Cuneiform tablets indicate the importance of textile manufacturing in the Bronze Age Old Assyrian Colony Period and Hittite Empire, yet the organic traces of this industry rarely survive. Two burnt textile fragments found at Beycesultan offer an unexpected insight into the Bronze Age textile industry in Anatolia. Here, the authors present the results of chromatographic and microscopic analyses that indicate one fragment was made from hemp using the nålbinding, or single-needle knitting, technique and was dyed with the woad or indigo plant, while the other was a natural tabby weave. Both add to our understanding of the diversity of textile production in the Bronze Age.

Trichoderma polysporum (Link) Rifai HZ-31 fermentation broth was separated and purified by extraction, column chromatography, and high-performance liquid chromatography. Four monomer compounds with strong herbicidal activity were obtained: p-hydroxyphenyl-2,3-dihydroxypropyl ether, o-hydroxy-3-carbonyl-1-phenylpropanol, 1,8-propanediol o-xylene, and 2-3-dihydroxypropyl propionate. The biological activity verification test indicated that the four monomer compounds could inhibit the germination of wild oat (Avena fatua L.) and canola (Brassica napus L.) seeds. Of the four, compound 3 (1,8-propanediol o-xylene) had obvious inhibitory effects on the germination of A. fatua and B. napus seeds, with inhibition rates of 83.33% and 86.67%, respectively. Therefore, the identification of this monomer compound lays a foundation for the further development of a novel microbial herbicide by directly utilizing it and developing new derivatives with herbicidal functions as lead compounds.

Varroa destructor mites (Acari: Varroidae) are harmful ectoparasites of Apis mellifera honey bees. Female foundresses of wax-capped pupal host cells and their daughters feed on host fluids from open wounds on the host's integument. Details of V. destructor mite nutrition are forthcoming, and little is known about the potential physical effects on hosts from mite feeding. Chemical analysis of waste excretions can infer details of animals’ nutrition. Here, chemical analysis by high-performance liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS/MS) of mite excretions showed that the purine content of V. destructor waste consists of guanine with traces of hypoxanthine. Traces of uric acid and caffeine were also detected. Concentrations of guanine attenuated over time and excretions collected from senescing mites did not contain detectable guanine. Non-reproducing individual female mites maintained in vitro, housed in gelatin capsules and provided a honey bee pupa, deposited an average of nearly 18 excretions daily, mostly on the host's integument rather than on the capsule wall. The weight and volume of excretions suggest mites can consume nearly a microlitre of host fluids each day. Compounded over 10 days, this together with open wounds, could lead to substantial water loss and stress to developing pupae.

Prebiotic chemical evolution on the early Earth may have been driven in part by fluctuating environments, for example wet‒dry and temperature cycling in volcanic rock pools. Here, we describe the setup, operating principle and test applications of a newly developed ‘wet‒dry apparatus’ (WDA) designed to simulate such fluctuating environments. The WDA allows adjusting the duration of the cycles, the temperature during the wet and dry phases and the organic and mineral components, which are all key parameters in wet–dry simulations. The WDA's most important features, however, are (i) that it is automated, which means that long-time experiments are possible without the need for an operator and (ii) that the virtual absence of free oxygen in the early Earth's atmosphere at ground level can be simulated. Rigorously oxygen-free conditions were achieved by passing 99.999% nitrogen gas through two alkaline pyrogallol solutions in series, prior to entering the WDA. We used three chemical systems to test the WDA: (i) the amino acid glycine in the presence and absence of clay minerals, (ii) linoleic acid (an oxygen-sensitive amphiphile) with and without the mineral olivine, and (iii) alkaline pyrogallol solution. We observed that clay minerals greatly accelerated the decomposition of glycine under wet‒dry conditions. Glycine peptides were formed as minor products. In the course of the glycine experiments, we developed a reliable gas chromatographic method to quantify the cyclic dipeptide 2,5-diketopiperazine. The decomposition of linoleic acid in wet‒dry cycles was promoted by both air and olivine. And finally, the extremely oxygen-sensitive pyrogallol solution was used as a colour indicator for residual oxygen in the WDA. The simulation facility in our laboratory currently consists of eight identical WDAs and a surrounding infrastructure. It can be made available to others who wish to perform cyclic wet–dry experiments.

Sorption and desorption of cyanazine with three Mississippi Delta soils (two silt loams and one silty clay) were studied under laboratory conditions. Cyanazine sorption calculated using the Freundlich equation was greatest for the Sharkey silty clay soil. Partition coefficients (K d values) for cyanazine sorption ranged from 1.67 to 1.82, 1.92 to 2.15, and 3.65 to 3.96 ml g−1 for the Bosket silt loam, Dubbs silt loam, and Sharkey silty clay soils, respectively. Differences in sorption and K d values were attributed to clay content. At a given initial cyanazine concentration, cyanazine was desorbed more readily from the silt loam soils than from the Sharkey clay after the first 4-h desorption cycle. Desorption from the Sharkey clay continued for a longer period than that from the silt loam soils, with up to 6% cyanazine desorption from the Sharkey clay after a 16-h desorption cycle compared with 0% for the silt loam soils. Cyanazine losses increased with decreasing clay content, Dubbs = Bosket > Sharkey. This implies a potential relationship between cyanazine desorption and surface runoff losses of cyanazine.

trans-Resveratrol (trans-3,4′,5-trihydroxystilbene), a polyphenolic compound uniquely identified in plants, is believed to greatly contribute to human health. Peanut (Arachis hypogaea L.) seeds of 20 germplasm accessions were harvested from the same field and used for resveratrol analysis by high-performance liquid chromatography. trans-Resveratrol content in air-dried peanut seeds was on average about 0.5 μg/g and a statistically significant variation (from 0.125 to 1.626 μg/g, at least a ten-fold difference) was detected among the accessions analysed. The average weight for 100 seeds was 52.84 g. A statistically significant variation in seed weight (from 22.30 to 87.94 g, at least a four-fold difference) was observed. There was no significant correlation between trans-resveratrol content and seed weight. The information about the levels of trans-resveratrol in peanut seeds will be useful for peanut cultivar development and peanut product processing. Breeders could use germplasm accessions containing a high amount of resveratrol to develop new nutritionally improved peanut cultivars and food processors could use these new cultivars to manufacture high resveratrol peanut products.

Legume flavonoids have received considerable attention due to their beneficial effects on human health. Flavonoid content in the seeds of 36 germplasm accessions of guar [Cyamopsis tetragonoloba (L.) Taub.] was quantified by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). On a per 100 g basis, the seed contained, on average, 1.114 mg (0–2.355) daidzein, 0.700 mg (0–1.685) genistein, 0.553 mg (0–1.250) quercetin and 14.460 mg (10.70–19.82) kaempferol. A significant positive correlation was observed between the content of daidzein and genistein; however, significant negative correlations existed between the content of kaempferol and daidzein and of kaempferol and genistein. Compared to soybean seeds, guar seeds contained very low amounts of daidzein and genistein, but a high amount of kaempferol. The information about the levels of flavonoids in guar seeds will be useful to breeding programmes for improving guar seed quality. Furthermore, the high kaempferol content of guar seeds may expand its nutraceutical and pharmaceutical utilization.

Using reverse-phase HPLC after pyridylamination, we quantified the concentrations of major neutral oligosaccharides in the milk of sixteen Japanese women collected at 4, 10, 30 and 100 d postpartum. In colostrum and mature milk (30 d lactation), lacto-N-fucopentaose (LNFP) I was the most abundant oligosaccharide, followed by 2′-fucosyllactose (2′-FL) + lacto-N-difucotetraose (LNDFT), LNFP II + lacto-N-difucohexaose II (LNDFH II), and 3-fucosyllactose (3-FL). Together these accounted for 73 % of the total weight of neutral oligosaccharides in colostrum and mature milk. Changes in concentration occurred during the course of lactation. LNFP I and 2′-FL + LNDFT increased from 4 to 10 d postpartum, and then declined by 100 d. LNFP II + LNDFH II steadily increased during the first 30 d and then declined. In contrast, 3-FL increased steadily throughout the entire 100 d of study. Large differences were observed between our data and previously published data in Italian women, in terms of both the concentration and temporal changes of each oligosaccharide. These differences may be caused by different assay methodology, although racial differences cannot be ruled out.

Retinal neurotransmitters are known to play a role in postnatal ocular development and eye growth. The success of muscarinic antagonists in blocking form-deprivation myopia has implicated retinal acetylcholine in the control of ocular growth. The present study investigated whether steady-state content of acetylcholine (ACh) and its metabolite choline (Ch) are altered in the retina of eyes developing axial myopia, in both tree shrews and chicks. Retinal ACh and Ch content were measured using reverse-phase high-performance liquid chromatography. Posterior and anterior retinal samples were analyzed from myopic (form deprived) and control eyes as well as age-matched normal eyes. Normative data on retinal neurotransmitter content demonstrated that chick retinas contained less than half the ACh and Ch neurotransmitter content of tree shrews when normalized to retinal protein (ACh: 61 ± 3 vs. 130 ± 6 ng, Ch: 131 ± 5 vs. 347 ± 25 ng). There was no significant difference in either ACh or Ch content between myopic and contralateral control eyes in either tree shrews or chicks, irrespective of the degree of myopia. This finding was consistent for both posterior, anterior, and consequently whole retinal samples. In contrast, dopamine and DOPAC contents were found to be reduced in myopic compared to control eyes of the same tree shrews (dopamine −6.9% and DOPAC −15.5%) and chicks (dopamine −12.3% and DOPAC −28.2%). These findings demonstrate that, contrary to dopamine and DOPAC content, steady-state retinal acetylcholine and choline content is not significantly altered during myopia development.