Bio-Degradable USB stick

Hong Kong-based Hoshino, released of what it's designated "the world's first bio-degradable USB disk."

The key is also shaped like an ear of corn, so you can acknowledge your own greenness, every time you go to retrieve information.

 

It is made of polylactide（PLA). PLA uses annually renewable plant resources (corn) as raw material, which is fermented and distillated to produce lactic acid.

Followed by the process of dehydration polymerization, high-temp depolymerization, refining and finally polymerization, lactic acid is then transformed to PLA. Its products can be degraded to carbon dioxide and water by microorganisms in the soil after use and do no harm to the environment.

http://www.hoshino.hk/en/product_detail.php?pid=275

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Plant Grows at high Temperatures with help of Fungi/Virus

Let us talk about three new things I didn't know till now. Hope it will be informative or useful for your entrance exams.

1. Dichanthelium lanuginosum is grass plant known as Panic grass* and was able to survive intermittent high temperatures in geothermal soils (up to 65 °C.) of Yellowstone National Park, USA.

2. In 2007 it was found that the heat tolerance is conferred to the grass due to its association with an endophytic fungus, Curvularia protuberata.

3. "Thermal Tolerance" trait conferred by the endophytic fungus is actually due to a specific RNA virus onboard. This dsRNA virus is aptly named "Curvularia thermal tolerance virus" (CThTV). Infected fungal mycelia contain two viral dsRNA molecules: a 2.2 kb dsRNA molecule that encodes two ORFs related to viral replication and a 1.8 kb dsRNA molecule with two ORFs with no similarity to any protein of known function.

As we all know virus is pathogenic. CThTV is Symbiotic.

This is an example of a tritrophic interaction, as three organisms are interacting.

Work is continuing to determine the mechanism by which the uncharacterized ORFs within the 1.8 dsRNA of CThTV confer the thermal tolerance in this fungal-plant mutualism.

*Panic grass, incidentally, has nothing to do with botanical phobias; instead, the name derives from the Latin panicum, referring to foxtail millet.

Further Study

Ready to Eat Rice without cooking !

Yes. Scientists of Central Rice Research Institute (CRRI), developed new rice variant named "Aghaono Bora", a soft rice or komal chawl, takes 45 minutes if soaked in normal water and if the water is lukewarm, it is ready in 15 minutes.

However, the soft rice varieties grown across Assam and the North-East, are ready to eat after they are soaked in plain water. it is a low-yielding crop that grows only in a cool climate.

The Scientists from CRRI, one of the premier research institutes on grains in the world, developed a hybrid of traditional soft rice with a high yielding variety of regular rice, that could be grown in different climates across India.

"We wanted to see whether the same rice can be grown here and retain the same properties. We saw it behaves the same way. Simply soak it in water and the rice is ready to eat but the quality of water has to be clean and potable. The idea is to avoid any waterborne disease," said Tapan Kumar Adhya, director, CRRI.

“This rice variety, which comes under soft rice category, helps in saving fuel as it doesn’t require any boiling ,” said Tapan Kumar Adhya.

In Orissa where 'pakhal' or cooked rice fermented in water is a hot favorite, the soft rice is expected to be a hit. It's environment-friendly and will save a huge amount of fuel and time.

Transparent Frog, First see-through frog

Professor Masayuki Sumida, Research Team @ Hiroshima University’s Institute for Amphibian Biology has created a  transparent frog whose internal organs are visible through its skin.

The researchers say the see-through frogs can help in the study of diseases and in the development of medical treatments by allowing laboratory scientists to check the status of internal organs and blood vessels while the frogs are alive and without having to dissect them.

According to Sumida, the transparent frog is the result of breeding two specimens of Japanese brown frog (Rana japonica) that had a genetic mutation giving them pale skin. By selectively breeding their offspring, the researchers were able to create a frog that remains transparent for its entire life cycle.

Most of the world’s known transparent creatures live underwater, and transparent four-legged animals are extremely rare.

The researchers also say that by fusing the genes of fluorescent proteins to the frog’s genes, they can create frogs that glow. Glowing frogs can help scientists study specific “problem” genes by providing a real-time visual indication (i.e. the frogs glow) when those genes become active.

Professor Sumida says, “Transparent frogs will prove useful as laboratory animals because they make it easier and cheaper to observe the development and progress of cancer, the growth and aging of internal organs, and the effects of chemicals on organs.”

Very Interesting..............

Buddha shaped Pears

Gao Xianzhang has managed to create what some would call the holiest fruits ever, pears shaped like Buddha.

Gao has been working on his pear-growing technique for six years and this season he managed to grow 10,000 Buddha-shaped baby pears. Each fruit is grown in an intricate Buddha mould and ends up looking like a juicy figurine. The ingenious farmer says the locals in his home village of Hexia, norther China, have been buying his Buddha pears as soon as he picks them from the trees. Most of them think they are cute and that they bring good luck.

Gao Xianzhang pears aren’t cheap, roughly $1.8 each, but their success in China convinced him to start exporting them into Europe.

May be you want read also Square Watermelons

Square Watermelons! It's true.

Farmers in the southern Japanese town of Zentsuji have figured out how to grow their watermelons so they turn out square.

It's not a fad. The technique actually has practical applications. "The reason they're doing this in Japan is because of lack of space," said Samantha Winters of the National Watermelon Promotion Board in Orlando, Florida.

A fat, round watermelon can take up a lot of room in a refrigerator, and the usually round fruit often sits awkwardly on refrigerator shelves. But clever Japanese farmers have solved this dilemma by forcing their watermelons to grow into a square shape.

Farmers insert the melons into square, tempered glass cases while the fruit is still growing on the vine.

The square boxes are the exact dimensions of Japanese refrigerators, allowing full-grown watermelons to fit conveniently and precisely onto refrigerator shelves.

But cubic fruit comes with a price: Each square watermelon costs 10,000 yen, the equivalent of about $82. Regular watermelons in Japan cost from $15 to $25 each.

Japanese farmers have perfected the art of growing square watermelons, but they aren’t about to reveal their secret process. When a square watermelon sells for $82 who can blame them.

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Self-Irrigating Desert Plant Discovered

A desert plant has apparently figured out how to water itself.

Ecologists had been puzzling over the desert rhubarb for years: Instead of the tiny, spiky leaves found on most desert plants, this rare rhubarb boasts lush green leaves up to a meter wide.

Now scientists from the University of Haifa-Oranim in Israel have discovered that ridges in the plant’s giant leaves actually collect water and channel it down to the plant’s root system, harvesting up to 16 times more water than any other plant in the region.

“It is the first example of a self-irrigating plant,” said plant biologist Gidi Ne’eman, a co-author on the paper published in March in Naturwissenschaften, a German journal of ecology. “This is the only case we know, but in other places in the world there might be additional plants that use the same adaptions.”

The desert rhubarb grows in the mountainous deserts of Israel and Jordan, where there’s only about 75mm of rainfall each year. Even during the rainy season, the region’s light rainfalls often don’t penetrate the rocky soil of the desert. Plants with large leaves and a deep root system, like the desert rhubarb, typically can’t survive in such an arid climate.

But when the researchers measured the plant’s water absorption during a light rain, they discovered that water infiltrated the soil 10 times deeper around the desert rhubarb than in surrounding areas. Upon closer examination, scientists discovered deep grooves around the plant’s veins, which are coated in a waxy cuticle that helps channel water down to the root.

“Even in the slightest rains,” the researchers wrote, “the typical plant harvests more than 4,300 cubic centimeters of water per year and enjoys a water regime of about 427 millimeters per year, equivalent to the water supply in a Mediterranean climate.”

Some scientists say the desert rhubarb isn’t all that, however. “Many plants channel water to their base to be absorbed by the root,” Lindy Brigham, a plant ecologist from the University of Arizona, wrote in an email. “Just look at the way plant leaves are shaped and how they branch from the base in many cases.” The architecture of the desert rhubarb’s leaves is unusual, she said, but not necessarily the only example of this adaptation.

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