E. coli adapts to colonize plants

E. coli adapts to colonize plants

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

New research from the Institute of Food Research has given new clues as to how some E. colistrains, normally at home in mammalian gastrointestinal tracts, have adopted slightly different transmission strategies, with some being better adapted to live on plants than others.

In the light of recent outbreaks of food poisoning due to contamination of vegetables by dangerous strains of E. coli, this information will be useful to making sure our food remains safe. E. coli is most at home in the warm, moist, nutrient-rich environment found in the gastrointestinal tract of warm-blooded animals. But to disperse from one host to another these bacteria must get out into the world. There is evidence that some E. coli can survive for several weeks outside the host, and even grow in water or soil. But it is on plant matter that E. coli colonisation has become a concern, as although most types of E. coliare harmless, the presence of pathogenic strains on fruit and vegetables presents a food safety risk.

To find out more, the IFR team took the first comprehensive look at the differences between the populations of E. coli growing on crop plants and populations in the mammalian gut. Funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, they took over 100 isolates from leafy parts of vegetables growing in fields in England. Analysis of these showed that even within the same field the E. coli population is diverse and complex. They then compared these isolates with a standard reference collection of E. colitaken from mammals, including humans, from different continents. Profiling the two groups found a number of significant differences depending on the source of isolation. Compared to the habitat inside the gut, a leaf surface is a hostile environment for gut bacteria. The temperature fluctuates away from the constant 37 ?C inside our bodies, and there is a greater risk of drying out.

The researchers found that E. coli populations derived from plants tended to form biofilms more readily. Biofilms are complex structures formed by populations of bacteria coming together to make a thin film over a surface. They are held together by a protective extracellular matrix of proteins and sugars, and the researchers saw that there was also an increase in the production of components of this matrix in E. coli derived from the fields. These strains also used sucrose and other plant-derived sugars more than the E. colipopulations derived from mammalian sources.

Biofilms might help to prevent E. coli drying out outside of its host and being able to take advantage of plant sugars could also aid their survival outside the main host, although overall the plant strains showed lower growth on the usual carbon sources E. coliuses.

An analysis showed that these differences are associated with previously defined phylogentic groups of E. coli showing that different environmental conditions have a selective effect in the evolution of different groups. While some have become more generalised, adapting to life outside the mammalian gut, others have remained specialised for life in this environment, avoiding the associated growth penalty. "While it was known that different environments harboured different E. coli populations, we now have an idea on how and why this happens," said Sacha Lucchini. "Knowledge of the mechanisms involved in plant colonisation by E. coli provides targets for developing strategies aimed at preventing potentially dangerous E. coli strains from colonising vegetables, thus keeping them off our plates."

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Reference: Phylogenetic distribution of traits associated with plant colonization in Escherichia coli, Environmental Microbiology doi:10.1111/j.1462-2920.2012.02852.x

Norwich BioScience Institutes: http://www.nbi.bbsrc.ac.uk

Thanks to Norwich BioScience Institutes for this article.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/124931/E__coli_adapts_to_colonize_plants

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Turkish PM: Too soon to call for Syria no-fly zone

BERLIN (AP) ? Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Wednesday it is up to the U.N. Security Council to decide whether a no-fly zone should be imposed on Syria or safe areas created for people fleeing the civil war.

His comments during a visit to Germany appeared more moderate than previous calls from Turkey for international action to stop the bloodshed in Syria.

In August, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu tried but failed to persuade the Security Council to set up a safe haven inside Syria to protect thousands of people fleeing the bloody conflict between rebel groups and forces loyal to President Bashar Assad.

Asked whether 19 months into the conflict the time has come to create safe havens for Syrian civilians or a no-fly zone ? as was imposed on Moammar Gadhafi's Libya and Saddam Hussein's Iraq ? Erdogan refrained from calling for such a step.

"This subject is something for the U.N. Security Council to decide," he said. "If the U.N. hasn't made this decision, we have no authority, no right to declare such a zone in northern Syria."

The experience of imposing a no-fly zone over Iraq had shown it came at a high price, he added.

Speaking after a meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin, Erdogan indicated that Turkey wants greater diplomatic support from Germany in dealing with Russia and China on Syria.

Moscow and Beijing ? both permanent members of the U.N. Security Council ? have consistently blocked resolutions that would put pressure on the Assad regime.

Russia's foreign minister warned on Wednesday that the violence in Syria could spread terrorism throughout the Middle East, and that ousting Assad's government would lead to more bloodshed.

Sergey Lavrov said after talks in Paris that Russia, a longtime ally of Syria, doesn't want "to allow the collapse of the country" or for Syria's civil war "to allow the spread of terrorism in this region."

While France and some other world powers are pushing for Assad to leave power, Lavrov told reporters that any government change would only fuel more violence.

In Berlin, Erdogan said Turkey has received some 105,000 Syrian refugees since March 2011, and millions more are displaced within Syria, calling the conflict a "catastrophe."

Merkel praised Ankara's efforts for the refugees, saying they represent "a very real burden for Turkey" and that Germany is prepared to provide further humanitarian assistance.

She also reiterated NATO's backing for Turkey, a member of the alliance, and lauded the country's "sober" response to cross-border incidents.

Turkey reinforced its border with anti-aircraft missiles after Syrian forces brought down a Turkish jet on June 22 and threatened to target any military "elements" approaching from Syria.

More recently, Ankara returned fire several times after mortars were fired into its territory from Syria.

___

Angela Charlton contributed from Paris.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/turkish-pm-too-soon-call-syria-no-fly-134029321.html

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Crime and criminality under the PNC and the PPP : Kaieteur News

DEAR EDITOR,
No country can flourish in a society of criminality, crime, wrongdoing and breakdown of the rule of law. This is the kind of society Guyana has become under the PPP. The drug trade flourished under the PPP when other countries in the region saw major decline in drug trafficking. While Colombia has reduced the impact of drug trafficking, Guyana has become a drug trafficking haven.
As long as we continue to have drugs in Guyana, we will have serious crime, corruption and the breakdown of law and order. Guyana is now a full-fledged criminal republic. Criminality has found a safe haven in Guyana. Let?s get something straight. Crime in Guyana did not start with the PPP. Crime has been around for time immemorial and upsurged under the PNC regime.
What the PPP did was that it took crime and criminality in Guyana to an entirely crippling, sickening and frightening other level. Everything in terms of crime we had under the PNC we basically have under the PPP with some differences and exceptions.
In every society we will have crimes of passion, domestic violence, crimes against people and property, crimes of opportunity and crimes of corruption. Guyana under the PNC of particularly the 1980s saw its fair share of such crimes. We have seen more crime and criminality under the PPP despite its boast of economic development.
What is it that has caused these richer or less poorer and better living Guyanese to engage in more murdering, killing, slaughtering, domestically abusing, robbing, thieving, kicking down doors, filling their pockets and corrupting than they ever did when they were dirt poor, starving and destitute under the PNC?
The collapse of the rule of law, the drug trade and the rampant corruption and stealing from the public treasury are important answers. However, the PPP has encouraged a permissive culture of condoning corruption, immorality and stealing. Its bigwigs not only steal, but arrogantly display their stolen goods in extravagant style, throwing up mansions, driving luxury vehicles out of the reach of even the middle class in developed countries and living in brazen style.
This creates greed, covetousness, envy, keeping-up-with-the-neighbours mentality and copycat tendencies, particularly when others know the spoils were from ill-gotten. So, the decent-minded citizen will start accepting bribes or pilfering money from the people. Or the cop will leave his job and become a drug cartel enforcer. Then there is another set of criminals who think there is nothing wrong in invading the homes of these individuals and robbing them.
One cannot discount the skyrocketing cost of living issue. Everything costs a lot of money in Guyana. Criminality has made a handful of criminal entrepreneurs and those they bribe very wealthy. So has those outrageous fat cat salaries paid by the PPP to thousands of party hacks. This has created another small cabal of wealthy, using taxpayers? money. Then there are the thieves who steal the public money and fatten themselves on the backs of the people. The spending of this small group of crooks and the corrupt, places significant pressure on the working class man and woman. Because these vagabonds can pay more for a product, they are constantly driving prices up.
When Pradoville mansions with ten bedrooms are being built, it drives up the price for building materials for the family of six building a simple home. People pressed economically start making immoral decisions and the downward spiral occurs.
Under the PNC, crime and criminality was kept to a petty level except for politically motivated crimes such as the assassination of Walter Rodney. Gun crimes were infrequent but are now a common occurrence. The drug trade existed under the PNC but was marginal at best. Contraband trading was big business but many viewed it as a moral necessity in the face of food bans.
The drug trade, proceeds from crime and the underground economy are now major centrepieces of Guyana?s economy under the PPP. The fact that the drug trade continues untouched under the PPP suggests the party sees the drug trade and the criminal economy as vital to the country?s economy.
One may argue the VAT was instituted to tax the spending of illegal wealth in Guyana. The PNC did not have a similar tax imposed on the proceeds of contraband trafficking. In fact, contraband trafficking and smuggling under the PPP is much larger than it was under the PNC.
The evidence of inaction against drug cartels points to the PPP strategically deciding to make the proceeds from drug trafficking and the underground economy a facet of its economic policy. The fact that the PPP refused to allow the DEA and the British entry to Guyana to fight the drug scourge and its denial of serious external help, strongly indicates the PPP sought to profit from the economic spinoffs of the drug trade.
Like every other jumbie and voodoo economic miscalculation of the PPP, this one backfired. Guyana grew 3.54% per annum under the PPP and 2.23% under Jagdeo, under whose rule the drug trade flourished in Guyana. There was far greater annual growth in Guyana under Cheddi Jagan when the drug trade was in its infancy.
It was a shameless, gutless and intellectually backward decision to refuse to crush the menace of the drug trade when the opportunity presented itself. Today, the drug trade benefits only a few who control it and those who are bribed by it.
The PNC had the same moral and economic dilemma as the PPP. During the heyday of the drug trade in the 1980s, where drug cartels made their most profits, the PNC could have allowed this scourge to take root to reap the economic spinoffs. But for all its skulduggery and wrongdoing, the PNC refused to take this step. Forbes Burnham and Desmond Hoyte were patriotic enough to know the price of social devastation from encouraging criminal cartels and drug networks. They knew that drug cartels do not benefit a nation. They benefit the few leaders of that cartel and the corrupt who feed off of them. Corruption under the PPP dwarfs the stealing by the PNC. The PPP is showing us what thieving and bribery really is.
A bribe for a soft drink and a tennis roll or a small pittance to feed the family for a day in the PNC days is now a demand for millions, a car, a house and school fees for an entire year for the crook?s children. When men stole under the PNC to fix the leaking roof of their existing house or their fences, men today under the PPP are stealing enough to build several mega-mansions.
The scale of corruption and pilfering under the PPP is alarmingly outlandish. These are men with the impunity and unchecked greed. There is far more money collected from tax revenues available to the bandits within the PPP. It is evident that both the PNC and the PPP created criminal states or nations wracked by criminality. But the criminality and crime has attained a catastrophic scale under the PPP. Guyana is a narco-state.
For all their wrongs, Cheddi Jagan and Forbes Burnham knew when to draw that line in the sand. For all their flaws and there are many, these men knew that some things simply could not ever be allowed to set foot upon the country of their birth and the land of their political sacrifices. They may have loved power and worshipped foreign ideologies and run dictatorships, but they knew when nation trumped everything else. These were men who were wrong on many things, but right on a few things that matter. The prospect of economic prosperity from drug trafficking at enormous cost to the nation was not an option to these men. They preferred a life of poverty, free of drug cartel-created crime, than a life of illicit wealth created by a poisonous substance that filled the nation with crime, fear and the rawness of blood spilling.
Drug cartels and crime networks are run by a few for the benefit of a few. Wherever the drug trade blooms, death, crime and inequality take off. This is the deathly legacy of the PPP.
M. Maxwell

Source: http://www.kaieteurnewsonline.com/2012/10/20/crime-and-criminality-under-the-pnc-and-the-ppp/

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Hearings for accused 9-11 plotters make little headway

Stringer / Reuters

Family members of 9-11 victims are shown watching the pretrial hearings for five men accused of orchestrating the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States at a court in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba on Thursday. Alexandra Scott, left, who lost her father Randy Scott, sits beside Martin and Dorine Toyen who lost their daughter Amy.

By Courtney Kube, NBC News

A week of hearings at a military court in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba made slow headway towards a trial of five men accused of orchestrating the 9-11 terror attacks on the United States,?ending Friday with few rulings on two dozen pretrial motions.?

On the final day of hearings none of the five accused men came to court, all opting to stay behind in their prison cells.

Army Col. Judge James Pohl heard several more hours of arguments on the issue of a gag order that prohibits any talk about the interrogations that the men were subjected to at secret CIA prison sites prior to their tranfer to?Guantanamo Bay in 2006. ?

The judge will likely issue a written decision on whether the defendants' memories of the events are in fact classified, as the protective order now states.

---

Judge Pohl did not rule on the other interesting motion discussed Friday ? one that the Judge nicknamed "The C-SPAN Issue." The defense teams have requested that the trial be open to public television so the world can see the proceedings.

The defense argues that opening the trial to the public is necessary to prevent the appearance of an unfair trial.

The judge challenged that idea, arguing that by that logic every accused person in federal court cannot get a fair trial because it's not televised. He added that trials are not open to cameras in the military system either.

This case is different, defense attorney Marine Major William Hennessy argued.

Pohl countered by asking whether he should conclude that the lack of public television means that an accused person is not getting a fair trial.

"Yes, sir," Hennessy replied.

A prosecution attorney disagreed, saying that the First Amendment right to public access is not absolute, and that opening the trial to television cameras compromises the security of the trial participants.

Earlier in the week, self-professed mastermind of the attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was granted an opportunity for a brief airing of his views of the proceedings.

Wearing a camoflage vest over his traditional robes Mohammed condemned what he called prosecutors "elastic" use of national security to justify its actions.

"The government uses national security as it chooses," the Arabic-speaking Mohammed said through a translator while seated at a defense table. "Many can kill people under the name of national security and torture people in the name of national security."

Mohammed and four?alleged co-conspirators are accused of planning and providing logistical support for the?Sept. 11, 2001 attacks by hijackers who crashed planes into the World Trade Center, the?Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania, killing nearly 3,000 people.

If convicted they could face the death penalty, but the trial is many months away.

Pohl set the next motions hearings for Dec. 3-7, putting the attorneys on notice that they should plan to set aside at least one week, every other month.

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Source: http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/10/19/14564635-hearings-for-accused-9-11-plotters-make-little-headway?lite

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HP to end storage resale deal with Violin Memory : Bloomberg

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Jonathan Homes wins Reggie Awards for design and construction ...

At a red carpet gala on Saturday, October 13th, Jonathan Homes of MN received a Reggie Award from the Builders Association of the Twin Cities (BATC). The evening showcased the 45th annual Reggie Award winners and honored their partners (suppliers and sub-contractors) with the 23rd annual Trillium Awards.?

?We are honored to receive such a prestigious award in only our second year of building,? said Nathan Fair, co-owner of Jonathan Homes. ?We are fortunate to be able to use the talents of Hanson Builder?s design team and decided we would take a chance at entering to win the award this year. We never expected we would receive it with our first entry.?

Since 1968, BATC has presented the Reggie Award to builders for outstanding achievement in the design, quality and value of their homes as judged by their harshest critics, builders and professionals within the industry. All of the homes judged were on display to the public during the 2012 Parade of Homes Fall Showcase, and then the judges in each category met to compare notes and select the winner. Jonathan Homes two-story model located in Brooklyn Park?s distinctive Oxbow Creek West neighborhood, showcased their new white enameled kitchen with standard hardwood floors, granite countertops and stainless steel appliances. The model sold the first day on the market, but Jonathan Homes has other models available for purchase/viewing at all times.

With over 50 years combined experience in the home building and real estate business the managing partners started Jonathan Homes in 2010 with the philosophy of what kind of house would we build for our own family. They hired their first two employees Spring 2012 and launched the website in conjunction with the 2012 Parade of Homes Fall Showcase. Jonathan Homes offers move-in ready affordable homes with highly desirable features and upgrades. By partnering with Hanson Builders and their design team, Jonathan Homes has access to over 35 years of custom design experience. The WOW comes standard in each of our homes from the second you step through the front door.

Source: http://www.insightnews.com/lifestyle/9681-jonathan-homes-wins-reggie-awards-for-design-and-construction-quality-

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Netflix now welcoming mobile viewers from Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland

If you just so happen to live in Sweden, Denmark, Norway or Finland, Netflix would like you to know they've not forgotten about you. In fact, the latest update available in the Google Play Store opens up the Android app to those regions along with improved subtitle support for Android 4.0 and above.

Plus, while it's not noted, the app does seem to respond a little bit better over previous versions. By that we mean, it no longer takes 2 minutes to scroll through items causing you to forget what you were intending on watching in the first place. That's a good thing.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/FYbp8wCIax8/story01.htm

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