A study by U.S researchers which will appear in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism found that protein does the best job at keeping the hunger hormone in check, while carbohydrates and fats deserve their current nasty reputation.

The study that offers insight into “how diets work” looked at the effectiveness of different nutrients at suppressing ghrelin, a hormone stimulates appetite that secreted by stomach. Suppression of ghrelin is one of the ways that people lose their appetite as they begin to eat and become sated.

Three different beverages give to 16 people, each varying levels of carbohydrates, fats and proteins. The blood samples taken before the first beverage, then every 20 minutes for six hours afterward, ghrelin levels measured in each sample.

Fats suppress ghrelin poorly. In terms of combination of the depth and duration of suppression, proteins were the best suppressor of ghrelin. High proteins are essentially common to almost all of the popular diets. Eating carbohydrates resulted in a strong ghrelin suppression at first, but the levels rebounded with vengeance, rising to an even higher level. Carbohydrates eventually made people even hunger than before they had eaten. The study may aid in future research on the effectiveness of different diets.

Reference: The Jakarta Post, Sunday, January 20, 2008

Rhizobium is a microbe that binds Nitrogen from the ground for soybean roots to absorbs.  Their function was like nature fertilizer provider for soybean plants. A team from LIPI (Indonesian Institutes of Sciences) discovered one special strain of Rhizobium, called Rhizobium B64. The strain worked well for soybeans by boosting productivity and improving the soybean plants resistance to diseases. More beans producing by soybeans using B64.

Soybean seeds that inject by B64 called Kedelai Plus. While indonesian farmer can produce average 1,2 tons per hectare, Kedelai Plus was yielding 2,4 – 4,5 tons per hectare.

The team already discovered a way to inject Rhizobium B64 into soybeans with the help of a special vacuuming machine. LIPI able to turn any type of soybean variety into Kedelai Plus. The goverment needs to up-scale the machine and produce Kedelai Plus in various seed centers so farmers can purchase them at affordable prices. For the time being, farmer can bring their own seed to LIPI in Cibinong to be injected with Rhizobium B64 at cost of Rp. 50.000 for 20 kg soybean seed.     

Reference: The Jakarta Post, Saturday, 19 January, 2008

A new organization aimed to fighting against “Islamization” of Europe announced by several far-right parties. The “Cities Against Islamization” was presented to the media in Antwerp, Belgia by head of far-right Belgian party Vlaams Belang  along with Austrian FPOe leader and a man from the regionalist Alsace First group.

There are also parties from Britain, Denmark, Germany and Italy represented at the launch of the group which has logo as a road-sign-style crossed mosque.   They have to stop opening of mosques in cities like Antwerp and stop the arrival of muslim immigrants.

Members of organization then set off on a walk around areas of Antwerp with a high immigrants population. They acclaimmed had verry good reception from some Flemish people who still live there.  The cosmopolitant Antwerp have a substantial minority originating from Muslim countries. For the last 20 years, Antwerp has also been the main bastion of Vlaams Belang as the far-right party pursues its goal of an independent Flemish state.   

Similar actions in Rotterdam, Paris, London and Madrid have been scheduled in the coming month, said a former police officer who received suspended prison sentece last year for violence commited against five people of Turkish origin while he was still on the last job.

Reference: The Jakarta Post, Saturday 19, 2008.

On Tuesday, FDA released a report that finds meat and milk from cloned animals is for the most part, safe to eat. However may be consumers will determine how widely it used. Very important factor is consumer acceptance, even if USDA and FDA issue a statement, the final arbiter, whether clone meat will be allowed in the market.

Cloned meat may be more accepting by consumers in US than overseas like Europe. One example was the opposition in Europe to genetically modified crops to protect against weeds or insects.

USDA wants to wait before serving cloned meat and milk, and the firms that producing clones have been asked to hold off  bringing them to food supply. It may be years before  cloning will be widely used.

The first cloning sheep – Dolly – was born 1996. The goals of clone is to clone prize animals to breed conventionally to create herds. From desired animal taken a single cell and cultivated in to an embryo in lab. Embryo implanted into womb of  live mother of same species then the herds birth naturally. The cost of a cloned animal up to USD 17,500.

For some firms clones is not big issues, because it is very expensive and there are other less expensive ways of producing livestock. Cloning merely copies an animal it does not improve them. The meat industry seeking ways to improve animals, which can be done via artificial insemination and embryo transfers that less expensive than cloning.  

 Reference: The Jakarta Post, Thursday, January 17, 2008.          

Probiotics are friendly bacteria, similar to bacteria living in the human gut. In the huge amounts, some types of probiotics can help prevent or threat some digestive problems, diarrhea and allergic skin reaction. Commercial foods containing probiotics generally safe and although many have not been put through rigorous scientific testing — some may even beneficial. The weakened immune system people or people with underlying chronic disease should consult doctors before trying probiotics. Probiotic products include specialty yogurts, cheeses, snack bars, cereal, baby formula and supplement pills. Fiber and other nutrients that feed probiotic bacteria called prebiotics.

Reference: The Jakarta Post, Wednesday, January 16, 2008       

There are 106 bird species in 568,700 hectare Sebangau National Park, Central Kalimantan. Bird watching has become an exciting ecotourism activity in this park. The morning and the afternoon are the best to see birds feeding, playing & seeking mates. All we need just the binoculars and a bird guidebook to enjoy amazing wild birds.

One of the most interesting location to observing birds is Petak Bahandang Village that situated on the border of Sebangau National Park. The settlement is around three hours’ from Kasongan Port Palangkaraya by ship.

At least 10 bird species can be detected around the forest border nearly the community farms. We can watching rhinoceros hornbills (Bucheros rhinocheros), swallows, greater coucals (Centropus sinensis) and many types of honeyeaters.

At the banks of Katingan River the bird watchers can cruise down the river that more than 200 meters wide, while surveying the behavior of birds. There are brahminy kites (Haliastur indus) – the rare hawks with graceful flight – frequently found perching on the top branches of tall trees.

Hornbills can be finding around peatland forest park. These protected birds active in the morning and afternoon, generally seen in pairs, flying form one branch to another.

The birds can serve as indicator that this area remains in a natural condition with its food supply chain.

The ecosystem of Sebangau National Park composed of 95% peatland. The locals utilized non wood product like rattan, rubber and jelutung resin from the forest. There are thousands orangutans and proboscis monkeys living at Sebangau, however cannot be found around Petak Bahandang Village — the castle of birds.

Reference: Bambang Parlupi, The Jakarta Post, Tuesday, January 15, 2008

The discovered of genetic information that helps explain the way monarch butterflies find their route from Canada to winter nesting ground in the mountains of Mexico have published in the PLoS Biology Journal and the Public Library Science. The butterflies’ biological clock help them use sun as a compass.

Monarch butterflies have unique circadian clocks, which regulate daily activities like sleep and hunger. Genetically map of the molecular underpinings of the butterflies’ circadian clocks point out existence of cryptochrome proteins that common in both insects and mammals.

The researchers believed these proteins enable the monarch to use the sun’s position in the sky to navigating. The researches also very curious of incredible capability of butterfly’s brain which no bigger than the head of the pin.

When biological clocks of monarch butterflies understood completely, might help shed light on the biological clocks of humans, and turn aid research into everything from sleep disorders to depression. This study also producing crucial information about life’s nature.

The research led by Steven Reppert, a neurobiologist from University of Massachusetts and funded in part by grants from National Institutes of Health and Czech Republic’s Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport.

Reference: The Jakarta Post, Monday, January 14, 2008.

Commonly we are accumulate reward points from many vendors whether we ask for them or not. Our phone services provider, our credit card issuers, our factory outlets where we buy clothes and even the airlines we frequent give us reward points.

Most of the time the reward points simply wasted, because most of time we don’t use them and even care about them. Some reward programs impose expiration date, we can’t use after certain date.

Sometimes we have collected more than 160.000 points from certain airlines that expire this month, but we still have no opportunity to redeem them. If we could use these points to buy laptop battery that we need at the moment, we’d be verry happy.

PT. MORE (Mobile Reward Exchange) is a kind of company that providing reward exchange. Their platform is designed to run on many mobile phones. MORE deployed programmers to create the MORE applications, envisioning MORE to be alliance of partners who allow their reward points to be use and exchanged among member merchants.

MORE convert reward points into multi purpose points. For example if we are a frequent flyer at certain airlines, we can redeem our points to buy cellphones or participating theme park tickets. MORE would manage points exchange, negotiating with each participating reward giver the value of them and also allows a family to share and combine reward points to buy some stuffs more useful than the reward points catalogs usually offer.

Member companies also have benefit as MORE can serve as a direct marketing vehicle. For example departement stores can using MORE to beam special discount for buy fruits.

The goal of MORE is to provide reward points exchange services to wide range companies, from cellphones to concert organizers.

Reference : The Jakarta Post, Monday, January 14, 2008.

If you ask how many plants in China? What their origin and characteristics? The only one can give the right answer with wide accepted credibility is Wu Zhengyi, a 92-year old botanist who was one of two winners of this year’s top science prize – The State Scientific and Technological Award.

The one of most renowned botanist in the world is a professor and director emeritus of Kunming Institute of Botany (KIB) affiliated to Chinese Academy of Sciences. He devoted his life to research on Chinese and East Asia flora for more than 60 years.

Wu specializes in plant taxonomy, floristic geography, and the study of medicinal plants. He dubbed “the walking dictionary” because his knowledge of Latin names of plants species is more than 30,000, spread across the country, especially East China.

From 1958 to 2004 Wu editing Flora of China that consisting of 80 volumes, 50 million words and more than 5,000 images. According to award review committee, the book is the most comprehensive of its kind that characterizes plant species and distribution in China. The book also raised the reputation of Chinese botanical study in the world.

In 1999, Wu also received International Cosmos Prize, one of the most prestigious international prizes for botanist. Wu found and named more than a thousand plants, he publishing 1,766 new species and genuses as author or co-author.

^_^

By the way in 2006, a famous book of flora of Indonesia was reprinted by Indonesian publisher. The tittle of the book is “Flora, for School in Indonesia”. The Flora was written by C.G.G.J. van Steenis et al, 1947 and translated to bahasa by Moeso Surjowinoto et al.

Reference : The Jakarta Post, Sunday, January 13, 2008