Identification of Medicinal Plants in Homam: a religious practice

In India, Homam is an important religious practice. The consecrated fire is the central element of the ritual homa. It is offered in many hindu temples in early morning before dawn. Apart from the temples, many hindus offer this practice during their home ceremonies also. The most beneficial factor of these homas, is that smoke not only purifies the atmosphere but also helps us to get rid of many diseases. In this paper, the local and scientific name, plant parts used in the Homam were identified and presented. Different plant parts like leaf, aerial root, fruit, seed, bark, root, flower, wood, tuber, rhizome and pericarp of fruits have been used in the practice. Some highly useful medicinal plants listed are Justicia adhatoda, Withania somnifera, Phyllanthus emblica, Tinospora cordifolia, Andrographis paniculata, Strychnos nux-vomica, Pongamia pinnata, Ficus benghalensis, Chrysopogon zizanioides and Curcuma aromatica.

Dyeing of cotton and silk fabric with Tradescantia spathacea Sw. leaf aqueous extract

Colour is one of the appealing factors that impress people across the world. In every living organism in this globe i.e., insect, bird, animal, plant and human etc., colour seems to be the most attractive factor throughout the life. The Tradescantia spathacea leaf extract was used for dyeing of cotton and silk fabric. The mordants used in this study were Copper Sulphate and Myrobalan. There were three methods of mordanting carried out in this study namely, simultaneous mordanting, pre-mordanting and post mordanting. In the dyed cotton fabric, pre-mordanting treatment with myrobalan (Grey Scale Rate 4) and Copper Sulphate (Grey Scale Rate 3) showed better grey scale rating than other treatments. The silk fabrics dyed with the leaf extract resulted in grey scale rating of 3-4 or 4 for wash fastness tests. This indicates that all the natural dye applied silk fabrics showed better response than cotton in retaining the dye after washing. In staining tests (the spilling of dye/colour from the natural dyed fabrics on other cotton and wool fabrics) almost all the treatments showed very good results. The grey scale rating of 4-5 was achieved for all the dyed fabrics. Since the fabric showed better results it can be further elaborated for large scale dyeing experiments and more fastness studies like fastness to light, ironing etc. for suitable application in textile dyeing of silk fabrics

Dyeing of cotton fabric by Caesalpinia sappan aqueous extract at different temperatures and mordants

The colour is one of the most important features in textile industry and customers requirements. Synthetic colours are available at affordable prices due to their bulk production. On the other hand, they pose undesirable taste (in case of foods) and harmful effects to ecosystem. The natural colours when used in textiles do not threat the environments and do not cause any skin allergy, toxicity and other hazards to living things as compared to the synthetic counterparts. In the present study, dyeing experiments were conducted with the aqueous extract of bark chips of Caesalpinia sappan at 60, 80 and100° C and using different mordant treatments. The fastness to washing for most of cotton fabrics showed fair grey scale rating. Among the mordants Alum, CuSo4 and Myrobalan used, the natural mordant myrobalan showed poor fastness properties compared to other two mordants. The staining tests showed that most of fabrics exhibited only slight/completely no pilling in majority of the treatments

Distribution and diversity of gelatinous zooplankton in Indian EEZ

Link between increases of gelatinous zooplankton and global warming is recent emerging research in world Ocean. Indian seas are less documented areas of the world regarding gelatinous zooplankton taxonomy and ecology. Considerable amount of work has been done to understand zooplankton populations in Indian waters have tended to focus mainly on copepods, the major zooplankton component. The other groups are being of secondary importance in terms of numerical abundance and hence not treated in detail as distributional pattern and their seasonal variation. To fulfill the gap, the present study was made on survey of gelatinous zooplankton in Indian EEZ during 2008-2012 to explore the distributional patterns and diversity of gelatinous zooplankton. The result showed that new occurrences of salps species of Pegea socia and hydromedusae of Haliscera bigelowi were identified for the first time from Arabian Sea. Totally, 115 species of gelatinous zooplankton were recorded in the Indian EEZ. Among them, 11 species of Scyphomedusae, 22 species of Hydromedusae, 17 species of Siphonophores, 5 species of Ctenophore, 9 species of Doliolids, 17 species of Salps, 15 species of Appendicularians and 19 species of Chaetognaths were recorded. The vertical distributional abundance was ranged from 7.37 to 1266.276 inds/100m3 and diversity was ranged from 3.176 to 3.91 bits/inds in the Arabian Sea. In the Bay of Bengal, abundance was ranged from 11.69 to 1174.11 inds/100m3 and diversity was ranged from 2.19 to 3.94 bits/inds. In the two water mass, maximum abundance and diversity was observed in 0-50m depth and minimum was in 500-1000m depth. Abundance of gelatinous zooplankton was gradually decreased upto 200m depth and sudden decreased below 200m to 1000m depth.

Resistance Status of the Malaria Vector Mosquitoes, Anopheles stephensi and Anopheles subpictus Towards Adulticides and Larvicides in Arid and Semi-Arid Areas of India

Susceptibility studies of malaria vectors Anopheles stephensi Liston (Diptera: Culicidae) and An. subpictus Grassi collected during 2004–2007 from various locations of Arid and Semi-Arid Zone of India were conducted by adulticide bioassay of DDT, malathion, deltamethrin and larvicide bioassay of fenthion, temephos, chlorpyriphos and malathion using diagnostic doses. Both species from all locations exhibited variable resistance to DDT and malathion from majority of location. Adults of both the species were susceptible to Deltamethrin. Larvae of both the Anopheline species showed some evidence of resistance to chlorpyriphos followed by fenthion whereas susceptible to temephos and malathion

The dominant Anopheles vectors of human malaria in the Asia-Pacific region: occurrence data, distribution maps and bionomic précis

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The final article in a series of three publications examining the global distribution of 41 dominant vector species (DVS) of malaria is presented here. The first publication examined the DVS from the Americas, with the second covering those species present in Africa, Europe and the Middle East. Here we discuss the 19 DVS of the Asian-Pacific region. This region experiences a high diversity of vector species, many occurring sympatrically, which, combined with the occurrence of a high number of species complexes and suspected species complexes, and behavioural plasticity of many of these major vectors, adds a level of entomological complexity not comparable elsewhere globally. To try and untangle the intricacy of the vectors of this region and to increase the effectiveness of vector control interventions, an understanding of the contemporary distribution of each species, combined with a synthesis of the current knowledge of their behaviour and ecology is needed.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Expert opinion (EO) range maps, created with the most up-to-date expert knowledge of each DVS distribution, were combined with a contemporary database of occurrence data and a suite of open access, environmental and climatic variables. Using the Boosted Regression Tree (BRT) modelling method, distribution maps of each DVS were produced. The occurrence data were abstracted from the formal, published literature, plus other relevant sources, resulting in the collation of DVS occurrence at 10116 locations across 31 countries, of which 8853 were successfully geo-referenced and 7430 were resolved to spatial areas that could be included in the BRT model. A detailed summary of the information on the bionomics of each species and species complex is also presented.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>This article concludes a project aimed to establish the contemporary global distribution of the DVS of malaria. The three articles produced are intended as a detailed reference for scientists continuing research into the aspects of taxonomy, biology and ecology relevant to species-specific vector control. This research is particularly relevant to help unravel the complicated taxonomic status, ecology and epidemiology of the vectors of the Asia-Pacific region. All the occurrence data, predictive maps and EO-shape files generated during the production of these publications will be made available in the public domain. We hope that this will encourage data sharing to improve future iterations of the distribution maps.</p