The silk of silkworm consists of fibroin fiber coated by sericins. In addition, some nonprotein components were also identified in the sericin fraction. The presence of nonprotein components in the silk has not been well explained. In the present study, methods based on gas chromatography-mass spectrometry were used to identify the metabolites in the cocoon silk from a wild silkworm and two dom...

The effect of ultrasound on important economic traits of the silkworm, Bombyx mori L., was studied in the laboratory. The silkworm eggs in blue-egg stage were exposed to ultrasound at 1 MHz and at an intensity of 9 W/cm 2 for 2 min, and the impact was examined on the economic traits of the silkworm. An elevatory effect was recorded with respect to egg hatchability, subsequent growth of larvae, ...

Objectives: The natural origin of medicinal plants does not guaranteed their safety, as there are no sufficient studies on the safety, efficacy and toxicity to support their beneficial claims. Hence, this study aimed at investigating the oral acute toxicity of Adansonia digitata L. fruit shell extract on mice. Methods: Maceration method was employed for the extraction of Adansonia digitata fru...

A comparative study was conducted on the ontogenetic variation in morphometry of a total of 29 shellbearing molluscan species occurring on an intertidal stony shore in south-western Japan. The relationships between shell size and total weight and between shell size and ̄esh weight were all highly signi®cant on logarithmic scales with the slopes having values of about three. The arcsine-transfor...

Background: Abdominal cocoon is a rare disease where small intestine is enclosed in a membrane and commonly presents with features of bowel obstruction. Case Reports: We present two cases: one 28 years old male presented with abdominal pain and was diagnosed as abdominal cocoon at laparotomy; and another 81 years old female, a case of sigmoid cancer, was diagnosed at laparotomy as abdominal coc...

 In 2007 and 2008, the influence of pollen source on the shell and kernel traits of resulting seeds and on fruit set was examined to evaluate the potential for Xenia or Metaxenia in Persian walnut. Pistillate flowers of ‘Jamal’, ‘Chandler’, ‘Hartley’ and ‘Pedro’ were crossed with the pollen of ‘Serr’, ‘Z60’ and ‘Damavand’. The pistillate flowers on each female parent were covered about one week...

Cocoon silks are composed of two silk proteins: sericin and fibroin. Fibroin is a semi crystalline polymer of natural fibrous protein mainly consisting of highly β-sheet crystals and noncrystalline part (micro voids and amorphous structures). Sericin is amorphous acting as an adhesive binder to maintain the fine filaments of fibroin core and the overall structural integrity of cocoon [1]. Silk ...

The pearl oyster, Pinctada fucata (P. fucata), is one of the marine bivalves that is predominantly cultured for pearl production. To obtain more genetic information for breeding purposes, we constructed a high-density linkage map of P. fucata and identified quantitative trait loci (QTL) for growth-related traits. One F1 family, which included the two parents, 48 largest progeny and 50 smallest ...

the present research was conducted to analyze the genetic structure of egg quality traits in japanese quail. external and internal egg quality traits were assessed on 1706 eggs of laying japanese quail. eggs were collected for 4 days at the quaits 10 weeks of age. the investigated traits were analyzed through univariate as well as multivariate animal models employing restricted maximum likeliho...

In an attempt to determine the nature of the enigmatic cocoon stars in the Quintuplet Cluster, we have obtained mid-infrared imaging and spectrophotometry of the cluster, using the CAM and SWS instruments on ISO, using SpectroCam-10 on the Palomar 5m telescope, and NICMOS on HST. The spectra show smooth continua with various dust and ice absorption features. These features are all consistent wi...