In a recent study, scientists from UC Berkeley led by Matt Francis have demonstrated how to program tobacco plants to take advantage of the efficient way that they collect sunlight. Rather than attempt to reprogram all the cells of a mature tobacco plant, the scientists genetically engineered a virus called the tobacco mosaic virus to do the job for them.

The researchers sprayed the modified virus on a crop of tobacco plants, and the virus caused the plant cells to produce lots of artificial chromophores, which turn photons from sunlight into electrons.

In order for the chromophores to work, however, they must be spaced at a precise distance from one another – about two or three nanometers. A little closer or further apart, and the electric current will either be halted or the electrons will be very difficult to harvest.

Thankfully, tobacco plant cells have evolved to space chromophores at this exact distance, lining them up in a long spiral hundreds of nanometers long. By exploiting this structure, the researchers could take advantage of billions of years of evolution to grow perfectly spaced strands of chromophores.

“Over billions of years, evolution has established exactly the right distances between chromophores to allow them to collect and use light from the sun with unparalleled efficiency,” said Francis.

Since the modified tobacco plants themselves don’t generate electricity, the researchers must harvest the plants and extract the chromophore structures. Then, the scientists can dissolve the structures in a liquid solution, and then spray the solution on a glass or plastic substrate to create a solar cell. So far, the scientists have not yet demonstrated that the resulting solar cells can turn light into electrical energy.

Compared with traditional solar cells, those made from plants could have several potential advantages. For instance, they don’t require the use of toxic chemicals, they’re biodegradable, and they’re inexpensive to produce. On the other hand, bio-based solar cells would likely have a shorter lifetime than silicon solar cells.

In addition to using tobacco, the researchers also demonstrated how to manipulate E. coli bacteria to produce chromophore structures. In this case, the researchers didn’t use a virus, but modified the bacteria directly.

More information: Michel T. Dedeo, Karl E. Duderstadt, James M. Berger and Matthew B. Francis. “Nanoscale Protein Assemblies from a Circular Permutant of the Tobacco Mosaic Virus.” Nano Lett., 2010, 10 (1), pp 181-186. doi:10.1021/nl9032395
Via: Discovery News
© 2010 PhysOrg.com

A new flavor kicked up sales sharply for a Marlboro brand of snuff and helped to boost profits at Altria Group Inc.

And as the tobacco giant’s aggressive push into noncigarette businesses starts paying off on the bottom line, directors yesterday voted to share more of future profits with stockholders.

Other Richmond corporate giants also reported profit gains yesterday for the end of one of the toughest years ever for American business.

At Henrico County-based Altria, parent company of Philip Morris USA, strong earnings led directors to decide they’ll pay about 80 percent of future profits as dividends, up from 75 percent now.

Altria’s profits rose despite a more than doubling in cigarette taxes that led some smokers to quit and others to switch to discount brands.

Though U.S. sales of all makers’ cigarettes fell about 8 percent, smokeless tobacco rose – a trend that many health advocates fear will keep Americans hooked on a deadly product.

For Altria, smokeless tobacco is starting to play an ever-moreimportant role in its business.

One big signal: a 15 percent jump in sales of Copenhagen snuff in the fourth quarter, to 77.9 million cans, mainly because of a new wintergreen-flavored variety launched toward the end of the quarter.

“When you look at the growth in Copenhagen it’s really strongly being driven now by Copenhagen long-cut wintergreen,” Altria Chairman and CEO Michael E. Szymanczyk said yesterday.

The wintergreen-flavored snuff was only the fifth product in Copenhagen’s 187-year history, but Altria Executive Vice President David R. Beran said yesterday that the company is introducing two more varieties early this year.

“Clearly, Cope’ wintergreen is off to a pretty good start,” Goldman Sachs analyst Judy Hong said.

Szymanczyk said Altria’s top brand, Marlboro, hung in strongly in a year that saw a 62-cents-a-pack federal tax increase as well as a 9-cent-a-pack price increase in the spring and a 6-cent-a-pack price increase in the fall.

“The loyalty factor remains high. It ended the year in pretty good shape,” Szymanczyk said. Marlboro’s market share slipped just 0.1 percentage point last year.

Beran said Marlboro’s menthol varieties were among the fastest-growing brands last year, largely because of the new Blend 54 version.

He said Marlboro will introduce two new nonmenthol varieties this year, both to be called “Special Blend” and both based on the Marlboro “Red” blend.

Cigarette price increases and what Szymanczyk called a “disciplined” approach to promotions – that is, not doing them as aggressively as some tobacco firms – meant the company’s net revenue per pack rose to $1.27 from $1.15 the previous year. The figure excludes federal taxes and various fees.

Altria’s earnings from continuing operations last year rose 4 percent to $3.2 billion, as revenue increased 21.7 percent to $23.6 billion.

Its shares rose 4 cents to close at $20.03.

ALBANY — A legislative push would deny Gov. David A. Paterson his $1-per-pack cigarette tax increase until the state begins collecting taxes on tobacco products sold on American Indian reservations.

The governor included the cigarette tax increase in his proposed budget. But when the governor’s call to start collecting the taxes on such sales to non-Indians would kick in remains unclear, although it likely would be months after the proposed tobacco tax increase takes effect June 2.

“We should collect before we tax,” State Sen. Carl Kruger, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said Tuesday at a legislative hearing looking into ways to end the tax-free sales.

“Everyday that goes by we are not doing the right thing for the people of New York,” said Kruger, a Brooklyn Democrat who called the long-standing tax-free sales a “diabolical scheme” that has denied the state billions of dollars in tax revenue.

Lawmakers are growing frustrated with the Paterson tax collection plan because they have not been able to obtain details on when or how the new effort would work. Paterson officials said last week that the Department of Taxation and Finance would issue rules within a matter of days to collect the tax.

“Unfortunately, attempts to clarify these questions with the relevant executive branch authorities have been unsuccessful to date,” said Sen. Craig D. Johnson, the Port Washington Democrat who presided at Tuesday’s hearing.

The Paterson administration did not respond to questions about the tax collection effort.

Earlier in the day, the Senate’s top Democrat distanced himself from the cigarette tax increase.

“No new fees, no new taxes,” Senate Democratic Conference Leader John L. Sampson of Brooklyn said of the plan to raise the excise tax to $3.75 per pack.

Representatives of the Seneca Nation of Indians were in the Capitol on Tuesday, also seeking details of the governor’s plan.

“It’s unclear,” J. C. Seneca, a Seneca councilor, said of the timetable or structure for the tax collection after a meeting with Paterson’s top lawyers.

The Senate committee released a spread sheet it received from the Paterson administration showing that Indian tribes with casinos owe the state $55 million in back payments for security and background work performed by the State Police at the gambling halls. Of this total, the Senecas owe $40 million for State Police work at the Seneca Niagara and Seneca Allegany casinos.

“We have to sit down and figure out the charges,” Seneca said.

Tuesday’s Senate hearing, a continuation of a session that began in October in New York City, included a fiery defense of the Seneca position by the nation’s representatives.

Convenience store operators, meanwhile, turned out to urge lawmakers not to impose the new $1 cigarette tax without resolving the collection dispute. They said doing otherwise would encourage more illegal Indian and bootleg sales.

Following announcements from state attorneys general that its cigarette products should be removed from retail shelves due to non-payment of the Master Settlement Agreement (MSA), Vibo Corp., dba General Tobacco (GT), announced that it will comply with recent notices regarding the removal of its cigarette brands from certain state directories of approved brands for sale.

The company also noted the de-listing does not pertain to its filtered cigars or pipe tobacco, both of which can continue to be sold in all states without interruption.

CSNews Online reported earlier this week that General Tobacco products can no longer be sold in Washington or 17 other states as of Feb. 19, according to The Washington Attorney General’s Office, which claimed the company had not made the required payments under the MSA.

General Tobacco said in a statement it continues to dispute those states’ allegations that it is in default on its MSA obligations. It noted that any amount it currently owes to the states is far less than what the states argue, and that the company is entitled to apply more than $95 million owed to the company in credits under the MSA toward any payment due.

The tobacco manufacturer also continues to dispute the validity of the MSA under antitrust, constitutional and other federal and state laws.

Since 2004, General Tobacco has made approximately $600 million in payments to the states under the MSA, according to the company. J. Ronald Denman, General Tobacco executive vice president and general counsel, said: “The states should consider not only the vast amount of money that General Tobacco has paid them, but also the interests of the consumer at stake here. Consumers should not have to lose the choice of GT’s brands over what the company considers to be a bona fide dispute over the interpretation of the MSA and its validity under federal and state law.”

Though General Tobacco intends to comply with any de-listing, it informed the states that it is not in default on its MSA obligations because of the $95 million-plus credit, that any de-listing action should be halted while arbitration to determine application of the credit is pending, and General Tobacco and customers have not been given constitutionally adequate notice of the de-listings.

Tobacco producing giant Philip Morris International (PMI) broke ground on its new regional tobacco warehouse facility in a 50,000- square meter total land area inside Subic Techno Park that will store tobacco leaf for shipment and processing in various PMI cigarette factories in the Asia-Pacific region.

Philip Morris Philippines Manufacturing Inc. (PMPMI) Managing Director Chris Nelson, Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) Chairman Feliciano G. Salonga and SBMA Administrator Armand Arreza led the groundbreaking Monday morning to signal the commencement of the project.

?Today we break ground in what described to be the largest humid warehouse facility that will established Subic as a major center of regional leaf tobacco trading and a major center for international distribution, ? SBMA Administrator Armand Arreza said.

This new warehouse will have state-of-the-art features such as humidity control, fire suppression equipment, and air conditioning to handle the imported tobacco leaf from China, Indonesia, Thailand, and India, among others, which will be used by PMI cigarette manufacturing facilities in the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia..

The expected project completion will be August this year, so definitely, the economic benefit of this project will accrued to the community in a very short period of time,? Arreza said.

What we are groundbreaking today is actually the Phase II of our investment here in Subic.. You will recall that in January 2008, exactly two years ago, we opened the first phase which was a 10,000-square meter leaf warehouse that used to be Building 8120 of SBMA located at the Boton area,? PMPMI Managing Director Chris Nelson said.

At present, the existing refurbished warehouse in Boton Area can only accommodate 6,100 metric tons of tobacco leaf. Phase-I has an initial investment of P30-million while the new project is peg at around P500-million worth of investment, Nelson said.

The new warehouse stands on a 20,000-square meter lot out of the almost 50,000-square meter total land area that we have leased from SBMA for 50 years. In the future, we could further expand the warehouse facility to handle 24,000 metric tons of tobacco depending on the region?s demand,? he added.

The construction of the Subic Techno Park warehouse, with an initial capacity of storing 14,000 metric tons of tobacco, is expected to be completed in July this year.

Nelson disclosed that Subic was chosen from among several possible locations in Southeast Asia ?as it provides reasonable advantages in cost and efficiency over the various storage areas where tobacco leaf are previously kept.?

Through the years, we have steadily expanded our investments here in the Philippines. The project that we are groundbreaking today further cements our commitment to the economic development of the country and our faith in the Philippine tobacco industry,? Nelson said.

PMI is the leading tobacco company in the world with over 15 percent share of the international adult smoking market (excluding China).

It previously invested more than $ 300 million in the construction of its first class cigarette manufacturing facility in Tanauan City, Batangas which became operational in 2003.

PMI?s affiliates, which include PMPMI, manufacture and market seven of the top 15 best selling international brands – including Marlboro, the world?s number one cigarette brand. (PNA)

ALBANY, – One experiment Albany Firefighters conducted tested new fire safe cigarettes now mandated in Georgia. Those cigarettes are designed to go out if you stop smoking them.

Cigarettes cause fires that kill 700 people and injure 3,000 every year in the United States. 74 year old Audrey Baty died in an Albany house fire January 7th, and Investigators determined the fire was caused by a cigarette. That tragedy influenced firefighters to check out how safe these new cigarettes really are.

The fire safe cigarettes are made of the same kind of tobacco and paper, but it has rings in the paper to stop the flame if not puffed. But the fire safe standards require them to burn out 75% of the time.

Firefighters say dumping cigarette ashes and butts in trash cans is one of the most frequent causes of house fires. Firefighters set up a chair and couch in a condemned house, and placed a fire safe cigarette in the trash can with newspapers, and then other trash types.

The cigarette smoldered for a couple of minutes, and then….. “I see smoke. Yea, we got a fire already,” said a firefighter.

Within five minutes the trash can was blazing in the trash can. And 12 minutes after putting the fire safe cigarette in the trash can, the fire had set both the chair and couch next to it ablaze. In two tries, each time the fire safe cigarette started a fire.

“It appears when it gets insulated on more than two sides, it continues to burn. We pulled the paper back and it was smoldering, burning inside the paper both times,” Investigator Sam Harris said.

Firefighters say they concluded from their experiment that the fire safe cigarette is a better system, but not a fail proof system.

“Can’t trust it. Anytime you have an open flame you have a risk of a fire. That’s exactly what we found out,” Harris said.

So Firefighters urge smokers to use extreme caution, and not get overly confident in fire safe cigarettes.

“Continue to be vigilant when they are smoking. To worry about putting them out good. And to not pour the ashes into trash cans, because it can cause a fire.”

Firefighters hope their experiment findings and warnings can prevent more cigarette fire deaths.

Fire safe cigarettes are the law in Georgia now, but stores can still sell the old style cigarettes they had in stock until they are all gone. So some of those are still available. The way you can know if you have a fire safe cigarette, it’s on the package marked “FSC” if they are fire safe.

Georgia was among the last states to require the fire safe cigarettes. The law mandating them went into effect January 1st. Most tobacco companies say they support the move to fire safe cigarettes.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which regulates products that account for 25 cents of every dollar spent by consumers, is always embroiled in controversy.

Some say it approves new drugs too quickly, while others say its delays cost lives. Some say our food supply is relatively safe, while others point to unsafe foods that have entered the market. Some say the FDA should take more aggressive enforcement actions, while others say it should rely on voluntary compliance.

But there’s one thing that virtually everyone agrees on: The FDA needs more money to do its job properly. This consensus includes patient organizations, consumer and research groups, the professional community, and all the industries the agency regulates.

Consider this anecdote from a report presented to the FDA by its own science committee: The agency had to bring in retired computer experts to repair its servers, because the equipment was so out of date that younger repairmen did not know how to fix it.

Or consider that the FDA inspects less than 1 percent of the food imported into the country each year, and it sometimes goes years without inspecting facilities where prescription drugs and medical devices are made.

The agency has the same number of employees it had in 2004, though Congress has given it much more responsibility since then.

Added duties
Consider these points:

The FDA has been given new responsibility to establish more modern systems to gather and evaluate adverse drug reactions, but there is no added money to do so.

Congress assigned the FDA to regulate tobacco products, and it can charge the tobacco companies fees. But the fees cannot cover the time needed to oversee the new regulatory activities at the most senior levels of the agency.

If a health-care reform bill does pass, the FDA is likely to have still more responsibility, without more funding.

Budget experts estimate that the FDA needs an increase of $120 million next year just to maintain its present staffing and activities. Undoing the consequences of years of budgetary neglect will require several hundred million dollars more the following year. And the significant new authority that Congress is in the process of giving the FDA will require $400 million or more in new funding over the next three to four years.

No relief in sight
Every year at this time, the president sends a budget to Capitol Hill. All indications are that the one being prepared will provide no increases for the FDA.

There may be debate about what role the federal government should play in education, transportation, or health care. But there is little debate over whether the federal government must play a role in assuring that our food is safe, and that our drugs and medical devices are safe and effective. This assurance comes from the activities of the FDA, which sets and enforces standards for food and drug quality, and which approves new drugs and medical devices before they can be marketed.

Imagine if we as consumers had to fend for ourselves in the supermarkets or restaurants, or if we did not know that the prescription drugs we get at the pharmacy or hospital had been tested thoroughly.

National resources are scarce, and priorities are hard to set. Our leaders face delicate balances. But let’s hope that the essential services the FDA provides get the attention they deserve. We cannot afford to take the risk of continuing to deny the agency the money it needs to protect us.

President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address will completely ignore a huge and totally unnecessary expense which, if corrected, could fund health care reform without any cuts in Medicare or any additional taxes, with tens of billions left over to reduce the deficit, says public interest law professor John Banzhaf.

Smoking costs the American economy almost $200 billion a year for totally unnecessary medical care costs under Medicare, Medicaid, veteran’s benefits, Indian benefits, and many other welfare programs, as well as in the costs of premature disability, lost productivity, and other factors. Nonsmokers are now forced to bear most of this cost in the form of higher taxes, and in inflated premiums for medical insurance, says Banzhaf of Action on Smoking and Health (ASH).

But, despite Obama’s zeal to slash health care costs, including legislative proposals to cut hundreds of billions of dollars in Medicare for the elderly, Obama will reportedly propose no new approaches to curbing America’s number one cause of unnecessary health care costs — one which by any measure exceeds the costs of frivolous medical malpractice law suits, inefficiencies from a lack of digital medical records, outdated policies for treating diseases, etc.

One simple step, proposed by Action on Smoking and Health, would have been to impose, as part of health care reform, a modest surcharge on health insurance premiums for smokers — just as smokers now pay more for life insurance, and, in an increasing number of situations (including in many states), for health insurance.

ASH showed how such a surcharge would slash health care costs by reducing the incidence of diseases caused or exacerbated by smoking; obviously a much more efficient way than simply improving the care for these diseases once they have already occurred. It would in addition substantially reduce the need to cut life-saving Medicare funding, or to tax comprehensive health plans, and is one of the few funding proposals favored by a majority of Americans.

Obama could also help to reduce this totally unnecessary subsidy nonsmokers are now forced to pay by other steps which likewise could be done at no cost and which could be implemented immediately. One would be to direct the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to use the power Congress just gave it to substantially reduce the level of nicotine in cigarettes to the point where the product could not easily sustain an addiction and prevent millions from quitting smoking.

Another useful step, says Prof. Banzhaf, would be for Obama to ask the U.S. Senate to ratify the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control — a world antismoking and nonsmokers’ rights treaty which the U.S. supported and signed, but has yet to ratify. A third measure might be to require, as a condition of receiving federal grants, that recipient institutions ban all tobacco use on their property, and provide effective smoking cessation assistance to employees.

“Smoking is the 800 pound gorilla in the health care debate which everyone is afraid of and unwilling to confront. Halving smoking — by making it much more expensive as well as very inconvenient — would pay for all health care reform without any need to cut Medicare or increase any taxes. It would go a long way towards insuring that the nonsmokers would not have to continue to subsidize this activity which many so strongly oppose.”

“A surcharge on smokers would, for the first time, force them to accept some personal responsibility for their choice, rather than requiring others to absorb these huge costs,” says Banzhaf, noting that President Obama, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, and many conservative as well as liberal groups have argued that personal responsibility must become a major component of health care reform.”

Those who by their own choices impose huge and totally unnecessary expenses on the American public should bear at least some of those costs, argues ASH. For many of them, including the overwhelming majority who already wish to quit, it would be the first time that continuing to smoke would have real, direct, and immediate consequences — thereby providing the additional incentive many need to be successful, says ASH.

PROFESSOR JOHN F. BANZHAF III
Executive Director and Chief Counsel
Action on Smoking and Health (ASH)
America’s First Antismoking Organization
2013 H Street, NW
Washington, DC 20006, USA
(202) 659-4310 ** http://ash.org

Reynolds American (RAI) is one of the largest cigarette and tobacco products manufacturers in North America, trailing only Altria Group (MO – formerly Philip Morris). RAI commands about 28% of the U.S. tobacco market vs. Altria’s 50% share. The company has a wide array of cigarette brands covering every general category such as premium (Camel, Winston), branded menthol (Kool), and discount (Pall Mall, Doral).

In 2006, the company acquired Conwood, the second largest manufacturer of smokeless tobacco products, for $3.5 billion, adding popular brands such as Grizzly and Kodiak. Reynolds also runs the Santa Fe Natural Tobacco subsidiary, which produces the American Spirit brand of additive-free cigarettes. The current company was formed in 2004 when R.J. Reynolds merged with Brown & Williamson, the U.S. arm of British American Tobacco (BTI).

Tobacco stocks are a much-maligned group that have nevertheless delivered outstanding long-term returns to shareholders. Wharton professor Jeremy Siegel, in his book The Future for Investors (MagicDiligence review), showed how Philip Morris was by far the best original S&P 500 stock, returning an amazing 19% annually to shareholders over a 50 year period! This is due mainly to the effects of compounding reinvested dividends, especially when combined with the inherent volatility in the share price. When the share price goes down, the dividend yield goes up, and investors that reinvested Philip Morris’ substantial and always rising (42 consecutive years) dividend were rewarded handsomely.

Reynolds American profiles very similarly. The stock pays out about 75% of free cash flow to shareholders, resulting in a current dividend yield of about 6.7%. That yield looks safe, too, as Reynolds has been able to maintain stable free cash flow levels since going public. But does the stock make a good Magic Formula investment, where our target holding period is just one year?

Clearly, the domestic cigarette industry is not a growth market. Volume shipments have been declining in the low-to-mid single digits for the last 10 years, and have accelerated into double digit territory this year due to a massive federal excise tax hike (detailed in my Vector Group (VGR) review), combined with some state hikes, smoking bans, and increased regulatory pressure from the FDA. Reynolds has made some moves to mitigate these, such as the Conwood purchase (smokeless is still a growing market) and increased R&D efforts behind alternative tobacco products (like innovative Camel sticks and snus), but organic revenue growth potential is meager at best. Reynolds cannot benefit from international growth, either, as BTI holds a non-compete agreement and Japan Tobacco holds overseas brand rights.

The firm’s competitive position is a mixed bag. On the one hand, the U.S. tobacco market is basically an oligarchy consisting of Reynolds, Altria, and much smaller Lorillard (LO). The Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) with state governments in the 90’s mandates payments for health claims, which costs Reynolds about $2.8 billion dollars a year. Any new competitors would be bound to this agreement as well, and this overhang combined with the daunting scale and brand equity enjoyed by the incumbents, not to mention tight restrictions on advertising, pretty much shuts out new entrants entirely. Over the long run, limited competition generally helps avoid prolonged and irrational pricing wars.

On the other hand, Altria has proven to be very aggressive in seeking market share, even to the detriment of their own margins. That company purchased #2 smokeless maker UST last year, acquiring the Skoal and Copenhagen brands. In a bid to stem UST’s long decline in market share, Altria slashed prices, which could adversely affect Conwood’s slice of the pie (currently about 29%). Also, since Altria enjoys dominant market share with their Marlboro brand, Reynolds is forced to price Camel to similar levels. With declining volumes and geographic expansion out, market share becomes the only way to grow, possibly leading to price cutting. This, of course, equals lower sales, lower profit margins, and lower profits for all involved. It is a potential risk over a one-year MFI holding period.

RAI currently has about a 13% earnings yield, which is not extremely cheap for a cigarette company with limited growth prospects and lots of legal and regulatory risks. I find it odd that Altria and Philip Morris International (PM) do not rank higher in MFI, as both of them have earnings yields in the 20% range with similar returns on capital. With MO’s scale and share advantages and PM’s international growth potential, both of these stocks look like better buys than RAI. MagicDiligence is still giving RAI the “thumbs up” due to its meaty and safe dividend combined with declining near-term legal risks, but I think there are much better opportunities in the MagicDiligence Top Buys list.

Butterflies and moths are welcome visitors to many plant species. Plants attract insect pollinators with the colors, forms, nectars and scents of their flowers to ensure fertilization and reproduction. However, female moths are also threatening to the plant: Once attracted by the flower’s scent, they lay their eggs on the green leaves, and shortly voracious young caterpillars hatch. Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology have now discovered how tobacco plants successfully solve this dilemma.

The researchers found that herbivory changed the opening time of the flower buds from dusk to dawn. In addition the emission of flower scents was dramatically reduced. This change in flower timing was elicited by specific molecules in the oral secretions of the larvae, and required the jasmonate signaling cascade, which is known to elicit a host of other defense responses in plants. Instead of night-active moths, these morning-opening flowers attract day-active hummingbirds which are also able to transfer pollen — without threatening the plant’s life.

Outbreak of tomato hornworms

During field experiments performed by PhD students of the Department of Molecular Ecology headed by Prof. Ian T. Baldwin in the Great Basin Desert of Utah (USA) in summer 2007, a massive outbreak of tomato hornworms (Manduca quinquemaculata) occurred. Almost every tobacco plant of the native species Nicotiana attenuata on the field site was attacked by these herbivores which prefer plants of the nightshade family. Danny Kessler intensively studied the infested plants and noticed that these plants had many flowers that opened after sunrise — although tobacco is typically a night-flowering plant and usually opens its flower buds after sunset. This finding resulted in experiments conducted in the following two years that showed that the flowering time postponed by 12 hours was directly related to herbivory.

Pollination wanted, but no oviposition

Ecologists had already noticed that female moths attracted for pollination laid their eggs, and shortly leaf-eating larvae hatched to feed on the same plant. The scientists considered whether plants would actually submit without reserve to this life-threatening disadvantage — just for pollination. They intensively studied the remarkable morning-opening flowers (MoF) which were only produced by plants that had been attacked by insect larvae and compared them to the usually occurring night-opening flowers (NoF). The first experiment already revealed an astounding result: MoF did not emit the attractant benzyl acetone anymore (see also Kessler et al., Science 321, 2008) and also the sugar concentration in the floral nectar was considerably reduced. Furthermore, it was striking that the petals of MoF only opened to a third of the size of NoF. All in all, the MoF were rendered literally unnoticeable by the moths — however, they may become interesting for different pollinators living nearby the field station: hummingbirds.

Hummingbirds visit the morning-opening flowers and serve as pollinators

To find out whether moths or birds successfully transferred pollen from flower to flower, the scientists determined the outcrossing rate of plants visited by moths or hummingbirds in field experiments. They removed the anthers from young flower buds to rule out self-pollination. Then an unattacked and an insect-attacked tobacco plant were covered with a mesh-covered wire cage until the morning of the next day to exclude night-active pollinators. A second pair of plants remained uncovered and thereby accessible to night-active pollinators. Before dawn the cages were exchanged, so that the plants that had been uncovered during the night were now covered and the plants that had been covered at night became accessible to pollinators during the day. In the evening all experimental plants were covered and the plants remained so until seed capsules were produced. Counting of the capsules revealed that a significant majority of capsules on plants that had not been attacked by caterpillars originated from flowers that were pollinated during the night between 8:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m., whereas in caterpillar-infested plants successful pollination had occurred in majority during the day between 6:00 a.m. and 8:00 p.m., therefore by hummingbirds.

The scientists verified the assumption that actually hummingbirds visit the MoFs and drink their nectar by directly observing and counting out more than 1000 flowering wild tobacco plants. 18 humming bird visitations were intensively studied which showed hummingbirds visiting larvae-infested plants. As a matter of fact, more than 90% of the birds preferred the MoF compared to NoF, even if only a few MoF were on a plant. “It is likely that the hummingbirds can recognize the special shape of the partially open corollas of the MoF in the morning and associate these characteristics with the reliable quality and quantity of the nectar in these flowers,” says Celia Diezel, co-author of the study.

Experiments using larval oral secretions and transgenic tobacco plants

In further experiments the scientists studied how attacked plants recognize herbivory and subsequently change the developmental program of the flowers to favor hummingbirds. Instead of infesting the plant by putting caterpillars on the leaves, the researchers mechanically wounded a leaf with a pattern wheel and applied oral secretions from hornworm larvae on the wounds. The plant reacted as after direct insect attack: After approximately 3 days more morning-opening flowers compared to non-induced plants were produced.

“Maybe the fatty acid amino acid conjugates present in the oral secretions of the larvae elicit this reaction. We already know that they switch on the plant’s defense against herbivory, for instance by producing toxic substances to fend off the attacker,” Danny Kessler, PhD student at the institute, explains. In an additional experiment he used genetically modified tobacco, in which the signaling pathway between the messenger molecule in the oral secretion and the defense reaction was interrupted; these plants were unable to produce jasmonate, a plant hormone initiating plant defense responses. In fact, the transgenic jasmonate-deficient plants used in the field experiment did not produce MoF after spit induction, but could if the plants were sprayed with jasmonate, which showed that the reprogramming of the flower production is actually related to the pathway that switches on defense mechanisms.

Why do plants risk attracting tomato hornworm moths as pollinators, although the insects’ larvae feed on the plants? “We cannot answer this question from the perspective of one single plant, but, if at all, from an evolutionary and ecological background,” says Ian Baldwin.

Wild tobacco populations grow on vast areas after fires, comparable to synchronized monocultures with thousands of widespread plants. Hummingbirds may not be the most reliable pollination service the plant species needs for outcrossing and reproduction. Using volatiles, the plants can attract moths from large distances, whereas hummingbirds are only available, if their nests are accidentally in the vicinity of the tobacco populations. Moreover, looking at the special mode of hummingbird pollination, it is more likely that flowers of one single plant are pollinated with pollen from the same plant than from flowers of different plants. This can decrease the genetic variability of the seeds produced. Moths may move more frequently among plants and this behavior may results in greater genetic variability for the seed produced from their pollination services.

The Florida State basketball teams hit the road for Tobacco Road this week, and a match up with perennial conference powerhouse Duke. With both the men and the women trailing the Blue Devils in the ACC standings, they’ll be hoping for a similar performance as they had on their latest homestand, where they combined to win five of their six games played.

Men’s Coach Leonard Hamilton said, “I think anything is capable of happening when two ACC teams show up, regardless of whether they’re in the top spot or the bottom. You can take the words “ACC upset” out of your vocabulary this season, because every game is what you call a “white knuckler,” one of those ball room balls. Very physical, very aggressive.”

For the women, their run through the Tar Heel State also includes a stop in Chapel Hill, to face 12th ranked North Carolina. Being able to check off both stops on one trip Coach Semrau believes will play to her team’s advantage..

Coach Semrau said, “You know, we get to kind of be Duke and Carolina for a weekend. We can drive 10 minutes to get to a game. You’re not going to have to come home and go back and forth. We always feel like being a team in Florida and we have to travel so far, and for us, to go up there and be able to play them in one weekend, be in one hotel, have our mind on our business, we’re looking forward to it.”

With the conference wide open for both the men and the women, a solid run on the road this week will do a lot for the Noles positioning in the ACC.

WASHINGTON — The Seneca Nation of Indians is threatening to spend $250,000 against Sen. Kirsten E. Gillibrand this year because of her support for legislation that would ban the mailing of cigarettes.

The Seneca Nation Foreign Relations Committee last week unanimously passed a resolution recommending that the Tribal Council set aside that money for “voter education and outreach.” The council will consider the request Feb. 13.

The move came on the recommendation of J. C. Seneca, a leading tobacco entrepreneur and co-chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee.

“I propose that $250,000 be appropriated for a ‘get out the vote’ effort to educate and mobilize the thousands of workers, contractors, vendors and their families who are tied to the Nation’s $1.1 billion economy as to why Senator Gillibrand is harmful to the Seneca Nation and all of Western New York,” Seneca wrote in a Jan. 14 letter to the committee.

The Senecas are threatening to target Gillibrand, D-N. Y.,because of her support of the Prevent All Cigarette Trafficking (PACT) Act, a bill that the Senate could consider that would ban the U. S. Postal Service from mailing cigarettes.

The Senecas depend on the U. S. mail to deliver about two-thirds of the cigarettes they sell, and in an interview, Seneca said the tribe was ready to fight to protect that business.

“The more we can do to educate people, the better,” he said, adding that the money could be spent on advertising or on campaign donations to Gillibrand’s opponents.

The $250,000 would be in addition to the $1 million the tribe earlier set aside to target state lawmakers seeking to collect taxes on the tribe’s cigarette sales.

Asked why the tribe was thinking of targeting Gillibrand, Seneca

said: “Sen. Gillibrand has made no effort at all to listen or to be willing to help.”

Told of the Senecas’ plans to target the freshman senator, her spokeswoman, Bethany Lesser, said: “Sen. Gillibrand’s No. 1 priority is economic development and the Seneca Nation is a partner to our efforts to create jobs and grow our economy. However, Sen. Gillibrand remains committed to preventing the illegal trafficking of cigarettes to children.”

Former Rep. Harold Ford is threatening a primary challenge to Gillibrand, and while no big-name Republican has vowed to run against her, the current political environment could make her a tempting GOP target.

The potential boost in Seneca political funding comes weeks after the tribe targeted both Gillibrand and Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N. Y., in a billboard campaign.

Asked why Schumer was no longer the target of the tribe’s ire, Seneca pointed to a recent interview with YNN Buffalo in which Schumer said: “If the Senecas have a really good and transparent way to prevent sales to minors — not using the PACT Act — I’d welcome it.”

That comment “did kind of break the ice” between Schumer and the tribe, Seneca said.

But the relationship between the Senecas and Gillibrand remains icy.

By Jerry Zremski
NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF
January 25, 2010