Wheat represents one of the major crops feeding people worldwide, providing about 20 percent of all calories consumed. The World Health Organization has said upward of 2 billion people get too little zinc and iron in their diet, and more than 160 million children under age 5 lack adequate protein.

"We really can produce wheat with more protein and more zinc and iron," Dubcovsky said in an interview. "So if that is grown in a developing country or is used as food aid, it will really provide more of those needed things in places where it's necessary."

The team included scientists from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the University of Haifa in Israel.

SAME TASTE

In making the wheat more nutritious, the researchers did not change how it tastes, Dubcovsky said. "We're not changing the composition or anything very dramatic in the grain," he said.

"I don't think a simple step like this will solve hunger in the world. I'm not that naive. But I think it's heading in the right direction," Dubcovsky said.

The gene made the grain mature more quickly while also boosting its protein and micronutrient content by 10-15 percent in the pasta and bread wheat varieties with which the researchers worked.

"What this gene does is it uses better what is in the plant already, so rather than leave the protein and the zinc and iron in the straw, we've moved a little bit more into the grain," Dubcovsky said.

Annual wheat production is estimated at 620 million metric tons of grain worldwide.

The wheat varieties bred by the scientists are not genetically modified, which could help them become accepted commercially, they said.

"We didn't do it by genetic modification. The normal wheat crosses perfectly well with the wild wheat. So we just crossed it after normal breeding," Dubcovsky said.

Dubcovsky heads a consortium of 20 public wheat-breeding programs called the Wheat Coordinated Agricultural Project.

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Alcohol found in one-third of U.S. suicides

Last Updated: 2006-11-23 13:57:45 -0400 (Reuters Health)

WASHINGTON - Alcohol may be involved in as many as one-third of U.S. suicides, federal researchers reported on Thursday.

Test results from suicide victims in 13 states showed that 33.3 percent had alcohol in their blood, and 16.4 percent had opiates, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in its weekly report on death and disease.

"These results underscore the need to continue monitoring toxicology test results of suicide victims, which might identify patterns of substance use that can help guide development of effective suicide interventions," the team at CDC's National Center for Injury Prevention and Control wrote.

Just as many suicide victims had alcohol or other drugs in their systems when they were suspected of using the drugs to kill themselves as those who used other means, the researchers said.

"In 2003, an estimated 31,484 suicides (10.7 per 100,000 population) occurred in the United States," the report reads.

"Suicide was the fourth leading cause of death among persons aged 10 to 64 years and the second and third leading causes of death among persons aged 25 to 34 and 10 to 24 years, respectively."

Copyright © 2006 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon. Reuters and the Reuters sphere logo are registered trademarks and trademarks of the Reuters group of companies around the world.