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Leaf prices fall for 2005
Blake Brown, agricultural and resource economicsLandscape architect to discuss mountain water quality
Jon Calabria, biological and agricultural engineeringTV clip: Senior Design Day
Senior Design DayPlan may dislodge College Cup
Charlie Cobb, athleticsStorytelling, panel by panel
College of TextilesSome N.C. Christmas trees infested
cooperative extension
Easley
pays tribute to 'a future something'
Kerry/Edwards rally
Cracking
the Genomic Code: Gene Decoding Revealed at Atomic Level
Paul F. Agris, biochemistry
Anarchists
explain views
student activism
Dec. 3, 2004
News & Observer
By KINEA WHITE
© Copyright 2004
At first there were just white pieces of loose fabric.
But after about six weeks of creative energy from the students at Douglas Elementary School, the fabric was brought to life in the form of a fairy tale about Monet, a passionate young dragon who loves art.
Being an arts and science magnet, each year the school focuses on a major project that will sharpen the students' skills in those areas. This year, the project was designing and constructing a "story quilt."
Through the quilt, the students tell the story of how Monet struggles with her father, who objects to her becoming an artist after her mother dies.
The project was funded through grants from the N.C. Arts Council and the United Arts Council of Raleigh & Wake County. The grants allowed the school to work with independent artist Peg Gignoux and literacy specialist Susie Wilde.
The school tapped into artistic skills from their smallest pupils, who painted stripes, circles and squares, to the older students, who made collages, wrote the story and dyed the fabric.
"This is a project where they all they had their hands in it," said Gignoux.
As part of the project, on Nov. 22 the students took a trip to N.C. State University's College of Textiles where they saw how the quilt would be made. There, they viewed the digital process of imprinting the story on the quilt, silkscreening the dragon and beading the quilt's front.
On Tuesday, some of the fourth-grade students looked over their finished product and talked about what they learned through the project.
"It was really cool how the school worked together," said Lauren Frey.
The students said they learned how to share ideas with younger students and how to edit their work.
"The littlest things can make the biggest difference," said Nicholas Bascunan-Wiley.
Principal Vicki Perry said this opportunity was a good way for the students to put to use what they learn in the classroom
"We teach a lot of content and sometimes content can be so bland," she said. With this project, "the students really enjoy creating, and they learn the process."
The quilt will hang outside the school's media center.
Dec. 3, 2004
News & Observer
By J. ANDREW CURLISS AND VALERIE BAUERLEIN
© Copyright 2004
To hear some tell it, Gov. Mike Easley spent much of the spring, summer and fall running from any chance to appear with U.S. Sen. John Edwards.
Easley skipped the huge welcome-home rally for Edwards at N.C. State University after John Kerry selected Edwards for the Democratic ticket -- a snub noticed by many at the time.
The governor stayed home and missed the Democratic National Convention in Boston, where Edwards accepted the vice presidential nomination.
Easley did stump once in Iowa in January for Edwards but didn't appear with him or travel on his behalf again. There would be no photos of the two hugging.
That made it all the more unusual when Easley appeared at Edwards' farewell tour stop this week in Raleigh, saying that he pushed to introduce the senator to the 400 who were gathered.
"Now, he wanted to come down tonight to thank you," Easley said. "And when I found out he was going to be here, I said I wanted to be the one to introduce him because I want to make sure that somebody thanks Sen. John Edwards for all he's done for us."
Easley went on to say that the two talked quite a bit on the phone in the past year -- "times you wouldn't know about."
And he talked about Edwards' character, integrity and values.
He said he admired Edwards for the clients he chose as a lawyer in Raleigh.
He said that as a senator, Edwards fought for the "poor and weak."
"He still knew he could do more and have a greater impact," the governor said. "And when you know you can do more, you have to do more."
His voice rising, Easley said it was important that Edwards made his run.
"He let the word go out in a clear voice that if you are going to run for president of the United States, you're gonna talk about those issues that affect the real people of this country," Easley said. "And he put those issues on the table and he made us talk about them, Democrats and Republicans ... Elevating the level of debate."
To top it off, the governor said, Edwards' bid has given the state "more than $100 million in positive publicity."
How so?
"I remember driving around when I was younger to another state and as soon as you'd get out of your car, they'd ask you where you were from," Easley said.
When the reply was North Carolina, the response was inevitable.
"Oh, ol' Jesse Helms," Easley said.
He paused, then added: "Well, not anymore."
The crowd roared.
Easley then turned to introduce Edwards, and reflected the uncertainty over what the senator will do for the next four years.
"Ladies and gentlemen," Easley said, "a future something and my good friend, John Edwards."
Meanwhile, back home
Congress is not in session this week, but a slow time in Washington means a busy time back home and elsewhere.
* U.S. Rep. David Price grabbed a hard hat and shovel Tuesday and helped break ground at a new Efland middle school.
Price helped land a $496,000 federal grant to pay for a wastewater system, and the school will be one of its users.
* U.S. Rep. Brad Miller was in Baton Rouge, La., campaigning for Charlie Melancon, the Democrat seeking the seat of retiring U.S. Rep. Billy Tauzin, a colorful -- and powerful -- Republican. A runoff for the seat is Saturday.
* Rep. Bob Etheridge took a tour of the Stevens Foundation in Sanford to see two Eagle Scout projects at the center for children and adults with disabilities.
* New legislators, including Sen.-elect Richard Burr and incoming representatives Patrick McHenry and Virginia Fox, spent time setting up their offices and gearing up for their swearing-in Jan. 4.
Be on the lookout for your legislator this month on some float somewhere. Many of them will take part in local Christmas parades.
"It's that time of year," said Sara Lang, Etheridge's spokeswoman.
Landscape architect to discuss mountain water quality
Dec. 3, 2004
Asheville Citizen-Times
By staff report
© Copyright 2004
ASHEVILLE - Jon Calabria of the N.C. State Extension Service, will speak on "Improving Water Quality in the Mountains: Case Studies," at 4 p.m. Monday in room 104 of the Highsmith University Center on the UNC Asheville campus. The presentation is free and open to the public.
Calabria works with land managers, local officials and private individuals to minimize water quality impacts that result from a variety of land uses, from agriculture to development. He holds a degree in landscape architecture from the School of Environmental Design, University of Georgia, and is a registered landscape architect in North Carolina and Georgia. As a landscape architect with N.C. State University, Water Quality Group, Calabria is the French Broad Training Center coordinator who manages water quality improvement education and demonstration projects. His experience includes stream and wetland restoration; conservation master planning; and greenway and park design.
This presentation is the third in a yearlong lecture series presented by the UNCA environmental studies department, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Forest Service.
For more information, call Gary Peeples of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service at 258-3939, Ext. 234.
Dec. 3, 2004
Winston-Salem Journal
By David Rice
© Copyright 2004
With the elimination of tobacco price supports and an abundance of leaf from Brazil this year, tobacco farmers face a brave new world of free markets - and sharply lower prices for their leaf in 2005.
Growers who attended a conference at N.C. State University yesterday on research and market conditions reacted to prices that tobacco companies are offering for 2005. Those prices already reflect the elimination of price supports that accompanied approval of a $10.1 billion buyout of federal tobacco quotas this year.
"I knew they were going to fall, but I was hoping they were going to fall at a slower rate," said Benny Lee, whose family grows 250 acres of tobacco in Harnett County. "We are in a transitional stage - farmers are undecided about what they can do in the future."
The cost of renting quota - the federal license to grow tobacco - was part of the formula for determining tobacco price supports. But with the elimination of quotas and price supports, economists expected the price of U.S.-grown leaf eventually to fall by the 40 to 60 cents a pound that many farmers paid to rent quota.
Leaf that sold for roughly $1.85 a pound this year will sell for average prices that will range from $1.35 a pound to $1.50 a pound under the contracts cigarette-makers and leaf dealers recently began offering, said Blake Brown, an agricultural economist at N.C. State.
Farmers will decide whether to sign contracts for those prices over the next six weeks.
"It's a transitional time, and everybody's got to get down and put a pencil to it and see if they can come out," Lee said.
The sudden price adjustments by tobacco companies appeared to surprise even Brown, who had projected a decline in prices to $1.42 to $1.49 a pound over three years after a quota buyout.
But Brown pointed out that Brazil has a large crop of 1.6 billion pounds of flue-cured tobacco this year - three times the size of the U.S. crop.
"I think prices have adjusted fairly quickly in this period of transition," he said. "Perhaps the reason for that is that there's just a lot of flue-cured tobacco in the world right now."
Brown said he expects that total flue-cured tobacco acreage will decline in 2005.
"We're going to have a lot of farmers who exit this year.... We have a lot of farmers who are of retirement age and have been waiting for this buyout," he said.
Many of the farmers who remain and face lower prices want to grow more leaf to make up the difference.
"I think we have the infrastructure to grow more," said Sam Crews, the president of the Tobacco Growers Association of North Carolina.
"I think a lot of the growers would like to grow more at a reasonable price to maximize their efficiencies," Crews said. "But we don't want to get into the situation where we're working twice as hard for the same amount of money," he said.
Tobacco companies and growers alike are anxious to see how many growers leave the business this year. "Depending on how many farmers exit, we could see individual farmers pick up some acreage," Brown said.
Many farmers want to grow more leaf to make use of idle curing barns and equipment, but not so much that they must buy new equipment, he said.
"I think this year will be a year of farmer selection by the companies," Brown said. "This will be a year in which relationships will be established or not established between farmers and companies. These will be long-term relationships."
With Brazil accounting for so much of the world supply of leaf, tobacco companies might want to spread their risk and buy more U.S. leaf, Brown said.
"They're a bit nervous about having that much of the world's premium-style flue-cured tobacco concentrated in that small a geographic area," he said. "We expect these prices to bring a little bit of that tobacco back."
Industry leader Philip Morris USA, which controls half of the U.S. cigarette market, has offered growers the highest prices for 2005 at an average of $1.50 a pound.
"They look like the heroes," said Billy Carter, a farmer in Moore County who once headed the growers' association. "In reality, what they're offering is on the marginal edge of being fair."
Tobacco companies have told growers that depending on how many growers leave the business, the remaining growers might be able to grow more leaf.
For medium-size growers who remain and grow from 40 to 100 acres of tobacco a year, "They're going to get a shot at growing some more," Carter said.
Tobacco companies are engaged in a court fight over whether passage of the $10.1 billion quota buyout entitles them to refunds of $420 million in so-called Phase II payments that were due to farmers this year under a 1999 agreement.
But Crews and other farm leaders said that the Phase II payments are essential now because many farmers have budgeted their payments for 2004, and they probably won't get their first buyout checks until the fall of 2005.
Larry Wooten, the president of N.C. Farm Bureau, agreed.
"Farmers are depending on these Phase II payments to help them pay bills for 2004.... They need these payments to prepare for '05," Wooten said.
"I think it's a cruel joke to play on the farmers and quota holders to withhold those (Phase II) payments because of a technicality in the agreement," he said. "This is no way to start a relationship in a new era of producing tobacco."
Dec. 2, 2004
WRAL, WB-22 and News 14 Carolina
By staff reports
© Copyright 2004
WRAL, WB-22 and News 14 Carolina featured stories about Senior Design Day.
Dec. 3, 2004
News & Observer
By LUKE DECOCK
© Copyright 2004
A year ago, 8,267 fans filled SAS Soccer Park despite sleet and cold to watch the first day of the NCAA Women's College Cup, and 10,042 were there two days later under sunny skies as North Carolina won its 18th national title.
The Triangle's three-year run hosting NCAA soccer championships was off to a good start.
The Women's College Cup -- the semifinals and finals of the NCAA tournament -- returns today through Sunday, and the Men's College Cup will be in the Triangle next year. But beginning in 2006, the NCAA has plans to move the men's soccer schedule up a week, which would mean the two championships would be played during the same weekend.
The NCAA is considering holding both events at the same site to create a four-day festival of soccer. That could make it too unwieldy for SAS Soccer Park, N.C. State University and the Capital Area Soccer League to host the event.
This weekend, while the college women are playing at SAS, 252 under-16 and under-18 girls teams will fill hotel rooms and soccer fields throughout the Triangle, here to play in the youth tournament. These teams' players, parents and coaches were required to buy tickets to today's and Sunday's NCAA games, ensuring about 5,700 tickets were sold weeks ago to the UCLA-Princeton and Santa Clara-Notre Dame semifinals.
The youths' CASL Girls Showcase itself is a major tournament, one that will draw almost 500 college coaches to the area to recruit.
While the College Cup accounts for 1,150 hotel room-nights and $220,000 in visitor spending according to the Greater Raleigh Convention and Visitors Bureau, the Showcase dwarfs it with 9,000 hotel room-nights and $2.5 million in spending.
The College Cup, on the other hand, gets two days of exposure on ESPN2 and further evidence to the NCAA that the Triangle is a fertile home for its championships.
It's an economic system that works for the NCAA, CASL, NCSU and Cary, which manages the soccer park and stadium, but it would be difficult to double to host the men and the women together.
"We found a model that works for us the way it is now," said Charlie Cobb, associate athletics director at NCSU. "If it changes, obviously we can adjust and see where it goes. It's such a good soccer market, the only real question you have is weather, and that's the case anywhere."
Bidding on next round
Bids to host the 2006 and 2007 championships -- men's, women's and combined -- were due Wednesday, but the NCAA won't make a decision until February. The Triangle organizing committee was given some deadline flexibility because of its host duties, but Cobb said bids would be submitted for all three scenarios after the teams leave town.
"My goal is for this area to have a College Cup every year," said Charlie Slagle, CASL's chief executive officer. "Whether that's men's or women's is something that will have to be talked about."
The direction the NCAA chooses to go will be determined by the bids it receives, said Tom Jacobs, the NCAA's director of championships. Cobb, as a member of the women's soccer committee, will have a say. So will Wake Forest men's coach Jay Vidovich, a member of the men's soccer committee.
"There's a possibility of making a tremendous soccer weekend and trying to develop the sport," Vidovich said. "That could be great. I also think right now, both championships are in a situation where they need to find a way to grow. ... That's one of the first issues that the men's committee has to face: How do we grow this and make it a premier event once again?"
The men's championship drew crowds of more than 10,000 -- and as large as 20,000 -- from 1993-2000 when it was held in the Charlotte area and Richmond, Va., but attendance has dropped significantly the past three years. Only 5,300 fans attended last year's Men's College Cup title game in Columbus, Ohio.
Anson Dorrance, the UNC-Chapel Hill women's soccer coach who coached the Tar Heels to their 18th national title in 2003, worries that while the women's championship is blossoming, a combined event would leave the women overshadowed by the men.
"Usually when you combine a men's and women's event, it becomes a men's event with an appendage," Dorrance said. "Someone would have to convince me this was the best thing for the women's game. Right now, I'm not convinced. That doesn't mean I can't be, but I think our game continues to grow on the women's side pretty well."
Overcoming logistics
Apart from any effect on the women's game, combining the two NCAA championships would raise logistical problems. There just aren't enough hotel rooms and fields to conduct two major youth tournaments at the same time, said Slagle, the CASL chief.
So CASL would propose hosting two smaller tournaments, one for boys and one for girls, that would guarantee fewer seats sold for each NCAA game -- leaving attendance likely about 5,000 each day, about 3,000 less than expected this weekend for the women.
That might not be enough for the NCAA, which envisions the event in stadiums that seat more than 10,000 fans. But the three-year run of College Cups -- and this year's ACC men's and women's tournaments -- has bolstered the Triangle's status in the soccer world. Yale's Colleen Lim, chairwoman of the NCAA women's soccer committee, said last year that the weekend was "phenomenal" with "wonderful crowds."
"I think it's a great stadium, and I know I'm biased because I played there," said Danielle Slaton, who played for the Carolina Courage of the defunct WUSA women's pro soccer league and will be rooting for her alma mater, Santa Clara, this weekend.
"It has the perfect amount of seats, not too big and not too small, and this area is such a soccer hotbed, the fans are going to come out."
Some N.C. Christmas trees infested
Dec. 3, 2004
Charlotte Observer
By SCOTT DODD
© Copyright 2004
Christmas trees from the N.C. mountains could carry a nasty surprise this year: an infestation of fat, brown bugs.
They're called cinara aphids, and they look a lot like ticks. They don't bite or carry diseases, but they'll stain your carpet and furniture an ugly brown or purple if you squish them.
Tree growers and pest experts say they've heard of only a very few aphid-filled firs so far, but in a state where Christmas trees are a $110 million-a-year industry (second only to Oregon), it's enough to make them take notice.
"I was afraid we'd have problems this year, because it's stayed so warm," said Jill Sidebottom, a pest expert with the N.C. Cooperative Extension Service. "It's just one of those nuisances, like ants at a picnic, that you're going to have in nature."
Cinara aphids are sometimes found in the Virginia and white pines harvested in the Piedmont, so tree farmers use insecticides to kill them. But cold weather usually takes care of aphids in the popular Fraser firs grown in the mountains, killing them off before the holiday cutting season.
This year is different because most mountain counties didn't see their first real freeze until early November, about a month later than usual. That let some of the aphids survive.
So far, tree farms in Ashe and Mitchell counties have reported problems to the Cooperative Extension Service, which has warned growers in those areas to be on the lookout. In both cases, a customer complained. One reportedly bug-filled tree came from a choose-and-cut farm, the other from a grower that supplies firs to Christmas tree lots.
Those farms were checked by extension agents and no more bugs were found. Pest experts said it's possible to have a field with thousands of trees where only one has aphids.
The bugs are hard to spot when they're nestled deep in trees, Sidebottom said. Birds love them because they're plump and juicy, so aphids migrate extensively to avoid being eaten. A tree farm might go 30 years without seeing them, then get infected.
"They just float around from farm to farm, so you never know where they're going to show up next," said Della Riley, an extension agent in Ashe County, the state's largest Christmas tree producer. Ashe has more than 1,000 farms that brought in $32 million from Christmas trees last year.
Tim Miller, who owns Shady Rest Tree Farm in Glendale Springs, said he has been working with Christmas trees for more than 20 years without coming across a cinara aphid. But a customer called to complain about them after buying a tree at his farm last weekend.
"Trees are grown in the wild, and you're going to have insect problems," Miller said. "I'll tell the world that if you want a tree that's guaranteed bug-free, you better buy plastic."
Riley, Miller's local extension agent, helped him check his Fraser firs this week for more bugs. They didn't find any. "They've probably moved on somewhere else by now," Riley said.
Buyers shouldn't penalize farmers for aphids in their trees, Riley said. "It kind of means he's a good grower, because it means he's not spraying too many pesticides. We try to keep everything environmentally sound."
If you do take home a tree full of aphids, pest experts recommend that you get rid of the tree and use an organic insecticide soap to kill the bugs. You can find them at most garden stores.
"It's not anything to panic about," Riley said. "When you have them, it's like they're everywhere, but a vacuum cleaner will take care of them."
To make sure you don't bring them into your home in the first place, shake your tree well at the farm or the tree lot. If any brown bugs fall out, pick another one.
All About Aphids
Name: Cinara aphid.
Appearance: They look like ticks but have six legs, not eight.
Characteristics: They don't bite or carry disease, and they feed on plants, not pets or people.
Odd fact: When mashed, cinara aphids leave a dark brown or purple stain on carpet and furniture. Native Americans used them to dye clothing.
How to spot them: Shake your tree at the farm or lot and again before setting it up in your home to see if any bugs fall out.
If you have them: Spray the bugs with an organic insecticide soap, following the directions on the package. Discard the tree and vacuum up the dead bugs.
Not recommended: Fumigating or using a household insecticide because it fills your house with chemicals.
Related tree pests: Spruce spider mites, which are very small and look like dark red dots when shaken out of a tree; and the praying mantis, which can lay up to 400 eggs that hatch in a warm house.
Find out more: www.ces.ncsu.edu/fletcher/programs/xmas
Source: N.C. Cooperative Extension Service
Yow joins elite group with 600 at N.C. St.
Dec. 3, 2004
Associated Press; Charlotte Observer; News & Observer; WCNC; Winston-Salem Journal; WTVD; Bakersfield Californian, CA; Bradenton Herald, FL; Centre Daily Times, PA; CNN/SI; CollegeSports.com, NY; Columbus Ledger-Enquirer, GA; Contra Costa Times, CA; Duluth News Tribune, MN; Fort Wayne News Sentinel, IN; Indianapolis Star, IN; The Ledger, FL; Macon Telegraph, GA; Monterey County Herald, CA; Myrtle Beach Sun News, SC; philly.com, PA; Pioneer Press, MN; San Francisco Chronicle, CA; San Jose Mercury News, CA; San Luis Obispo Tribune, CA; Tallahassee.com, FL; Vida en el Valle, CA; Worcester Telegram, MA; WVEC, VA
By staff report
© Copyright 2004
RALEIGH, N.C. -- Coach Kay Yow earned her 600th win at North Carolina State on Thursday night as the Wolfpack beat Seton Hall 65-36.
Yow joins Pat Summitt (Tennessee), Jody Conradt (Texas), Robin Selvig (Montana) and Mike Granelli (St. Peter's) as the only Division I coaches with 600 wins at the same school. Her record with the Wolfpack is 600-282.
Yow was the first woman coach hired at N.C. State in 1975 after compiling a 57-19 record in four seasons at nearby Elon.
Dec. 2, 2004
Infoshop News
By JESSICA ROCHA
© Copyright 2004
CHAPEL HILL -- They crammed into a small classroom to hear what the three panelists had to say, politely raising their hands and waiting to be called upon. Toward the end, they passed out bread and apples.
These were the anarchists and other activists, progressives and curious onlookers who attended the informational discussion of anarchism, its meaning and its portrayal in the media.
About 50 people gathered in room 117 of the Hanes Art Center at UNC-Chapel Hill to listen to David Phillips, a Charlotte-based activist, Liz Seymour, a Greensboro anarchist and freelance writer, and Danyele McPherson, a Carrboro progressive media coordinator. Andrew Pearson, with the Campaign to End the Cycle of Violence, facilitated the event.
Panelists labored to explain anarchism without defining it because, as a rule, anarchists are uncomfortable with labels. A person's sense of being an individual is in itself anarchic, they say.
"Just like any social movement, it's multifaceted," McPherson said. "You can't characterize it by one event."
She said maybe the best definition of anarchism is believing in living -- or trying to live -- a nonhierarchical, nonauthoritative and noncorporate way of life.
The event fell on the fifth anniversary of protesters' successful disruption of the World Trade Organization talks in Seattle in 1999, but was organized in response to a recent, more local event.
On Nov. 5, a post-election protest culminated in the vandalism of the state's Republican Party headquarters in Raleigh. Three people had felony charges brought against them for damage estimated at more than $5,000.
At the trio's first court appearance, an acquaintance of one of the defendants reportedly attacked two television camera operators' equipment, spawning news reports that other anarchists felt were biased against them.
But it also brought about peaceful demonstrations, including a "Honk for Peace" event earlier in November at N.C. State University, and Tuesday's discussion at UNC-CH.
Though the group was trying to set the record straight, organizer and discussion leader Pearson barred television cameras. He said the panel had no objections to the media's presence, but that some attendants might have been uncomfortable with the cameras.
While panelists avoided judgment of the GOP headquarters vandals, some people in the audience questioned vandalism as a tactic. Frank Papa Jr., who owns the pet store Phydeaux in downtown Carrboro, said he believed working within the system might work better to instill lasting social change.
"I don't think protesting does a whole lot other than alienate other people," he said.
Panelists said many anarchist touted mostly peaceful actions such as "Buy Nothing Day" and working with the organization Food Not Bombs, which collects discarded food and distributes it to the homeless and hungry.
"I know a lot of anarchists, and they are very nice people," Pearson said.
Salt-Water Minnow Research Helps Explain Human Cardiology Puzzle
Dec. 3, 2004
EurekAlert, DC; Innovations-Report, Germany; Medical News Today, UK; News-Medical.net, World; Newswise
By staff report
© Copyright 2004
Doctors and their patients have puzzled over why certain cholesterol-lowering drugs work better in some people than others. In research results published in the December issue of the journal Nature Genetics, the common minnow helps provide an answer.
Researchers Douglas Crawford and Jennifer Roach of the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science (RSMAS) and Marjorie Oleksiak of North Carolina State University studied the genetic make-up of the fish and found that normal differences in how their heart muscles process fats and sugars contain clues to this mystery. The National Science Foundation (NSF)’s biocomplexity in the environment program, and biological oceanography program, funded the work.
"These scientists found a genetic set of keys that begins to unlock the mystery of why certain people can eat fatty foods and not suffer from heart disease, and why some medical treatments work more effectively in some people than in others," said Philip Taylor, director of NSF’s biological oceanography program. "This far-reaching research is a result of NSF’s investment in the use of genetics as a way of understanding how organisms adapt to their environments."
Some hearts, it turns out, use glucose (sugar) better than others. Some use fatty acids (fats) better. In general, if an individual is good at using or metabolizing one source, he or she is not good at using the other.
Using technology known as gene microarrays, the scientists were able to measure how the products of genes make proteins that in turn convert food sources into energy. They found a large variation from individual to individual in the number of genes associated with functions related to sugar and fat metabolism. Those differences explain much of the variation in cardiac metabolism of both sugar and fat, the researchers believe.
Surprisingly, the genes that matter most are not the same in each individual: in some, increases in certain genes affect the use of fats, while in others, they affect the use of sugars. "This is an important first step in understanding why some of us can eat fatty foods and not suffer from cardiac disease," said Crawford, "and why some drugs or medical treatments work on some individuals but not on others."
Ultimately, the scientists think, their work could point the way toward identifying the number and type of certain genes a person has. With this information, doctors may be able to prescribe the most effective medication within a certain class of drugs to treat high cholesterol or blood sugar, and have a clearer understanding of an individual’s propensity for heart disease.
The research was also funded by the National Institutes of Health’s National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute.
Cracking the Genomic Code: Gene Decoding Revealed at Atomic Level
Dec. 3, 2004
Lincoln Tribune
By staff report
© Copyright 2004
A recent finding by a North Carolina State University biochemist advances the fundamental biology of how genetic information, encoded in DNA, is decoded for the production of proteins.
Dr. Paul F. Agris, professor of biochemistry at NC State, and academic colleagues from England and Poland show concrete evidence in favor of the 1966 “Wobble Hypothesis” offered by Francis Crick, the co-founder of the DNA molecule and its double-helix structure, and Agris’ own “Modified Wobble Hypothesis” posed in 1991.
The scientists used x-ray crystallography of the cell’s protein-manufacturing unit, the ribosome, to provide a visual snapshot of the decoding process.
The research is published in the December 2004 edition of Nature Structural and Molecular Biology.
The Wobble Hypothesis was Crick’s attempt to make sense of how the cell decodes the genetic information of DNA - the molecule that constitutes all the genetic information in a cell - and then, from that information, makes biologically active proteins, Agris said.
DNA has 61 three-letter codes that are translated by transfer RNA (tRNA) into amino acids; proteins are made of amino acids. But there are only 20 natural amino acids. Squaring the disparity between the number of codes and the number of amino acids - there are three times as many codes as there are amino acids - became a hurdle for Crick and other early geneticists, Agris explained.
Crick attempted to clear this hurdle with the Wobble Hypothesis. He based this theory on the first report of a tRNA molecule’s chemical structure discovered by Robert Holley in 1963.
Normally, RNA molecules are composed of four nucleosides: adenosine, guanosine, cytosine and uridine (A,G,C,U). But the tRNA molecule Holley studied included a modified nucleoside called inosine (I), Agris says. Seeing this inosine in an important area of the tRNA molecule - an area that read the three-letter DNA codes when the cell synthesizes proteins - led Crick to believe that a single tRNA used inosine to read more than one code, and that therefore the 61 codes were decoded by fewer than 61 tRNAs.
As an example, Agris used the amino acid alanine, which has four codes. Crick’s hypothesis would allow that only two tRNA molecules could be capable to decode all four alanine codes. Using the modified nucleoside I in place of A, G, C or U, one tRNA may be able to read three codes, effectively “wobbling” the reading.
Twenty-five years after the Wobble Hypothesis, Agris proposed his Modified Wobble Hypothesis. It stated that modified nucleosides other than inosine would in some cases expand tRNAs ability to translate codes by wobbling to greater numbers of three-letter codes, whereas other modified nucleosides would restrict wobble to only one or two codes.
Now, in the recent paper, Agris and colleagues prove Agris’ alteration to Crick’s hypothesis was correct: Cellular modification of tRNA alters chemistry and structure in a manner critical for tRNA to decode more than one three-letter code.
Using atomic-level resolution - in which researchers can distinguish atom from atom - and working with a tRNA specific for the amino acid lysine, Agris and his colleagues show modified nucleosides enabling tRNA to decode genomic information on the ribosome, the cell’s protein synthesis machinery.
Specifically, it shows modifications enabling the decoding of two codes. One modification acts like a platform on which decoding takes place, and the other allows a novel chemical and physical interaction to occur between tRNA and the code, Agris said.
“This is the first visualization that modifications are critical for decoding the genome through wobble,” he said.
Agris says that 15 to 20 percent of tRNAs in all organisms require modified chemistries in order for codes to be properly read and protein synthesis to be successful.
“An understanding of how modified nucleosides enable and improve wobble recognition of the three-letter codes for protein synthesis opens the possibility of using modified nucleosides to expand the cells’ use of tRNA to make new proteins, or in new ways to target the protein synthesis machinery in pathogens,” Agris said.