Genetic Enhancement Perspectives and Prospects for Grain Nutrients Density

Diet-induced micronutrient malnutrition continues to be a major challenge globally, especially in the developing world. With the ever-increasing population, it becomes a daunting task to feed millions of mouths with nutritious food. It is time to reorient agricultural systems to produce quality food to supply the calorie and nutrient requirements needed by the human body. Biofortification is the process of improving micronutrients density by genetic means. It is cheaper and sustainable and complements well with the nutrient supplementation and fortification— the short-term strategies that are currently deployed to address the micronutrient malnutrition. Sorghum is one of the important food crops globally, adapted to semi-arid tropics, and there is increased awareness on its nutritional importance. Further, there is great opportunity to improve sorghum for nutritional quality. This chapter deals about the genetic enhancement perspectives and prospects for improving the nutritional quality with main emphasis on grain micronutrient density in sorghum

Aqueous phase methylene blue (MB) dye removal by mixture of eucalyptus bark (EB) biomass and kaolin clay (KC) adsorbents: Kinetics, thermodynamics and isotherm modelling

In this study, the mixture of eucalyptus bark (EB) (Sheathiana) biomass and kaolin clay (KC) adsorbents are used in the removal of aqueous-phase methylene blue (MB) dye. The optimum mass ratio of 1 KC to 3 EB biomass was identified. The removal efficiency was studied under various physicochemical process parameters. Kinetic measurements showed that the process was multistep, rapid, and diffusion controlled and equilibrium reached within 100 min. The adsorption was best described by both the Freundlich and Langmuir isotherm models. Thermodynamic parameters suggested that the process was an endothermic, spontaneous, and irreversible in nature

Tef [Eragrostis tef (Zucc.) Trotter] Breeding

Tef or teff Eragrostis tef (Zucc.) Trotter, a cereal crop which adapts to extreme climatic and soil conditions, is extensively cultivated in the Horn of Africa. It is also considered as nutritious and a life-style crop due to its richness in essential nutrients and health-related benefits. However, the productivity of the crop is extremely low due to little scientific improvement made globally. It is, therefore, in the category of orphan crops. Together with all cereal crops, tef belongs to the Grass or Poaceae family. The improvement of tef focuses on selection and hybridization techniques. However, recently, molecular and high-throughput techniques have also been implemented to a limited scale. Forty-two tef varieties were approved for release by the Ethiopian National Variety Release Committee in the past four decades. Due to the adoption of improved varieties and technologies, the national average yield of tef has more than doubled over the last 20Â years. This review describes the progress in tef breeding and variety development as well as dissemination of the improved varieties to the farming community

Green Synthesis of Nanoparticles and Their Application in Cancer Therapy

none6simixedValeria De Matteis; Mariafrancesca Cascione; Loris Rizzello; Eva Liatsi-Douvitsa; Azzurra Apriceno; Rosaria RinaldiDE MATTEIS, Valeria; Cascione, Mariafrancesca; Rizzello, Loris; Liatsi-Douvitsa, Eva; Apriceno, Azzurra; Rinaldi, Rosari