JUNE 2005 SUPPLEMENT T o many scientists, researchers, and technicians, the discipline of biopreservation (commonly known as cryobiology) remains an afterthought in product and process development. Biopreservation is a simple means to an end for storing/shipping intermediate biological materials or final products. It is, however, an extensive and involved process. Contributing to the general pe...

Mass-independent fractionation of sulfur isotopes (S MIF) in Archean and Paleoproterozoic rocks provides strong evidence for an anoxic atmosphere before ~2,400 Ma. However, the origin of this isotopic anomaly remains unclear, as does the identity of the molecules that carried it from the atmosphere to Earth's surface. Irrespective of the origin of S MIF, processes in the biogeochemical sulfur c...

Lactic acid bacteria (LAB) have a major role in biopreservation of foods because they are considered safe and are designated as GRAS (Generally Recognized as Safe) organisms. The preservative property of LAB is attributed to the combined action of a range of antimicrobial substances viz. lactic acid, acetic acid, propionic acid, carbon dioxide, hydrogen peroxide, bacteriocins and antifungal pep...

In March 2012, an article in The Straits Times entitled 'Freezing eggs could reverse falling birth rate' suggested that employing the latest oocyte cryopreservation techniques could both foster individual women's reproductive autonomy and impact Singapore's fertility rate, which in recent years has consistently been among the world's lowest. The article cited both local and international fertil...

The main contribution of this work is a mathematical theorem which establishes a necessary and sufficient condition to preserve the behaviour of a genetic regulatory network when it is embedded into a larger network. We adopt the modelling approach of René Thomas, which provides a discrete representation of biological regulatory networks. This framework is entirely formalized using labelled gra...

Prions are characterized by unusual physicochemical properties, such as insolubility and resistance to proteases, and maintain infectivity after contact with disinfectants and decontamination procedures active against conventional pathogens. To date, most methods for prion inactivation are either incomplete or unacceptably harsh for the purification of fragile biotherapeutics. Here we describe ...

Onion (Allium cepa L.), garlic (Allium sativum L.) and other edible Allium are among the oldest cultivated plants, and are used for multiple purposes. They are a rich source of several phytonutrients, and recognized to have significant and wide biological activities. These biological activities are related to the thiosulfinates, volatile sulfur compounds which are responsible for the pungency o...

The article discusses the practical aspects of seed production monoecious Ko noble planting. It is shown that varietal seeds, maintenance economically valuable traits, properties and preservation biological purity hemp varieties at a high level possible only with well-established system. Long-term experimental data on assessment plants from 1-year breeding nurseries for content tetrahydrocannab...

Owing to recent innovation in molecular biological techniques, nucleic acid data are becoming more and more important in ecology, systematics, evolutionary biology and conservation biology. Moreover, DNA sequence comparison is a powerful tool to study genetic relatedness of species, which can be used to estimate branching order of phylogenetic trees as well as evolutionary distance between both...