(MPOB Transfer of Technology)
Titanium dioxide (TiO2 ) is a white powder with high opacity, excellent whiteness, excellent covering power and resistance to colour change. These properties make it an excellent pigment for a broad range of applications – paints, plastic goods, inks and paper. In cosmetic and skin care products, TiO2 is used both as a pigment and thickener, … Read more
Most products are produced to satisfy consumer needs. For quality control, they are tested for their performance. Sometimes, their properties, e.g. viscosity and pH, are measured using various instruments. But, unfortunately, the perceived characteristics cannot be measured by any instrument, and sensory analysis has to be resorted to, instead. Products such as food, household chemicals, cosmetic … Read more
Bacteria such as Serratia, Burkholderia, Pseudomonas, Bacillus and actinomycetes from the genera Streptomycetes, Streptosporangium and Nacardiopsis are able to induce systemic resistance in plants (Kloepper et al., 1992), and shown biological traits like antibiotic activity and lysis. They have been isolated from a wide range of hosts including wild and cultivated crops, such as woody … Read more
Fungi are well-known antagonists of many plant pathogens, and some of them, mainly Trichoderma (Shukla and Uniyal, 1989; Wijesekera et al., 1996; Ilias and Abdullah, 1999), Aspergillus (Shukla and Uniyal, 1989) and Penicillium (Dharmaputra et al., 1989) have been evaluated against Ganoderma. This article describes an in vitro method to evaluate the potential of fungi … Read more
Fungicides are used to control plant diseases. New compounds with novel modes of action have been developed from the 1990s – strobilurins, phenylpyrroles, anilinopyrimidines, phenoxyquinolines and compounds that trigger the plant defence system. There are now 113 compounds registered worldwide as fungicides (Knight et al., 1997). However, none of them are effective against Ganoderma basal … Read more
Geospatial technology of global positioning system (GPS), remote sensing (RS) and geographic information system (GIS) is widely used in mapping. Geospatial data as remotely sensed imagery and other raster formats are increasingly collected in fi ner resolution. Interpreting and visualizing information from the data has become an essential element in natural resources management, environmental planning … Read more
Down-regulating genes is one way to generate transgenic plants in genetic engineering. Knocking out a gene by antisense technology has been applied to modify the oil palm fatty acid biosynthesis pathway, but it is not the most effi cient approach. Recently, the discovery in plants of RNA interference (RNAi) mediated by sequence-specifi c degradation of … Read more
Cytogenetics is a branch of genetics involved in the study of chromosomes and cell division. Fluorescent and nonfluorescent dyes can be used to visualize chromosomes by simultaneously using various banding and molecular cytogenetic techniques. For an organism to grow and reproduce, its cells must divide. Mitosis and meiosis are both the processes of cell division, with … Read more
Cracked heels are a common foot problem often referred to as heel fi ssure (Figure 1). Currently, there is no known method to evaluate the performance of anti-cracked heel products. However, a new anti-cracked heel effi cacy test allows products to be evaluated for their performance. With the emergence of skin bioengineering instruments, the hydration … Read more
The current methods for determining pesticide residues in food are time-consuming, expensive and labour intensive. An improved method has been developed by MPOB – QuEChERS, an acronym for quick, easy, cheap, effective, rugged and safe. The method is applicable to a wide range of herbicides and foods , using the LC MS/ MS technique to simultaneously … Read more