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Fighting dengue in Paraguay, climate change in the Brazilian Amazon, and ancient microorganisms in Antarctica.

ANTARCTICA

A team of scientists has determined that a major cause of melting corresponds to the bottom of submerging ice shelves.

Climate change could raise the temperature in the Brazilian Amazon by six degrees and convert 45% of rain forest areas into savannah. Credit: WikiCommons.

Researchers drilling to the bottom of Lake Hodgson of Antarctica have found microorganisms that date back 100,000 years. DNA studies will soon determine whether these findings are an unknown species.

ARGENTINA

A University of Mendoza study has demonstrated the neuroprotective effects of progesterone and their possible application as treatment for Parkinson’s disease. This research was commended by the Society of Biology of the Cuyo.

A team of researchers from the Universidad Nacional del Litoral has isolated bacteria from infant feces and breast milk for use in probiotics. The team’s intention is to grow up these microorganisms to commercial quantities so they can be incorporated into the daily glass of milk in low-income schools.

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Photographing the expanding universe from Chile, Argentina inserts national anthem into a bacterium, and the journal Science highlights biodiversity in Latin America.

ARGENTINA

More and more Argentine scientists are following the lead of researchers that have used DNA to store texts, audios and pictures in sequences that were then inserted into bacteria. Scientists at the Universidad Argentina de la Empresa were able to store the first verses of the Argentine national anthem in a bacterium.

The Dark Energy Survey’s 750 megapixel DECam will map one eighth of the sky from Chile to see how the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate. Credit: Reidar Hahn/Fermilab.

A transgenic orange plant was developed at the UBA that is resistant to citrus canker caused by the Xanthomonas bacteria. This plant bears a frog gene that confers antimicrobial properties.

CHILE

The 750 DECam megapixel camera, part of the Dark Energy Survey (DES ) and installed in the Victor M. Blanco telescope in Cerro Tololo, Chile will map one eighth of the sky to find out why there is accelerated expansion of our universe. The DES officially started August 31.

A Chilean-German diving project is forming with the aim of exploring Antarctic waters to document wildlife.

COLOMBIA

A Colombian physicist is part of

Continue reading “Photographing the expanding universe from Chile, Argentina inserts national anthem into a bacterium, and the journal Science highlights biodiversity in Latin America.”

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Secuencing the Uruguayan Tannat grape, a cold wave kills in Peru and Bolivia, and human evidence found in Bolivia dates back 10,400 years.

ARGENTINA

Scientists, patients and government entities in Argentina have reached an agreement to legislate stem cell therapies. The law “should address the scientific and therapeutic aspects of these cellular tools, always from a bioethical perspective, while guaranteeing the health protection of citizens,” stated Lino Brarañao, Argentina’s Minister of Science and Technology.

Uruguayan researchers have sequenced the genome of the Tannat wine grape. Credit: Jorge Alonzo via Flickr.

Recently, Argentina’s Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries passed a resolution for the evaluation of genetically modified crops like sugarcane and potatoes. This measure will allow two national institutions to progress in obtaining glyphosate tolerant sugarcase.

Argentine companies are working on  breeding programs to increase protein levels in the soybean.

BOLIVIA

An international group of scientists led by Italian geographer Umberto Lombardo and Bolivian archaeologist José Capriles found in the Bolivian Amazon evidence of humans dating back 10,400 years. Their analysis concludes that hunter-gatherers settled there in the early Holocene. The work was published in the journal Plos One.

Continue reading “Secuencing the Uruguayan Tannat grape, a cold wave kills in Peru and Bolivia, and human evidence found in Bolivia dates back 10,400 years.”

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Giant African land snails are invading Latin America

by Ali Hendren

In 1988 at an agribusiness expo in Curitiba in southern Brazil, giant African land snails (Achatina fulica) were heralded as a promising new food source to replace smaller escargot snails. The introduction at the fair was so widely advertised and aggressively marketed that commercial breeders, cooperatives and even private homeowners began rearing the snails–endemic to eastern Africa–immediately with kits sold at the expo.

“The snails were supposed to represent social and economic progress for Brazil,” says Roberto Vogler, an Argentine scientist who studies the snails along the border his country shares with Brazil. “They were going to position the country as the world’s leading supplier of escargot.”

But a booming escargot market in Brazil never materialized. Many of the smaller producers had neither the means to properly process the meat nor the public demand to drive a now flooded market. Frustrated with their failed investment, operations were abandoned and snails were released into the wild in overwhelming numbers.

Today, the infestation has spread throughout Latin America–and not at a snail’s pace. They’ve invaded 24 of Brazil’s 26 states, spread through Venezuela and Colombia and have breached the borders of Paraguay, Argentina, Ecuador and Peru–posing both an agricultural and a public health threat. The snails are sweeping the continent carrying parasites and an appetite for most any crop.

The snails’ pace

On paper, the introduction of A. fulica for escargot farming in Brazil appeared promising. The snails are larger Continue reading “Giant African land snails are invading Latin America”

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A bacterium hurting coral reefs in the Caribbean, a farmers strike in Colombia, and a tomb found in northern Peru.

ANTARCTICA

Rising water temperatures will reduce the extent of krill habitat in Antarctica, say researchers.

ARGENTINA

A robot has been created by scientists in Mendoza for watering gardens. The system uses a similar technology to that used to detect movement in video games and moves around the garden on three wheels.

80% of the Caribbean’s coral reefs have disappeared, thanks in part to a bacterial attack, says one researcher. Credit: Dolphin Discovery via Flickr.

The Argentine Council for Information and Development of Biotechnology (ArgenBio) celebrates ten years of continuous broadcasting about biotechnology. Its educational program “Why Biotechnology” has trained more than 13,000 teachers across the country and worked with public and private entities in developing biotechnology in Argentina and Latin America.

BRAZIL

The Boticario Foundation for Nature Protection has launched a campaign aimed at the general public to raise awareness about the endangered jaguar (Panthera onca) which inhabits the Pantanal (a wetlands shared by Argentina, Brazil and Bolivia).

CARIBBEAN

80% of Caribbean coral reefs have been lost for many reasons, one being the attack of a bacterium that kills the coral. Eugene Rosenberg, a scientist at the University of Tel Aviv, identified phages that can control the bacterial attack and recover reef health. Continue reading “A bacterium hurting coral reefs in the Caribbean, a farmers strike in Colombia, and a tomb found in northern Peru.”

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Brain controlled robotics in Argentina, talking about bats in Costa Rica, and outsourcing science research of Bolivia’s salt flats

ANTARCTICA

The West Antarctic began to form approximately 22,000 years ago according to a study recently published in the journal Nature. They found, while analyzing a block of ice two miles deep, that a part of the white continent was formed long before the rest of the continent.

Bolivian scientists are not happy that their government has outsourced to foreign researchers the study of extremophiles in the salt flats of Bolivia. Credit: Rabbit Hole via Flickr.

ARGENTINA

The South Atlantic, specifically the Gulf of San Jorge, will be studied jointly by Argentine and Canadian scientists, says the Ministry of Science and Technology of Argentina. The project will start in January 2014, will be done aboard the ship Coriolis II and require an investment of one million dollars.

For 10 years the Faculty of Agronomy at the UBA has been working with farmers in the municipality Daireaux, located 400 km from Buenos Aires. Through tax benefits, producers are encouraged to conserve soil and rotate crops in addition to adopting traditional farming practices in the area. The producers involved in the project have seen significant improvements in organic matter content and soil stability.

A group of scientists in Cordoba has created an innovative technology that allows people with physical disabilities to switch on the lights or lower the blinds in their homes through a system that decodes their brainwaves and transforms them into intelligible orders.

Continue reading “Brain controlled robotics in Argentina, talking about bats in Costa Rica, and outsourcing science research of Bolivia’s salt flats”

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Human fungal outbreaks traced to Brazil rainforest

Over the past two decades, a deadly fungus previously only found in tropical and subtropical climates has begun infecting humans in other climate zones. So how has this fungus increased its reach?

In 1999, a highly infectious fungus called Cryptococcus gattii emerged on Vancouver Island in Canada. By 2007, the strain had killed 19 people and sickened more than 300 humans and animals on the island. The fungus has since spread into the United States with dozens of cases reported in California, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington. But where had this infectious fungus come from?

Before the Vancouver Island outbreak, C. gattii didn’t exactly fit the typical profile of a fatal infectious disease for the region. It was known to cause infections in humans and animals but never at the high rate that was reported on Vancouver Island. And previously, those infections were in tropical or subtropical climates where the fungus typically resides in tree hollows. Scientists have been puzzled by where the strain had come from and how it adapted to the cold so well.

Now, a new study by a group of international researchers might have answers to both of those questions. In a paper published in the journal PLoS ONE last week, the team reported that this strain of C. gattii originated in the rainforest of Northern Brazil where the genetic diversity of the pathogen is relatively high. In addition, they believe that global warming trends might be playing a role in the fungus’s spread as well.

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Andean condor census in Chile finds 300 birds near Santiago

A new census of Andean condors taken near Chile’s capital of Santiago has tallied 300 birds. Started in 2011, researchers and volunteers have counted the soaring birds three times a year from six different observation stations on the mountains surrounding the city. They want to learn more about their country’s national bird—the Andean condor’s seven-foot wingspan and taste for carrion are some of the few things researchers know about these scavengers.

“Our numbers are preliminary but clearly valuable because 300 is higher than condor populations counted in other countries,” says Victor Escobar, an independent biologist working with the Chilean ornithology group R.O.C. which led the census. According to Escobar, Bolivia has counted 80 Andean condors (Vultur gryphus) in the Apolobamba range while 200 have been counted near Rio Negro in Argentine Patagonia. “Unfortunately, we don’t have numbers for the entire Andean range,” he says. “But that’s why we started this project.”

Researchers estimate there are around 10,000 Andean condors living throughout the Andes mountains — from northern Colombia to the tip of Patagonia. Though poaching has driven down numbers in Venezuela and Colombia, populations are generally thought to be stronger further south. Condor censuses are sporadic and generally local in nature.

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Giant penguin fossil found in Antarctica, date of human settlement pushed back in Cuba, and Latin America’s dengue epidemic.

ANTARCTICA A fossilized penguin that lived 35 million years ago has been found in Antarctica. The specimen stands 1.70 meters tall and is nearly complete. ARGENTINA Researchers at Argentina’s Leloir Institute have identified a group of genes which adjust the biological clock of plants according to environmental changes. The discovery was made in the model … Continue reading Giant penguin fossil found in Antarctica, date of human settlement pushed back in Cuba, and Latin America’s dengue epidemic.

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Eighty percent of the Caribbean’s coral reefs have been lost, the caiman’s recovery in Latin America, and the southern cone’s vineyards and climate change.

ARGENTINA Researchers warn that Argentina and Chile’s water supply may be in peril after looking at how Patagonian icefields have changed in the past. “Worryingly, this study suggests the region may well be on a trajectory of irreversible change, which will have profound impacts on agriculture and the increasing dependency on hydroelectric power in Chile … Continue reading Eighty percent of the Caribbean’s coral reefs have been lost, the caiman’s recovery in Latin America, and the southern cone’s vineyards and climate change.

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Costa Rica moves to close its zoos, coca and alcohol used in Incan human sacrifice, and Usain Bolt’s superhuman abilities.

ARGENTINA CONICET scientists have developed and field-tested potatoes resistant to Potato Virus Y (PVY), which causes losses of between 20% and 80% of the crop depending on the severity of the infection. Field tests concluded that there was no PVY infection in the genetically-modified plants, while among those not modified, the rate of infection was … Continue reading Costa Rica moves to close its zoos, coca and alcohol used in Incan human sacrifice, and Usain Bolt’s superhuman abilities.

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Viewing a nascent solar system from the ALMA telescope, protecting mummies in Chile, and a new dinosaur tail found in Mexico.

ARGENTINA Scientists at the National University of San Luis are studying a fossilized insect that was molting 110 million years ago during the Cretaceous Period. The insect, of the Notonectidae family, lived under the water’s surface and exhibited predatory habits. The fossils found were compared with their living relatives and identified the current species Notonecta. … Continue reading Viewing a nascent solar system from the ALMA telescope, protecting mummies in Chile, and a new dinosaur tail found in Mexico.

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Argentine astronomers and dwarf galaxies, surprising research into arsenic in soybeans, and Mexico develops new food packaging.

ARGENTINA Argentine astronomers are trying to explain the lack of dwarf galaxies in the universe. Though astronomical theory predicts the existence of thousands of dwarf galaxies–galaxies with a few billion stars compared with the Milky Way which has 200 to 400 billion–only a few dozen have been discovered. Astronomers in Cordoba have proposed the following … Continue reading Argentine astronomers and dwarf galaxies, surprising research into arsenic in soybeans, and Mexico develops new food packaging.

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Studying climate change in the Amazon, cattle feed poisoning fish in Mexico, and seagulls still attacking whales in Patagonia.

ARGENTINA Argentina has created its first marine protected area south of the Falkland Islands. Seagulls continue to feast on Southern Right whales off Argentina’s Patagonian coast. One theory for the strange behavior is an overpopulation of gulls caused in part by the bustling tourism industry. CHILE A marine bacterium is being exploited for its antimicrobial … Continue reading Studying climate change in the Amazon, cattle feed poisoning fish in Mexico, and seagulls still attacking whales in Patagonia.

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Testing a Mars prototype robot in the Atacama, hemophilia research in Mexico, and obesity and diabetes in Latin America.

ARGENTINA A study performed by the University Hospital of Mendoza has yielded alarming results about childhood obesity. Almost 40% of children between 5 and 12 years of age in that province are either overweight (19.9%) or obese (19.1%). Poor nutrition and little or no physical activity were listed as causes. The study will continue to … Continue reading Testing a Mars prototype robot in the Atacama, hemophilia research in Mexico, and obesity and diabetes in Latin America.

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Argentina conducts genetic inventory of quinoa, new corals found in Chilean fjords, and Panama plants transgenic crops.

ARGENTINA Nine Argentine scientists have been honored by Argentina’s Ministry of Science and Technology. Among the recipients were the physicist James Grigera who studies condensed matter; Mariana Maccioni, an immunologist who works with proteins of the immune system; Mario Pecheny who studies research policy, sexuality and health; and Omar Azzaroni, a biochemist who investigates systems … Continue reading Argentina conducts genetic inventory of quinoa, new corals found in Chilean fjords, and Panama plants transgenic crops.