A team of Japanese scientists has discovered genes that enable rice to survive high water, providing hope for better rice production in lowland areas that are affected by flooding.

The genes, called SNORKEL genes, help rice grow longer stems to deal with higher water levels. Deepwater rice generally produces low-yield rice plants. But the researchers report they have succeeded in introducing the genes to rice varieties that are higher-yield.

According to the report, as water levels rise, accumulation of the plant hormone（激素）makes the SNORKEL genes stat working, making stem growth more rapid. When the researchers introduced the genes into rice that does not normally survive in deep water, they were able to rescue the plants from drowning.

Motoyuki Ashikari, who headed the project, aid his team is hoping to use the gene on long grain rice widely used in Southeast Asia to help stabilize production in flood areas where rice with the food-resistant gene is low in production--about one-third to one-quarter that of regular rice.

"Scientifically the gene that we found is are but clear proof of a biological ability to adapt to a difficult environment, " he said. "It's a genetic strategy specifically to survive flooding. "

High water levels in rice field can be a serious problem. In some areas, rains can cause water levels to rise dangerously high during the growing season and flash flooding can fully submerge plants for days or even weeks.

Rice is a main food for billions. and while productivity has increased dramatically since the 1960s, yields must be doubled to meet projected requirements by 2050. More than 30 percent of Asian and 40 percent of African rice land is either lowland field or deep water field.

Laurentius of Utrecht University said the study is significant because high-yield rice varieties cannot survive extremes of foods. "The introduction of these genes into high-yield varieties, using advanced breeding strategies, promises to improve the quality and quantity of rice, "he said.

From a distance, they look like nothing more than thin red lines on the horizon, easily lost in the rough blue of the Atlantic Ocean. But get closer and the significance of the 140m-long tubes becomes apparent: they are the beginning of an entirely new industry in the hunt for clean power.

Yesterday, the red snake-like objects were laid as part of the world's, first wave-power station, off the coast of the northern Portuguese town of Agucadoura. The project marks the latest step in Portugal's moves to become a leader in developing renewable energy sources.

At the heart of the power station are three round wave energy converters(转换器), designed and built by a British company Pelamis Wave Power. Moving up and down on the endless supply of waves in the open sea, they change the motion into electricity, without sending out any of the carbon dioxide responsible for warming the planet.

The Pelamis wave machines will produce 2.25 Megawatt(MW兆瓦), enough for the annual needs of about 1,500 homes. Eventually, the station will be expanded with a further 25 Pelamis machines so that it can produce up to 21MW of power. That will save 60,000 tons of CO2 per year compared with a conventional fossil fuel plant.

“The future of wave energy starts today,” said ManuelPinho, Portugal's economics minister. “Portugal wants to be good in renewable energy. We are among the top five in the world, and we are just in the beginning of the process. We think this can create an industrial revolution and a lot of opportunities for jobs and research and we want to lead the trend.”

In addition to this flagship wave power, the Portuguese are spending large amounts of money on other renewable technologies. In the past three years, the country has enlarged 3 times its hydroelectric capacity and 4 times its wind power sources-northern Portugal has the world's biggest wind farm. They are already spending &250m on more than 2,500 solar panels to build the world's largest solar farm near the small town of Moura in eastern Portugal. It will have twice the area of London's Hyde Park and supply 45MW of electricity each year, enough to power 30,000 homes.

Sohabati Devi grows rice and vegetables in the village of Dodhghat in Uttar Pradesh, India. One night, floods drowned her fields. Thankfully, she’d planted a special type of rice. Scientists had improved its DNA to contain a specific bit of genetic (基因的) material called SUB1A, which helps rice plants survive being completely drowned for two weeks. Indeed, after the flood went away, roughly half of Devi’s rice crop was still alive. Now some scientists don’t just want to help crops survive climate change. They’re looking to develop crops that actively fight climate change.

During photosynthesis (光合作用), plants turn CO₂ from the air into the carbon-rich sugar and oxygen they need. Plants also send carbon into the soil through their roots. However, plants “can’t use all the sunlight when full sun is shining on the leaves,”   notes Krishna Niyogi, a biologist at UC Berkeley. Actually, too much sunlight can damage plant cells. To guard against this, plants have something like a safety valve (阀). If it could react to changing light faster, plants could get more sun energy, Niyogi says.

Three proteins control the opening and closing of those safety valves. To increase the levels of these proteins, Niyogi’s team added three genes into tobacco plants. The result was that plants grew 14-20% larger than usual. This is important as larger plants store more carbon.

Encouraging photosynthesis to pull more CO₂ from the air is a great start to ward helping farms fight climate change, but this removal is short-term. When a plant dies, microbes in the soil eat it. Those microbes then put off CO₂ and other greenhouse gases, which return to the air. The deeper plant roots grow into the soil, though, the longer it takes that carbon to make its way back out again. “The roots are the vehicle to actually store the carbon and take it out of the atmosphere,”   says Wolfgang Busch, a biologist at the Salk Institute in San Diego, California.

From root surveys and other studies, Busch has identified around 50 genes that help plants grow deeper, bigger roots.