UPI NewsTrack Health and Science News

Wild seeds seen as world crop 'insurance'

LONDON, Dec. 10 (UPI) -- British scientists say they plan to collect wild plant relatives of essential food crops including wheat, rice and potatoes to preserve their genetic traits.

The project, coordinated by the Global Crop Diversity Trust, aims to safeguard valuable genetic traits in wild plants that could be bred into crops to make them more hardy and versatile, the BBC reported Friday.

The plant material collected will be stored in seed banks in the long term, but will also be used in "pre-breeding trials" to find out if the wild varieties could be used to combat diseases already threatening food production.

"There is a real sense of urgency about this," said Paul Smith, head of the Millennium Seed Bank at London's Kew Gardens.

"For some of these species, we may just get this one bite of the cherry, because so many of them are already threatened (with extinction) in their natural habitats," he said.

The hope is that the wild relatives of food crops will help plant-breeders produce strains that can cope with changing climate, plant diseases and loss of viable agricultural land.

"All our crops were originally developed from wild species -- that's how farming began," said Cary Fowler, executive director of the Global Crop Diversity Trust.

"Climate change means we need to go back to the wild to find those relatives of our crops that can thrive in the climates of the future."

Critics: Pompeii neglected, deteriorating

POMPEII, Italy, Dec. 10 (UPI) -- Italy's ancient city of Pompeii has had years of neglect and mediocre management by the Italian government, archaeologists say.

The UNESCO World Heritage site came under scrutiny in early November when one of its archaeological treasures, the "House of the Gladiators," crumbled, CNN reported Friday.

Recent heavy rainfall has reduced the walls of four more buildings to rubble, the organization charged with the site's upkeep said.

Considered one of the most important archaeological sites in Italy, Pompeii was all but destroyed when a volcanic eruption from nearby Mount Vesuvius buried the city in ash, which preserved the remains to an astonishing degree.

Critics say the site has been allowed to deteriorate through neglect and mismanagement.

"The current state of conservation in Pompeii is mediocre," said Pietro Giovanni Guzzo, former superintendent and archaeologist at Pompeii.

Guzzo retired in August 2009 after 15 years in the post.

"There has been no maintenance for decades," said Alessandra Mottola Molfino, president of Italia Nostra, Italy's oldest heritage charity.

Mottola Molfino places the blame on the Italian government.

Five days after the collapse of the House of the Gladiators, the president of the Chamber of Deputies Commission for Culture, Valentina Aprea, denied allegations of neglect by the government.

"The exceptional nature of the site of Pompeii has never been neglected by an Italian government," she said.

The government has put emergency measures in place at Pompeii, giving the supervising organization stronger powers to protect the site as well as making plans to increase the number of archaeologists and skilled workers there, a government statement said.

Fueling error blamed in loss of satellites

MOSCOW, Dec. 10 (UPI) -- Russia's loss of three satellites during launch this week was caused by an off-course booster rocket that had been given too much fuel, officials said.

The estimated 1-1/2 to 2 tons of excessive fuel caused the rocket to deviate from its course and the satellites crashed into the Pacific Ocean, RIA Novosti reported Friday.

"According to preliminary information, the problem was not with the fuel service unit at the launching site, but with one of the sensors showing the fuel level," Gennady Raikunov, head of the investigation commission, said.

"We do not rule out the factor of human error," he said.

Raikunov said the Russian space rocket corporation Energia may be linked to the incident.

The Sunday launch was intended to complete the forming of Russia's Glonass navigation system, similar to the U.S. GPS system.

However, the Proton-M rocket, launched from the Baikonur Space Center in Kazakhstan, deviated from its course by 8 degrees, resulting in the loss of the satellites.

The spacecraft fell into the Pacific Ocean to the northwest of Hawaii, RIA Novosti reported.

China builds solar-power air conditioners

BEIJING, Dec. 10 (UPI) -- China says it is producing solar-powered air conditioners that can also send excess electricity to a power grid, with the first 50,000 units going to America.

The air conditioner, developed by Gree Electric Appliances, mainly uses solar power, using normal electricity only when solar power is inadequate, said Huang Hui, chief engineer at Gree, Xinhua reported Wednesday.

With the American government supporting efforts to send excess solar energy to local power grids, the model should be popular in America, Huang said.

China, as both a major producer and consumer of air conditioners, provides great market potential for solar-powered air conditioners, he said.

A second generation of the model to be produced in 2011 will be 100-percent solar-powered and run without producing any emissions, Huang said.