Scientific Name  Polyalthia. longifolia (Soon)Thwaitea. Family     Annonaceae Used Part    Bark Distribution Area Considered to be a native of the drier parts of Ceylon…

Right now I'm asking myself why I spent 100+ hours carefully writing a grant proposal that was destined to not get a serious reading. Below are dueling comments from the same reviewer (for the sake…

The dinosaurs of Australia disappeared at the end of the Cretaceous, as they did the world over. Their departure marked the end of the supercontinent of Gondwana. By the middle of the Eocene, some…

Ah, summer. Sunshine, lazy days, kids selling cocaine under the guise of lemonade on the sidewalk. Wait, what? Best excuse ever for ingesting pot: it was the mysterious sidewalk salesman working for…

What was it that my late aikido and Zen sensei asked me to do, on that day twenty-some years ago?  I do remember his request struck me as difficult to carry out, and perhaps not really…

 Piper longum Linn (Piperaceae) used in  Ayurvedic medicines helps cure leprosy.  Proessor Ashwani Kumar Habit and Habitat A climber occurring in the hotter parts of…

What's the quickest way to get scientists and serious science writers to quit coming on your show? Invite the creationists. Discover bloggers Sean Carroll and Carl Zimmer explain what happened: Sean…

 Cinnamomum verum Presl (  syn  C.zeylanicum Bi)     Lauraceae Famiily. Its bark is used as condiment.    A tree native  to Sri Lanka and  …

... Experiments unguided by an appropriate theoretical framework usually amount to little more than "watching the pot boil." - John Holland, "Complex Adaptive Systems", Daedalus 121:17-30 (1992)…

Saline water occupies 71% of the Earth area. It is thought that even a quarter of the whole pedosphere is affected by salts (Glenn and O’Leary, 1985), amounting to 950 x 106 ha (Flowers and Yeo, 1995…

      Ashwani Kumar Energy Plantation Demonstration project and Biotechnology Center Bio-Technology Lab Department of Botany University of Rajasthan, Jaipur - 302 004 E mail:…

         Ashwani Kumar  Energy Plantation Demonstration project and Biotechnology Center. Bio-Technology Lab Department of Botany University of Rajasthan,…

This is so cool! I can't believe I haven't been hearing taxonomists buzz about this. 3M Novec is a new engineered material that is non-flammable (unlike ethanol) non-toxic (unlike formalin, though…

I have just read a letter in Chemistry World (September 2009, p40) by A J Dijkstra, who has just translated the first ever book on lipid chemistry from French into English. This book is Recherches…

The Physics in Collisions conference in Kobe is over, and I am packing up. Tomorrow morning I will leave from KIX to FRA, and later FRA to VCE, hopefully making it home for dinner. I learned a few…

Aloe plant has over 112 species. Generally Aloe vera is projected as health tonic. However in some literature 4 species are mentioned out of which Aloe vera is declared toxic to eat or drink. All…

 Tulsi ( Ocimum sanctum ) has potential as anticancer plant. The term ethnobotany was first used by Harshberger in 1885 and its scope was much elaborated later by Ford in 1978 and Faulks in…

More reality programs, less hard science coverage, and when they do cover hard science it's watered down.  This is all true as the production values of the programs have increased while the…

The first Squid-A-Day is my very own study organism: Dosidicus gigas, the Humboldt squid! They seem to be mellowing out as they move north; after causing serious media hullabaloo in San Diego all…

    The alcoholic extract of the latex obtained from Calotropis procera (Asclepidaceae) was evaluated for protection against isoproterenol (20 mg/100g body wt., s.c.)-induced myocardial…