水生開花食蟲植物絲葉狸藻捕蟲囊構造及共質體輸送
水生食蟲植物絲葉狸藻 (Utricularia gibba) 是非常獨特的,它不但跟其他植物一樣能行光合作用,且具備捕蟲囊捕捉水中小生物,補充生長所必需的營養元素。捕蟲囊的構造精密卻不複雜,消化吸收主要靠囊內壁上的四爪腺毛,目前尚未有文獻實際以追蹤物質描述出整個共質體輸送路徑。我們是最先以螢光染劑 (carboxyfluorescein) 及共軛焦雷射掃描顯微鏡(confocal laser scanning microscope) 成功地描繪出捕蟲囊共質體運輸路徑。同時我們也以對細胞無害的食用色素,進行相同的實驗觀察。發現食用色素不但成本低,且較螢光染劑有更多的優點,如觀察時間較不受限制等,非常適合用來研究捕蟲囊吸收物質的路徑,因此,本實驗的模式可以應用在其他水生植物運輸路徑的研究。;The aquatic carnivorous plant Utricularia gibba is very unique. It has not only the ability to undertake photosynthesis just like other plants, but also can trap and obtain the nutrients from the freshwater zooplankton. Its trapping organ is very sophisticate but not complicate. The digestion and absorption process inside the trap are mainly accomplished by the quadrifids structure. According to our knowledge, we are the first to introduce the phloem-mobile, fluorescent probe carboxyfluorescein (CF) and confocal laser scanning microscope (CLSM) to the study of the symplastic transport in the Utricularia trap. In addition, we use edible food colorings as tracers for this transport study. Both approaches turn out to be very successful in delineating the symplastic transport of the trap. But CF quenches rapidly so the observation time is restricted. On the contrary, food colorings don’t have these disadvantages; it is inexpensive, easy to perform, and the transport process is not fast. As a result, the study is easily to be completed. These methods will be very helpful in the studies of symplastic transport in other plants.
解開神秘果的奧秘-檸檬變柳丁的原因
原產於西非的「神秘果」,嘗了之後,30~200 分內,所有酸苦的東西嘗起來都是甜的。在深入蒐集相關資料後,我們發現神秘果有多種特殊效果,僅擷取以下幾種感興趣之方向來研究。〈1〉使酸苦的感覺變甜〈2〉解酒〈3〉消除蚊蟲叮咬之腫、癢〈4〉抗氧化能力極強。用食鹽水可萃取出miraculin 這種醣蛋白,經由生化實驗,推測使酸味變甜為其cover 舌尖甜味味蕾之結果,分子量約為40000 左右;但在檢測過程中,發現對咖啡、黃連和肉桂,都沒有太顯著的效果,只有酸味有顯著的改變,和以往所閱讀的研究報告有出入,因此懷 疑有氧化還原等其他化學效果,將再做深一層研究。消除蚊蟲叮咬之腫癢的成分確定為小分子所致。經由Prolox 當量測定法檢測神秘果抗氧化能力數值高達4974g/nmol,比一般中草藥及蔬菜多3000 左右。使酸變甜的原因若深入研究對糖尿病患者和減肥者都是一大福音,塗抹蚊蟲叮咬藥膏也可用天然物質製作,而抗氧化能力高更對人體健康有所幫助。當台灣已大量栽植,相對於日本及美國因地寒而無法培育成功,神秘果研究可成為另一項產業發展契機。 "Miracle fruit” is a fruit from West Africa. Though it's not sweet itself, if you eat anything that is sour or bitter after eating miracle fruit, the taste will turn sweet. After researching further material, we discovered that there are many amazing functions in miracle fruit, and decided to pick up some of which to study. (1) Turning the sour and bitter tastes into sweetness (2) Relieving alcohol (3) Relieving the hurt from mosquitoes and bugs (4) An excellent antioxidant. We can extract the miraculin that changes the taste from NaCl (aq), and through the biological experiment, we guess that's because miraculin covers the sweet sensor. The molecular weight of miraculin is about 40000.According to the experiment, we found out that miraculin doesn't have a great effect on the taste other than sourness, such as the bitterness of black coffee, Coptis chinensis, and cinnamon. . It is much more different from the former report we read. So we doubt that there are some other reactions. The thing, which relieves the hurt from mosquitoes and bugs, are sure to be a simple molecule, not a protein. By the Prolox equivalent weight experiment, we found that the ability of antioxidation got to 4974g/nmol, which is much higher than the normal vegetables and fruits. The effect of taste changing is really good news for diabetics and weight reducers. And the medicine can also be made by natural material. The excellent antioxidation is helpful for our health, too. Since Japan and America cannot grow the miracle fruit because of the cold weather, developing the functions of miracle fruit seems to be another chance for Taiwan to stand out in the world.
植物葉片自動辨識系統
在我們週遭環境中常可見到許多種類的植物,然而可以叫出名字的卻少之又少,或許我們可以查閱植物百之類的書籍,但是這類書籍通常多不在手邊,就算有了植物百科,也不易翻到顯示該種植物的正確章節。假如我們可以將想要認識的植物葉片影像取得後,透過網路將該影像傳送至植物葉片資料庫查詢,經過電腦的自動分析辨識後,再將結果傳送回來,這樣不是比查閱植物百科方便多了嗎?本研究提出一種利用輸入葉片的影像來進行植物資料庫辨識查詢的方法,藉著兩階段處理的策略及最佳權重組合式的特徵值來調校系統,以達到較佳的整體辨識效能,從實驗測試的結果得知,我們的策略與方法確實有效,有82%的查詢葉片可以被精確的辨識出來,而每次查詢的平均反應時間只要17.22 秒。In our living environment, there are many kinds of plants, but we can only name a few. We may consult an encyclopedia about plants, we always can’t find any encyclopedia with us. Besides, even if we have one, it won’t be easy to find out the proper section or the exact page immediately. How should we solve this problem? One significant improvement can be expected if the plant recognition can be carried out by a computer. First, we take a picture of the unknown plant’s leaf. Then, we transmit this image into a leaf database to recognize. After the recognition we will get the answer easily. By using a computer-aided leaf recognition system, non-professionals can also identify many plant species. Isn’t it much more convenient than checking the encyclopedia? In this study, we present an efficient method for leaf database retrieval by inputting leaf images. We use a two-stage approach and combined features with optimized weight to adjust the system to get the best system performance. The result of the experiment shows that our approach is workable and efficient. 82% leaves of the query images can be recognized accurately. And in general, the average response time only takes 17.22 sec per query.