The purpose of this investigation was to reveal the physiological bone remodeling mechanism by means of cellular interaction phenomenon between osteoblasts (OB) and bone marrow cells (BM) in vitro. When OB (1•~105 cells) originated from newborn mouse calvariaand BM (1•~106 cells) obtained from 4 weeks old mouse long bones were co-cultivated by using millicell as a separator in a CO2 incubator f...

Aflatoxin B1 (AFB1) produced by Aspergillus flavus is known to have carcinogenic and teratogenic effects on animal health. Accidental feeding of AFB1-contaminated rice straw may be detrimental to dairy cattle. White-rot basidiomycetous fungus Pleurotus ostreatus can grow on different agronomic wastes by synthesizing different ligninolytic enzymes. These extracellular enzymes are capable of degr...

Water kefir is a mildly sour and alcoholic drink fermented by a stable microbial multispecies community. With its high sugar content and low amino acid concentration water kefir medium represents a demanding habitat. In this ecological niche only well adapted microorganisms which are fit to the consortium are able to grow and mutually provide essential nutrients. The synergism between main repr...

Plant materials represent a strategic energy source because they can give rise to sustainable biofuels through the fermentation of their carbohydrates. A clear example of a plant-derived biofuel resource is the sugar cane bagasse exhibiting 60-80% of fermentable sugars in its composition. However, the current methods of plant bioconversion employ severe and harmful chemical/physical pretreatmen...

Alternaria alternata is one of the most studied fungi to date because of its impact on human life - from plant pathogenicity to allergenicity. However, its sesquiterpene emissions have not been systematically explored. Alternaria regularly co-occurs with Fusarium fungi, which are common plant pathogens, on withering plants. We analyzed the diversity and determined the absolute quantities of vol...

A latent system employing measles virus (Schwarz strain) was developed in hamster embryo fibroblasts (HEF). Measles virus-specific antigen was detected by immunofluorescence in 30 to 50% of HEF cells, and these cells released infectious virus when co-cultivated with a susceptible monkey cell line, BSC-1 cells. No infectious virus could be detected in the cells when measures were taken to exclud...

In general, morphological, physiological, and biochemical properties of fungal cells are drastically different among solid-state (SSC), liquid-surface (LSC), and submerged cultivation (SmC) systems. In addition to these traditional cultivation systems, a unique liquid-surface cultivation [liquid-surface immobilization (LSI)] system and interface cultivation systems [extractive liquid-surface im...

Microalgae produce higher biomass and oil yields than traditional energy crops, and they can be cultivated on marginal land or in seawater. Additional benefits can be achieved from co-production of food, feed and high-value chemicals as well as from environmental services, such as bio-fixation of CO2 and wastewater treatment. However, biotechnical, environmental, and economic challenges need to...

Prompted by a recent article by Jiang and Liu in Antiquity (80, 2006), Dorian Fuller and his co-authors return to the question of rice cultivation and consider some of the difficulties involved in identifying the transition from wild to domesticated rice. Using data from Eastern China, they propose that, at least for the Lower Yangtze region, the advent of rice domestication around 4000 BC was ...