Water Pollution Fact #1: Water from rain, storm drains, and ditches flows directly to streams and bays with little or no treatment. Storm drains and ditches are DIFFERENT than sewers. They are NOT CONNECTED to a treatment plant. Water Pollution Fact #2: We all live in a watershed. What you do on your property does affect streams, even if you don’t live on a stream. A watershed is an area of land which drains to [...]

Several issues in forest and Wildland management have become a paradigm with references from the popular press regarding forest and Wildland fire. A number of ideological conceptions of the world construct perceptions and undermine efforts to reduce or control wild fires. These conceptions presuppose events in a “natural world” that is really a human control and limited space. Many of these conceptions structure how human activities are planned in “natural” or “wild” areas as suburban [...]

Wood in outdoor applications is usually pressure treated with preservatives. Since the 1970s, the majority of the woods used in outdoor residential settings have been treated with chromate copper arsenate (CCA). The most common formulation of CCA (type C) contains 47.5% as CrO3, 18.5% as CuO, and 34% as As2O5. Metal uptake rate can vary with species, density, and growth stages of aquatic plants. The heavy metals in wood leachate can be adsorbed to sediment, [...]

Essential oils extracted from dried leaves of Cupressus dupreziana A. Camus, an endemic species in the Tassili n’Ajjer (Sahara Central Algeria), were analysed by gas chomatography coupled to mass spectrometry (GC-MS). Terpinoid analyses were performed on 13 trees in the natural population of Hahadjerine in order to determine the intra-population variability. 39 trepenoids were identified; the averages of the principal components were transtotarol (24.4%), Manoyl oxide (21.2%), α-pinene (15%) and Δ3-carene (11.3%). The terpenoid markers [...]

Poekilloptera phalaenoides (Hemiptera: Flatidae) was reported on Mimosa caesalpiniaefolia (Fabaceae) in Diamantina, Minas Gerais State, Brazil. Immature and adults of P. phalaenoides were collected for identification on M. caesalpiniaefolia, which represents the first report of this insect on this plant. This preliminary study showed that M. caesalpiniaefolia is a potential host of P. phalaenoides. This work represents the first report of the P. phalaenoides hosting M. caesalpiniaefolia in Diamantina, Minas Gerais State, Brazil. This preliminary [...]

The dental follicle is an embryonic tissue of the tooth germ, which is derived from neural crest cells; the dental follicle becomes the periodontal apparatus after tooth eruption. The periodontal apparatus is the supporting tissue of the tooth and contains three different tissues: the periodontal ligament (PDL), the alveolar bone, and the mineralized bone-like cementum covering the tooth root surface. The PDL, which is responsible for tooth attachment, is a specialized connective tissue, henceits fibers [...]

Event-specific assays for identification of seven GM canola lines were established based on optical thin-film biosensor chips. Through analyses of the specificity, repeatability and accuracy, the methods es- tablished in this paper were found to be easy, sensitive, accurate, and suitable for the event-specific qualitative detection of seven GM canola lines. In addition, this technique does not require any specific instru- ments for data scanning, and may be readily utilized in a variety of laboratory [...]

A novel approach to reproduce hypoxia on a chip by patch-clamp investigations on single nerve cells exposed to anoxic and normoxic environments was presented. The patch-clamp technique was combined with microfluidics to enable fast exchange of buffer-solutions. The micropipette was included within the microfluidic chip to allow investigations with full control over the oxygen content in vicinity of the sample. Nerve cells from Sprague Dawley rats were prepared and inserted into the channels of the [...]

Pancreatic cancer is one of the most aggressive malignant cancers with a high metastatic rate and a very poor prognosis. Tissue Transglutaminase 2 (TG2), Matrix metalloproteinase 2 (MMP2) and Matrix metalloproteinase 9 (MMP9) are up regulated in pancreatic cancer and have been implicated in cancer metastasis. Nitric oxide (NO) can inhibit enzymatic activity of TG2. Inhibition of TG2 by NO donors- nitroglycerin and S-nitroso-N-acetylpenicillamine may offer a novel strategy for anticancer therapy. Phytochemicals namely, Bacoside [...]

The homology based 3-Dimensional structure prediction of calcium dependent protein kinase Isoform 1 From Cicer arietinum (chick pea) was carried out using bioinformatics tools. The CPK1 sequence on Protein BLAST analysis for homology search revealed 100 hits and Out which a few had significant E score (E <0.005) and better sequence similarity. Multiple sequence alignment analysis of CPK1 using MultAlin and HHpred showed above 90% similarities with protein sequences of Thermotoga petriphila (Hypothetical protein), Geobacillus [...]