The multicolored Asian lady beetle, Harmonia axyridis (Pallas) (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae), has become a popular study organism due to its promise as a biological control agent and its potential adverse, non-target impacts. Behavioral and ecological research on H. axyridis, including examinations of its impacts, could benefit from non-destructive or non-disruptive sexing techniques for this coc...

OBJECTIVE The association between gingival pigmentation and active smoking has been established. This investigation is the first to address the relationship between gingival pigmentation in children and passive smoking. METHODS A case-control study was performed involving 59 nonsmoking children who were selected from patient records of a dental clinic in a rural town in Japan. The number of s...

Pigmentation of the skin after electroacupuncture (EA) or acupuncture in patients is not well recognised. Reporting and studying skin changes after acupuncture or EA would increase awareness among health services providers. This case series includes four cases of short-lived or long-term skin pigmentation after EA or acupuncture. Skin pigmentation or dark spots appeared in these four cases: aft...

Melanization in Drosophila is complex and varies from species to species. Several methods in practice today quantitate pigmentation in Drosophila species, but these existing methods are compromised at certain levels. The majority of drosophilid body tergites show a range of yellow to dark brown pigmentation as well as segment to segment variation, making it difficult to score correctly. We pres...

We assessed the effects of arbutin on the pigmentation of cultured normal human melanocytes. As indicated by a cell-blotting assay, arbutin at concentrations in the range of 0.5-8 mM increased the pigmentation of the cultured melanocytes, while kojic acid at concentrations in the range of 0.5-4 mM decreased the pigmentation. The pigmentation-augmenting effect of arbutin was further confirmed by...

Skin pigmentation is one of the most strikingly variable phenotypes in humans, therefore making cutaneous pigmentation disorders frequent symptoms manifesting in a multitude of forms. The most common among them include lentigines, postinflammatory hyperpigmentation, dark eye circles, and melasma. Variability of skin tones throughout the world is well-documented, some skin tones being reported a...

One of the most striking phenomena in human oncology is the transformation of the normal skin color to an intense blue-gray pigmentation. This occurs as a complication of malignant melanoma. In the recent literature, several excellent examples of this type of pigmentation have been reported in patients with malignant melanoma. In this paper we report on another patient with generalized melanin ...

peutz–jeghers syndrome is a rare condition characterized by mucocutaneous pigmentation, polyposis and an increased cancer risk at a number of gastrointestinal and extra intestinal organs. we present a patient with a history of gastrointestinal bleeding with no mucocutaneous pigmentation. upper and lower gastrointestinal endoscopy revealed multiple polyps located in the deuodenum and colon. hist...