In this study the in vitro cytotoxic properties of ethanol extracts from the herbs, inflorescents and roots of selected Asteraceae species: Arctium lappa, Artemisia absinthium, Calendula officinalis, Centaurea cyanus, Tanacetum vulgare and Tragopogon pratensis on J-45.01 human acute T leukemia cell line was examined. All tested samples possess antileukemic properties and induce cells death via ...

Plasmodium of Physarum polycephalum is a large single cell visible by unaided eye. It shows sophisticated behavioural traits in foraging for nutrients and developing an optimal transport network of protoplasmic tubes spanning sources of nutrients. When placed in an environment with distributed sources of nutrients the cell ’computes’ an optimal graph spanning the nutrients by growing a network ...

The genus Tanacetum is one of the most important medicinal plants that contains 26 species in Iran, 12 of them are endemic. This paper reports the essential oil composition of  Tanacetum angulatum Willd. Tanacetum canacens DC. and Tanacetum pinnatum Boiss. growing wild in Iran. Plant flowers and leaves were collected from different locations of North- West of Iran. Samples were hydro-distilled ...

background & aim: the genus tanacetum l. belongs to the family asteraceae and tribe anthemideae. according to the recent findings the number of tanacetum species in iran is 36, of which 12 are endemic. in this study the essential oil composition of tanacetum chiliophyllum var. oligocephalum was investigated for the first time.   experimental: the plant was collected during flowering stage f...

A phytochemical analysis of the dichloromethane extract from the flowers of a subspecies of Tanacetum vulgare growing in Sicily was carried out. Five known sesquiterpene lactones with the eudesmane skeleton have been isolated and the cytotoxic activity of these compounds was tested in vitro on A549 (human lung carcinoma epithelial-like) and V79379A (Chinese hamster lung fibroblast-like) cells u...

Animals foraging in patchy, non-renewing or slowly renewing environments must make decisions about how long to remain within a patch. Organisms can use heuristics ('rules of thumb') based on available information to decide when to leave the patch. Here, we investigated proximate patch-departure heuristics in two species of giant, brainless amoeba: the slime moulds Didymium bahiense and Physarum...

Our research is aimed at gaining a better understanding of the electronic properties of organisms in order to engineer novel bioelectronic systems and computing architectures based on biology. This specific paper focuses on harnessing the unicellular slime mold Physarum polycephalum to develop bio-memristors (or biological memristors) and bio-computing devices. The memristor is a resistor that ...

BACKGROUND The myxomycete Physarum polycephalum appears to have remarkable potential as a lipid source for biodiesel production. The present study evaluated the use of rice bran as a carbon source and determined the medium components for optimum growth and lipid production for this organism. RESULTS Optimization of medium components by response surface methodology showed that rice bran and ye...

Plasmodium stage of Physarum polycephalum behaves as a distributed dynamical pattern formation mechanism who’s foraging and migration is influenced by local stimuli from a wide range of attractants and repellents. Complex protoplasmic tube network structures are formed as a result, which serve as efficient `circuits' by which nutrients are distributed to all parts of the organism. We investigat...

The content of myosin in plasmodia of the myxomycete Physarum polycephalum was measured by an immunological technique, quantitative microcomplement (C') fixation. Migrating plasmodia (starved after growth on rolled oats) contained 0.60 +/- 0.08 (SD) mg myosin per g fresh plasmodia. Myosin comprised 0.77% +/- 0.05 (SD) of the total plasmodial protein. When total plasmodial proteins were separate...