Specific Characteristics of Rhodiola rosea Growth and Development under the Photoculture Conditions

Growth and development of Rhodiola rosea L. plants (the family Crassulaceae) were compared in their natural habitat, field stands, and in photoculture. By the indices of growth and development, plants grown for 135–137 days under the intensive photoculture were shown to exceed the 3-year-old plants developed in the natural habitats and 1–1.5-year-old plants grown in the field stands. Under the photoculture, 35% of all the plants under study started flowering at the day 75–77 after seed germination. The content of salidroside in the rhizomes of the 135–137-day-old plants was 0.4–0.6% per dry weight. Following photoculturing for 245 days, rhizome weight increased 4.5-fold as compared to the 135–137-day-old plants, and the salidroside concentration reached 1.2%, the level corresponding to the maximum content of this glycoside in the plants growing in their natural habitat and exceeding by 1.5–3 times the levels observed in the plants grown in the field stands. Under the photoculture conditions, plants of R. rosea were shown to grow without the dormancy period. Several factors apparently raised the salidroside concentration in the 245-day-old plants under the photoculture conditions, including enhanced growth, absence of the dormancy period and the period of lowered temperatures; as a whole, these factors promoted the detoxification, storage, and/or transport of the primary metabolic products.     

Ion acoustic envelope solitons in explosive ionospheric experiments

The conditions are studied under which stable ion acoustic envelope solitons propagating perpendicular to the magnetic field lines can exist in the ionospheric plasma. The amplitudes, frequencies, and lengths of the waves are determined. The results obtained are compared with the experimental data. It is suggested that such solitons play an important role in both the formation of an ionization front and its motion across the magnetic field and also give rise to a fluctuation precursor in explosive ionospheric experiments.     

Fatty acid composition of the lipids of yeasts differing in radioresistance

The composition of membrane fatty lipid acids and the content of polyunsaturation of fatty acids have been shown not to be the leading factors in the formation of radioresistance cells.     

Dynamics of the types of carrier state and their relationship to the phage group characteristics of pathogenic staphylococci]

A total of 305 persons belonging to the medical staff of a hospital surgery unit were subjected to multiple examinations during period of up to 8 years. 2,354 staphylococcal strains isolated from these subjects were studied, and the following types of carrier state were determined: constant (23.6 +/- 2.43%), intermittent (57.4 +/- 2.83%), resident (7.9 +/- 1.54%), and the stable absence of carrier state (11.1 +/- 1.60%). An increase in the number of examinations and the terms of observation resulted in a regular increase in the number of intermittent carriers at the expense of constant carriers and persons not identified as carriers. Against this background resident carriers constituted a relatively more stable group. Carrier states of the resident type were connected with staphyloccci belonging to various phage groups without pronounced differences in the frequency with which any of the phage groups occurred.     

Investigation of permolecular structure of lipase from <Emphasis Type="Italic">Rhizopus niveus</Emphasis>

It has been shown by classical biophysical and biochemical methods in combination with atomic microscopy that lipase from Rhizopus niveus exists in a water solution as a dimer with a molecular weight of 96 kDa. The rate of splitting of triglycerides by a dimeric molecules is twice that of monomers. The heat stability of the monomeric form of lipase at temperatures of 20–60°C is significantly higher than that of the native molecule.