Word: bacillus
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...continuing flap over Bt corn and cotton--now grown not only in the U.S. but also in Argentina and China--has provided more fodder for debate. Bt stands for a common soil bacteria, Bacillus thuringiensis, different strains of which produce toxins that target specific insects. By transferring to corn and cotton the bacterial gene responsible for making this toxin, Monsanto and other companies have produced crops that are resistant to the European corn borer and the cotton bollworm. An immediate concern, raised by a number of ecologists, is whether or not widespread planting of these crops will spur the development...
Approved by the Environmental Protection Agency in 1996, so-called Bt corn has become enormously popular with farmers, and now accounts for up to 25% of the U.S. corn crop, or about 20 million acres. By splicing DNA from the common soil bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis into the corn's genes, scientists have created a plant that turns out the same toxin as the bug. While the toxin is deadly to the corn borer, which costs U.S. growers more than $1 billion annually, it is harmless to humans--as well as to such beneficial insects as ladybugs and honeybees. Indeed, organic...
...Setlow, Cano is a long way from convincing critics "beyond a shadow of a doubt that the microbe he has isolated is an ancient one." Setlow agrees, however, that Cano has made the most compelling case possible. For instance, he has clearly established that his bacteria -- while related to Bacillus sphaericus, a living resident of apiarian digestive tracts -- are genetically distinct from known microbes. The catch is, something like 95% of the bacteria that populate today's world have not even been identified, much less analyzed by scientists...
...epidemic's cause could not be immediately determined. Friends and roommates of ailing students offered theories ranging from an errant Chemistry 10 bacillus to the fusilli in the Union's salad...
...yesterday's issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, the researchers reported that the Bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG) vaccine significantly reduces the risk of tuberculosis by an average of 50 percent...