Effects of creatine precursors in arthritis; clinical and metabolic study of glycocyamine and betaine

Twenty-two patients with arthritis received 5 gm. of glycocyamine and 20.16 gm. of betaine by mouth daily, in hospital and after discharge, for periods ranging from 13 to 42 days. A control group of 22 patients, indistinguishable from the treated group, were maintained on the same regimen and given placebos resembling the agents under study. The condition of each patient was evaluated clinically before, during and after treatment, and x-ray and metabolic studies were made. No significant improvement attributable to the use of the drugs was observed.     

The biomass of New England peppermint (Eucalyptus nova-anglica) in relation to insect damage associated with rural dieback

Two adjacent mature trees of New England peppermint (Eucalyptus nova-anglica) were harvested with the aid of a cherry picker to determine their biomass distribution and insect damage. One suffered from obvious symptoms of rural dieback and the other was healthy. Weights of foliage and wood were measured, and insect damage for all leaves and branches was quantified. For each tree 25% of the roots were extracted from the soil using a bulldozer and manual methods; they were then weighed and damage by insects estimated. The healthy tree lost more leaf surface area to insects (11% or 1.1 kg vs 9.2% or 0.3 kg); but the dieback tree had four times more wood affected by boring insects (19% cf. 5%); and only 20% root biomass remaining (92 kg cf. 488 kg). The accuracy of sampling techniques needed to measure defoliation and the consequences of insect damage to dieback of rural eucalypts are discussed.     

Ultra-violet radiation damage to Metarhizium flavoviride conidia and the protection given by vegetable and mineral oils and chemical sunscreens

Metarhizium flavouiride conidia formulated in oil or water were exposed to simulated solar radiation. Radiation below 320 nm killed conidia and caused delays in the germination of survivors; germination was greater after 48 h of incubation than after 24 h. UV exposure of conidia formulated in oil for 2 h reduced germination from 99% to 37.5% after incubation for 48 h. Exposure of conidia in water to UV for 1 h resulted in 4.7% germination after 24 h incubation compared with 36.5% for conidia formulated in oil. The addition of 1% oxybenzone resulted in 81.9% conidial germination after 3 h exposure and 48 h incubation compared with 28.1% in oil without the sunscreen.     

Shoot apex removal does not alter autoregulation of Modulation in soybean

The suppression of new nodule development in soybean (Glycine max (L.) Merr.) has been previously demonstrated to involve the shoot through reciprocal grafts between the wild-type cultivar Bragg and its supernodulating mutant nts382. Using the same grafting technique, but modified through the excision of the shoot apex region and emerging lateral shoots, we show here that autoregulation of nodule number still existed despite apex removal. This radical treatment lowered total nodule number per plant as well as root, shoot and nodule dry weight. Bragg shoots grafted onto nts382 roots gave wild-type nodulation (26 nodules, 15mg total nodule mass) as compared to nts382 shoots grafted onto Bragg roots (340 nodules, 277 mg total nodule mass). Specific nodule mass differed between supernodulating (about 0·5-1·0mg per nodule) and wild-type nodulating (2·3 mg per nodule) plants. In contrast to other growth characteristics, apex removal did not affect specific nodule size, except in plants with wild-type shoots and nts382 (supernodulation) roots. Apex removal only slightly affected the percentage of nodule weight per total root weight in nts382, but had a severe effect in wild type. Growth reductions varied between the normal and supernodulating plants. The fact that autoregulation of nodulation still functions in plants devoid of functional shoot apices suggests that the autoregulation signal may not be derived from the apex regions and that the leaf may be a likely source.