[en] Poster presentation

[en] This critical analysis provides information about several natural events that occur in Uredinales related with the current universal knowledge. Emphasis is done in the necessity of go deep into learning about essential elements to understand their tree of life

[en] The effect of gamma irradiation-growth recycling on radiation resistance and toxin production by Aspergillus flavus NRRL 2999 in various natural fruit and vegetable media was studied. Radiation cycling of spores of A. flavus nine times at radiation doses equivalent to 0 x, 1 x, and 2 x D₁₀ levels did not result in spore crops with increased radiation resistance. Also there was, in general, no increase in total toxin production. On the contrary, toxin production decreased in most cases. (auth)

No abstract available

[en] Volvariella volvacea is an edible mushroom with high-value mushroom and is suitable grown in Malaysia. However, the mushroom should be processed fresh as their shelf life after harvest is short and perishable. To avoid losses to farmers, researchers from Malaysian Nuclear Agency had produced Volvariella Tea, an innovative beverage based on Volvariella volvacea mushroom. This drink has unique taste and aroma with nutrients contain that are good for health. This product has added value to the local mushroom industry. Malaysian Nuclear Agency has collaborated with Malaysian Innovation Foundation (Yayasan Inovasi Malaysia) and PUSPANITA Nuclear Malaysia (The Association of Wives and Women Civil Servants Malaysia - Malaysian Nuclear Agency) to carry out the PROJECT MSI 17110: Volvariella tea production package for formation of SME (small medium entrepreneur) entrepreneurs in the rural areas using MOSTI Social Innovation Fund (MSI) as to increase sources of income of the community and as an encouragement to become SME (Small and Medium Industry) entrepreneurs. This project was carried in 6 months in 2018 by transferring the production technology of Volvariella Tea to the community in the village of Rembang Panas, Juasseh, Kuala Pilah, Negeri Sembilan. A total of 25 participants consisted of farmers and rubber tappers were attended series of training on Volvariella volvacea mushrooms cultivation using selected strain seedling produced by Malaysian Nuclear Agency, intensive practical training on production of Volvariella tea and online marketing. Volvariella tea was processed via drying technique, packed in individual sachet and irradiated for decontamination process. The participants have managed set up a company named as Syarikat Rembang Panas Jaya Outlet to carried out the production of Volvariella Tea, other downstream products and conducted the business of the Volvariella Tea products. A total of 125 people have benefited as the impact of the project. With these efforts, the product introduced can be used by community to generate additional income by mass producing and selling activities through online marketing. (author)

[en] The ability to navigate through an environment is critical to most organisms’ ability to survive and reproduce. The presence of a memory system greatly enhances navigational success. Therefore, natural selection is likely to drive the creation of memory systems, even in non-neuronal organisms, if having such a system is adaptive. Here we examine if the external spatial memory system present in the acellular slime mould, Physarum polycephalum , provides an adaptive advantage for resource acquisition. P. polycephalum lays tracks of extracellular slime as it moves through its environment. Previous work has shown that the presence of extracellular slime allows the organism to escape from a trap in laboratory experiments simply by avoiding areas previously explored. Here we further investigate the benefits of using extracellular slime as an external spatial memory by testing the organism’s ability to navigate through environments of differing complexity with and without the ability to use its external memory. Our results suggest that the external memory has an adaptive advantage in ‘open’ and simple bounded environments. However, in a complex bounded environment, the extracellular slime provides no advantage, and may even negatively affect the organism’s navigational abilities. Our results indicate that the exact experimental set up matters if one wants to fully understand how the presence of extracellular slime affects the slime mould’s search behaviour. (paper)

[en] The aim of the present work was to determine the public perception of radioactive contamination of wild mushrooms, to confront this perception with an expert opinion, and to determine those factors that are perceived differently by specialists and lay people. The Internet appeared to be a useful tool in attaining these goals by finding the appropriate people across the world. The statistically significant differences in the perception of various aspects of mushroom pollution were revealed between respondents from three world regions, which were differently affected by the Chernobyl accident. Moreover, the majority of people have demonstrated a considerable difference in the perception of the global contamination of the environment versus the pollution of their local counties. The socio-psychological explanations of data are given. In general, there is a steady consistency in the perception of factors, which may control the radioactive contamination of edible fungi, by the majority of respondents. However, experts (radioecologists) rank the factor of fungal species as an extremely important parameter, while other people perceive the factors of the distance from the source of the pollution and the time thereafter as the most important parameters. Such discrepancies between professional and unprofessional opinions are discussed and some recommendations for risk communications are presented

[en] We demonstrate how introducing a deliberate defect on the overhanging caps of strongly adhering mushroom shaped dry adhesive fibers can produce directional adhesion behavior. We find that the shape and location of this defect controls both the total adhesion force and the degree of directionality for these bio-inspired adhesives. Linear beam theory is used to demonstrate how the application of a shear load to a fiber in tension can create a small compressive load to an asymmetric crack, thereby delaying adhesion failure and producing directional adhesion, and the theory is confirmed with finite element models and empirical data. Anisotropic adhesives have been fabricated and tested and can demonstrate normal adhesion force up to ∼250 kPa with a shear displacement of 15 µm away from the defect and as small as ∼5 kPa when sheared the same amount towards the defect. (communication)

No abstract available

[en] Exploring free space (scouting) efficiently is a non-trivial task for organisms of limited perception, such as the amoeboid Physarum polycephalum . However, the strategy behind its exploratory behaviour has not yet been characterised. In this organism, as the extension of the frontal part into free space is directly supported by the transport of body mass from behind, the formation of transport channels (routing) plays the main role in that strategy. Here, we study the organism’s exploration by letting it expand through a corridor of constant width. When turning at a corner of the corridor, the organism constructed a main transport vein tracing a centre-in-centre line. We argue that this is efficient for mass transport due to its short length, and check this intuition with a new algorithm that can predict the main vein’s position from the frontal tip’s progression. We then present a numerical model that incorporates reaction-diffusion dynamics for the behaviour of the organism’s growth front and current reinforcement dynamics for the formation of the vein network in its wake, as well as interactions between the two. The accuracy of the model is tested against the behaviour of the real organism and the importance of the interaction between growth tip dynamics and vein network development is analysed by studying variants of the model. We conclude by offering a biological interpretation of the well-known current reinforcement rule in the context of the natural exploratory behaviour of Physarum polycephalum . (paper)