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Topic Review
African Golden Wolf
The African golden wolf (Canis lupaster) or African wolf is a canine native to North Africa, West Africa, the Sahel, northern East Africa, and the Horn of Africa. It is the descendant of a genetically admixed canid of 72% gray wolf (Canis lupus) and 28% Ethiopian wolf (Canis simensis) ancestry. It is listed as least concern on the IUCN Red List. In the Atlas Mountains, it was sighted in elevations as high as 1,800 m (5,900 ft). It is primarily a predator, targeting invertebrates and mammals as large as gazelle fawns, though larger animals are sometimes taken. Its diet also includes animal carcasses, human refuse, and fruit. The African golden wolf is a monogamous and territorial species; offspring remain with the family to assist in raising their parents' younger pups. It was previously classified as an African variant of the golden jackal (Canis aureus), with at that time at least one subspecies (C. a. lupaster) having been classified as a wolf. In 2015, a series of analyses on the species' mitochondrial DNA and nuclear genome demonstrated that it was, in fact, distinct from the golden jackal, and more closely related to the gray wolf and the coyote (Canis latrans). It is nonetheless still close enough to the golden jackal to produce hybrid offspring, as indicated through genetic tests on jackals in Israel, and a 19th-century captive crossbreeding experiment. It plays a prominent role in some African cultures; in North African folklore, it is viewed as an untrustworthy animal whose body parts can be used for medicinal or ritualistic purposes, while it is held in high esteem in Senegal's Serer religion as being the first creature to be created by the god Roog.
  • 3.3K
  • 23 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Urban Green Spaces
n the context of urban land-use growth and the consequent impacts on the environment, green spaces provide ecosystem services for human health. The ecosystem services concept synthesises human–environmental interactions through a series of combined components of biodiversity and abiotic elements, linking ecological processes and functions. The concept of green infrastructure (GI) in the urban context emphasises the quality and quantity of urban and peri-urban green spaces and natural areas.
  • 3.3K
  • 05 Mar 2021
Topic Review
Folic Acid, Vitamin B12 and Chronic Kidney Disease
Patients affected by chronic kidney disease (CKD) or end-stage renal disease (ESRD) experience a huge cardiovascular risk and cardiovascular events represent the leading causes of death. Folic acid and vitamin B12 could not only be mere cofactors in the homocysteine metabolism; they may have a direct action in determining tissue damage and cardiovascular risk. 
  • 3.3K
  • 15 Oct 2021
Topic Review
Applications of Nanocellulose/Nanocarbon Composites: Focus on Biotechnology and Medicine
Nanocellulose/nanocarbon composites are newly-emerging smart hybrid materials containing cellulose nanoparticles, such as nanofibrils and nanocrystals, and carbon nanoparticles, such as “classical” carbon allotropes (fullerenes, graphene, nanotubes and nanodiamonds), or other carbon nanostructures (carbon nanofibers, carbon quantum dots, activated carbon and carbon black). The nanocellulose component acts as a dispersing agent and homogeneously distribute the carbon nanoparticles in aqueous environment. Nanocellulose/nanocarbon composites can be prepared with many advantageous properties, such as high mechanical strength, flexibility, stretchability, tunable thermal and electrical conductivity, tunable optical transparency, photodynamic and photothermal activity, nanoporous character and high adsorption capacity. They are therefore promising for a wide range of industrial applications, such as energy generation, storage and conversion, water purification, food packaging, construction of fire retardants and shape memory devices. They also hold great promise for biomedical applications, such as radical scavenging, photodynamic and photothermal therapy of tumors and microbial infections, drug delivery, biosensorics, isolation of various biomolecules, electrical stimulation of damaged tissues (e.g. cardiac, neural), neural and bone tissue engineering, engineering of blood vessels and advanced wound dressing, e.g. with antimicrobial and antitumor activity. However, the potential cytotoxicity and immunogenicity of the composites and their components must also be taken into account.
  • 3.3K
  • 01 Nov 2020
Topic Review
Edible Artemisia: Health Effects
The Artemisia species, often known collectively as "wormwood" are herbs and shrubs, which could be perennial, biennial and annual plants, distributed on all continents except Antarctica, mainly on Northern Hemisphere, with only 25 species on the Southern Hemisphere, being the Asian the zone where higher species diversity is concentrated. The use of Artemisia species in traditional medicine is well-documented and demonstrates the great ethnopharmacological value of this genus. In addition to the traditional medicine applications, Artemisia species exhibit high food value since many of them are species used in culinary as a food, spices, condiments and beverages flavoring.
  • 3.3K
  • 06 Feb 2021
Topic Review
Protein Quality Control (PQC)
Eukaryotic cells have a well-organized, tightly regulated protein quality control (PQC) system. This quality control system includes the molecular chaperones, ubiquitin/proteasome-dependent protein degradation, and autophagy machinery (target and uptake of non-native conformer in the spatial compartments) that consistently monitors and maintains the conformational state of cellular proteins.
  • 3.3K
  • 18 Mar 2021
Topic Review
Lipid Oxidation in Food Systems
Lipids are significant nutrients for humans and help many functional and regulatory activities in the human body, such as signal transduction, myelination, and synaptic plasticity. Lipids are also involved in the structural developments of the human body . In food, lipid content and fatty acid composition are the two critical congenital parameters to the susceptibility of food to oxidative changes. Lipid content and the fatty acid composition of fat of farm animals varies significantly depending on animal species and the diet. Lipid oxidation causes quality deterioration in food. Depending upon the reaction mechanisms and factors involved, lipid oxidation can be divided into autoxidation, photo-oxidation, and enzyme-catalyzed oxidation. Autoxidation is the most common process of lipid oxidation in foods and is divided into initiation, propagation, and termination stages. 
  • 3.3K
  • 01 Nov 2021
Topic Review
Silvicultural Site Preparation Techniques
Silvicultural site preparation techniques are planned anthropogenic disturbances that are designed to aid in the regeneration and establishment of a new stand of trees.
  • 3.3K
  • 09 Dec 2020
Topic Review
Genetic Use Restriction Technologies
Genetic use restriction technologies (GURTs), developed to secure return on investments through protection of plant varieties, are among the most controversial and opposed genetic engineering biotechnologies as they are perceived as a tool to force farmers to depend on multinational corporations’ seed monopolies.  This led to a de facto global moratorium on this technology, which is still far from being withdrawn.
  • 3.3K
  • 30 Oct 2020
Topic Review
Bed Bugs
The bed bugs (Cimex lectularius and C. hemipterus) have undergone a significant resurgence worldwide since the 1990s. Herein, we discuss on the main evolutionary events, from fossil evidence, dating from 11,000 years ago, until the present that has led to the current worldwide expansion of Cimicid species. We present the hypotheses on the possible dispersion pathways of bed bugs in light of the major historical and evolutionary events. A detailed classification of the Cimicidae family and finally, an illustrative map displaying the current distribution of known Cimex species in each geographical ecozone of Asia, Europe, Africa, the Americas, and Australia are presented.
  • 3.3K
  • 05 Nov 2020
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