Through a joint SASEX/CIRAD, project the effect of Eldana saccharina Walker (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae) damage on stalk yield components was studied in fields at the SASEX farms at Gingindlovu and Empangeni. The formal experiment design consisted of randomised plots to compare natural infestation, artificial infestation and chemical treatments. Damaged stalks from infested plots had lower sucrose,...

The pattern of remyelination after traumatic spinal cord injury remains elusive, with animal and human studies reporting partial to complete demyelination followed by incomplete remyelination. In the present study, we found that spared rubrospinal tract (RST) axons of passage traced with actively transported dextrans and examined caudally to the lesion 12 weeks after mouse spinal cord contusion...

A mutant of Arabidopsis with reduced internodal cell length, acaulis5 (acl5), has recently been shown to have reduced transcript levels of a gene for endoxyloglucan transferase, EXGT-A1 (Y. Hanzawa, T. Takahashi, Y. Komeda [1997] Plant J 12: 863-874). In the present study, we cloned genomic fragments of five members of the EXGT gene family, EXGT-A1, EXGT-A3, EXGT-A4, XTR2, and XTR3, and examine...

In clonal plants, evolution of plastic foraging by increased lengths of leaves and internodes under unfavourable conditions may be constrained by costs and limits of plasticity. We studied costs and limits of plasticity in foraging characteristics in 102 genotypes of the stoloniferous herb Ranunculus reptans. We grew three replicates of each genotype with and three without competition by the na...

Clinical and laboratory observations both suggest that it may be possible for action potentials to traverse, in a continuous manner and without interruption, demyelinated zones along some axons. This continuous mode of conduction requires the presence of sufficient numbers of sodium channels in the demyelinated region. One of the factors which will tend to prevent such conduction is the impedan...

This work examined cell composition gradients in maturing tillers of switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) with the aim of developing baseline information on this important forage and biomass crop. Flowering tillers were collected from plants raised from seeds in a greenhouse and field, harvested at soil level and separated into internodes beginning with the node subtending the peduncle. Internodes...

• The organs of sugarcane use carbon in different ways, leading to differing ratios insoluble and soluble compounds Transcription aligned closely with differences the biomass makeup components. Large transcriptional were observed among organs, smaller we according maturity. This study may support efforts develop composition better suited various end uses. major source sink (roots, leaves intern...

In the baboon, acrylamide produces a clinical illness characterized by weakness and ataxia of the limbs, weakness of bulbar muscles, and finally tetraplegia. Histological examination shows extensive involvement of peripheral nerves, the main histological change being a Wallerian type of degeneration affecting the distal ends of the largest diameter nerve fibres. The phenomenon of `dying back' h...