Plants display extensive intraspecific variation in secondary metabolites. However, the selective forces shaping this diversity remain often unknown, especially below ground. Using Taraxacum officinale and its major native insect root herbivore Melolontha melolontha, we tested whether below-ground herbivores drive intraspecific variation in root secondary metabolites. We found that high M. melo...

MICHAEL L. GINGER, PAUL G. MCKEAN, RICHARD BURCHMORE and KAREN M. GRANT Faculty of Health and Medicine, Division of Biomedical and Life Sciences, Lancaster University, LA1 4YK, UK Faculty of Health and Medicine, Lancaster Medical School, Lancaster University, LA1 4YA, UK Institute of Infection, Immunity, and Inflammation, College of Medical, Veterinary and Life Sciences, University of Glasgow, ...

In the present work, the effective moisture diffusivity and activation energy were calculated using an infinite series solution of Fick’s diffusion equation. The results showed that increasing drying temperature accelerated the drying process. All drying experiments had only falling rate period. The average effective moisture diffusivity values varied from 2.807x10 to 6.977x10m s over the tempe...

Previous studies have shown that emotional states alter our perception of time. However, attention, which is modulated by a number of factors, such as emotional events, also influences time perception. To exclude potential attentional effects associated with emotional events, various types of odors (inducing different levels of emotional arousal) were used to explore whether olfactory events mo...

Ziliang Ye,1 Shuang Zhang,1 Yuan Wang,1 Yong-Shik Park,1 Thomas Zentgraf,1 Guy Bartal,1 Xiaobo Yin,1,2 and Xiang Zhang1,2,* 1NSF Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center (NSEC), University of California, 3112 Etcheverry Hall, Berkeley, California 94720, USA 2Material Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California 94720, USA (Received 6 January 2012; revised manus...

Taraxacum officinale has been used in Jordan folk medicine to treat male infertility. A recent study has proved a contradictory effect of the whole plant aqueous extract. The aim of the current study was to determine if the leaves of T. officinale have similar anti-fertility activities, and whether this effect is mediated through the regulation of spermatogonial stem cells (SS...