From the DOE/PACIFIC NORTHWEST NATIONAL LABORATORY and the “you can hear green heads exploding” department comes this bit of news sure to short circuit some people that are anti GMO but think the planet is doomed unless we do something about the threat of greenhouse gas emissions.
Tiny grains of rice hold big promise for greenhouse gas reductions, bioenergy
Discovery delivers high starch content, virtually no methane emissions
With their warm, waterlogged soils, rice paddies contribute up to 17 percent of global methane emissions, the equivalent of about 100 million tons each year. While this represents a much smaller percentage of overall greenhouse gases than carbon dioxide, methane is about 20 times more effective at trapping heat. SUSIBA2 rice, as the new strain is dubbed, is the first high-starch, low-methane rice that could offer a significant and sustainable solution.
Researchers created SUSIBA2 rice by introducing a single gene from barley into common rice, resulting in a plant that can better feed its grains, stems and leaves while starving off methane-producing microbes in the soil.
The results, which appear in the July 30 print edition of Nature and online, represent a culmination of more than a decade of work by researchers in three countries, including Christer Jansson, director of plant sciences at the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and EMSL, DOE’s Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory. Jansson and colleagues hypothesized the concept while at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and carried out ongoing studies at the university and with colleagues at China’s Fujian Academy of Agricultural Sciences and Hunan Agricultural University.
“The need to increase starch content and lower methane emissions from rice production is widely recognized, but the ability to do both simultaneously has eluded researchers,” Jansson said. “As the world’s population grows, so will rice production. And as the Earth warms, so will rice paddies, resulting in even more methane emissions. It’s an issue that must be addressed.”
Channeling carbon
During photosynthesis, carbon dioxide is absorbed and converts to sugars to feed or be stored in various parts of the plant. Researchers have long sought to better understand and control this process to coax out desired characteristics of the plant. Funneling more carbon to the seeds in rice results in a plumper, starchier grain. Similarly, carbon and resulting sugars channeled to stems and leaves increases their mass and creates more plant biomass, a bioenergy feedstock.
In early work in Sweden, Jansson and his team investigated how distribution of sugars in plants could be controlled by a special protein called a transcription factor, which binds to certain genes and turns them on or off.
“By controlling where the transcription factor is produced, we can then dictate where in a plant the carbon – and resulting sugars – accumulate,” Jansson said.
To narrow down the mass of gene contenders, the team started with grains of barley that were high in starch, then identified genes within that were highly active. The activity of each gene then was analyzed in an attempt to find the specific transcription factor responsible for regulating the conversion of sugar to starch in the above-ground portions of the plant, primarily the grains.
The master plan
Upon discovery of the transcription factor SUSIBA2, for SUgar SIgnaling in BArley 2, further investigation revealed it was a type known as a master regulator. Master regulators control several genes and processes in metabolic or regulatory pathways. As such, SUSIBA2 had the ability to direct the majority of carbon to the grains and leaves, and essentially cut off the supply to the roots and soil where certain microbes consume and convert it to methane.
Researchers introduced SUSIBA2 into a common variety of rice and tested its performance against a non-modified version of the same strain. Over three years of field studies in China, researchers consistently demonstrated that SUSIBA2 delivered increased crop yields and a near elimination of methane emissions.
Next steps
Jansson will continue his work with SUSIBA2 this fall to further investigate the mechanisms involved with the allocation of carbon using mass spectrometry and imaging capabilities at EMSL. Jansson and collaborators also want to analyze how roots and microbial communities interact to gain a more holistic understanding of any impacts a decrease in methane-producing bacteria may have.
###
Reference: J. Su, C. Hu, X. Yan, Y. Jin, Z. Chen, Q. Guan, Y. Wang, D. Zhong, C. Jansson, F. Wang, A. Schnurer, C. Sun. Expression of barley SUSIBA2 transcription factor yields high-starch low-methane rice, Nature July 22 (online), 2015, DOI: 10.1038/nature14673
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Traditional rice moves methane from the soil into the atmosphere where the sun will convert the methane into CO2 and water vapour. Problem solved..
It is claimed that this rice leaves the methane in the soil, saving humanity from a dangerously enlarged methane footprint. But what about the increased accumulation of methane in the soil with this newfangled rice?
Now the greenies have two reasons to burn the labs and destroy the rice…..
My issue with GMOs is our human track record. We’re all pretty much too young to remember radium-laced super bread, radium tonic water, radium suppositories and other products when the science of radioactivity was new. Some of us may remember shoe-store fluoroscopes, where the x-rays were “hot” enough to produce “live” images of one’s foot bones in the shoe — not too bad for the customer, but ultimately hell for the shoe sales staff who had to work next to it hour after hour, day after day.
Shoe-store x-ray machines continued in use into the ’70s. I work with radiation scientists who can still remember handling — bare-handed — millcurie amounts of radioactive materials.
Eventually we caught on that this wasn’t such a good idea; I daresay, though, that the worry-warts of 1920 were laughed at much as the GMO worry-warts are today. Fine; go experiment on yourselves; leave me out of it, please.
Agreed, mellyrn. Decades, maybe centuries, from now humans may have acquired enough knowledge about genetics actually to have some idea what they are doing when they patch bits of genes from different species together. Right now, they do not, as witness how quickly the use of “Roundup-resistant” crop plants resulted in “Roundup-indifferent” weeds developing. Nature has millions of years of experience at making genes work; we don’t.
Someone up the page was arguing that this stuff is good because the poor in third-world countries “don’t have organic food stores” from which to select a range of foods to improve their nutrition. FFS. With the agricultural knowledge we already have, and by doing something about the economic parasites who distort the markets in foodstuffs to the point where the world’s poor can no longer afford to “compete” for the food to keep them alive, it would be an incomparably less destructive option simply to distribute the food we already have properly.
As there are no known disbenefits from CO2 emission, this rice’s “breakthrough feature” is irrelevant at best. Plus, we don’t know (or even have the faintest idea) what problems will result when (not if) the corrupted genes of this stuff head off into the wild like “Roundup-resistance” did. Children, matches, explosive store. And, of course, there is no way you or I can opt out of the genetically mutated environment they’re building.
I find it depressing how readily many who can see through the big-money pseudoscientific scam of global warming are apparently taken in by the big-money pseudoscientific scam of genetic mutilation.
Cheap food is not necessarily a great thing for all. If food is very cheap, how does a farmer make a living? A great many poor people are farmers, They are poor because food is very cheap, or the person who owns the land takes almost all the income by ‘clever means’ involving loans.
I wish it was simple. It is not.
I think you are are more than able to keep yourself out of it, mellryn. On the other hand, based on a lot of what I’ve seen, your type usually seems to instead want to prevent others from getting the benefits.
“Rice serves as the staple food for more than half of the world’s population, but it’s also the one of the largest manmade sources of atmospheric methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Now, with the addition of a single gene, rice can be cultivated to emit virtually no methane from its paddies during growth.”
This is a
http://specials-images.forbesimg.com/imageserve/0dxtgIPfE28OE/0x600.jpg?fit=scale&background=000000
sales pitch for a quality in a product that no one in their right mind would ever possibly desire.
If the Boomer Generation gets enamored of this idiotic green product, they will try to mandate it. They have already done us enough favors.
The methane angle of sales
http://images.wisegeek.com/woman-showing-pie-chart-in-office.jpg
will in effect justify the destructive green policies against beef and dairy cattle. Cattle are also “manmade sources of atmospheric methane” — which is a
http://cdn2.hubspot.net/hubfs/491550/Images/pushy-salesman.png
“potent greenhouse gas.”
Sign here.
We had an insurance salesman in chief and got Obamacare, which the House tried to repeal 30 times.
Hillary Clinton will be selling solar panels and worthless windturbines.
And we should expect an electric car salesman from the National Republican Committee.
But methane-free rice salesman has to be scraping the bottom of the bottom.
http://specials-images.forbesimg.com/imageserve/0dxtgIPfE28OE/0x600.jpg
To AndyG55
July 29, 2015 at 5:26 pm
“Hey, does anyone know of any type of blanket that COOLS you when you get too hot ?”
Although not a blanket, you could do as we used to do here in Phoenix before air conditioners: cover yourself with a wet sheet. The evaporation will cool you down indeed.
I suspect using Alfoil as a blanket would cool you in most circumstances.
Utter B.S.
Does this mean Neil Young has to write ANOTHER three chord song???? Noooo!!
“Neil Young’s New Song Attacks Starbucks for GMO Use”
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/alatheia-larsen/2015/06/02/neil-youngs-new-song-attacks-starbucks-gmo-use
(Starbucks = Monstanto?? What’s a left-wing eco-hypocrite to do??)
“Researchers created SUSIBA2 rice by introducing a single gene from barley into common rice…”
OK, but can this franken-barley-rice be made into a decent beer?
Finally, someone asks the important question!
Sounds great — but what happens to the viability of the rice paddie by reducing the methane factor the life cycle loop? Does it become less agri-friendly?
I this there are two issues, namely the methane emission and its contribution to global warming and the other issue is the inputs going in to the production of the GMO paddy. Let us see the first issue:
Natural variability component plays an important role in temperature along with seasonal and annual variations — extremes [USA temperature presents a 60-year cycle. Since 1920 the measured data showed two 30 year above the average part of the cycle and one 30-year below the average part]. Secondly, the equation that relate anthropogenic greenhouse gases with global warming component. That means, equation along with the constants that relates the global temperature rise in association with anthropogenic greenhouse gases under greenhouse effect — and its share in global temperature rise that include local and regional components. Without this, there is no use of talking temperature rise. The feedback sum – sensitivity factor is monotonically declining from SAR to AR5 [IPCC’s]. This may further decline in AR6, AR7, etc and thus change in temperature with increasing CO2/Methane may reach a plateau like in ‘b’ that given below figure – here ‘a’ relates to naturally existing CO2/Methane in the atmosphere component of relative temperature change: Relative Stress: S. J.Reddy]- Agric. For. Meteorol., 1995, 77:113-120. So, the methane issue is not of importance.
As a food, is the GMO rice acceptable to people and the fodder is useful to animal. Whether it is GMO or non-GMO they yield under chemical inputs and irrigation. Chemical inputs create air, water, soil & food pollution. The methane component could be controlled through traditional system. Srivari paddy system of cultivation.
All the hype on methane is to corporatize the paddy seed like cotton and increase the farmers suicides. Journals will publish such articles as it is within the perview of the editorial committee members.
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
Thanks Dr Reddy.
Methane is a much more potent GHG than CO2, but there isn’t any to speak of. Why then to we speak of it? Ideas?
‘Andyj
July 29, 2015 at 2:36 pm
There is no vitamin A deficiency in the Philippines. The cure does not need chemists who need a 1st world wage.
High vitamin A foods include sweet potatoes, carrots, dark leafy greens, winter squashes, lettuce, dried apricots, cantaloupe, bell peppers, fish, liver, and tropical fruits. Where
there is a lack of “A”, they
grow best. The irony is noted.’
the vegan keyword is renewable, performed bottom up in the toilet.
4 specialized stomaches in a cow is 3 times returning to dump for vegans.
mod. it’s yours.
As a biologist I see long-term negative implications for this rice on the soil quality and fertility for 3rd world countries and econmies that cannot afford expensive fertilizers.
Imagine if you will, taking antibiotics so that your “nasty” commensal bacteria in your gut is wiped-out Should you be healthier? Think again. It will make you quite ill as pathogenic bacteria takeover and your immune system goes nuts.
The natural strains of rice, cultivated for thousands of years with little or no need for exogenous fertilizer, has evolved to feed the soil bacteria around its roots. That the bacteria does something it needs. Fix nitrogen maybe. Protect against pathogenic bacteria strains, maybe. Breakdown dead material to provide more nutrients. Just like our gut commensal bacteria, the roots of rice have commensal bacteria they feed.
“Mars Needs Women.”
Great! Earth will coral the lot and sequester the smelly mess on a big ass space ship, without douche and tampons, and blow the fucker up in low earth orbit so the stinking bits of the load can burn up on re-entry to Earth.
Ha ha
Looks like NASA Mars Colonization Plan. And since each Astronaut is US National Property, they, NASA, collect the death insurance benefits and then have a one big ass drunk party.
Ha ha
OTT.
Would someone please inform me as to the basis for the statements that methane is 20 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than CO2.
Methane absorbs in the same region as water. At average humidity (2.5%) there are 14700 water molecules for each methane (1.7 ppm) A graph of absorption in the infra red 7 to 8.5µm range shows the total absorption by all gases to be almost totally due to water with methane having virtually no additive effect whatsoever.
This is logical given the relative proportion of methane to water.
The longevity of a molecule in the atmosphere is irrelevant, the only thing that matters is the concentration and whether that is increasing or not, doubling methane would still leave some 7000 water to methane so still likely to have little to no effect.
Think of it in terms of that photon of IR leaving the Earth. If it is going to hit a molecule and be absorbed it is far more likely to hit a water than it is to hit a methane, so what is the physical basis for the claim that it is so much more dangerous than CO2 or Water.
“Would someone please inform me as to the basis for the statements that methane is 20 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than CO2”
Yes, i have read the same.. ignorable. Seems doubling CH4 is equivalent to raising the relative humidity from 53.3% to 53.301%, maybe 53.302%, same “backradiation” effect…. did you not feel the awesome downwelling surge on that increase? Oh, with no atmospheric temperature change, no “backradiation” effect, right? Now where in the world did that “hot spot” go to? Now with co2 at 1/20th the effect and 235 times the concentration what is it’s R.H. equivalent? R,H, –> 53.312%, maybe 53.324% ? /sarc off
Something to think about though.
Physical basis… none as far as I can tell. The real basis for such statements… money… grants or investment market manipulations.
You are perfectly correct for questioning the physical relevance.
Water green, CO2 red, methane in yellow:
http://www.rockyhigh66.org/stuff/atmospheric_ghg_absorption3.png
Surely this could have nothing to do with the goal of global food domination and monopolization of seeds.
We get there in the end. Rice keeps most of the world alive. When you can’t grow anything else, it’ll do despite its shortcomings, and engineering can go some way to fixing that.
https://thepointman.wordpress.com/2011/05/20/the-big-green-killing-machine-what-is-vad/
Pointman
GMO gives you cancer. Just look at the stats from US vs Europe.
Juan: More than 99% of people with cancer drank filtered, treated water. It’s a correlation that is highly significant.
ROFL
But aren’t the soil microbes incredibly important for the recycling of nutrients and other processes?
“but it’s also the one of the largest manmade sources of atmospheric methane,”
If rice emits methane, something I didn’t know, then the methane is rice produced it isn’t manmade. It doesn’t matter if human planted most of the rice, the methane still isn’t manmade.
Sorry, that’s not how it works. Greenhouse gases from farming are counted as man-made, whether emanating from rice or cows or other ruminants. Which makes sense.
GMO’s have something important in common with climate alarmism: money has made “scientists” into liars. In both cases, the lies are serious enough to threaten your life.
Climate alarmism denies photosynthesis, the very basis of all life. Also we evolved with bodies that metabolize all nutrients to CO2, so our physiology is set for some optimum amount. The amount in the blood is very tightly controlled. The sparse information we have suggests that the atmospheric optimum is many times higher than present, never mind a mere doubling. You will live longer, and with more vitality, bounce and happiness with more carbon dioxide. I believe our society’s strong craving for soda pop is a desire for more carbon dioxide. This is also part of the attraction for champagne, wine and beer.
GMO “scientists” and advocates have been told by seemingly top qualified sources that GMOs have been extensively tested for 20 years longer than they have even existed, and have been proven absolutely safe. In fact, few tests have been done and those few have produced dozens of statistically significant results in rodents. Cancer has come up more than once. Many farmers have reported fertility problems in farm animals, and I suspect that is the one that will eventually wake up humanity and shut GMO production down.
GMO advocates also think no humans have ever been harmed. The industry has successfully covered up the first human consumable, an amino acid supplement named L-tryptophan, which helps people fall asleep. All of a sudden, this had to be pulled from the market when deaths and the most agonizing disease doctors (!) had ever seen was associated with it. This turned out to be one manufacturer who used a genetically engineered bacterium to produce the L-tryptophan. This was brushed off as a failure of filtration, especially when a few cases turned up from earlier batches from the same mfr. But the deadly strain was version 5. Strain 1 was wild-type; and strains 2,3,4,5 were increasingly modified to produce more tryptophan. Strain 5 produced 80 deaths and thousands of severe disabilities that surely also shortened life. In context, it is hardly comforting that the 4th strain also caused a few deaths.
Potentially, the anti-GMO people are our friends in the battle for climate truth. They know about “science” lies. They want healthy life. They are often aware of Restoration Agriculture, and that will enable them to be “right” enough to face the fact that they have been lied to about CO2. CO2 makes healthier life. You can probably get them interested in researching “climate optimum,” and that means higher temperatures anyway.
If we are going to win the battle for climate truth and sensible policies, we have got to find groups like this and work with them.
I don’t see this skeptic joining forces with anti-science, anti-GMO ideologues, ever.
“I don’t see this skeptic joining forces with anti-science, anti-GMO ideologues, ever.”
================================
Anti-science is the art of intentionally thwarting scientific investigation.
It can mean burying inconvenient data, such as the genetically engineered Tryptophan disaster that occurred before the public was even aware that GM products were on the market, or it can mean whitewashing the disaster when people are aware of it by trying to blame hippies and the dietary supplements industry for promoting the use of an essential amino acid.
Science is the pursuit of explanatory fitness: it is not the pursuit of profits from technology regardless of the consequences.
* Anti-science by the FDA banned the sale of the essential amino acid L-Tryptophan from established safe (non-GM) sources.
* Anti-science by Showa Denko destroyed all traces of the GM bacteria, preventing us from testing the procedure and knowing with 100% certainty what went wrong.
* Anti-science from Mercke & the FDA suppressed negative results that allowed doctors to prescribe the deadly but very profitable Vioxx.
* Anti-science discourages and disparages investigation into non-patentable therapies, because you can’t turn them into a “blockbuster” so that you can “make a killing” on the market/.
I’m not against GMO, btw. I’m against proprietary life™ and all the anti-science employed to promote it.
Wow. This will change the GM debate fast in many countries. Few will care about the methane aspect, but a major boost to yields is a no brainer. Main roadblock is that the worlds poorest cant afford to buy seed yearly, so for it to be fully embraced might need it to be stabilized into something you can save your own seed from.
“While this represents a much smaller percentage of overall greenhouse gases than carbon dioxide, methane is about 20 times more effective at trapping heat.”
What rubbish! It does nothing of the sort.
Of course it does, you can look it up. Or you can pretend.
In that case could you please explain the physical basis for such a claim. A photon of IR of the right wavelength is either absorbed or not absorbed. So how can methane be so much more effective than water. pointing readers to some web site that makes such a claim does not mean it is correct. If you cannot explain the physical basis for such a claim then perhaps it is you who should do some research.
Sounds like the research is an advance in the science of developing plants, but the current result is not a worthwhile product.
doesn’t anyone care about the microbes? oh the humanity, err the microbity. trillions will starve to death.