Insect-deterring sorghum compounds may be eco-friendly pesticide

Compounds produced by sorghum plants to defend against insect feeding could be isolated, synthesized and used as a targeted, nontoxic insect deterrent, according to researchers who studied plant-insect interactions that included ...

Scientists discover natural plant-based food preservative

Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) scientists have discovered a plant-based food preservative that is more effective than artificial preservatives. The organic preservative comprises naturally occurring ...

Tyrosinase inhibitors from terrestrial and marine resources

Tyrosinase is a multifunctional copper-containing enzyme widely distributed in microorganisms as well as plants and animals which has a primordial role in melanin biosynthesis thus impacting on skin color and pigmentation. ...

Flavonoids: Little changes—large effects

(Phys.org) —Scientists at the University of York have discovered that very small chemical changes to dietary flavonoids cause very large effects when the plant natural products are tested for their impact on the human immune ...

Chocolate makes snails smarter

Chocolate isn't usually on the diet for snails, but when Lee Fruson and Ken Lukowiak from the University of Calgary, became curious about the effects of diet on memory, they decided to try a flavonoid from chocolate, epicatechin ...

Spot the chemical difference

(Phys.org) -- Scientists at Kew have devised a method to distinguish similar flavonoids when chemically profiling plant extracts.

Plant enzymes reveal complex secrets

The enzymes needed for producing and chemically modifying functionally important plant molecules called anthocyanins have been identified by a research team led by Kazuki Saito of the RIKEN Plant Science Center, Yokohama.

New study sheds light on genetics of rice metabolism

A large-scale study analyzing metabolic compounds in rice grains conducted by researchers at the RIKEN Plant Science Center (PSC) and their collaborators has identified 131 rice metabolites and clarified the genetic and environmental ...

12 new flavonoids discovered in Kew tree

Scientists at Kew interested in the classification of legumes have been studying the chemistry of the Kentucky yellow-wood (Cladrastis kentukea). Evidence from DNA sequencing suggested that this species is related to the ...

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