The diverse effects of the plant hormone ethylene on development and growth are shaped by the actions of a master regulator of transcription, EIN3.

I n 1994, Jeff Bezos began to sell books online. With the virtual bookstore that would eventually become Amazon.com, he engaged customers more often than brick-and-mortar bookstores and delivered books to the customers’ destinations of choice, commonly the customers’ homes. Books were chosen as the initial offering in the delivery of this virtual service in part because of the large number of b...

Muskmelon (Cucumis melo L.) varieties differ in a range of physical and chemical attributes. Aroma is one of the most important factors determining fruit quality and consumer preference. Volatile esters, a major class of compounds contributing to the aroma of muskmelon fruit, are synthesized by alcohol acyl-transferases (AATs). We demonstrate here that volatile aldehydes are most abundant in un...

This paper highlights, for the first time, the changes in the phenolics fraction (anthocyanins, flavonoids and stilbenes) and tocopherols of unpeeled Pistacia vera L. var. bianca with ripening, and the effect of the sun-drying process. The total polyphenol levels in pistachios, measured as mg of Gallic Acid Equivalent (GAE), were: 201 +/- 10.1, 349 +/- 18.3 and 184.7 +/- 6.2 mg GAE/100 g DM in ...

The ripening of a fleshy fruit represents the summation of an array of biochemical processes that are regulated by interactions between developmental programs and environmental inputs. Analysis of tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) mutants and inhibitor studies indicate that ethylene is necessary for full development of the ripening program of climacteric fruit such as tomato, yet ethylene alone is ...

Using controlled in vivo and in vitro pharmacological methods, we evaluated the safety of papaya (Carica papaya) consumption in pregnancy with reference to its common avoidance during pregnancy in some parts of Asia. Ripe papaya (Carica papaya L. (Caricaecae) blend (500 ml/l water) was freely given to four groups of Sprague-Dawley rats at different stages of gestation (days 1-5, 6-11, 12-17 and...

The composition and content of the active constituents and their biological activity vary according to diverse factors including their maturation stages. A previous study showed that the fruits of Cudrania tricuspidata inhibited pancreatic lipase activity, a key enzyme in fat absorption. In this study, we investigated the chemical composition and pancreatic lipase inhibitory activity of unripe ...

Due to the randomicity of the natural growth of tomatoes in greenhouses and different storage days for market needs, it is difficult to find appropriate methodologies for certain ripe-tomato-harvesting robot systems. This paper proposes a novel approach for recognizing ripe tomatoes from the natural background in greenhouses and extracting abscission points after color segmentation for autonomo...

In 2016, grape fruits showing ripe rot symptom were found in fields of Korea. The fungus was isolated and identified as Colletotrichum viniferum based on morphological characteristics and nucleotide sequence data of the internal transcribed spacer, glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase and β-tubulin. To our knowledge, this is the first report of C. viniferum causing grape ripe rot disease of...