Recent forest studies have established that high-elevation (> 900 m) populations of red spruce (Picea rubens Sarg.) in the northeastern USA are declining. Because it has been suggested that changes in air quality are responsible for the decline, we examined the effects of acidic mists and ozone on several biochemical and growth parameters in mature montane red spruce. We used branch-sized envir...

Nanostructured Pt-metal alloys have shown impressive catalytic properties for the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) in acidic medium, but their long-term stability has not been satisfactory. Herein, we look beyond the traditional Pt-metal alloys and have developed a new kind of Pt-nonmetal alloy electrocatalyst for the ORR. Specifically, the novel catalyst is composed of interconnected platinum m...

The acidic peatlands of southern Brazil are ecosystems essential for the maintenance of the Atlantic Forest, one of the 25 hot-spots of biodiversity in the world. In this work, we investigated the composition of prokaryotic communities in four histosols of three acidic peatland regions by constructing small-subunit (SSU) rRNA gene libraries and sequencing. SSU rRNA gene sequence analysis showed...

The ionic composition and pair correlations in fluid phases of realistically salt-free charged colloidal sphere suspensions are calculated in the primitive model. We obtain the number densities of all ionic species in suspension, including low-molecular weight microions, and colloidal macroions with acidic surface groups, from a self-consistent solution of a coupled physicochemical set of nonli...

An artificial mitochondrial precursor protein (the presequence of cytochrome oxidase subunit IV fused to mouse dihydrofolate reductase) binds to isolated yeast mitochondrial outer membranes and to liposomes whose phospholipid composition resembles that of outer membranes. In both cases, binding is strongly inhibited by low temperature or methotrexate (which stabilizes the dihydrofolate reductas...

Arginine deiminase from the extreme halophilic archaebacterium Halobacterium salinarium was purified to homogeneity in a four-step procedure with a 310-fold enrichment. The enzyme consists of two identical subunits of 55 kDa; its native molecular mass is 105 kDa. The pI of 4.7 indicates that acidic nature of the protein, which is evidenced by its amino acid composition, which shows an excess of...

The increasing amount of seaweed accumulated in the coasts calls for a proper disposal or treatment order to reduce secondary pollution effects. Anaerobic digestion is technology that simultaneously produces biogas, supporting further expansion renewable energy production through sustainable bioresources. In this study, three pretreatments (alkaline, hydrothermal and thermo-acidic) were applied...