Agriculture

  1. Agriculture

    Of swine flu, pigs and a state fair

    To date, federal monitoring has yet to turn up any U.S. pigs infected with the killer swine flu strain known as H1N1. But Agriculture Department Secretary Tom Vilsack announced yesterday that his agency’s veterinary labs would be reexamining whether any of the apparently healthy pigs exhibited last August 16 to Sept. 1 at the Minnesota state fair might have been infected with the virus. Why? “An outbreak of 2009 pandemic H1N1 influenza occurred in a group of children housed in a dormitory at the fair at the same time samples were collected from the pigs,” USDA notes

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  2. Ecosystems

    Windy with a chance of weevils

    Scientists have traced the reappearance of cotton pests in west-central Texas to a tropical storm.

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  3. Agriculture

    Potato famine pathogen packs unusual, sneaky genome

    DNA of infamous Phytophthora microbe reveals big, quick-changing zones, possibly the key to the pathogen’s vexing adaptability

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  4. Chemistry

    Nitrous oxide fingered as monster ozone slayer

    Nitrous oxide has become the leading threat to the future integrity of stratospheric ozone, scientists report.

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  5. Agriculture

    Pesticide potency can depend on bug’s clock

    The daily rhythms in gene activity can affect the toxicity of some poisons.

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  6. Agriculture

    How weed killers might protect our eyes: It’s corny

    Herbicides can boost trace-nutrient concentrations in sweet corn.

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  7. Agriculture

    Pesticide may seed American infant formulas with melamine

    An insecticide may underlie traces of melamine, a toxic constituent of plastics and other materials, now being found in infant formulas.

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  8. Climate

    Cultivation changed monsoon in Asia

    The loss of forests in India, China during the 1700s led to a decline in monsoon precipitation.

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  9. Earth

    Federal budget’s new ‘black book’

    The administration details a proposed $17 billion in budget savings in a new book.

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  10. Health & Medicine

    Science budgets look rosy, AAAS finds

    The president and Congress have collaborated in targeting substantial increases for federal investments in R&D this year.

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  11. Plants

    Landscaper’s darling hybridizes into an environmental nuisance

    Variation underlies the Callery pear tree’s transformation .

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  12. Agriculture

    News from Experimental Biology

    Senior editor Janet Raloff blogs from the 2009 meeting gathering dozens of societies together in New Orleans

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