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Recent interest in land grabs or the international acquisition of land to produce rice is sparked by a looming threat of inadequate rice supplies. To put it simply, there is not enough rice to feed the world, says Dr. Robert Zeigler, director general of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI). To meet the need and keep rice prices around US$300 a ton which allows poor rice farmers to make some profit yet keeps rice affordable for poor rice consumers we need to produce an additional 810 million tons of rice more than in the pr...

A team of researchers, at Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, has identified a group of 12 genetic variants in the HSPB7 gene that is associated with heart failure in humans. The research is reported in the Journal of Clinical Investigation. The team, led by Gerald Dorn, used an approach they have recently developed that allows ultra-high-throughput targeted DNA sequencing to identify genetic variation in four genes with biological relevance to heart failure. They identified in a large group of Caucasian individu...

Researchers at Binghamton University, State University of New York, have identified three key regulators required for the formation and development of biofilms. The discovery could lead to new ways of treating chronic infections. Biofilms -- communities of bacteria in self-produced slime -- may be found almost anywhere that solids and liquids meet, whether in nature, in hospitals or in industrial settings. Biofilms are implicated in more than 80 percent of chronic inflammatory and infectious diseases caused by bacteria, including ear infecti...