To survive, organisms must be able to identify edible objects. However, we know relatively little about how humans and other species distinguish food items from non-food items. We tested the abilities of semi-free-ranging rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) to learn rapidly that a novel object was edible, and to generalize their learning to other objects, in a spontaneous choice task. Adult monkeys...

BACKGROUND Agrobiodiversity is said to contribute to the sustainability of agricultural systems and food security. However, how this is achieved especially in smallholder farming systems in arid and semi-arid areas is rarely documented. In this study, we explored two contrasting regions in Benin to investigate how agroecological and socioeconomic contexts shape the diversity and utilization of ...

Plant-derived essential oils (EOs) and oil compounds usually have a relatively high vapor pressure and are capable of reaching microbial pathogens through the liquid and the gas phase. Bioactivity of EOs in the vapor phase makes them useful as possible fumigants for stored commodity protection. The use of edible films as carriers of natural antimicrobials constitutes an approach for external pr...

A study was conducted to develop banana flour based edible film using Response Surface Methodology. A Central Composite Design was adopted in the optimization of banana flour and sodium alginate level for the development of edible film with 13 different runs and 5 trials of two similar centre points. Effects of banana flour (2-4% w/v) and sodium alginate (0.5-1.0% w/v) level on the thickness, m...

The aim of this work was to evaluate chitosan edible films incorporated with the EOs of two aromatic herbs, Thymus moroderi and Thymus piperella for (i) the growth inhibition of some bacterial strains (ii) their total phenolic content (TPC), and (iii) their antioxidant activity by means of three different antioxidant tests to define if the chitosan edible films incorporated with these EOs could...

We describe the immature stages Pedaliodes poesia Hewitson, 1862 from northeastern Ecuador. Chusquea scandens (Poaceae, Bambusoidea) is the larval food plant. Eggs are laid singly or in pairs on the bottom side of host plant leaves. The duration of the egg, larval, and pupal stages, combined, is 99-107 days.

The coastal environments of South Africa's Cape Floristic Region (CFR) provide some of the earliest and most abundant evidence for the emergence of cognitively modern humans. In particular, the south coast of the CFR provided a uniquely diverse resource base for hunter-gatherers, which included marine shellfish, game, and carbohydrate-bearing plants, especially those with Underground Storage Or...

In this paper, by introducing two virtual decision-making units (DMUs) called ideal DMU (IDMU) and anti-ideal DMU (ADMU) with fuzzy inputs-outputs, the efficiency evaluation of DMUs are done by fuzzy data envelopment analysis (FDEA). Therefore, we evaluate DMUs from the perspective of the best and worst possible relative efficiency. For each DMU two efficiencies are calculated while inputs and ...