Genetic discover in oil palms
may boost production 30%


A multinational team of scientists has identified a single gene, called Shell, that regulates yield of the oil palm tree. The fruit and seeds of the oil palm are the source of nearly one-half of the supply of edible vegetable oil worldwide and provide one of the most promising sources of biofuel.

The discovery, the product of a multiyear effort to provide a high-quality full genome map of the oil palm plant and to scour the sequence for genes of importance to both science and industry, has major implications for agriculture and the environment.

“The discovery that regulation of the Shell gene will enable breeders to boost palm oil yields by nearly one-third is excellent news for the rainforest and its champions worldwide,” says Choo Yuen May, the director general of the Malaysian Palm Oil Board, an agency of the Malaysian federal government.

The discovery was made by researchers at the oil board in conjunction with scientists at St. Louis-based Orion Genomics. Also lending support were scientists in New York,at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and the American Museum of Natural History.  The international team’s work is detailed in two papers published online Wednesday in Nature.

“The discovery of Shell indicates a clear path toward more intensive use of already planted lands, and thus should lessen pressures to expand the land area devoted to oil palm, notably onto endangered rainforest land – a major concern for the environment and a rallying point for activists in recent years,” says Robert A. Martienssen, scientific co-founder of Orion Genomics, who is also a professor of plant genetics at  Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.


“Mutations in Shell explain the single most important economic trait of the oil palm: how the thickness of its shell correlates to fruit size and oil yield,” explains Rajinder Singh of the oil board, first author of the Nature paper describing the Shell gene.

There are two species of oil palm, African (Elaeis guineensis) and South American (Elaeis oleifera).  Together they account for 45 percent of the edible vegetable oil worldwide. Palm oil also has the best energy balance of any commercial product currently used in biofuel applications, yielding about nine times the energy required to produce it, according to Martienssen.

The Shell gene is responsible for the oil palm’s three known shell forms: dura (thick); pisifera (shell-less); and tenera (thin), a hybrid of  dura and pisifera palms.  Tenera palms contain one mutant and one normal version, or allele, of Shell, an optimum combination that results in 30 percent more oil per land area than dura palms.

The discovery of the Shell gene and its two naturally occurring mutations highlight new molecular strategies to identify seeds or plantlets that will become high-yielding palms before they are introduced into plantations.

Seed producers can now use the genetic marker for the Shell gene to distinguish the three fruit forms in the nursery long before they are field-planted.  Currently, it can take six years to identify whether an oil palm plantlet is a high-yielding palm.  Even with selective breeding, 10 to 15 percent of plants are the low-yielding dura form due to uncontrollable wind and insect pollination, particularly in plantations without stringent quality control measures.

“Accurate genotyping for enhanced oil yields will optimize and help stabilize the acreage devoted to oil palm plantations, providing an opportunity for the conservation of rainforest reserves,” Martienssen explains.

The Malaysian government strongly supported the genome sequencing project for the nation’s most important crop. The government halted the conversion of new forest land for agriculture, including palm oil, in the 1990s.  According to the oil board, the government has committed to preserve 50 percent of Malaysia’s total land area as forest. To meet increased demand for palm oil, the government converted colonial rubber and cocoa plantations to oil palm plantations.

The discovery of Shell occurs in the context of a broader effort to map the genomes of both the African and South American oil palm species.  One of the newly published maps is the 1.8 gigabase sequence of the E. guineensis African oil palm.  It comprises nearly 35,000 genes.

The researchers also created a draft sequence of the South American oil palm E. oleifera.  Both palm species are in the Arecaceae family of flowering plants, which fossil evidence dates to the Cretaceous period, an estimated 140 to 200 million years ago. The investigators’ comparison of the two maps enabled them to estimate that the oil palm species diverged at the Old World- New World split.

The palm fruit takes five to six months to mature from pollination to maturity. It is reddish, about the size of a large plum, and grows in large bunches. Each fruit is made up of an oily, fleshy outer layer (the pericarp), with a single seed (the palm kernel), which is also rich in oil. When ripe, each bunch of fruit weighs 40–50 kg (88–110 pounds).  The high oil yield of oil palms (as high as 7,250 liters per hectare per year) has made it a common cooking ingredient in Southeast Asia and the tropical belt of Africa.


Pilgrimage site train wreck
leaves 77 dead in Spain


Spanish officials say at least 77 people have died following a train accident in northern Spain.

Officials say more than 130 people were injured when the eight-carriage train derailed late Wednesday near a station outside of Santiago de Compostela, on the eve of the city's annual religious festival that attracts tens of thousands of Christian pilgrims from around the world.

Television footage showed smoke rising from the scene and bodies covered by blankets alongside the tracks next to the twisted metal of the train cars.

The train originated in Madrid and was bound for the northwestern town of Ferrol.  The cause of the accident was not immediately clear.

Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, who was born in Santiago de Compostela, is expected in the city today.

City officials say they have cancelled all ceremonies planned for today, when pilgrims converge on the city to celebrate a festival honoring St. James, the disciple of Jesus whose remains are said to rest in a shrine.

The city is the main gathering point for the faithful who make it to the end of the El Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route that has drawn Christians since the Middle Ages.


Obama says he wants to help
struggling middle class


President Barack Obama has made the first in a series of speeches intended to focus attention on his efforts to accelerate the  economic recovery.
 
At a college in the small town of Galesburg, Illinois, President Obama reminded Americans that he is committed to extending the economic recovery to the poor and the middle class.
 
“The only thing I care about is how to use every minute of the remaining 1,276 days of my term to make this country work for working Americans again," he said.
 
The speech was the first of three the president will give on the economy this week, with more expected in the coming months.  It was the latest of numerous White House re-starts on the economy.
 
Obama accused opposition Republicans in Congress of blocking his economic plans for political reasons.
 
“But with this endless parade of distractions and political posturing and phony scandals, Washington has taken its eye off the ball.  And I am here to say this needs to stop. This needs to stop," he said.
 
As in the past, he called for improvements to infrastructure, the tax code, the home mortgage system, education and the minimum wage, as well as implementing his health care reform plan, which House Republicans have voted to repeal.
 
Polls show Americans are worried about the sluggish economy.
 
Steve Bell heads economic studies at Washington’s Bipartisan Policy Center.
 
“By about a two-to-one margin, Americans think the country is going in the wrong direction, it has gotten off track.  It has been that way now for about six or seven years," he said.
 
Bell says Americans can see that the slow economic recovery is not reaching the working class.
 
“Bit by bit, Americans feel in their, you know, feel in their bones when things in their community are not going right," he said.
 
But, he says, the president’s economic proposals face as much Republican opposition as ever.
 
Before Obama delivered his speech, the top Senate Republican, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, dismissed it.
 
“It’s just such a colossal waste of time and energy,  resources that would be better spent actually working with both parties in Congress to grow the economy and create jobs," he said.
 
Despite the opposition, the president hopes to increase public pressure on Congress to avoid showdowns over taxes and spending in the coming months.


U.S. House rejects plan
to stop NSA  surveillance


The U.S. House of Representatives has narrowly defeated an amendment that would have ended a National Security Agency surveillance program that collects hundreds of millions of Americans' phone records.

The vote turned into a clash between President Barack Obama and Democratic and Republican national security leaders in Congress on one side, who say the program is vital to fighting terrorism, and a coalition of libertarian Republican and liberal Democratic lawmakers on the other side, who say it violates basic civil liberties.

Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan, a Repubican, was the chief sponsor of the amendment that would have limited the NSA’s ability to collect phone records and other metadata under the Patriot Act to cases where the agency has first identified an individual who is the target of an investigation.   Amash challenged his fellow lawmakers.

“We are here to answer one question for the people we represent:  Do we oppose the suspicion-less collection of every American’s phone records?”

The amendment was one of 100 attached to a $598 billion defense spending bill for 2014, and one that provoked some of the most passionate debate on the floor of the House on striking the right balance between national security and privacy concerns.

The vote was 205 in favor of the amendment and 217 against.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, a Republican, strongly defended the NSA phone records program, saying that to kill it would be to take the United States back to the time before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks when the intelligence community lacked vital data.  He said the NSA programs have helped foil attacks 54 times.

“Fifty-four times this and the other program stopped and thwarted terrorist attacks both here and in Europe, saving real lives," Rogers said. "This is not a game.”

White House press secretary Jay Carney had issued a statement saying President Obama opposes the effort in the House to hastily dismantle one of the intelligence community’s counterterrorism tools. Carney said the president is still open to addressing privacy concerns awakened by leaks of former contractor Edward Snowden last month, but that this was not the right approach. The Snowden leaks have caused concern in the U.S. and outrage abroad about the extent of the NSA’s surveillance of U.S. citizens and of phone and email records of citizens abroad.

Even if the amendment had passed in the House, it would likely have failed in the Senate, and would have been vetoed by Obama.  But some lawmakers say the close vote and emotional debate is an indication that Congress is likely to investigate the scope and magnitude of NSA surveillance in the months to come.


Pope Francis warns youngsters
to avoid temptations and idols


Pope Francis, receiving another rapturous welcome in Brazil, on Wednesday urged young people to shun the ephemeral idols of money and pleasure, and cherish traditional values to help build a better world.

On the third day of his week-long visit for World Youth Day, a biennial church gathering being celebrated in and around Rio de Janeiro, Pope Francis landed by helicopter in Aparecida, 260 kilometers [161 miles] west of the coastal metropolis.

The city houses a shrine of the Virgin Mary that is venerated as the patroness of Brazil, home to the biggest Roman Catholic population in the world. It also is the site where Francis, then a cardinal in Argentina, cemented his place as a leader of the Church during a 2007 conference attended by Pope Benedict XVI.

The ongoing World Youth Day events, which are expected to attract more than 1 million people from around the world, are an effort by the Vatican to galvanize young Catholics at a time when rival denominations, secularism and distaste over sexual and financial scandals continue to lead some faithful to abandon the Church.

Security around the pope on Wednesday appeared much more organized than upon his Monday arrival in Rio, where adoring crowds at one point surrounded his car.

In Aparecida, where tens of thousands gathered for the pope's first public Mass of the visit, Francis rode in a white popemobile with open sides and a transparent top. Security squads kept the vehicle safely within barriers behind which tens of thousands of ecstatic faithful cheered, sang and waved flags.

The pope's desire to remain simple and close to his flock has complicated security around his visit, especially after he used a modest Fiat hatchback for his ride into Rio from the airport.

Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said Vatican and Brazilian officials held what he called a routine meeting to discuss how the trip was going and made one change:  That Francis would ride in a closed car from Rio airport to a hospital when he returned from Aparecida Wednesday afternoon.

At the indoor Mass in Aparecida, one of Latin America's most popular pilgrimage sites, Francis urged worshippers to embody the faith of their ancestors and trust in God.

“Let us never lose hope! Let us never allow it to die in our hearts!” the pope said in Portuguese.

In his sermon, the 76-year-old pope warned the youth of his continent to avoid the snares of modern life.

“It is true that nowadays, to some extent, everyone, including our young people, feels attracted by the many idols which take the place of God and appear to offer hope: money, success, power, pleasure,” he said.

“Often a growing sense of loneliness and emptiness in the hearts of many people leads them to seek satisfaction in these ephemeral idols,” he said, speaking from a modern marble pulpit.

The pope's message of humility and rejection of the luxurious trappings of the papacy have endeared him to many Catholics and his first trip abroad has proved to be another boom to his image.

Young people, he said in his Aparecida homily, should be “a powerful engine for the Church and for society” and be given the conditions allowing them to work actively in building a better world.

At the end of the Mass, as worshippers chanted, “Francisco, Francisco, Francisco,” he walked around the basilica and comforted sick people in wheelchairs. He hugged several people, apparently old friends.

He later joked with the crowd outside, asking their permission to speak Spanish instead of Brazilian and led the crowd, as he held the statue of the Virgin, in a prayer.

More than 5,000 police and other security officials were on hand in Aparecida, where young pilgrims, many draped in the flags of Brazil, Argentina, and other countries, endured rain and unseasonably low temperatures to ensure spots for the service.

Still, most had to follow the Mass from outside the massive, modern basilica.

“I got here with my family at 2 in the morning,” said Antonio Carlos da Silva, a drenched prison guard from Sao Paulo. “I am so happy to come and see the pope.”

Aparecida is the place where Francis, then known as Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, authored an influential statement during Benedict's visit that espoused many of the same values he has placed front and center during his five months as pope. The document called on the church to return to the principles of humility and charity.

 Later in the week, the pope will visit a Rio slum, preside over services on Copacabana beach and over the weekend give Mass at a pasture outside the city.

Francis is scheduled to leave Brazil Sunday.

Monday, police said they safely detonated a small, homemade explosive they found in the bathroom of a parking garage in Aparecida. It was unclear if the device, made with a plastic pipe wrapped in tape, was related to the pope's visit.


Baby gets name quickly
by the royal standards


Britain's Prince William and his wife Kate have chosen three traditional royal names by calling their newborn baby boy George Alexander Louis, William's office said on Wednesday.

The baby, born on Monday to global media frenzy, is third in line to the British throne. He will be known as His Royal Highness Prince George of Cambridge, Kensington Palace said in a statement.

All three names had been among the favorites listed by British bookmakers, and the announcement was relatively quick by royal standards. It took a month for the name of Prince Charles, the heir to the throne, to be announced, and a week for William, his eldest son.

George has been the name of six British kings. The last, George VI, was the father of Queen Elizabeth and reigned from 1936 to 1952.

Alexandra, the female form of Alexander, is one of the queen's middle names, and was also the name of the queen consort of King Edward VII at the start of the last century.

Louis is one of William's middle names, and was the given name of Prince Charles's mentor and great-uncle Louis Mountbatten, who was assassinated by Irish nationalist guerrillas in 1979.

The baby's arrival on Monday triggered frenetic coverage from global media who had camped for days on the doorstep of the London hospital where he was born, as well as celebratory gun salutes and the illumination of London landmarks in blue.

The choice of name, relatively short by royal standards, does not necessarily mean the baby will eventually become King George VII. The queen's father was christened Albert, but chose to be crowned as George VI.

“It's interesting that they chose to go with just three names. It's almost as if the royal family is coming down with ordinary people, who tend to have fewer middle names than monarchs,” historian Suzannah Lipscomb, told Sky News. “It is a name that none can find any problems with. George itself can't be shortened in any obvious offensive way. They've probably gone for something that is safe.”

Some commentators said the names appeared to have no direct connection to Kate's side of the family.

“They've kept it very simple by not trying to represent all parts of the family,” royal historian Tracy Borman told Sky News. “I think there seems to be genuine joy, warmth and good feeling about this birth and the duke and duchess are so popular. People will be nothing but pleased.”

The interest stirred by the birth has given a further boost to the royal family after the public's enthusiastic celebration last year of Queen Elizabeth's 60 years on the throne, and Kate and William's lavish Westminster Abbey wedding in 2011.

The monarchy's popularity sank to a low in the 1990s after a string of divorces and the death of William's mother, Diana, after which many said the royal family's response made it appear out of touch with public sentiment.

The left-leaning Guardian newspaper described the turnaround as an incredible recovery, although its Web site offered readers a  button to block out royal stories.

Most British newspapers devoted their front pages to big pictures of Tuesday's first photocall, with headlines such as “Hello World” and “Our Little Prince.”

But after weeks of fevered coverage, the couple are expected to try to keep a low profile. They spent Wednesday at Kate's parents' home in the village of Bucklebury, in southern England.

The royal couple have been living in a remote part of Wales, where William works as a rescue helicopter pilot, but are expected to move later this year to London's Kensington Palace, William's childhood home.

Royal observers say William is determined to shield his son from the obsessive attention that plagued his mother Diana, pursued relentlessly by the media and killed in a car crash in 1997 after her car was chased by photographers.

“William knows only too well that his baby son will be the new favorite creature in the circus he grew up in,” wrote Daily Telegraph columnist Allison Pearson. “Every plan he and Kate have put in place is to protect him.”


Australian asylum policies
becoming controversial


Indonesian authorities say 189 asylum seekers were rescued from a sinking boat off the coast Wednesday. Coast guard officials say at least nine people died. The refugees were trying to reach Christmas Island, part of Australia, which has just implemented a new policy blocking asylum applications for migrants arriving by boat.

Exhausted and dehydrated, survivors of the voyage were given shelter Wednesday in the village of Cidaun on West Java in Indonesia. Among them were many children and pregnant women.

Most survivors said they were from Iraq, Iran and Sri Lanka. Their boat had set off from Papua New Guinea heading for the Australian territory of Christmas Island.

Last week, Australia signed an agreement stating that asylum seekers who arrive by boat will not be granted settlement in Australia, even if they qualify as refugees, but instead will be sent to Papua New Guinea. Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said Tuesday’s shipwreck proves the need for a tough policy.

“This underlines the need for policy changes in Australia on asylum seekers, which sends a very clear message to people smugglers to stop sending people by boat to Australia. We are seeing too many drownings, we are seeing too many sinkings, too many people being lost at sea.” 

An earlier boat carrying migrants arrived on Christmas Island July 20. The asylum seekers were the first to have their applications processed in Papua New Guinea under the new deal.

The agreement has prompted a wave of protest. Livio Zilli is a refugee lawyer from Amnesty International.

“They will be apparently detained indefinitely. We don’t know how long that whole process will last. So we are very concerned for the individuals. Secondly we are concerned because effectively Australia is cherry-picking its international obligations.”

The governor of Oro Province in Papua New Guinea, Gary Juffa, questioned what his country is getting from the deal.

“By accepting this are we really doing as we are told by the Australian government or are we doing this because we feel that we’re assisting Australia?  If so, what is the cost, what is the price, what is the benefit?”

Australia will fund a major expansion of the Manus detention center on Papua New Guinea. A recent U.N. report found major shortcomings at the site.

Zilli of Amnesty says Australia must change course.

 “Everyone who arrives, no matter how they arrive to Australia or on Australian shores should be given effective access to refugee status procedures in the Australian mainland.”

Australia says more than 15,000 asylum seekers have arrived by boat on Australian territory this year. Since 2001, around 1,000 people have died making the crossing.

The Australian government has produced online videos in several languages -- including Farsi and Vietnamese among others -- warning migrants that they will not be settled in Australia if they arrive by boat.