Seeds of the palm Attalea butyracea (formerly known as Scheelea zonensis in Panamá and Scheelea rostrata in Costa Rica—Bradford & Smith 1977, Forget et al. 1994, Henderson 1995) are contained within stony endocarps. For the purposes of this paper, individual fruits or their seed-bearing endocarps will be referred to as diaspores; all of the seeds of a given fruit are surrounded by the stony wal...

During natural or dark-induced senescence, chlorophyll degradation causes leaf yellowing. Recent evidence indicates that chlorophyll catabolic enzymes (CCEs) interact with the photosynthetic apparatus; for example, five CCEs (NYC1, NOL, PPH, PAO and RCCR) interact with LHCII. STAY-GREEN (SGR) and CCEs interact with one another in senescing chloroplasts; this interaction may allow metabolic chan...

Purpose To evaluate whether a practical method of imaging lenticular autofluorescence (AF) can provide an individualized measure correlated with age-related lens yellowing in older subjects undergoing tests involving shorter wavelength lights. Methods Lenticular AF was imaged with 488-nm excitation using a confocal scanning laser ophthalmoscope (cSLO) routinely used for retinal AF imaging. Th...

Yellow discoloration often develops in rice kernels during post-harvest storage, due possibly to fungal activity. The present study examined the changes in nutrient composition taking place during yellowing of rice, and the effects of feeding rats and broiler chicks on a moderately yellow rice at 600 g/kg diet. Nitrogen content was found to be higher in rice grains that had become more yellow, ...

BACKGROUND The perishability of Brassica chinensis poses a major challenge to distribution and marketing. The aim of this work was to select a suitable modified atmosphere packaging to retain the overall quality and bioactive compounds during storage. RESULTS Four types of biorientated polypropylene packaging (BOPP)--BOPP03, BOPP04, BOPP05 and BOPP06--with different perforations were evaluate...

The aim of this study was to determine the influence of photoinitiator systems on physical-chemical properties of flowable composites. Conventional (CFC), composed by bisphenol-glycidyl dimethacrylate (BisGMA)+triethyleneglycol dimethacrylate (TEGDMA), and self-adhesive (SAFC), composed by BisGMA+TEDGMA+bis{2-(methacryloyloxy) ethyl} phosphate (2MP), flowable composites were developed. Five pho...

The geometry of the cortex and nucleus of excised human lenses was determined by photography and dissection. Samples of the cortex and nucleus were measured spectrophotometrically to allow determination of light loss through the whole lens and the light loss per unit pathlength. It was concluded that the reduction of short wavelength light transmission with increasing age is due to two processe...

Plant evolution is largely driven by adaptations in seed protection and dispersal strategies that allow diversification into new niches. This is evident by the tremendous variation in flowering and fruiting structures present both across and within different plant lineages. Within a single plant family a staggering variety of fruit types can be found such as fleshy fruits including berries, pom...