The people of Tengger, Indonesia have used plants as traditional medicine for a long time. However, this local knowledge has not been well documented until recently. Our study aims to understand the utilization of plants in traditional medicine by the people of Tengger, who inhabit the Ngadisari village, Sukapura District, Probolinggo Regency, Indonesia. We conducted semi-structured and structured interviews with a total of 52 informants that represented 10% of the total family units in the village. The parameters observed in this study include species use value (SUV), family use value (FUV), plant part use (PPU), and the relative frequency of citation that was calculated based on fidelity level (FL). We successfully identified 30 species belonging to 28 genera and 20 families that have been used as a traditional medicine to treat 20 diseases. We clustered all the diseases into seven distinct categories. Among the recorded plant families, Poaceae and Zingiberaceae were the most abundant. Plant species within those families were used to treat internal medical diseases, respiratory-nose, ear, oral/dental, and throat problems. The plant species with the highest SUV was Foeniculum vulgare Mill. (1.01), whereas the Aloaceae family (0.86) had the highest FUV. Acorus calamus L. (80%) had the highest FL percentage. The leaves were identified as the most used plant part and decoction was the dominant mode of a medicinal preparation. Out of the plants and their uses documented in our study, 26.7% of the medicinal plants and 71.8% of the uses were novel. In conclusion, the diversity of medicinal plant uses in the Ngadisari village could contribute to the development of new plant-based drugs and improve the collective revenue of the local society.

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Certain skin bacteria are able to convert aromatic amino acids (AAA) into trace amines (TA) that act as neuromodulators. Since the human skin and sweat contain a comparatively high content of AAA one can expect that such bacteria are able to produce TA on our skin. Here we show that TA-producing Staphylococcus epidermidis strains expressing SadA are predominant on human skin and that TA accelerate wound healing. In wounded skin, keratinocytes produce epinephrine (EPI) that leads to cell motility inhibition by β2-adrenergic receptor (β2-AR) activation thus delay wound healing. As β2-AR antagonists, TA and dopamine (DOP) abrogate the effect of EPI thus accelerating wound healing both in vitro and in a mouse model. In the mouse model, the S. epidermidis wild type strain accelerates wound healing compared to its ΔsadA mutant. Our study demonstrates that TA-producing S. epidermidis strains present on our skin might be beneficial for wound healing.

Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk memperoleh data jenis-jenis ektoparasit serta prevalensi (P) dan intensitas (I) ektoparasit pada ikan gabus dari tangkapan alam (TA) dan budidaya (BD). Sampel ektoparasit diambil dari ikan gabus tangkapan alam dan budidaya masingmasing 20 ekor dengan metode scraping (pengerokan) pada bagian kulit dan insang. Sampel ektoparasit ditampung pada cawan Petri dan ditambahkan buffer formalin 0,5%, lalu dipindahkan ke botol plakon berlabel. Selanjutnya diamati menggunakan mikroskop OpticLab, serta dilakukan perhitungan prevalensi dan intensitas. Hasil pengamatan ditemukan 4 jenis ektoparasit, yaitu Oodinium sp.

This study reports the presence of Cd, Pb, Zn, Hg, Cu, and Cr in the cockles (Anadara granosa, Linnaeus, 1758) harvested along the East Java Coast, Indonesia. The concentrations of metals were determined by atomic absorption spectrometer and expressed in mg kg -1 wet weight. The concentrations of metals ranged from 0.11 to 0.82 mg kg −1 for Cd, 0.10 to 0.54 mg kg −1 for Pb, 10.22 to 19.04 mg kg −1 for Zn, 0.02 to 1.47 mg kg −1 for Hg, 1.79 to 4.76 mg kg −1 for Cu, and 1.64 to 3.79 mg kg −1 for Cr. The metal concentrations in the whole tissues of cockles were in the order Zn>Cu>Cr>Hg>Cd>Pb. The Cd and Pb levels in cockles were found to be higher than the permissible limit for human consumption according to EC and FAO; the levels of Hg exceeded the EC, Hong Kong, Australia, and Indonesia standards; and the levels of Cr exceeded the Hong Kong standard. The estimated weekly intake (EWI) of cockles indicates that the concentrations of Cd and Hg in the cockle tissues from Gresik were higher than the provisional tolerable weekly intake (PTWI); meanwhile, the concentrations of Cr of cockles from all locations were higher than and close to the PTWI. The THQ values for Cd at Gresik, for Hg at Gresik, Surabaya, and Pasuruan, and for Cr at all locations were higher than one indicating that these metals pose potential noncarcinogenic effects to consumers. Reducing the consumption of cockles should be done in order to minimize the adverse effects of metals especially Cd, Hg, and Cr to human health.

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Abstract. Oktafitria D, Febriyantiningrum K, Jadid N, Nurfitria N, Rahmadani F, Amrullah A, Hidayati D. 2019. Assessment of reclamation success of former limestone quarries in Tuban, Indonesia, based on soil arthropod diversity and soil organic carbon content. Biodiversitas 20: 1743-1747. The reclamation for sustainable ecosystem in mined land, including revegetation, is an obligatory program stipulated by the Indonesian government. This study evaluated the ecological improvement of revegetated land at the reclamation sub-areas (RSAs) of former limestone quarries in Tuban, East Java, Indonesia. The RSAs were coded as RSA 2010, RSA 2014, and RSA 2016 which represented the initial year of revegetation as well as the reclamation soil-material, namely the rejected soil-products, topsoil, and spoils, respectively. Soil insects were collected from ten sampling plots at each RSA using pitfall traps. The data of arthropods were analyzed to describe the community structure by determining the Shannon Diversity Index (H’), Simpson’s index (D), Sorensen's similarity and Shannon evenness index (E). The soil organic carbon (SOC) content from the soil composites was analyzed according to the Walkley and Black method. The results showed that SOC value at RSA 2010 (1.851±0.38%) was higher than that at SRA 2014 (1.694±0.29%) and SRA 2016 (0.947±0.10%). There were 18 families found from eight orders of soil insects (Coleoptera, Diplura, Diptera, Entognatha, Hemiptera, Hymenoptera, Neuroptera, and Orthoptera) and one order from terrestrial crustacea i.e., Isopoda, family Tylidae. The ecological indices of RSA 2014 (H’=1.15; D=0.47; E=0.61) and RSA 2016 (H’=1,19; D=0.47; E=0.57) were higher than those of RSA 2010 (H’=0,61; D=0.71; E=0.43). The Pearson analysis indicated moderate negative correlation (r=0.55) between soil arthropod diversity index and SOC. The diversity of soil arthropods at reclaimed area indicated that the reclamation was successful. Based on the study, we recommend that reclamation is done using mine spoil or topsoil rather than rejected soil products.