In this study, twelve fungal lipase producing strains belonging to Aspergillus, Penicillium, Trichoderma and Mucor genera were isolated from palm oil mill effluent composts. The Aspergillus spp. were more frequent (42%) and was present in all the samples assayed. Mucor sp. was the least encountered (8.3%).The lipase producing profile showed that Trichoderma (8.07-8.24 u/mL) and Aspergillus (6.2...

The presence of lard in vegetable oils like palm oil is serious matter for certain communities like Muslim and Hindis. Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy has been used for determination of lard in palm oil. Lard, palm oil and their binary mixtures in the neat form was scanned at mid infrared region (4,000 – 650 cm-1) using attenuated total reflectance accessory as convenient samplin...

Our knowledge about land-use impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem functioning is mostly limited to single trophic levels, leaving us uncertain about whole-community biodiversity-ecosystem functioning relationships. We analyse consequences of the globally important land-use transformation from tropical forests to oil palm plantations. Species diversity, density and biomass of invertebrate commu...

Business finance has been a major problem facing most businesses, both the small and large companies as well as the medium ones. Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SMEs) are no exceptions of the problems faced by businesses. These enterprises are mostly managed by low income earners. Some of these enterprises cannot grow into large companies because of lack of funds. The objectives of the stud...

The oil palm mesocarp contains an endogenous lipase which is strongly activated at low temperature. Lipase activity is thus very conveniently assayed by prior exposure of the fruits to low temperature. More than 100 oil palm samples from the germplasm collection of the Palm Oil Research Institute of Malaysia (now known as the Malaysian Palm Oil Board) were screened for non-esterified fatty acid...

OBJECTIVE Fish oil, containing omega-3 fatty acids, attenuates atherosclerosis. We hypothesized that omega-3 fatty acid-enriched oils are atheroprotective through alteration of monocyte subsets and their trafficking into atherosclerotic lesions. METHODS AND RESULTS Low-density lipoprotein receptor knockout and apolipoprotein E(-/-) mice were fed diets containing 10% (calories) palm oil and 0....

An experiment was conducted on broiler chickens to study the effects of different dietary fats (Conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), fish oil, soybean oil, or their mixtures, as well as palm oil, as a more saturated fat), with a as fed dose of 7% for single fat and 3.5 + 3.5% for the mixtures, on Peroxisome Proliferator-Activated Receptors (PPARs) gene expression and its relation with body fat depos...

With significant biodiversity loss occurring presently, increased emphasis is being placed upon the capacity of zoos to contribute to species conservation. This paper evaluates an innovative conservation education campaign 'Don't Palm Us Off' implemented at Melbourne Zoo, Australia. This sought to address a lack of public awareness regarding palm oil (the product most threatening the survival o...

We hypothesized that supplementing finishing diets with palm oil would promote adipogenic gene expression and stearoyl-CoA desaturase (SCD) gene expression in subcutaneous (s.c.) and intramuscular (i.m.) adipose tissues of feedlot steers. Eighteen Angus and Angus crossbred steers were assigned to three groups of 6 steers and fed a basal diet (control), with 3% palm oil, or with 3% soybean oil, ...