Aneura bipinnata (≡ Riccardia bipinnata, described from Jamaica as Jungermannia bipinnata (“2-pinnata“) by Olof Swartz (1788, 1806), is one of the oldest names in Aneuraceae and one of the poorest known. Swartz' original description and the brief diagnosis in Synopsis Hepaticarum (Gottsche et al. 1846) are the only available descriptions for the species. Stephani (1899) was unable to locate mat...

Sea-level rise is a major effect of climate change. It has drawn international attention, because higher sea levels in the future would cause serious impacts in various parts of the world. There are questions associated with sea-level rise which science needs to answer. To what extent did climate change contribute to sea-level rise in the past? How much will global mean sea level increase in th...

In this paper, a systematic, overall view of theories for periodic waves of permanent form, such as Stokes and cnoidal waves, is described first with their validity ranges. To deal with random waves, a method for estimating directional spectra is given. Then, various wave equations are introduced according to the assumptions included in their derivations. The mild-slope equation is derived for ...

The present study aimed to isolate soil microorganisms-degrading plant latices and to screen their capablilities of producing protease and lipase. Many bacterial and fungal strains of mesophilic, thermotolerant or thermophilic nature were able to grow on sugar-free medium amended with crude latex of either Euphorbia pulcherrima, Ficus elastica or F. nitida and incubated at 25oC, 36oC or 45oC. T...

Methanolic extracts from 15 medicinal plants representing 11 families, used traditionally for malaria treatment in Kenya were screened for their in vivo antimalarial activity in mice against a chloroquine (CQ)-tolerant Plasmodium berghei NK65, either alone or in combination with CQ. The plant parts used ranged from leaves (L), stem bark (SB), root bark (RB), seeds (S) and whole plant (W). When ...

Homoisoflavanone, sappanone A, was isolated from Caesalpinia sappan and proven to dose-dependently inhibit both melanogenesis and cellular tyrosinase activity via repressing tyrosinase gene expression in mouse B16 melanoma cells. To our knowledge, sappanone A is the first homoisoflavanone to be discovered with melanogenesis inhibitory activity. Our results give a new impetus to the future searc...

The growth of yeasts that occur naturally in grape juice was quantitatively examined during the fermentation of four wines that had been inoculated with Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Although S. cerevisiae dominated the wine fermentations, there was significant growth of the natural species Kloeckera apiculata, Candida stellata, Candida colliculosa, Candida pulcherrima, and Hansenula anomala.