Latex is the milky sap that is found in many different plants. It is produced by specialized cells known as laticifers and can comprise a mixture of proteins, carbohydrates, oils, secondary metabolites, and rubber that may help to prevent herbivory and protect wound sites against infection. The wound-induced browning of latex suggests that it contains one or more phenol-oxidizing enzymes. Here,...

BACKGROUND Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), which is caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), is an immunosuppressive disease that results in life-threatening opportunistic infections. The general problems in current therapy include the constant emergence of drug-resistant HIV strains, adverse side effects and the unavailability of treatments in developing countries. Natural ...

Classic methods for Bayesian inference effectively constrain search to lie within regions of significant probability of the instantaneous temporal prior. This is efficient with an accurate dynamics model, but otherwise is prone to ignore significant peaks in the true posterior. A more accurate posterior can be obtained by explicitly finding modes of the likelihood function and combining them wi...

Readers of The American Statistician may recognize in my title a salute to David Moore’s (1997) “Bayes for Beginners? Some Reasons to Hesitate.” In his paper Moore detailed four main reasons why he judged it at best premature to teach Bayesian methods in a first statistics course. Since the publication of Moore’s paper, more than ten years have passed, during which time our profession has been ...

Abstract Background Taraxacum officinale , or the common dandelion, is a widespread perennial species recognized worldwide as lawn and garden weed. Common dandelion also cultivated for use in teas, edible greens, traditional medicine. It produces latex closely related to Russian T. kok-saghyz which being developed rubber crop. Additionally, vast majority of extant dandelions reproduce asexually...

Natural rubber (NR) has unique properties which are unmatched by synthetic and is used in over 50,000 products. The only commercial source of NR the Para tree (Hevea brasiliensis) insecure because increasing demand, price instability, high labor costs, trade politics, competition with other crops, deforestation bans preventing new H. brasiliensis acreage, disease. Taraxacum kok-saghyz, root dan...