programa de ordenador. Labbé nos cuenta como lo hizo en su artículo “Ike Antkare, One of the Great Stars in the Scientific Firmament,” 22th Newsletter of the International Society for Scientometrics and Informetrics, June 2010. Visto en Bee, “Fun with the h-index,” Backreaction, Jan. 10, 2011. El trabajo de Labbé nos muestra lo fácil que es engañar a Google Scholar y con él a todas las herramientas informáticas de análisis bibliométrico basadas en él, como Publish or Perish o Scholarometer. No espero que nadie incremente de forma fraudulenta su CV gracias a Google Scholar, pero ver lo fácil que es hacerlo le hace a uno pensar sobre este asunto.”

idR – Measuring and Mapping Interdisciplinary Research


idR – Measuring and Mapping Interdisciplinary Research

“This website offers a novel tool, the overlay maps of science, as a method to explore the degree of interdisciplinarity of a set of publications. The overlay technique visualizes the spread of publications over the global map of science, i.e. the structure of science as obtained from the analysis of cross-citations between disciplines.”

El informe “La Sociedad de la Información en España 2010″ (vía Universo Abierto)


El informe “La Sociedad de la Información en España 2010″ (vía Universo Abierto)

“El informe La Sociedad de la Información en España 2010 presentado por Telefónica, destaca que durante los dos últimos años, el nivel de digitalización de contenidos y la realización de actividades de manera digital ha crecido en mayor grado entre las personas pertenecientes a los segmentos maduros (entre 45 y 64 años) que entre la media de la población. Una de las actividades que más va calando entre los mayores es la de la banca online.
Respecto a la evolución de las tecnologías de acceso, la demanda de la banda ancha en España sigue creciendo. Durante 2010 se han sobrepasado los 10 millones de líneas de banda ancha fija, lo que supone un crecimiento del 8,3%. De esos diez millones de accesos, el 80% son soportados por tecnología ADSL, mientras que un 19% corresponden al cable. Seguir leyendo
 A continuación os dejo un  vídeo  que recoge los principales cambios producidos en estos últimos diez años.

¿Quién ha dicho que la estadística es aburrida?


¿Quién ha dicho que la estadística es aburrida?

Hans Rosling, profesor de Salud Pública y Bioestadística en el Karonlinska Institutet de Suecia, trata de desmontar el “mito” de que la estadística es aburrida y para ello ha elaborado un vídeo, de una hora de duración, que lleva por título “The Joy of Stats“, producido por Wingspan Productions y difundido por la BBC en 2010.
A continuación os presento un extracto de ese documental que pone de manifiesto que la presentación de datos estadísticos puede ser divertida.
Rosling es director y cofundador de la Fundación Gapminder que ha desarrollado el sistema de visualización de datos Trendalyzer, adquirido y utilizado por Google.
En la página web de la Fundación Gapminder, podemos encontrar vídeos, animaciones interactivas y una aplicación que permite mostrar series de datos, cómo evolucionan, ver tendencias, etc. Esta aplicación integra datos sobre la población mundial recopilados de diversas fuentes de información. Podemos encontrar más de 400 indicadores sobre demografía, tecnología, salud, educación, etc.
Podéis encontrar mucha más información en: http://www.gapminder.org

InTech


InTech – Editor Open Access en Ciencia, Tecnología y Medicina (vía Universo Abierto)


InTech es una editorial de acceso abierto multidisciplinar de revistas y libros que cubren los campos de Ciencia, Tecnología y Medicina mediante el uso de las tecnologías de la web semántica. Desde 2004, ha publicado más de 300 libros con el objetivo de facilitar el acceso gratuito en línea para la investigación de calidad. En la actualidad publica tres revistas científicas y más de 200 libros al año, además de una colección de más de 6.500 capítulos de libros.
La calidad de las revistas científicas y libros InTech está avalada por las valiosas contribuciones de los investigadores, y del reconocimiento científico de sus editores, árbitros y comités científicos. Por esta razón selecciona y colabora sólo con destacados profesionales…” Seguir leyendo
 Enlace: Universo Abierto