Category: Ecuador

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Five impressive scientists we met in 2014

Ezequiel Petrillo in Argentina Ezequiel Petrillo (pictured above) is an Argentine biochemist studying how chloroplasts behave differently depending on the amount of light exposure. He is trying to understand how a plant self-regulates and adapts to different environmental conditions by employing alternative RNA splicing, a process by which a single gene can give rise to … Continue reading Five impressive scientists we met in 2014

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Why it’s worth saving the Amazon rainforest: A market-based solution

How investing in Ecuador’s Amazon could be a boon for the pharmaceutical industry while accelerating the country’s scientific and technological growth.   Imagine this: A country gushing with biodiversity delays oil exploitation in exchange for $3.6 billion from the international community. Ecuador had that idea with the Yasuni-ITT initiative, but it was halted this year … Continue reading Why it’s worth saving the Amazon rainforest: A market-based solution

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Engineering life in Latin America

  Since 2006, Latin American students have been designing biological machines with specific missions: to remove nickel from contaminated drinking water in Colombia; to sense and respond to arsenic in Argentina; and to target and destroy cancer tumors in Mexico. These projects are university submissions to the International Genetically Engineered Machine competition, iGEM, started in … Continue reading Engineering life in Latin America

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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 bird of prey faces extinction in Central America, the voracious Magellanic penguins of Patagonia, and a new electric car in Chile.

ARGENTINA Argentine researchers looking at the eating habits of Magellanic penguins discovered that each penguin can capture an astounding number of prey items per foraging trip. These include anchovy, hake, sardines, mackerel, octopus and squid in Argentine waters. Considering this level of consumption and the number of penguins that inhabit the Argentine coast (900,000 pairs), … Continue reading A bird of prey faces extinction in Central America, the voracious Magellanic penguins of Patagonia, and a new electric car in Chile.

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Galapagos tortoises could have had roots in the Amazon, a new cancer vaccine in Argentina, and Ecuador’s oil spill reaches Peru.

ARGENTINA Argentina has approved the use of a cancer vaccine that complements other treatments for lung cancer, which will be available for patients in July. The National Administration of Drugs, Food and Medical Technology (ANMAT) has approved the work that took Argentine and Cuban scienctists 18 years to complete. The vaccine stimulates the patient’s immune … Continue reading Galapagos tortoises could have had roots in the Amazon, a new cancer vaccine in Argentina, and Ecuador’s oil spill reaches Peru.

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Uruguay creates Latin America’s first genetically modified sheep, Brazil is losing its indigenous languages, and Argentina develops a melanoma vaccine.

ARGENTINA A group of Argentine institutions are developing a vaccine to prevent the recurrence of melanoma, the most dangerous form of skin cancer. The researchers are currently in the final phase of clinical research for a vaccine that includes melanoma cells and an adjuvant to stimulate the immune system. The researchers hope to have the … Continue reading Uruguay creates Latin America’s first genetically modified sheep, Brazil is losing its indigenous languages, and Argentina develops a melanoma vaccine.

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Harvard accused of illegal logging in Chile, climate change affecting Patagonian lakes, and fishermen practicing citizen science in the Galapagos.

ARGENTINA Climate change is affecting species in Patagonian lakes, according to a new study published in the journal Global Change Biology. Over two years, the researchers looked at how glacial meltwater induced a shift in nutrients for Boeckella gracilipes and Daphnia commutata living in Lake Mascardi near Bariloche, Argentina. Manure generated from livestock feedlots could … Continue reading Harvard accused of illegal logging in Chile, climate change affecting Patagonian lakes, and fishermen practicing citizen science in the Galapagos.