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Helicodiceros
''Helicodiceros muscivorus'', the dead horse arum lily, is an ornamental plant native to Corsica, Sardinia and the Balearic Islands. It is the only species in the genus ''Helicodiceros''. Within the family Araceae the plant is part of the subfamily Aroideae. The flowers of ''H. muscivorus'' smell like rotting meat, attracting carrion-seeking blow flies which act as pollinators. One of a rare group of thermogenic plants, the dead horse arum can raise its temperature by thermogenesis. This helps to lure flies into the plant to contact its pollen.Stensmyr, Marcus C., et al. “Pollination: Rotting Smell of Dead- Horse Arum Florets.” Nature 420.6916 (2002): 625-6. The plant still is being studied for the way it is able to produce its own heat without being necessarily dependent of ambient temperature. Description The inflorescence of the arum lilies is a three-part spadix which resembles the anal area of a dead mammal. In between is a hairy spathe such as a ‘tail’ runnin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Calliphora Vomitoria
''Calliphora vomitoria'', known as the blue bottle fly, orange-bearded blue bottle, or bottlebee is a species of blow fly, a species in the family Calliphoridae. ''Calliphora vomitoria'' is the type species of the genus ''Calliphora''. It is common throughout many continents including Europe, Americas, and Africa. They are fairly large flies, nearly twice the size of the housefly. They can be easily identified by their shiny, blue bodies. While adult flies feed on nectar, females deposit their eggs on rotting corpses, making them important forensic insects, as their eggs and timing of oviposition can be used to estimate time of death. Description Blue bottle flies are typically long, almost twice the size of a housefly. The head and thorax are dull gray, and the back of the head has long yellow-orange setae. The abdomen is bright metallic blue with black markings. Its body and legs are covered with black bristly hairs. It has short, aristate antennae and four tarsi per ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Common Green Bottle Fly
The common green bottle fly (''Lucilia sericata'') is a blowfly found in most areas of the world and is the most well-known of the numerous green bottle fly species. Its body is in length – slightly larger than a house fly – and has brilliant, metallic, blue-green or golden coloration with black markings. It has short, sparse, black bristles (setae) and three cross-grooves on the thorax. The wings are clear with light brown veins, and the legs and antennae are black. The larvae of the fly may be used for maggot therapy, are commonly used in forensic entomology, and can be the cause of myiasis in livestock and pets. The common green bottle fly emerges in the spring for mating. Description The defining characteristic of ''L. sericata'' and the one most used when identifying the adult fly is the presence of three bristles on the dorsal mesothorax, located on the middle of the back of the fly. ''L. sericata'' is almost identical to its conspecific, '' L. cuprina,'' and ident ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aroideae
Aroideae is a subfamily of flowering plants in the family Araceae. It is the largest subfamily in Araceae and consists of about 72 different genera, and 2,300 species. Many Aroideae have spiny pollen grains without a sporopollenin outer exine layer and lacking an aperture. Genera Taxonomy May be subdivided into a series of twenty five tribes The term tribe is used in many different contexts to refer to a category of human social group. The predominant worldwide usage of the term in English is in the discipline of anthropology. This definition is contested, in part due to confli ...: * Aglaonemateae * Anubiadeae * Areae * Arisaemateae * Arisareae * Arophyteae * Caladieae * Callopsideae * Colocasieae * Cryptocoryneae * Culcasieae * Homalomeneae * Nephthytideae * Peltandreae * Philodendreae * Philonotieae * Pistieae * Schismatoglottideae * Spathicarpeae * Stylochaetoneae * Thomsonieae * Zantedeschieae References * Bown, Deni (2000). ''Aroids: ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thermogenic Plants
Thermogenic plants have the ability to raise their temperature above that of the surrounding air. Heat is generated in the mitochondria, as a secondary process of cellular respiration called thermogenesis. Alternative oxidase and uncoupling proteins similar to those found in mammals enable the process, which is still poorly understood. The role of thermogenesis Botanists are not completely sure why thermogenic plants generate large amounts of excess heat, but most agree that it has something to do with increasing pollination rates. The most widely accepted theory states that the endogenous heat helps in spreading chemicals that attract pollinators to the plant. For example, the Voodoo lily uses heat to help spread its smell of rotting meat. This smell draws in flies which begin to search for the source of the smell. As they search the entire plant for the dead carcass, they pollinate the plant. Other theories state that the heat may provide a heat reward for the pollinator: poll ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Louis Van Houtte
Louis Benoît van Houtte (29 June 1810, in Ypres – 9 May 1876, in Ghent) was a Belgian horticulturist who was with the Jardin Botanique de Brussels between 1836 and 1838 and is best known for the journal ''Flore des Serres et des Jardins de l'Europe'', produced with Charles Lemaire and M. Scheidweiler, an extensive work boasting more than 2,000 coloured plates in 23 volumes published between 1845 and 1883. Early in his career van Houtte worked in Brussels for the ministry of finance. All his leisure time was spent on botany at the botanical garden and private estates. He was on good terms with men like the peony breeder M. Parmentier of Enghien, the Knight Parthon de Von, and d’Enghien and befriended local gardeners. Together with Charles François Antoine Morren, van Houtte founded ''L'Horticulteur Belge'' (1833–1838), a monthly magazine, in November 1832. The 119 hand-coloured plates that were published are engravings or sometimes lithographs. There are also 78 plat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Floret
This glossary of botanical terms is a list of definitions of terms and concepts relevant to botany and plants in general. Terms of plant morphology are included here as well as at the more specific Glossary of plant morphology and Glossary of leaf morphology. For other related terms, see Glossary of phytopathology, Glossary of lichen terms, and List of Latin and Greek words commonly used in systematic names. A B ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Inflorescence
An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Morphologically, it is the modified part of the shoot of seed plants where flowers are formed on the axis of a plant. The modifications can involve the length and the nature of the internodes and the phyllotaxis, as well as variations in the proportions, compressions, swellings, adnations, connations and reduction of main and secondary axes. One can also define an inflorescence as the reproductive portion of a plant that bears a cluster of flowers in a specific pattern. The stem holding the whole inflorescence is called a peduncle. The major axis (incorrectly referred to as the main stem) above the peduncle bearing the flowers or secondary branches is called the rachis. The stalk of each flower in the inflorescence is called a pedicel. A flower that is not part of an inflorescence is called a solitary flower and its stalk is al ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
ATP Synthesis
ATP synthase is a protein that catalyzes the formation of the energy storage molecule adenosine triphosphate (ATP) using adenosine diphosphate (ADP) and inorganic phosphate (Pi). It is classified under ligases as it changes ADP by the formation of P-O bond (phosphodiester bond). ATP synthase is a molecular machine. The overall reaction catalyzed by ATP synthase is: * ADP + Pi + 2H+out ATP + H2O + 2H+in The formation of ATP from ADP and Pi is energetically unfavorable and would normally proceed in the reverse direction. In order to drive this reaction forward, ATP synthase couples ATP synthesis during cellular respiration to an electrochemical gradient created by the difference in proton (H+) concentration across the inner mitochondrial membrane in eukaryotes or the plasma membrane in bacteria. During photosynthesis in plants, ATP is synthesized by ATP synthase using a proton gradient created in the thylakoid lumen through the thylakoid membrane and into the chloroplast stroma. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thermogenic
Thermogenic means tending to produce heat, and the term is commonly applied to drugs which increase heat through metabolic stimulation, or to microorganisms which create heat within organic waste. Approximately all enzymatic reaction in the human body is thermogenic, which gives rise to the basal metabolic rate.Yu‑Hua Tseng, Aaron M. Cypess and C. Ronald Kahn. Cellular bioenergetics as a target for obesity therapy. Reviews. Vol. 9. 2010: 465-81. In bodybuilding, athletes wishing to reduce body fat percentage use thermogenics in order to attempt to increase their basal metabolic rate, thereby increasing overall energy expenditure. Caffeine and ephedrine are commonly used for this purpose in the ECA stack. 2,4-Dinitrophenol (DNP) is a very strong thermogenic drug used for fat loss which produces a dose-dependent increase in body temperature, to the point where it can induce death by hyperthermia. It works as a mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation uncoupler, disrupting the mitoc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Uncoupling Protein
An uncoupling protein (UCP) is a mitochondrial inner membrane protein that is a regulated proton channel or transporter. An uncoupling protein is thus capable of dissipating the proton gradient generated by NADH-powered pumping of protons from the mitochondrial matrix to the mitochondrial intermembrane space. The energy lost in dissipating the proton gradient via UCPs is not used to do biochemical work. Instead, heat is generated. This is what links UCP to thermogenesis. However, not every type of UCPs are related to thermogenesis. Although UCP2 and UCP3 are closely related to UCP1, UCP2 and UCP3 do not affect thermoregulatory abilities of vertebrates. UCPs are positioned in the same membrane as the ATP synthase, which is also a proton channel. The two proteins thus work in parallel with one generating heat and the other generating ATP from ADP and inorganic phosphate, the last step in oxidative phosphorylation. Mitochondria respiration is coupled to ATP synthesis (ADP phosphorylat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Amino Acid
Amino acids are organic compounds that contain both amino and carboxylic acid functional groups. Although hundreds of amino acids exist in nature, by far the most important are the alpha-amino acids, which comprise proteins. Only 22 alpha amino acids appear in the genetic code. Amino acids can be classified according to the locations of the core structural functional groups, as Alpha and beta carbon, alpha- , beta- , gamma- or delta- amino acids; other categories relate to Chemical polarity, polarity, ionization, and side chain group type (aliphatic, Open-chain compound, acyclic, aromatic, containing hydroxyl or sulfur, etc.). In the form of proteins, amino acid '' residues'' form the second-largest component (water being the largest) of human muscles and other tissues. Beyond their role as residues in proteins, amino acids participate in a number of processes such as neurotransmitter transport and biosynthesis. It is thought that they played a key role in enabling life ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
MRNA
In molecular biology, messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) is a single-stranded molecule of RNA that corresponds to the genetic sequence of a gene, and is read by a ribosome in the process of Protein biosynthesis, synthesizing a protein. mRNA is created during the process of Transcription (biology), transcription, where an enzyme (RNA polymerase) converts the gene into primary transcript mRNA (also known as pre-mRNA). This pre-mRNA usually still contains introns, regions that will not go on to code for the final amino acid sequence. These are removed in the process of RNA splicing, leaving only exons, regions that will encode the protein. This exon sequence constitutes mature mRNA. Mature mRNA is then read by the ribosome, and, utilising amino acids carried by transfer RNA (tRNA), the ribosome creates the protein. This process is known as Translation (biology), translation. All of these processes form part of the central dogma of molecular biology, which describes the flow of genet ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
