Globally, men and women face markedly different risks of obesity. In all but of handful of (primarily Western European) countries, obesity is more prevalent among women than men. In this paper, we examine several potential explanations for this phenomenon. We analyze differences between men and women in reports and effects of the proximate causes of obesity -physical exertion and food intake -a...

The first cases of herbicide resistance were reported around 1970. Since then resistance of monoand dicotyledonous weeds to herbicides has become an increasing problem world-wide. In March 2006 the International Survey of Herbicide-Resistant Weeds recorded 305 herbicide-resistant biotypes with 182 weed species – 109 dicotyledonous and 73 monocotyledonous weeds [1]. The relatively steady increas...

Seed oils provide a renewable source of food, biofuel and industrial raw materials that is important for humans. Although many genes and pathways for acyl-lipid metabolism have been identified, little is known about whether there is a specific mechanism for high-oil content in high-oil plants. Based on the distinct differences in seed oil content between four high-oil dicots (20~50%) and three ...

BACKGROUND When applied at the correct plant stage and dose, herbicides are highly toxic to plants. At reduced, low herbicide doses (below the recommended dose) plants can survive and display continuous and quantitative variation in dose-survival responses. Recurrent (directional) selection studies can reveal whether such a phenotypic variation in plant survival response to low herbicide dose i...

Microalgae represent an exceptionally diverse but highly specialized group of micro-organisms adapted to various ecological habitats. Many microalgae have the ability to produce substantial amounts (e.g. 20-50% dry cell weight) of triacylglycerols (TAG) as a storage lipid under photo-oxidative stress or other adverse environmental conditions. Fatty acids, the building blocks for TAGs and all ot...

A random survey of 264 cropping fields in the Western Australian wheat belt was conducted to determine the extent of rigid ryegrass resistance to commonly used acetolactate synthaseand acetyl-CoA carboxylase-inhibiting herbicides. Rigid ryegrass infestation density was assessed and seed samples collected and subsequently tested for resistance to diclofop-methyl, clethodim, chlorsulfuron, and su...

The family of PII signal transduction proteins (members GlnB, GlnK, NifI) plays key roles in various cellular processes related to nitrogen metabolism at different functional levels. Recent studies implied that PII proteins may also be involved in the regulation of fatty acid metabolism, since GlnB proteins from Proteobacteria and from Arabidopsis thaliana were shown to interact with biotin car...

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