Nano scale motility, that is the hallmark of life, emerges when coordinated movements take over from molecular chaos. In biological world, at nanometric size, significant witnesses are present, starting from cellular traffic flows till the organized behaviors of complex molecular machines. Although their origins and evolution are still the objects of investigations, the understanding of physico-chemical

The MVT Pb–Ba mineralizations of the Mibladen ore deposit are hosted by Jurassic carbonates as well as Infracenomanian conglomerates and sandstones. The mineral paragenesis is mainly composed of galena and barite with lesser chalcopyrite and pyrite, accompanied by supergene oxidation minerals. This ore deposit is the result of a major epigenetic mineral stage with economic orebodies occuring as replacement

This paper presents the results of genetic variability analyses using genealogical data on the main genetic bloodline of the Australian Cattle Dog in Italy, a line that has had a significant impact on the development of the breed. All the genealogical data on the progeny and ancestors of one of the first stallions introduced in Italy were considered, i.e. Cattlefarm's Comeback Jack born on 1/2/1997

African ostriches are good at running in the desert, and their toenails can effectively improve the tractivetraction performance in the running process. To improve the tractivetraction trafficability of wheels on the lunar surface loose soil, a wheel with bionic wheel lugs was designed based on the bionic prototype of ostrich toenail and bionic engineering technology. Then, the rolling of the bionic

The olive is a long-lived evergreen tree, capable of regenerating itself from any part of the plant (pollard tree). This characteristic has allowed the olive trees to survive across the centuries until they become real natural monuments. The aim of this work has been to study the monumental “Olivo della Strega” (“Witch’s Olive tree”) olive tree, located in the olive orchard of Santissima Annunziata

Charles Babbage is best known as a pioneer of computer science, but his contributions to the study of the Earth are not as well known. A curious and tireless traveler, on one of his trips to Italy, he dwelt on the remains of the Temple of Serapis, located about one-hundred feet from the coast of the small bay near Pozzuoli, south-west of Naples. On his return to England, also using his Difference Engine

The Chameleon plant (Houttuynia cordata Thunb.—Saururaceae) was introduced across all continents from Asia for ornamental and medicinal purposes at least two centuries ago. H. cordata is deemed a strong invader thanks to its great ability for rapid vegetative propagation by means of rhizomes and stolons (and their fragments) coupled with a high resistance to herbicides. Moreover, it has been suggested

The Italian Law of 22 November 2016 has legalized the cultivation of hemp, which drives the development of sustainable agriculture by generating new products with high added value in the new context of circular economy. Hemp cultivation is known for its low environmental impact, as hemp grows fast, suppresses weeds and does not need pesticides. It has no specialized parasites, favors pollination and

During the last decades, an ongoing spread of broad-leaved evergreen laurophyllous species has been reported for forests of Southern Europe. Several factors were suggested as the main drivers of the phenomenon, namely global warming, land-use change, evolutionary history, and increase in atmospheric CO2. Among laurophylls, Laurus nobilis L. is considered one of the most prominent from the morphological

Livestock has a significant contribution to methane emission as a portion of their ingested energy, which is wasted in the form of methane (2–15%), and ammonia (75–95%). Microbial fermentation in ruminants results in the loss of energy in methanogenesis and protein via ammonia nitrogen excretion, causing a decline in feed efficiency and acting as environmental pollutants. Antibiotics were used to reduce

Many lichen secondary metabolites contributed to the field of pharmacology as an active ingredient of different drugs for years. In the present study, we aimed to test the anticancer activity of olivetoric acid (OA), which we isolated from Pseudevernia furfuracea (L.) Zopf in human hepatocellular carcinoma cells (HepG2). In addition, we used non-tumoral human liver cells (THLE2) to test the level of

The recruitment pattern of Satureja thymbra (Lamiaceae), in a single and isolated population in Sardinia, was experimentally investigated by human-mediated sowing in the field: 12 plants in two habitats (inside and outside of “phrygana” habitat) were randomly selected as the source of seeds and a total of 2160 seeds were buried in two microhabitats, under the canopy and in open areas (3 replicas × 30

The quasiperiodic ornamental patterns of western Islam in Spanish Andalusia and in Morocco were produced by a modification of the multigrid method instead of tile composition, which was used for central discs of some Moroccan panels. The infrequent decagonal patterns are based on quasiperiodic sequences of unit and tau bars in the Alhambra and Fez. The much larger body of octagonal quasiperiodic patterns

With this Editorial article, we introduce the Topical collection on “Cannabis and cannabinoids: history, practice and socio-economical inferences of a controversial plant”, consisting of six review articles published in the Rendiconti Lincei, Scienze Fisiche e Naturali between the end of 2020 and the beginning of 2021.

The goal of this work is to further increase the use, by all the stakeholders, of well-established and official cataloguing methods for the preservation, valorisation and study of naturalistic heritage. The work describes the standards of the Central Institute for Cataloguing and Documentation (ICCD) for cataloguing the Italian mineralogical, petrological and planetological heritage to the community

Microscopy is a basic and integral tool of health care and clinical medicine. It is not routinely available in health centers of rural and remote areas. Many individuals live in such resource-constrained locations with limited access to health care where fungal infections such as Candida albicans could be life-threatening. A smart mobile phone-based microscope like Foldscope has been used in this study

The goals and targets included in the 2030 Agenda compiled by the United Nations want to stimulate action in areas of critical importance for humanity and the Earth. These goals and targets regard everyone on Earth from both the health and economic and social perspectives. Reaching these goals means to deal with Complex Systems. Therefore, Complexity Science is undoubtedly valuable. However, it needs

The contribution aims to focus the attention on the consequences on the use of images and in particular on the cartographic ones deriving from the Protestant Reformation. Analysing the debate around images which originated during the sixteenth century from Luther’s revolution, the article tries to answer how much the Reformation contributed to change the main aspects of mapmaking in a more realistic

The full understanding of the real therapeutic potential of cannabis preparations and of the dangers that their recreational use pose can only stem from the assessment of the chemical composition of such preparations and the knowledge of the pharmacology of their main components, the cannabinoids. Much in the same way cannabis is not just one plant, cannabinoids were not made all equal, and profound

On the sand environment, the wheel surface as the key component of the interaction between vehicle and sand plays a crucial role in improving the vehicle’s trafficability. African ostrich runs in the desert all year round, and its excellent plantar friction characteristic is obvious. In this paper, a bionic wheel surface monomer was designed based on the structural characteristics of the papillae of

Within the special issue “Classical and quantum plasmas: matter under extreme conditions” a series of papers are included that were presented at the international workshop “Plasma Physics and Astrophysics up to 2020 and beyond”. This meeting was held on October 7th–8th 2019 at the Physics Department of the Università della Calabria in Rende (Italy) and was organised by the Physics Department “Astrophysics

Centipedes (Chilopoda) are widespread and abundant predators in several kind of habitats, from forests to caves. Very few quantitative data are currently available for alpine habitats, specifically those located at high-altitudes. In this paper, we analysed data on centipedes collected by pitfall traps on different high-altitude landforms of the Central-Eastern Italian Alps, specifically on rock glaciers

Cerastoderma glaucum, a marine bivalve inhabiting Lake Timsah, is surrounded by different pathogenic organisms. The present study evaluates the antimicrobial activities, cytotoxicity and characterization of C. glaucum extracts. Chloroform, methanol and acidic tissue extracts were prepared from C. glaucum collected during winter and summer seasons. Winter acidic extract exhibits potent antimicrobial

The phenomenon produced by the Hopf bifurcations is of notable importance. In fact, a Hopf bifurcation—guaranteeing the existence of an unsteady periodic solution of the linearized problem at stake—is also an optimum limit cycle candidate of the nonlinear associated problem and, if non linearly globally attractive, is an absorbing set and an effective limit cycle. The present paper deals with the onset

Studies on cannabinoids that predate the identification of ∆9-THC as the intoxicating constituents of recreational cannabis by Raphael Mechoulam in 1964 are reviewed, critically analyzing the controversies and faux pas that have characterized the early research in this area. Significant contributions to the elucidation of the signature molecular scaffold of cannabinoids were provided by some of the

This paper presents a scoping review of recent literature regarding the phylogenetics of Cannabis, descending the taxonomic ranks of family, genus, species, subspecies, and varieties. The family Cannabaceæ now consists of ten genera. Cannabis is a monotypic genus consisting of one species, Cannabis sativa L. The monotypic model is supported by DNA “barcode” studies. Two subspecies are recognized, and

Unexpected finding of Egyptian blue emerged in Raphael’s fresco Triumph of Galatea at Villa Farnesina, in Rome. This pigment is the oldest man-made blue, dating back to Egyptians who manufactured it first and whose occurrence was thought to be lost with Romans. Thanks to advanced imaging techniques it has been possible to non-invasively map its distribution throughout the frescoed surface and to obtain

The Erbario Estense, preserved in the Archivio Segreto Estense (Modena State Archives, Italy), is one of the very few sixteenth century herbaria still existing today. Among its exsiccata are a dozen species coming from the Americas, one of which is tobacco. The author of the specimen calls the plant Tabacho, ouer Herba Regina; Camus and Penzig, in the late nineteenth century, identify it as Nicotiana

This work describes the fully analytical method for the calculation of the molecular integrals over Slater-type orbitals with non-integer principal quantum numbers. These integrals are expressed through relativistic molecular auxiliary functions derived in our previous paper (Bağcı and Hoggan in Phys Rev E 91(2):023303, 2015). The procedure for computation of the molecular auxiliary functions is detailed

The definition of a common global vertical coordinate system is nowadays one of the key points in Geodesy. With the advent of GNSS, a coherent global height has been made available to users. The ellipsoidal height can be obtained with respect to a given geocentric ellipsoid in a fast and precise way using GNSS techniques. On the other hand, the traditional orthometric height is not coherent at global

Novel features of turbulent flows have been analyzed recently, for example: (1) the possibility of an ideal invariant, such as the energy, to be transferred both to the small scales and to the large scales, in each case with a constant flux; (2) the existence of non-Gaussian wings in Probability Distribution Functions of kinetic, magnetic, and temperature fluctuations, together with their gradients

The use of symbols in architecture of the past centuries is evident, even if sometimes cryptic. The reasons behind the representation of plants in artistic and architectural contexts are of great interest as they help in their understanding. We analysed the plants carved in the Fountain of Four Rivers (Rome), designed by G.L. Bernini (mid-seventeenth century), through iconographic and historical documents

The use of renewable resources alternative to fossil fuels, thus contributing to the reduction of CO2 emissions, requires the assessment of eventual negative impacts on the environment. This study was devoted to the characterization of low-enthalpy geothermal resources and the potential contamination of geothermal effluents into the aquatic system. Thirty-five groundwater samples were collected in

We assessed seven decades of change in the largest known population of the endangered endemic Boswellia elongata Balf. F. (Burseraceae) on Socotra Island (Yemen). To quantify the population change we evaluated tree number and locations on digitized images from various sources in the period 1956–2017 and combined this with direct field measurements of the population between 2011 and 2017. Our study

The relationship of two geographically and ecologically separated populations of Turraea socotrana Styles and F. White (Meliaceae), a vulnerable and scattered shrub from the island of Socotra (Yemen), was explored using preliminary molecular data. The nuclear ribosomal ITS region was used to screen the level of genetic divergence of T. socotrana from ecologically distant localities in comparison to

AbstractDragonflies are important bioindicators of aquatic ecosystem health. We discuss the distribution and richness of the 22 dragon- and damselfly species known from the Socotra Archipelago UNESCO World Heritage Site (Yemen) in the western Indian Ocean. We compiled 841 records from literature, field data and museum collections, covering a surveying period of 123 years (1896–2019). Distribution of

With more than 7000 inner rivers, streams, small permanent or temporal watercourses, and wetlands, Entre Ríos province has the richest fish diversity in Argentina due to habitats diversity generated by the climatic, biogeographic, and topologic characteristics. However, this region is one of the most impacted areas by intense livestock and farming activities. For this reason, it is necessary and urgent

The Moho surface, namely the density discontinuity between crust and mantle, is traditionally studied by seismic methods. However, gravity information can contribute to the Moho estimation and, more generally, to the crustal modeling. The contribution is twofold. First, gravimetry generally provides observations with much lower errors than those implied by the mass density uncertainty and other geophysical

With occasion of the “Murillo’s year” (fourth centenary of his birth), the Andalusian Institute for Cultural Heritage (Instituto Andaluz de Patrimonio Histórico) received the request from a private collector for the restoration and authentication of a bozzetto of the Murillo´s painting entitled Moses and the water from the rock of Horeb. During the intervention, several studies on the materials employed

This paper deals with the phenomenology of magnetic reconnection during reversed-field pinch helical self-organization. Numerical results obtained by solving a three-dimensional nonlinear visco-resistive fluid model to describe the hot current-carrying plasma are summarized. Magnetic reconnection manifests itself during the plasma dynamics, interrupting the persistence of quasi-helical states. The

The way quantum mechanical ab initio computer codes allow to compute, through perturbation theory (the so-called SC-CP, self-consistent coupled-perturbed scheme), many properties resulting from the interaction of the electric field with a crystalline system is illustrated. The polarizability, which leads to the dielectric tensors as well as to the refractive indices and to the birefringence of materials

Museums, historical buildings mainly located in urban centers, may be seriously affected by pollution and other critical urban atmospheric conditions. In addition to museums, there are many other different cultural heritage indoor environments each having different characteristics, mainly depending on the type of preserved materials that are sensitive to pollution and urban conditions. In this contribution

The explosive eruptions that occurred between nineteenth and twentieth centuries produced a fundamental cultural impact on the development of Volcanology. Pyroclastic products and ignimbrites features start to be at the base of an international debate. Various descriptions of explosive eruptions, and a new terminology of their products, such as nuée ardente and ignimbrite, were presented and extensively

Marine litter is recognized as a global marine environmental problem. Beach litter surveys are used to monitor litter pollution and can be used to determine the origins of litter which can be used for the improvement of waste management. This research studied abundance, composition and sources of marine litter on the beach during one year period in four seasons in Vodenjak cove, central Croatian Adriatic

Socotra, the largest of four islands in the Socotra archipelago (Yemen), is characterized by high geo-morphological and biological diversity. Traditional management of land resources has been impacted by cultural shifts, globalization and urban expansion. In addition, the island has been affected by climate impacts, such as droughts and recent cyclones causing significant economic and environmental

The importance of populations of the Socotra dragon’s blood trees (Dracaena cinnabari Balf.f., 1882) for horizontal precipitation capture was estimated for the first time. Dragon’s blood trees (Asparagaceae) inhabit semiarid cloud forests with low levels of rainfall that strongly depend on additional moisture from fog and clouds. Our estimation was based on a detailed description of the aboveground

This survey reports on topics that were presented at the workshop on “Challenges with Rare Earth Elements. The Periodic Table at work for new Science & Technology” hold at the Academia dei Lincei in November 2019. The herein reported materials refer to presentations dealing with studies and applications of rare earth elements (REE) in several areas of Biology and Medicine. All together they show the

We reviewed and compared the occurrence and biogeographic origins of three arthropod groups, darkling beetles (Coleoptera, Tenebrionidae), spiders (Araneae) and butterflies (Papilionoidea) on the Socotra archipelago (Yemen). More than half of the darkling beetles (80.3%) and spiders (51.5%) are endemic to the Socotra archipelago, in contrast with only 5 species (18.5%) of butterflies. The number of

We conducted a study throughout Socotra Island (Yemen) to investigate the distribution, population structure and regeneration potential of the endemic and threatened tree species Dendrosicyos socotranus, the Cucumber Tree. In total, 163 live trees (excluding seedlings) were found in all (24) investigated locations, covering an area of 96 km2. The height, stem circumference, fertility and coordinates