Ethnobotanical survey of medicinal plants used in the management of cancer and diabetes.

Objective: To conduct an ethnobotanical survey and document the traditional anticancer and antidiabetic plants used by the local tribes of Mizoram, Northeast India.

Methods: A systematic survey was conducted in rural and urban areas of Mizoram by interviewing traditional practitioners, and cancer and diabetes patients. A detailed literature search was carried out using MEDLINE and SCOPUS and available literatures were selected and included in the study.

Rising Sea Levels: Helping Decision-Makers Confront the Inevitable.

Sea-level rise (SLR) is not just a future trend; it is occurring now in most coastal regions across the globe. It thus impacts not only long-range planning in coastal environments, but also emergency preparedness. Its inevitability and irreversibility on long time scales, in addition to its spatial non-uniformity, uncertain magnitude and timing, and capacity to drive non-stationarity in coastal flooding on planning and engineering timescales, create unique challenges for coastal risk-management decision processes.

Evaluation of blue and green absorbing proteorhodopsins as holographic materials.

Transient holographic diffraction is observed for the green (GPR) and blue (BPR) absorbing proteorhodopsins (BAC31A8 and HOT75M1, respectively), as well as the GPR E108Q and BPR E110Q variants. In contrast to bacteriorhodopsin, where the metastable bR-M pair is responsible for generating diffraction, the pR and red-shifted N-like states fulfill that role in both the green and blue wild-type proteorhodopsins. The GPR E108Q and BPR E110Q variants, however, behave more similarly to their bacteriorhodopsin analogue, D96N, with diffraction arising from the PR M-state (strongly enhanced in both GPR E108Q and BPR E110Q).

Monolithically integrated bacteriorhodopsin-GaAs field-effect transistor photoreceiver.

We have applied the large photovoltage developed across a layer of selectively deposited bacteriorhodopsin to the gate terminal of a monolithically integrated GaAs-based modulation-doped field-effect transistor, which delivers an amplified photoinduced current signal. The integrated biophotoreceiver device exhibits a responsivity of 3.8 A/W.

Field method for the determination of insoluble or total hexavalent chromium in workplace air.

National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health method 7703 is a portable field procedure for the analysis of workplace air filter samples for hexavalent chromium (CrVI) content immediately after the samples are collected. The field method prescribes CrVI extraction from air filter samples with an ammonium sulfate/ammonium hydroxide extraction buffer using ultrasonic extraction (UE). Strong anion-exchange solid-phase extraction (SAE-SPE) is then used to separate CrVI from trivalent chromium and other interferences.