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The researchers think it is likely that most flowering plants, or angiosperms, contain similar sucrose-susceptible genes, making their “sweetening technology” widely applicable. Credit: Cienpies Design ================================================================================================= Previous research has shown that the sugar sucrose plays a role in controlling key fruit genes involved in sugar metabolism. Efforts to control these genes succeeded in increasing the sugar content in fruit but also resulted in stunted growth. Researchers from Tohoku University in Japan used a bioinformatics search tool to find nucleotide sequences in the tomato genome similar to a known tobacco gene sequence that can be repressed by sucrose. When a special...

Nicotine is bad for you and apparently it has the same poisonous effect on pests, getting scientists' attention for a potential alternative to traditional commercial pesticides. Tobacco and nicotine make one of the-hardest-to-get-rid-of vices of modern society – smoking, which can lead to lung cancer and early death. For hundreds of years now, tobacco leaves have been used on a small scale, as a natural organic pesticide, and as the growing concerns about health risk related to tobacco sales are harming tobacco farmers in some parts of the world, scientists looked for a new way of using this plant. Dr...

Hundreds of Michigan residents are getting a big surprise this tax season--hefty tax bills for cigarettes they bought online over the past four years. The state sent the bills to 553 residents last week after subpoenaing 13 online tobacco shops for names of Michigan customers and their order histories, a Michigan Treasury Department spokesman Caleb Buhs said on Friday. The tax bills are based on information from just one store, and the state expects to collect more names from the others. Collectively, the people receiving this first round of bills owe the state $1.4 million, an average of $2,500 per...

Tobacco industry seeks government aid package By CP TILLSONBURG -- Ontario tobacco growers warn their industry is in danger of being "wiped out" by falling sales and will ask for more government help, possibly including the buyout of farmers. Last spring's steep increase in cigarette taxes has dampened demand to the point where the market for selling the crop is moving closer to collapse, said tobacco board chairperson Gary Godelie. The board released a consultant's report that says Ontario's $500-million-a-year tobacco industry, which includes 14,000 jobs, is at risk. Godelie said the Ontario Flue-Cured Tobacco Growers' Marketing Board will present...