honey is a by-product of flower nectar and the upper aero-digestive tract of the honey bee, which is concentrated through a dehydration process inside the bee hive. honey has a very complex chemical composition that varies depending on the botanical source. it has been used both as food and medicine since ancient times. human use of honey is traced to some 8000 years ago as depicted by stone ag...

Steve Simpson was born and grew up in Australia. After completing his undergraduate degree at the University of Queensland, he travelled to London where he undertook his PhD on locust feeding physiology. Steve then spent 22 years in Oxford, fi rst in Experimental Psychology and then in the Department of Zoology and the Natural History Museum, before being enticed back to Australia in 2005. Toge...

The dorsal ocelli are commonly considered to be incapable of form vision, primarily due to underfocused dioptrics. We investigate the extent to which this is true of the ocelli of the locust Locusta migratoria. Locust ocelli contain thick lenses with a pronounced concavity on the inner surface, and a deep clear zone separating retina and lens. In agreement with previous research, locust ocellar...

Honey is increasingly valued for its antibacterial activity, but knowledge regarding the mechanism of action is still incomplete. We assessed the bactericidal activity and mechanism of action of Revamil® source (RS) honey and manuka honey, the sources of two major medical-grade honeys. RS honey killed Bacillus subtilis, Escherichia coli and Pseudomonas aeruginosa within 2 hours, whereas manuka ...

OBJECTIVES Honey has had a valued place in traditional medicine for centuries. Renewed interest in honey for various therapeutic purposes, including treatment of infected wounds, has led to the search for different types of honey with antibacterial activity. In this study, we have assessed the antibacterial activity of different types of honey (manuka honey from Australia, heather honey from th...

BACKGROUND The aim of the present study was to evaluate the physicochemical and antioxidant properties of Malaysian monofloral honey samples-acacia, pineapple and borneo honey-and compare them with tualang honey. Acacia and pineapple honey are produced by Apis mellifera bees while borneo and tualang honey are produced by Apis cerana and Apis dorsata bees, respectively. METHODS The physical pa...

Black locust was introduced in Hungary between 1710 and 1720. The first large black locust forests were established at the beginning of the 18th century on the Great Hungarian Plain stabilizing the windblown sandy soil. In the country, black locust occupied 37.000 ha in 1885, 109.000 ha in 1911, 186.000 ha in 1938 and 415.000 ha in 2009. At present, it is the most widely planted species in Hung...

The effects of precooling, modified atmosphere packaging (MAP) and controlled atmosphere (CA) storage on the storability of snow pea pods (Pisum sati6um L. var. saccharatum) at 5°C were determined. Bagging pods with polymethyl pentene polymeric films (PMP) of 25 and 35 mm thickness, in conjunction with precooling, modified the in-bag atmosphere concentration to approximately 5 kPa O2 and 5 kPa ...

The carob tree (Ceratonia siliqua L.) is a native of the Mediterranean basin with several applications in the food, textile and cosmetics industries [1]. It belongs to the Caesalpinaceae sub-family of the family Leguminoseae [2].The pods of the carob fruit have long been used as a feed for livestock and in human nutrition, including sweets, biscuits and processed drinks, because of its high sug...

Food plants biofortification for micronutrients is a tool for the nutritional value improvement of food. Soilless cultivation systems, with the optimal control of plant nutrition, represent a potential effective technique to increase the beneficial element content in plant tissues. Silicon (Si), which proper intake is recently recommended for its beneficial effects on bone health, presents good...