ARS News Service
Agricultural Research Service, USDA
Jim DeQuattro; 301-344-2756; [email protected]
April 18, 1997
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Estimates for Basal Metabolism Inaccurate for African American Girls
The equations used to estimate the number of calories adolescent females
burn while resting are inaccurate for African Americans, according to a
study by the Agricultural Research Service.
The finding at the agency's Children's Nutrition Research Center is
important because the basal metabolic rate (BMR) accounts for between 50
and 70 percent of the calories we burn daily. Clinicians routinely use BMR
to estimate the energy needs of patients. Government agencies use it to
recommend calorie intakes.
Ethnic background should be included in future BMR measurements and in
refining equations used to estimate it, the scientists concluded.
They had suspected that the equations now used do not reflect the energy
needs of children and adolescents, particularly non-white youths, because
these equations were derived from measurements done mostly on white adults.
What's more, most of the measurements were done during the first half of
the century when equipment and methods were less sophisticated.
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Scientific contact: William W. Wong, USDA-ARS Children's Nutrition Research
Center, Houston, Texas, phone (713) 798-7168, e-mail: [email protected].
Less Irradiation Would Still Stop Fruit Pests
Irradiation could become more practical as a quarantine treatment to
prevent fruit flies from spreading via shipments of grapefruit and other
produce, according to studies at the Agricultural Research Service.
Irradiation--exposure to safe, very low levels of gamma ray
energy--interrupts the insects' development. They can't reach adulthood and
produce offspring.
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Scientific contacts: Guy J. Hallman and Donald B. Thomas, USDA-ARS Crop
Quality and Fruit Insects Research Unit, Subtropical Agricultural Research
Laboratory, Weslaco, Texas, phone (210) 565-2647, fax (210) 565-6652,
e-mail [email protected] and [email protected].
Commercial Traps Control Wayward Bees
Commercial companies now use inexpensive traps to capture errant honey bee
swarms that might take up residence too near homes, schools, playgrounds
and other areas. The traps and lure were developed by scientists with the
USDA's Agricultural Research Service.
ARS scientists say the traps are especially useful against Africanized
honeybees, highly defensive bees now found in parts of Texas, New Mexico,
Arizona and California.
A story about the new traps appears in the March issue of Agricultural
Research magazine, the monthly publication of the Agricultural Research
Service. The story can be found on the World Wide Web in html format at:
http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/pr/beetrap0497.htm
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Scientific contact: Justin O. Schmidt, USDA-ARS Carl Hayden Bee Research
Laboratory, Tucson, Ariz., phone (520) 670-6380, fax (520) 670-6493, e-mail
[email protected].
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* Photos used in AR magazine for this story: K7583-1, Steve Thoenes of Bee
Masters checks trap in tree; K7583-2, J. Schmidt examines honeycomb in
trap. View photos at website. Phone ARS Photo Unit at (301) 344-2958 or
send e-mail to [email protected].
Corn, Crop Residues Offer Cleaner Environment
Leftovers processed from farm crops could clean drinking water and industrial
wastewater, a U.S. Department of Agriculture scientist says.
Chemist Jacob Lehrfeld of USDA's Agricultural Research Service has
chemically converted low-value agricultural residues such as corn bran into
resins to bind up lead, other metals and some pesticides that contaminate
water. He reports on his research today at the 213th national meeting of
the American Chemical Society under way here.
"Phytic acid resin is a natural for cleaning wastewater in chromium and
copper plating industries," said Lehrfeld. "It binds nearly three times
more heavy metal than a similar volume of the petroleum-based sulfonated
styrene-divinylbenzene resin, now widely used in wastewater cleanup."
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Scientific contacts: Jacob Lehrfeld, National Center for Agricultural
Utilization Research, Agricultural Research Service, USDA, Peoria, Ill.
61604, phone (309) 681-6320, fax (309) 681-6689, e-mail
[email protected]
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An article about a different research approach involving phytic acid,
entitled "Mutant Corn Has Low Phytic Acid," appeared in Agricultural
Research magazine, December 1996. The article can be viewed on the World
Wide Web in downloadable PDF format at:
http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/AR/archive/dec96
Animal Disease Conference Comes to the Web
The world's first-ever "International Virtual Conference on Infectious
Diseases of Animals" is set to begin at the World Wide Web homepage of the
National Animal Disease Center at Ames, Iowa. Visitors can drop in on the
conference beginning Sunday evening, April 20 through May 2 at:
http://www.nadc.ars.usda.gov/virtconf
Keynote "speakers" will include Craig Venter of the Institute for Genome
Research at Rockville, Md., on "Bioinformatics: Use of Computers in the
Analysis of Genes and Genomes," and Sarah Greene and Matthew Cockerill on
"Electronic Communication in Science." Ms. Greene is the founder and
editor-in-chief of the World Wide Web magazine HMS Beagle
(http://www.hmsbeagle.com). Cockerill is the editor of BioMedNet on the
World Wide Web (http://biomednet.com).
Conference sessions will focus on bacterial and viral diseases of cattle
and swine, including infection with E. coli, salmonella and brucella.
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Scientific contact: Thad B. Stanton, National Animal Disease Center,
Agricultural Research Service, USDA, 2300 Dayton Ave., Ames, IA 50010,
phone (515) 239-8495, fax (515) 239-8458, e-mail
[email protected].
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