Effect of bio-treatment on the lipophilic and hydrophilic extractives of wheat straw.

Wheat straw, an important papermaking raw material in China, was treated with a white-rot fungus of Phanerochaete chrysosporium ME446, and the lipophilic and hydrophilic extractives from the control and bio-treated samples were analyzed by GC and GC-MS. Bio-treatment of wheat straw could alter the chemical composition of both the lipophylic and hydrophilic extractives. Sugars and phenolic substances such as coniferyl alcohol, 4-hydroxycinnamic acid, 1-guaiacylglycerol and ferulic acid were substantially degraded or consumed by the fungus. More lipophilic substances such as wax, glycerides and steryl esters were degraded into the corresponding components, resulting in much higher concentrations of fatty acids and sterols in the bio-treated samples. Obviously, the bio-treatment of wheat straw was of benefit to pitch control in pulping and papermaking processes, in the view of degradation of the more lipophilic substances. In addition, the bio-treatment could increase the lignin concentration in hot-water extractives of wheat straw.

Extreme sexual dimorphism in a Miocene hominoid.

Some Miocene hominoids may have been extremely sexually dimorphic for body size, inferred from the apparent dimorphism of dental and gnathic remains. But this has never been demonstrated convincingly for any fossil species because of small sample sizes, uncertainties about the number of species in most fossil samples, and the inability to reliably sex individual specimens. Here we demonstrate a case of extreme dental dimorphism, and presumed body-size dimorphism, in a Miocene hominoid sample in which these limitations have been overcome. Lufengpithecus lufengensis from the late Miocene site of Lufeng, China, was more dimorphic than the most dimorphic living hominoid, the orangutan, and may have been more dimorphic than any living anthropoid.