Washington, DC --(Ammoland.com)- The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service today announced the opening of the Detroit River International Wildlife Refuge in Michigan to migratory bird hunting, upland game hunting and big game hunting for the first time, while expanding hunting activities at 16 national wildlife refuges in 14 states.
Notice of the 2012-2013 Refuge-Specific Hunting and Sport Fishing Regulations will publish in the Federal Register on September 11, 2012. The rule will provide additional public hunting opportunities in fulfillment of the National Wildlife Refuge System Improvement Act of 1997.
Notice of the proposed rule change was published in the Federal Register on July 11, 2012; public comments were accepted through August 10, 2012.
?By expanding hunting in our National Wildlife Refuge System, we are supporting a heritage that has been handed down from generations and helping to achieve the goal of President Obama?s America?s Great Outdoors initiative to connect Americans to the natural world through outdoor recreation,? said Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar. ?Hunters have been a mainstay of conservation in America for more than 100 years, and expanding hunting opportunities helps ensure that we will have the resources to care for our wildlife and its habitat in the future.?
?The National Wildlife Refuge System, one of America?s greatest conservation success stories, is committed to offering quality hunting and fishing programs ? for all Americans ? wherever they are compatible with refuge purposes,? said Service Director Dan Ashe.
The rule will close Hakalau Forest National Wildlife Refuge, HI, to big game hunting. With this change, the refuge will be closed to all hunting activity. The refuge is also closed to sport fishing. The new rule will also close Santee National Wildlife Refuge, SC, to migratory bird hunting. The refuge is open to sport fishing.
All but two of the refuges affected by the rule change will remain open to sport fishing.
Other changes include:
Big Muddy National Fish & Wildlife Refuge, MO, expands area for migratory bird hunting, upland game hunting and big game hunting. The refuge is also open to sport fishing.
Big Oaks National Wildlife Refuge, IN, expands big game hunting area. The refuge is also open to upland game hunting and sport fishing.
Block Island National Wildlife Refuge, RI, adds deer to the refuge?s big game hunting program. The refuge is also open to sport fishing.
Bond Swamp National Wildlife Refuge, GA, adds migratory bird hunting and upland game hunting; expands area for big game hunting and addition of wild turkey to big game hunting program. The refuge is also open to sport fishing.
Chickasaw National Wildlife Refuge, TN, expands area for migratory bird hunting, upland game hunting and big game hunting. The refuge is also open to sport fishing.
Deer Flat National Wildlife Refuge, ID, expands area for big game hunting. The refuge is also open to migratory bird hunting, upland game hunting and sport fishing.
Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge, TX, adds turkey to species for big game hunting. The refuge is also open to migratory bird hunting, upland game hunting and sport fishing.
Saddle Mountain (Hanford Reach) National Wildlife Refuge, WA, expands area for migratory bird hunting, upland game hunting and big game hunting. Adds chukar (a member of the pheasant family) to upland game hunting program. The refuge is also open to sport fishing.
Julia Butler Hanson Refuge for the Columbian White-Tailed Deer, OR, expands area for migratory bird hunting. The refuge is also open to sport fishing.
Lower Hatchie National Wildlife Refuge, TN, expands area for migratory bird hunting, upland game hunting and big game hunting. The refuge is also open to sport fishing.
Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge, MN, expands area for migratory bird hunting, upland game hunting and big game hunting. The refuge is also open to sport fishing.
Ninigret National Wildlife Refuge, RI, adds deer to species for big game hunting program. The refuge is also open to sport fishing.
Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge, MT, expands area for migratory bird hunting and big game hunting. The refuge is also open to sport fishing.
Upper Ouachita National Wildlife Refuge, LA, expands area for migratory bird hunting, upland game hunting and big game hunting. The refuge is open to sport fishing. Waccamaw National Wildlife Refuge, SC, expands area for big game hunting. Adds woodcock to species for migratory bird hunting. The refuge is also open to upland game hunting and sport fishing. William L. Finley National Wildlife Refuge, OR, expands area for big game hunting. The refuge is also open to sport fishing.
While definitions of hunting categories vary by refuge and state, migratory bird hunting generally includes ducks and geese. Upland game hunting may cover such animals as game birds, rabbit, squirrel, opossum and coyote. Big game hunting may include such animals as wild turkey, deer and feral hogs.
Under the National Wildlife Refuge System Improvement Act of 1997, the Service can permit hunting and fishing along with four other types of wildlife-dependent recreational uses where they are compatible with refuge purpose and mission. Hunting, within specified limits, is permitted on more than 300 national wildlife refuges. Fishing is permitted on more than 270 national wildlife refuges. Other wildlife-dependent recreation on national wildlife refuges includes wildlife observation, photography, interpretation and education.
To find hunting programs offered in the National Wildlife Refuge System, please visit: www.fws.gov/refuges/hunting/. To find the final regulations in the Federal Register please visit: www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2012-09-11/pdf/2012-22099.pdf
The National Wildlife Refuge System, managed by the Service, is the nation?s premier system of public lands and waters set aside to conserve America?s fish, wildlife and plants.
The mission of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is working with others to conserve, protect, and enhance fish, wildlife, plants, and their habitats for the continuing benefit of the American people. We are both a leader and trusted partner in fish and wildlife conservation, known for our scientific excellence, stewardship of lands and natural resources, dedicated professionals, and commitment to public service. For more information on our work and the people who make it happen, visit www.fws.gov. Connect with our Facebook page, follow our tweets, watch our YouTube Channel, and download photos from our Flickr page.
Contact: RIKEN Global Relations Office pr@riken.jp RIKEN
Immune-priming compounds identified using new screening technique protect crops without affecting plant growth, crop yield
A new high-throughput screening technique developed by researchers at the RIKEN Plant Science Center (PSC) has been used to uncover five novel immune-priming compounds in Arabidopsis plants. Discovery of the compounds, which enhance disease resistance without impacting plant growth or crop yield, establishes the new technique as a powerful asset in the battle to protect crops from damaging pathogens.
Plant activators, compounds that activate a plant's immune system in response to invasion by pathogens, play a crucial role in crop survival by triggering a range of immune responses. Unlike pesticides, plant activators are not pathogen specific and also not affected by drug resistance, making them ideal for use in agriculture. Wet-rice farmers across East Asia use plant activators as a sustainable means to enhance crop durability without the environmental consequences of microbial pesticides.
One of the key problems of plant activators, however, is that the activation of plant responses they trigger is often associated with arrested growth and reductions in crop yield. Determining why this is so is difficult because despite their widespread use, the molecular mechanisms governing how plant activators work are largely unknown.
The new screening technique developed by the PSC team overcomes this challenge by distinguishing between compounds that induce immune responses on their own from those that do so exclusively in the presence of a pathogen. The former class of compounds, which includes known plant activators, can be toxic to cells and was thus eliminated in the screening. The resulting five compounds, identified from a total of 10,000 compounds screened, enhance resistance against pathogenic Pseudomonas bacteria by priming immune response without directly activating defense genes.
Further investigation revealed that the five compounds inhibit two enzymes that inactivate the defense hormone salicylic acid (SA glucosyltransferases or SAGTs), and gene knockout experiments confirmed that plants without these enzymes exhibit enhanced disease resistance. Together, the results establish the effectiveness of the new technique for finding useful plant activators and the power of SA metabolism as a strategy for crop protection.
###
Reference:
Yoshiteru Noutoshi, Masateru Okazaki, Tatsuya Kida, Yuta Nishina, Yoshihiko Morishita, Takumi Ogawa, Hideyuki Suzuki, Daisuke Shibata, Yusuke Jikumaru, Atsushi Hanada, Yuji Kamiya, and Ken Shirasu. Novel Plant Immune-Priming Compounds Identified via High-Throughput Chemical Screening Target Salicylic Acid Glucosyltransferases in Arabidopsis. The Plant Cell, 2012. DOI: doi/10.1105/tpc.112.098343
About RIKEN
RIKEN is Japan's flagship research institute devoted to basic and applied research. Over 2500 papers by RIKEN researchers are published every year in reputable scientific and technical journals, covering topics ranging across a broad spectrum of disciplines including physics, chemistry, biology, medical science and engineering. RIKEN's advanced research environment and strong emphasis on interdisciplinary collaboration has earned itself an unparalleled reputation for scientific excellence in Japan and around the world.
About the RIKEN Plant Science Center
With rapid industrialization and a world population set to top 9 billion within the next 30 years, the need to increase our food production capacity is more urgent today than it ever has been before. Avoiding a global crisis demands rapid advances in plant science research to boost crop yields and ensure a reliable supply of food, energy and plant-based materials.
The RIKEN Plant Science Center (PSC), located at the RIKEN Yokohama Research Institute in Yokohama City, Japan, is at the forefront of research efforts to uncover mechanisms underlying plant metabolism, morphology and development, and apply these findings to improving plant production. With laboratories ranging in subject area from metabolomics, to functional genomics, to plant regulation and productivity, to plant evolution and adaptation, the PSC's broad scope grants it a unique position in the network of modern plant science research. In cooperation with universities, research institutes and industry, the PSC is working to ensure a stable supply of food, materials, and energy to support a growing world population and its pressing health and environmental needs.
Reach us on Twitter: @rikenresearch
[ | E-mail | Share ]
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Contact: RIKEN Global Relations Office pr@riken.jp RIKEN
Immune-priming compounds identified using new screening technique protect crops without affecting plant growth, crop yield
A new high-throughput screening technique developed by researchers at the RIKEN Plant Science Center (PSC) has been used to uncover five novel immune-priming compounds in Arabidopsis plants. Discovery of the compounds, which enhance disease resistance without impacting plant growth or crop yield, establishes the new technique as a powerful asset in the battle to protect crops from damaging pathogens.
Plant activators, compounds that activate a plant's immune system in response to invasion by pathogens, play a crucial role in crop survival by triggering a range of immune responses. Unlike pesticides, plant activators are not pathogen specific and also not affected by drug resistance, making them ideal for use in agriculture. Wet-rice farmers across East Asia use plant activators as a sustainable means to enhance crop durability without the environmental consequences of microbial pesticides.
One of the key problems of plant activators, however, is that the activation of plant responses they trigger is often associated with arrested growth and reductions in crop yield. Determining why this is so is difficult because despite their widespread use, the molecular mechanisms governing how plant activators work are largely unknown.
The new screening technique developed by the PSC team overcomes this challenge by distinguishing between compounds that induce immune responses on their own from those that do so exclusively in the presence of a pathogen. The former class of compounds, which includes known plant activators, can be toxic to cells and was thus eliminated in the screening. The resulting five compounds, identified from a total of 10,000 compounds screened, enhance resistance against pathogenic Pseudomonas bacteria by priming immune response without directly activating defense genes.
Further investigation revealed that the five compounds inhibit two enzymes that inactivate the defense hormone salicylic acid (SA glucosyltransferases or SAGTs), and gene knockout experiments confirmed that plants without these enzymes exhibit enhanced disease resistance. Together, the results establish the effectiveness of the new technique for finding useful plant activators and the power of SA metabolism as a strategy for crop protection.
###
Reference:
Yoshiteru Noutoshi, Masateru Okazaki, Tatsuya Kida, Yuta Nishina, Yoshihiko Morishita, Takumi Ogawa, Hideyuki Suzuki, Daisuke Shibata, Yusuke Jikumaru, Atsushi Hanada, Yuji Kamiya, and Ken Shirasu. Novel Plant Immune-Priming Compounds Identified via High-Throughput Chemical Screening Target Salicylic Acid Glucosyltransferases in Arabidopsis. The Plant Cell, 2012. DOI: doi/10.1105/tpc.112.098343
About RIKEN
RIKEN is Japan's flagship research institute devoted to basic and applied research. Over 2500 papers by RIKEN researchers are published every year in reputable scientific and technical journals, covering topics ranging across a broad spectrum of disciplines including physics, chemistry, biology, medical science and engineering. RIKEN's advanced research environment and strong emphasis on interdisciplinary collaboration has earned itself an unparalleled reputation for scientific excellence in Japan and around the world.
About the RIKEN Plant Science Center
With rapid industrialization and a world population set to top 9 billion within the next 30 years, the need to increase our food production capacity is more urgent today than it ever has been before. Avoiding a global crisis demands rapid advances in plant science research to boost crop yields and ensure a reliable supply of food, energy and plant-based materials.
The RIKEN Plant Science Center (PSC), located at the RIKEN Yokohama Research Institute in Yokohama City, Japan, is at the forefront of research efforts to uncover mechanisms underlying plant metabolism, morphology and development, and apply these findings to improving plant production. With laboratories ranging in subject area from metabolomics, to functional genomics, to plant regulation and productivity, to plant evolution and adaptation, the PSC's broad scope grants it a unique position in the network of modern plant science research. In cooperation with universities, research institutes and industry, the PSC is working to ensure a stable supply of food, materials, and energy to support a growing world population and its pressing health and environmental needs.
Reach us on Twitter: @rikenresearch
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
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Nazi Germany's economy was not a central planning success, it was a disaster. Is there a lesson for today?
By Bill Bonner,?Guest blogger / August 25, 2012
A representation of Adolf Hitler lies in a box after police searched the house of an alleged neo-Nazi in Juelich, western Germany, on Thursday. Germany's Nazi economy holds some lessons for today.
Michael Klarmann/dapd/AP
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Economists cannot know what is ?better.? They can only know what is ?more.? They have numbers. They can count. They can add up ?more?. As for ?better,? they have no idea. So, in their little minds, more is better.
Skip to next paragraph Bill Bonner
Bill has written two New York Times best-selling books, Financial Reckoning Day and Empire of Debt. With political journalist Lila Rajiva, he wrote his third New York Times best-selling book, Mobs, Messiahs and Markets, which offers concrete advice on how to avoid the public spectacle of modern finance. Since 1999, Bill has been a daily contributor and the driving force behind The Daily Reckoning (dailyreckoning.com).
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That is the thinking that has driven the profession?and much of the world economy?to absurdity. Throughout the last 50 years, more looked so much like better, no one worried too much about the difference. More cars. More houses. More food. More gadgets. What was not to like?
But the cost was more debt. And by the 21st century the burden of debt had become so great that the system could no longer move forward. Here is how it worked, up until the early spring of 2007:
The Chinese, and others, made more stuff. The Arabs, and others, pumped more oil.
Americans, and others, created more credit and used the money to buy more stuff.
Rather than demand payment ? in gold ? for their excess dollars, as they would have before 1971, the exporters took the money and lent it back to the Americans. In this way, the US never really had to settle up. Approximately $8 trillion of purchasing power ? the accumulated trade deficits between 1970 and 2007 ? was created in this way. There is supposed to be ?no such thing as a free lunch? in economics. But for years Americans ate breakfast, lunch, and many of their dinners too at foreigners? expense.
Not needing to redeem the old credits, new ones were made available to Americans. Cheap credit drove up housing prices?and gave them the collateral to borrow more money and buy more stuff.
But when subprime mortgage market collapsed in ?07-?08, suddenly, US real estate prices stopped rising. This left millions of households in a bind. They could no longer borrow against rising house prices because housing was going down. They had to cut back on spending?which meant less stuff could be sold to them?and it left producers with bulging warehouses with unsold goods.
Economists looked at this situation, after the crash of subprime mortgages in ?07 and ?08, and came to the same conclusion they had on the occasion of every other slowdown over the previous 60 years. The economy needed more ?stimulus? to encourage consumers to buy more stuff. They did not notice that consumers already had too much stuff?and that they were now paying the price for buying more stuff than they could afford. Nor did they wonder whether consumers? lives might be better if they focused more on quality and less on quantity. ?More? is all they know; it is all they can do. So they called for ?more stimulus,? more debt, more credit, more spending, and more stuff.
But more is not always the right answer. There are times when less is better.
One of those times was in the mid-1930s?when Germany faced a critical decision. More? Or less?
Adam Tooze, a British historian, has written a marvelous book on the Nazi economy,?The Wages of Destruction. He shows that, far from illustrating the success of intelligent central planning, the German economy of the Third Reich was a disaster. The National Socialists ? or ?Nazis? ? had their plans for Germany. They were determined to put them into practice, regardless of what the Germans may have wanted for themselves. They fiddled with one sector after another. When one fix failed to produce the desired results, actually bringing unintended and undesired consequences, they tried to fix the fix with a new fix. Most of these fixes involved spending money ? if not on actual output, then on bureaucracies that regulated output. And most of them were directed towards a goal that only a demagogue politician or a lame economist would find attractive ? making Germany self-sufficient. Imports cost money, they reasoned. Besides, trade forced a nation to behave. Neither was attractive to the Nazis.
Like America in the 2000s, by the mid-1930s Germany had already spent too much money ? with the military as its biggest single expense. It faced enemies much more real and dangerous than America?s ?terrorist? adversaries. And under Adolph Hitler?s leadership it had decided to invest heavily in armaments. This created a sense of purpose for many people and a source of ?demand? that got people working again. Germany was still a relatively poor country, with a standard of living only about half the US equivalent. An autoworker in Munich, for example, could not expect anywhere near the same lifestyle as one in Detroit. Henry Ford paid his workers so well they were able to afford large houses with hot and cold running water and electricity. They could buy automobiles too?which gave a huge boost to America?s heavy industry. When war began, the US could fairly quickly convert its auto factories to production of jeeps, tanks and trucks. Germany could not.
In Germany, automobiles were still a luxury item. Few people owned them; certainly not the people who made them. Military orders made up for the lack of demand from the civilian population.
In this regard, many economists looked at Germany and labeled the rearmament program ? from an economic standpoint ? as a central planning success story. It ?put people back to work.? It ?got the economy moving again.? More stuff was being produced. ?More? worked! From all over Europe, people came to admire the revival in Germany. American Congressmen praised Hitler. So did many magazine editors and other leaders in France and Britain too.
Besides, compared to what was going on in Russia, Japan and Italy? Germany looked positively benign, if not a perfect role model. Stalin was purging or starving his enemies ? millions of them. Benito Mussolini had invaded Abyssinia and was busily massacring the locals. The Japanese were beginning their bloody war against the Chinese. Hitler may have sounded mad from time to time, and he may have murdered many of his rivals on the ?night of the long knives,? but now ? by 1935 ? he was beginning to sound reasonable, at least in comparison.
INSTANTLY fix the US: How Obama/Romney could win instantly; Fix US debt overnight
Some simple math on how the richest 5% of Americans.....could instantly fix our national debt. And how Romney or Obama could capitalize on this fact.
The US set a record last year for total number of millionaires (U.S. Has Record Number of Millionaires - The Wealth Report - WSJ) at 3,100,000 (about 1% of the population). They had a combined wealth of about $11,000,000,000 (trillion).
US national debt is about 16 trillion. (U.S. National Debt Clock : Real Time).
Now, if the top 1% of Americans, all millionaires with 11 trillion in total wealth, EACH dedicated 1,000,000 in ONE single contribution to the country.......in one year, overnight with one collective act, the top one percent of earners in this nation would cut the national debt by 20% instantly.
And what if we asked the top 5% to do the same, but a bit less for each step? Say the top 2-5% each contribute 500,000, or 250,000??? Thats about 15,000,000 people. If each of those top 5% gave 500,000.......thats another 7.5 trillion dollars.
Combined...thats over half the national debt GONE, instantly.
It would be voluntary. A massive collective effort. An epic act equal to World War 2. Literally SAVES our nation. Romney or Obama could call for this epic, unselfish act. Pass a bill that says once these brave, heroic private citizens reach that total voluntarily, the federal govt automatically kicks in spending cuts of equal proportion until this damn thing is balanced and the debt gone.
Some would be angered by this very notion.
- "It aint fair"
- "It aint my job to pay the debt"
- "Why me, why dont the bottom half pay??"
Well, like I said, this would be an effort economically that would equal the WW2 generations effort to save this country. Would we be up to it? What if after we asked the top 5%, we then asked the top 10% to pitch in another contribution? The top 6%-10%, abuot another 15 million people, could kick in 100K each. Thats another 1.5 trillion GONE from the debt!!!!
And what if...God help us.....we asked the top 10% to do this 2 years in a row. We looked to them as the true saviors of our nation, and they equalled the effort we put out in WW2 to save this nation. They could erase the debt in 2 years. Gone. Add in the Fed's agreed-upon cuts in spending.....and wow, what a potential miracle.
Any chance the top 1%, then top 5%, then top 10% of wealth earners in this nation would make the personal sacrifice to save this nation? Our military has been doing it for centuries. Our teachers, cops, firemen have been doing it to save our communties for centuries.
Now is the time that the financial and economic kings of our land COULD step up, and put forth this herculean effort to save this country.
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Public release date: 11-Sep-2012
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