Rice is the staple food for about half of the world’s population
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A gene that increases a rice plant’s resistance to floods also boosts its ability to recover from droughts, a study has shown.
Researchers found that the gene, Sub1A, allowed to plants to survive by growing fresh shoots after a period of drought.
Rice is the primary food for three billion people, and more than 25% the world’s harvest is grown in areas that experience extreme weather conditions.
Details have been published in the journal The Plant Cell.
“Flood tolerance does not reduce drought tolerance in these plants, and appears to even benefit them when they encounter drought,” observed lead author Julia Bailey-Serres from the University of California Riverside’s department of botany and plant sciences.
The gene’s role in providing rice plants with a higher tolerance of being submerged in water was first identified in 2006, just 12 months after the vital food crop’s complete genome was unscrambled.
Professor Bailey-Serres and her team wanted to follow up the discovery of the “flood-proof” trait provided by the presence of the Sub1A gene did not reduce plants’ ability cope with other environmental stresses – such as drought.
A rice plant containing the Sub1A gene (at right in each image) recovered significantly better after a simulated drought
They reported that the gene served as a point where the pathways of the plant’s response to both submergence and drought, resulting in the crop’s ability to survive and recover from either kind of extreme weather event.
“Our findings suggest that the plant recovers well from drought and growing new shoots,” Professor Bailey-Serres said. “This is something that is also seen with flooding.”
Plant breeders have already utilised the gene’s flood tolerance traits and transferred it into high-yielding varieties.
The researchers said the next stage of the research would involve scientists at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) plant specimens containing the Sub1A gene in field trials to see if they display a similar trait in natural conditions.
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Stephen Sondheim has been honoured with eight Tony awards in the US
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American composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim is to receive the prestigious Special Award at the Laurence Olivier Awards later this month.
The honour is being presented in recognition of his contribution to London theatre, organisers have said.
Previous recipients of the award include Sir Alec Guinness, Dame Judi Dench, Sam Mendes and Sir Peter Hall.
Michael Ball and Imelda Staunton are to host this year’s ceremony. Musical Love Never Dies has seven nominations.
Over a career spanning seven decades, Sondheim, 80, has won numerous theatre awards including an Oscar for best song in 1990 for Sooner or Later from the film Dick Tracy.
Some of his best known works include West Side Story, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and A Little Night Music.
He wrote the lyrics to Hugh Wheeler’s Sweeney Todd, which Olivier hosts Staunton and Ball will star in together at the Chichester Festival Theatre in September.
Phantom of the Opera sequel Love Never Dies leads the way with seven nominations at this year’s awards ceremony.
The Andrew Lloyd Webber show is up for best new musical, while its stars Ramin Karimloo, Sierra Boggess and Summer Strallen are in line for acting prizes.
Benedict Cumberbatch, Anne-Marie Duff, Lost star Matthew Fox, Mad Men actress Elisabeth Moss and Rupert Everett are among the stars who will be handing out prizes on the night.
The ceremony, which takes place on 13 March at London’s Theatre Royal Drury Lane, will be broadcast live on BBC Radio 2 and there will be live red carpet coverage on television via the BBC’s red button.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Seven universities were classed as being at “high risk” last December
More universities in England could be put at risk of bankruptcy as a result of cuts and changes to funding, the National Audit Office (NAO) has warned.
A report from the financial watchdog says some universities will benefit from the changes but some will have less money.
It says the public might need to be told more about universities at risk.
Universities minister David Willetts says the changes will increase universities’ cash funding by 2014.
The NAO report says the sector has seen “strong growth in its income” in recent years.
But it says: “The new funding framework, coupled with the squeeze in public funding, is likely to increase the level of risk within the sector.
“While there are a number of financially strong institutions, there is wide variation in institutions’ financial performance.”
It notes: “The transition and the new environment itself will increase the risk within the sector, potentially raising the number of institutions at high risk of failing”.
Teaching grants to universities are being cut and universities will be expected to fund their courses from higher tuition fees, which are being raised in 2012 from just over £3,000 a year to a maximum of £9,000.
The government has said it will protect funding for science-based courses and research.
The NAO examined the regulation of the financial health of England’s universities by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (Hefce).
About one in 10 institutions had been in the red in at least two of the past three years, it said.
And a quarter of England’s universities fell below at least one benchmark designed to check an institution’s finances in 2009-10.
The auditors said that as of last December, Hefce classified seven universities as being “at higher risk” .
The length of time that a university was in this category had grown, the report found.
One institution, Thames Valley University, had been “at higher risk” for 12 years.
NAO head Amyas Morse said: “The funding council has performed well during a benign environment for higher education.
“Our universities do an excellent job and letting them fail would be an act of academic barbarity”
Sally Hunt University and College Union
“However, the sector is now facing a period of transition to a very different financial environment, increasing financial and management pressures on our higher education institutions.”
Chairman of the Committee of Public Accounts, Labour MP Margaret Hodge, said: “Ongoing reforms towards a market-based system open up higher levels of risk for the financial viability of institutions.”
Mr Willetts said: “I welcome the report’s finding that our higher education sector has ‘increasing robustness in its financial stability’.
“However, we are not complacent about the challenge ahead. We are clearly moving into a changing financial environment, but it should provide our universities with access to 10% more cash funding overall by 2014-15.”
The NAO report says Hefce should consider giving the public more information about universities judged to be at risk.
At the moment, the funding council waits at least three years before naming institutions thought to be at risk and then only does so if it considers there would be no harm to current students or the institution.
The report says: “As a greater proportion of funding begins to follow the student, the funding council should consider whether the current arrangements strike the right balance between protecting institutions and their students, on the one hand, and enabling prospective students to take more informed decisions on where to study, on the other.”
Sally Hunt, general secretary of the lecturers’ union UCU, said the report “lifted the lid on the financial health of higher education and the likely consequences of the government’s proposals”.
“The worrying conclusions are that, while there might be a handful of winners, many institutions will struggle to cope financially with the new regime,” she said.
“We believe that our universities do an excellent job and letting them fail would be an act of academic barbarity.”
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Tom Hanks has some fun with a BBC reporter at the Oscars, human breast milk ice cream and the claustrophobic contortionist. It’s the week’s weird and wonderful video stories in Newsbeat’s Odd Box with Dominic Byrne.
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Mr Mebazaa he would continue in office even though the constitution limits caretaker presidents
Tunisia’s interim president Fouad Mebazaa has announced details of new elections promised after the overthrow of President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali.
Mr Mebazaa said voting for a council of representatives to rewrite the constitution would be held by 24 July.
He said a new interim government would run the country until then.
Mr Mebazaa said he would also continue in office, even though the current constitution limits caretaker office-holders to a 60-day term.
In a televised speech, he promised to stay in power, “contrary to what has been rumoured, until the elections are held, with the help and support of all”.
Once elected, the constitutional council could either appoint a new government or ask the current executive to carry on until presidential or parliamentary elections are held, Reuters news agency said.
Tunisia has struggled to restore stability since mass protests ousted Mr Ben Ali on 14 January.
On Sunday, Prime Minister Mohammed Ghannouchi resigned from the interim government. Six other ministers have since stood down.
Some demonstrators are now urging Tunisians to stop rallying and return to work
The BBC’s Owen Bennett-Jones in Tunis says the power vacuum Mr Ben Ali left behind is becoming ever more apparent.
The political confusion has been compounded by the constitutional provision limiting a caretaker president to 60 days in office, he adds.
Mr Mebazaa has argued that, since the current constitution no longer has any credibility, he will stay in office beyond the limit.
In his speech, he said the constitution “no longer reflects the aspirations of the people after the revolution”.
The president must now wait and see if his new plans will spark more protests or receive broad support, our correspondent says.
Last weekend, five people were killed by police during anti-government protests demanding more rapid change.
Nearly two months after Mr Ben Ali fled, protesters are still camping beside the prime minister’s office in central Tunis, saying nothing has changed.
But other demonstrators are now urging Tunisians to stop rallying and return to work.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Damien Hirst’s The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living was commissioned by art collector Charles Saatchi
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A Damien Hirst retrospective featuring his infamous “pickled shark” is one of the highlights at Tate Modern in 2012.
The exhibition, which will include works by the British artist spanning two decades, will run from 5 April to 9 September at the London gallery.
Its Turbine Hall will host a commission from Tino Sehgal, the Berlin-based artist best known for using people as living sculptures, to mark London 2012.
A “radical” assessment of the work of Edvard Munch will also feature.
Tate Liverpool will exhibit the later works of Turner and Monet, while Tate Britain will explore Picasso’s relationship with the UK.
Tate St Ives. meanwhile, will celebrate the 85th birthday of Alex Katz with an exhibition of the US artist’s work.
Works including The Three Dancers will feature in the Picasso exhibition
Sehgal’s previous work includes The Kiss, which saw a young couple embracing on the floor of New York’s Guggenheim museum.
“The year 2012 is a wonderfully apposite time for Tino Sehgal to undertake the Turbine Hall commission,” said Sheena Wagstaff, Tate Modern’s chief curator.
The hall, she added, would be “excitingly animated and transformed” by what she called “a truly dynamic addition to the year’s culture calendar”.
Sehgal’s installation, which will run from 17 July to 28 October, is one of two Tate projects that are part of the 2012 Cultural Olympiad.
The other is the Tate Movie Project for children, which will culminate in the production of a full animated film.
Edvard Munch: The Modern Eye, running at Tate Modern from 28 June to 14 October, will detail the Norwegian painter’s “obsession with the rise of photography, film and stage production”.
Its Picasso and Britain exhibition, which runs from 15 February to 15 July, will set out to reveal the artist’s “enormous” impact on British modernism.
This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Is winter really the time to expect to wear vest tops?
Our homes are getting warmer just as the powers-that-be are asking us to turn our thermostats down. How cool is too cool for a house?
Spring is in the air in the UK, but it will be weeks – if not months – before the nation’s radiators switch off.
The average indoor temperatures of British houses are creeping up now central heating is the norm, and double glazing and insulation are added to older, draughtier homes.
In the UK Department of Energy and Climate Change’s new online modelling tool My 2050, users can decide what they want the UK to be like in 39 years time. The only caveat? Carbon emissions must drop 80% while keeping the lights on.
It shows that hitting this target requires more than extra wind turbines or nuclear power stations. How many cars should be electric? Should international shipping grow or shrink?
Government drive
My 2050 is web application for Department of Energy and Climate ChangeThey want to cut emissions by 80%My 2050
And, most immediate to personal comfort, should the average indoor temperature of British houses continue to rise, stay roughly the same at 17.5C (63.5F), or fall?
Dropping it to 16C – the lowest setting in this virtual world – only shaves 7% off carbon emissions. Even if we all get in the habit of wearing woollies inside, this will still feel chillier than usual to most people.
David MacKay, the DECC’s chief scientist, practises what he preaches in his once draughty semi-detached 1940s house. As well as double glazing and insulation, he has turned the heating right down.
“When I’m at home, my normal thermostat settings are roughly 13C, but lower when I am out, and 15C, briefly, at getting-up time in the morning. One important additional rule is that whenever I feel cold, I turn the thermostat up as high as I like. The automatic thermostat control then turns it back to the normal settings a few hours later.”
He hopes that insulating more homes, smarter thermostats and “the promotion of sweater-wearing by sexy personalities” will encourage more people to follow suit.
Wrap up warm to get cosy
But to many, a thermostat set in the low teens may sound unconscionably frugal – especially when the range of numbers commonly goes from 10 to 30C.
Comfort cannot be defined absolutely, but the World Health Organization’s standard for warmth is 21C (70F) in a living room and 18C (64F) elsewhere.
Our expectations of thermal comfort have been raised by central heating at home and at work, and because we are more sedentary at home and at work. Those sitting still – in front of the TV, or at a computer – feel the cold quicker than someone moving about.
“A human’s perception of whether they feel warm depends on what they are doing, and what they’ve been doing for the past hour or so,” says Dr MacKay in his book Sustainable Energy – Without The Hot Air.
According to one widely quoted model, devised in 2008 by the Carbon Reduction in Buildings project, average indoor temperatures have risen from 12C in 1970 to about 17.5C (63.5F) today.
But, says Michelle Shipworth of the UCL Energy Institute, this model assumes we are turning our thermostats up, to explain why energy use hasn’t gone down as homes have become more energy efficient.
What has happened, she says, is that we now heat more rooms, and for longer.
Room temperature v health risk18-21C – comfortable temperature9-12 or 24+C: Risk of stroke and heart attack21-24C or 16-18C – increasing discomfort12-16C – risk of respiratory diseaseLess than 9C – risk of hypothermia
Source: Study by housing expert Richard MooreForty years ago, few houses had central heating, and chilly hallways and spare rooms dragged the average temperature down. Radiators now warm rooms that previous generations wouldn’t have heated – corridors, bedrooms, and bathrooms.
The last comprehensive set of measured home indoor temperatures is from 1996, when the English House Condition Survey found that although living room temperatures in winter remained relatively stable, the nation’s hallways were getting warmer – up from 16.3C in 1986 to 17.9C.
“And for bedrooms, you’ll be far more comfortable while your asleep if it is about 14C,” says Shipworth.
Dr Lucy Worsley, chief curator of the Royal Historic Palaces, agrees. “My grandmother wouldn’t sleep in a heated bedroom, and would always have a window open. You can’t imagine many people today feel the same.”
In our enthusiasm for cosy homes, she says many of us are like the profligate Georgians.
“Fair houses so full of glass that one cannot tell where to become to be out of the sun or cold”
Sir Francis Bacon on 16th Century fashion for huge windows
“A warm living room showed you were a good host and a generous person. They thought an element of wastefulness showed you had enough cash to be generous,” says Worsley, presenter of BBC Four’s If Only Walls Could Talk, a history of our homes to be broadcast in April.
“In medieval times, heating your home was akin to burning money. There was a 16th Century saying, ‘the game’s not worth the candle’ – a task was only worth doing if it justified the expense of illumination.
“But when people began to have more spare time and spare money, considerations of waste became less important.”
With energy bills soaring in recent years, and more people aware of energy consumption, she expects frugality to be thrust upon us once more.
“I do think the future will be medieval, when the big bang comes and we run out of oil. Small windows, shutters on the outside, a chimney for natural ventilation.”
Learning to operate a smart thermostat takes time
And expectations can be adjusted down as well as up. In Japan, there is a move away from super-cooling and over-heating office buildings. Government officials are encouraged to abandon jackets and ties in summer, and some local authorities have workers wrapped in blankets at their desks in winter.
“In 2005, Prime Minister Koizumi decreed that no government building should be heated above 20C or cooled below 28C,” says Professor Michael Kelly, of Cambridge University.
“That had quite an energy saving, but no drop-off in worker productivity. Compare that to London, where the expectation is that buildings will be within a few degrees of 22C year-round.”
So will smart thermostats and radiator valves help, that allow homeowners to target heat where it’s needed at different times in the day?
Experts say technology can only do half the job. A smart thermostat is only as smart as the person operating it.
Comments
All Comments (5) 
5.
Tom
Interesting to read that temperatures above 24 degrees can increase the risk of stroke and heart attack. Here in Hong Kong the Government recommends thermostats are set at 25.5 degrees. There is a peculiar bent in Hong Kong to have air con set at arctic temperatures, even in the dead of winter. On a sweltering summer’s day, I always have to take a jumper and jacket to combat the frigid air con.
4. Alicia
Personally I only bother putting the the fire/central heating on if there is ice on the inside of windows. I don’t class it as properly cold otherwise
3. fiskrond
Always females complaining it’s cold…try dressing appropriately for the time of year and remember that work is not a catwalk. If you feel the cold, simple solution devised via evolution and ancestry..wear warm clothes.It is soo selfish to inflict unnecessary heat on those who do not feel cold (because they’ve dress appropriately), human body is more stressed by excess heat than excess cold!
2. Tangoman642
radiators on when u wake…maybe for an hour…to boost the house & your warmth fresh from a warm bed…then turn off till its needed and even then i only put it back on for an hour or 2..as for evenings and night time…i never put it on because the heat would keep me awake all night..then id need the window open to cool it down..which defeats having it on before bed in the first place.
1. James
It also depends on the gender divide in your workplace..While most men are happy for it to be nice and cool, women often like it to be swealtering!! So an unhappy median is reached with both parties uncomfortable!
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