In the conversion of woody biomass feedstocks into liquid fuel ethanol, the pretreatment process is the most critical and costly step. Variations in biomass composition based on genetic differences or environmental effects have a significant impact on the degree of accessibility accomplished by pretreatment and subsequent sugar release by enzymatic hydrolysis. To evaluate this, biomass from 10 ...

Mean daily milk, lactose and energy intakes were measured in groups of South African school pupils of 9-16 years. Recommended dietary allowances (RDA) were not reached by any of the groups. In comparison, groups of Canadian, Nigerian and German schoolchildren of similar ages fell into two categories, namely high milk consumers and low milk consumers. Lactose and energy intakes for high consumer...

Dental caries declined in prevalence and severity among schoolchildren in the United States during the 1970s, although it still remains a problem in some areas. The decline could have started well before the 1970s, even though it was only recently identified. Caries should continue to decline as long as fluoride use remains around current levels. Use of fluoride toothpaste seems to be increasin...

Many aphids are known to engage in a trophic mutualism with ants, whereby the aphids secrete sugary-rich honeydew which is collected by the ants for food, and the ants, in exchange, protect the aphids against natural enemies. Previous results, however, suggest that the production of some of the honeydew sugars, such as the ant-attractant trisaccharide melezitose, may induce an indirect cost to ...

BACKGROUND In order to improve the availability of biomass, the concept of growing high yield biomass with short rotations and intensive culture has been introduced. Bamboo has become a feedstock of potential interest for future energy production due to its high productivity and short rotation time. The growth age of biomass is an important factor affecting the efficiency of bioconversion and p...

Multiple cropping (i.e. intercropping or mixed cropping) plays an important role in agriculture because of the effective utilization of resources, significantly enhancing crop productivity compared with that of monocultured crops. The study was planed to assess the effect of various concentrations (00, 30, 60, 90 kg ha(-1)) of phosphorous on the biochemical composition of grains of Hordeum vulg...

The chosen phosphobacterial species are well tolerated to the wide range of salinity (20-40 ppt) and found to be pure marine forms. Effect of different concentrations of cadmium on the growth, phosphate solubilising activity and content of extracellular macromolecules in eight species of phosphate solubilising bacteria were carried-out in the present study at optimum level of salinity and found...

The study was conducted to evaluate effect of Coriolus versicolor mycelia on degrading starch and improving nutrition value in corn grits through solid state fermentation technique. The results showed that using soybean meal as a nitrogen source, α-amylase secreted from C. versicolor expressed 407.25U/g of activity, leading to 45.15% of starch degraded. The activity grew with fermentation time ...

Building on our previous efforts to generate thermostable chimeric fungal cellobiohydrolase I (CBH I, also known as Cel7A) cellulases by structure-guided recombination, we used FoldX and a 'consensus' sequence approach to identify individual mutations present in the five homologous parent CBH I enzymes which further stabilize the chimeras. Using the FoldX force field, we calculated the effect o...

BACKGROUND In this study, we examined the effects of various enzymes on chemical conversions of ginsenosides in ginseng extract prepared by amylases. METHODS Rapidase, Econase CE, Viscozyme, Ultraflo L, and Cytolase PCL5 were used for secondary enzymatic hydrolysis after amylase treatment of ginseng extract, and ginsenoside contents, skin permeability, and chemical compositions including tota...