OBJECTIVES In food industry, the inhibition of tyrosinase is very important, because this enzyme catalyzes the oxidation of phenolic compounds found in fruits and vegetables into quinones, which contribute in undesirable color and taste of fruits and vegetables. Teucrium polium L. var. gnaphalodes (Lamiaceae), a wild-growing flowering plant that has many applications in food preparations and tr...

Statistical mechanics provides the link between microscopic properties of many-particle systems and macroscopic properties such as pressure and temperature. Observations of similar "microscopic" quantities exist for the motion of zooplankton, as well as many species of other social animals. Herein, we propose to take average squared velocities as the definition of the "ecological temperature" o...

Very little is known about the ability of the zooplankton grazer Daphnia pulicaria to reduce populations of Giardia lamblia cysts and Cryptosporidium parvum oocysts in surface waters. The potential for D. pulicaria to act as a biological filter of C. parvum and G. lamblia was tested under three grazing pressures (one, two, or four D. pulicaria grazers per 66 ml). (Oo)cysts (1 x 10(4) per 66 ml)...

Background: Pulicaria gnaphalodes, Ducrosia anethifolia, Trachyspermum copticum, Foeniculum vulgare Mill and Majorana hortensis Minch are widely used as herbal plants in traditional medicine and they have been reported to have a variety of therapeutic effects. This study was carried out to evaluate the antimicrobial effects of essential oils (EOs) extracted from these medicinal herbs against si...

We studied the habitat choice of juvenile and adult Daphnia pulicaria in thermally stratified water columns (plankton towers) with a deep water algal maximum (DCM). The DCM consisted of either filamentous cyanobacteria (Planktothrix agardhii), non-filamentous Chlorophyceae (Scenedesmus obliquus) or a mixture of both. Adult D. pulicaria spent more time at colder temperatures in the presence of P...

The emergence of drug resistance in Mycobacterium tuberculosis is a major challenge in tuberculosis treatment and control. In addition, multidrug resistance (MDR) and, more broadly, extensive drug resistance (XDR) have hampered treatment with common antibiotics. Thus, an herbal medicine containing antimicrobial capability can be a good alternative to antituberculosis drugs. In this study, we re...