The goal of the present study was to determine whether Coptotermes formosanus Shiraki workers exposed to boron-treated wood were capable of transferring quantifiable amounts of boron to non-exposed nestmates. This effect is called horizontal transfer. Borates are not repellent to termites, nor do they cause rapid mortality, making them excellent candidates for the study of horizontal transfer. ...

Boron deprivation experiments with humans have yielded some persuasive findings for the hypothesis that boron is an essential nutrient. In the first nutritional study with humans involving boron, 12 postmenopausal women first were fed a diet that provided 0.25 mg boron/2000 kcal for 119 days, and then were fed the same diet with a boron supplement of 3 mg boron/day for 48 days. The boron supple...

Two experiments were conducted with weanling Sprague-Dawley rats to determine whether changes in S-adenosylmethionine utilization or metabolism contribute to the diverse responses to boron deprivation. In both experiments, four treatment groups of 15 male rats were fed ground corn-casein based diets that contained an average of 0.05 mg (experiment 1) or 0.15 mg (experiment 2) boron/kg. In exper...

More recently, motivated by extensively technical applications of carbon nanostructures, there is a growing interest in exploring novel non-carbon nanostructures. As the nearest neighbor of carbon in the periodic table, boron has exceptional properties of low volatility and high melting point and is stronger than steel, harder than corundum, and lighter than aluminum. Boron nanostructures thus ...

A review of the experimental studies relating boron to biological effects on appendicular and axial bones in animal models suggests that numerous influences, known and unknown, affect the responsiveness of bone to dietary boron. Degrees of skeletal response to boron are modified by other nutritional variables that include calcium, magnesium, vitamin D, and fluoride. Evidence suggests that appen...

Low-gain avalanche detectors (LGAD) suffer from an acceptor removal phenomenon due to irradiation. This is investigated in boron, gallium, and indium implanted samples by 4-point-probe (4pp) measurements, low-temperature photoluminescence spectroscopy (LTPL), secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) before after irradiation with electrons protons. Different co-implantation species are evaluated r...

Boron deficiency symptoms point to a role for boron in plant membranes, but the molecular partners interacting with boron have not yet been identified. The objective of the present study was to isolate and identify membrane-associated proteins with an ability to interact with boron. Boron-interacting proteins were isolated from root microsomal preparations of arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) ...

Recently, a proliferation of athletic supplements has been marketed touting boron as an ergogenic aid capable of increasing testosterone. The effect of boron supplementation was investigated in male bodybuilders. Ten male bodybuilders (aged 20 to 26) were given a 2.5-mg boron supplement, while nine male bodybuilders (aged 21 to 27) were given a placebo for 7 weeks. Plasma total and free testost...

Intact roots of boron-sufficient squash (Cucurbita pepo L.) plants, plants entering boron deficiency, and plants recovering from boron deficiency were exposed to tritiated thymidine at the end of the treatment period to label the replicating DNA of root tip cells. Using histological sections, autoradiographs of intact root meristems were prepared. The labeling pattern in +B root tips revealed t...

Preservation of sawn timber from rubber trees with a water-soluble mixture boric acid and borax generates large quantity colored wood preservative solutions carries toxic metals, especially boron. To save costs, millers commonly reuse the mixtures in successive preservation cycles but regularly add to maintain boron levels. However, this strategy affects both color economic value treated wood. ...