Pollen grain morphology of Bromeliaceae species collected in areas of the Atlantic Rainforest of southeastern Brazil was studied. The following species were analyzed: Aechmea bambusoides L.B.Sm. & Reitz, A. nudicaulis (L.) Griseb., A. ramosa Mart. ex Schult.f., Ananas bracteatus (Lindl.) Schult.f., Billbergia distachia (Vell.) Mez, B. euphemiae E. Morren, B. horrida Regel, B. zebrina (Herb.) Li...

The bioassay-guided chemical investigation of the stems of Dendrobium fimbriatum Hook led to the isolation of seven first reported bibenzyl dimers with a linkage of a methylene moiety, fimbriadimerbibenzyls A-G (1-7), together with a new dihydrophenanthrene derivative (S)-2,4,5,9-tetrahydroxy-9,10-dihydrophenanthrene (8) and thirteen known compounds (9-21). The structure of the new compound was...

Bulbophyllum leucoglossum, Dendrobium centrosepalum, Dendrobium taeniocaule, and Taeniophyllum pyriforme are here described as new species, based on herbarium specimens collected from the Lengguru fold-and-thrust belt in the West Papua Bird's neck, Indonesian New Guinea. All four novelties were found growing in submontane forest (elevation > 1000 m a.s.l.) on limestone karst. Information concer...

BACKGROUND The protective effects of religion against late life depression may depend on the broader sociocultural environment. This paper examines whether the prevailing religious climate is related to cross-cultural differences of depression in elderly Europeans. METHODS Two approaches were employed, using data from the EURODEP collaboration. First, associations were studied between church-...

Chamaemelum nobile (Asteraceae) commonly known as 'Roman chamomile' is a medicinal plant used for numerous diseases in traditional medicine, although its anticancer activity is unknown. The present study was carried out to investigate the anticancer as well as apoptotic activity of ethyl acetate fraction of C. nobile on different cancerous cell lines. The cells were treated with varying concent...

The airship Italia, commanded by General Umberto Nobile, crashed during its return flight from the North Pole in 1928. The cause of the accident was never satisfactorily explained. We present evidence that the crash may have been fatigue-related. Nobile's memoirs indicate that at the time of the crash he had been awake for at least 72 h. Sleep deprivation impairs multiple aspects of cognitive f...

BACKGROUND Rheum nobile is an alpine plant with translucent bracts concealing the inflorescence which produce a "glasshouse" effect promoting the development of fertile pollen grains in such conditions. The current understanding of the adaptation of such bracts to alpine environments mainly focuses on the phenotypic and physiological changes while the genetic basis is very limited. By sequencin...

The First Vatican Council was convened in 1869 and ended in 1870, an ecumenical council of the Roman Catholic Church, and one of the most important events in her historical development since the Council of Trent. The preliminaries were surrounded by the closest secrecy. As early as the end of the year 1864, Pius IX had commissioned t cardinals resident in Rome to tender him their opinions as to...

GOVERNMENT PLANS to extend the sex education role of school nurses have been welcomed by nursing unions but dubbed 'appalling' by Roman Catholic nurses.

SUPPRESSOR OF OVEREXPRESSION OF CONSTANS1 (SOC1) encodes a MADS-box protein that plays an essential role in integrating multiple flowering signals to regulate the transition from vegetative to reproductive development in the model plant Arabidopsis. Although SOC1-like genes have been isolated in various angiosperms, its orthologs in Orchidaceae, one of the largest families of flowering plants, ...