Propolis is a gummy material produced by honey bees to protect their hives and currently has drawn the attention of researchers due to its broad clinical use. It has been reported, based only on observations, that honey bees also collect other non-vegetation substances such as paint or asphalt/tar to make propolis. Therefore, propolis samples were collected from bee hives in Riyadh and Al-Bahah...

BACKGROUND Fatty aldehydes are industrially relevant compounds, which also represent a common metabolic intermediate in the microbial synthesis of various oleochemicals, including alkanes, fatty alcohols and wax esters. The key enzymes in biological fatty aldehyde production are the fatty acyl-CoA/ACP reductases (FARs) which reduce the activated acyl molecules to fatty aldehydes. Due to the dis...

While airborne particulate matter (PM) pollution is a serious problem for urban environments, it can be reduced through uptake by plant leaves. In this study, we investigated and compared the of PM-bound toxic metals different species. Enrichment factor (EF) correlation analyses across sample types indicated anthropogenic origins these with source signatures. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) ...

Insertional mutagenesis of Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) was used to identify a novel recessive mutant, designated resurrection1 (rst1), which possesses a dramatic alteration in its cuticular waxes and produces shrunken nonviable seeds due to arrested embryo development. The RST1 gene sequence associated with these phenotypes was verified by three independent, allelic, insertion mutants, d...

The photosynthesis in evergreen trees living in Mediterranean ecosystems is subjected to multiple climatic stresses due to water shortage and high temperatures during the summer and to low temperatures during the winter. Mediterranean perennials deploy different photoprotective mechanisms to prevent damage to the photosynthetic system. Wax accumulation in leaves is a primary response which by e...

Abstract Contact electrification has gained interest as a mechanism for generating charges on surfaces. It also been shown that plant leaves generate by both solid-solid and liquid-solid contact. However, it is unclear how water droplets hitting leaf causes charging which structural features affect this phenomenon. Here, we show the in-situ surface structures of leaves, droplet composition, pri...