Plant extracts in agriculture and their applications in the treatment of seeds

ABSTRACT: The harmful effects caused by the use of toxic substances in agriculture have led to the development of alternative solutions, and researchers have focused on understanding the effectiveness and potential of plant extracts in agriculture. The aim of this systematic review was to understand the situation of research and scientific dissemination, as well as how current science has approached the use of plant extracts in agriculture, especially in seed applications. There is potential on the use of plant extracts in agriculture, demonstrated by a high number of publications over the last ten years, especially in the years 2018, 2019 and 2020, and Brazil stands out as the main country on this research area. Control of phytopathogenic microorganisms, insect control, biostimulant effect, resistance induction and herbicide effect have been the main themes explored for use in agriculture. The direct application of plant extracts is centered on plants and seeds, being this latter mainly focused on the control of phytopathogenic organisms and biostimulating effect.

Current Science and the Black Hole Connection

In this chapter, an attempt is made to provide a condensed overview of the alarming state of the art of current scientific endeavor, as it is revealed in an international spectrum of critical reports but often is not openly discussed in the scientific community. These calamities include the lack of a basic analysis of the current scientific world itself, by which major influences of corrupt science policies and the power of traditional views remain in the dark. In addition, there is a worrying increase in technology-induced information dependence. We are facing an information wave of such magnitude that in order to survive we need to learn to ride it in a proper way by realizing our bio-cosmological connections and interconnectedness. The current problems in science, as observed by the present author and extensively put forward by leading scientists all over the world, are listed, and a set of potential solutions is tentatively offered.

Host Factors Affect the Gut Microbiome More Significantly than Diet Shift

The determining factors of the composition of the gut microbiome are one of the main interests in current science. In this work, we compared the effect of diet shift (DS) from heavily relying on meatatarian diets to vegetarian diets and physical exercise (EX) on the composition of the gut microbiome after 3 months. Although both DS and EX affected the composition of the gut microbiome, the patterns of alteration were different. The α-diversity analyzed by InvSimpson, Shannon, Simpson, and Evenness showed that both EX and DS affected the microbiome, causing it to become more diverse, but EX affected the gut microbiome more significantly than DS. The β-diversity analyses indicated that EX and DS modified the gut microbiome in two different directions. Co-occurrence network analysis confirmed that both EX and DS modified the gut microbiome in different directions, although EX modified the gut microbiome more significantly. Most notably, the abundance of Dialister succinatiphilus was upregulated by EX, and the abundances of Bacteroides fragilis, Phascolarctobacterium faecium, and Megasphaera elsdenii were downregulated by both EX and DS. Overall, EX modulated the composition of the gut microbiome more significantly than DS, meaning that host factors are more important in determining the gut microbiome than diets. This work also provides a new theoretical basis for why physical exercise is more health-beneficial than vegetarian diets.

How Failure to Falsify contributes to the Replication Crisis in the Clinical Neurosciences

This critical review discusses evidence for the replication crisis in the clinical neuroscience literature with focus on the size of the literature and how scientific hypotheses are framed and tested. We aim to reinvigorate discussions born from philosophy of science regarding falsification (see Popper, 1959;1962) but with hope to bring pragmatic application that might give real leverage to attempts to address scientific reproducibility. The surging publication rate has not translated to unparalleled scientific progress so the current “science-by-volume” approach requires new perspective for determining scientific ground truths. We describe an example from the network neurosciences in the study of traumatic brain injury where there has been little effort to refute two prominent hypotheses leading to a literature without resolution. Based upon this example, we discuss how building strong hypotheses and then designing efforts to falsify them can bring greater precision to the clinical neurosciences. With falsification as the goal, we can harness big data and computational power to identify the fitness of each theory to advance the neurosciences.

Interpretation of the scientific picture of the world in the context of knowledge development

The scientific picture of the world enters into constant interaction with cognitive experience. And changes in the structure of informational space change behavioral patterns and criteria of influence of environment on individuals are determined. The purpose of this work is to review individual branches of scientific knowledge as a component of the scientific picture of the world and to identify characteristic figures of scientific research of the XV-XVI centuries as an epoch of "flight" of thought. The descriptive method of the investigated phenomenon is used in the work. The purpose of the research is to form a reliable and verified knowledge of the scientific picture of the world of the stated period, to identify the value potential of the representatives of different branches of knowledge, because it is impossible to relieve the phenomenon of current science and set the prospects for its further development without analysis and interpretation of the sources from the previous centuries. The scientific picture of the mentioned period shows the discordance of ideas and the scale of their theoretical and practical implementation (from philosophy to art). The author highlights the most characteristic features of the scientific picture, which contributed to the appearance of new lines of research, a new necklace base on which the scientific thinking of the next centuries was built.

INTERPRETATION OF THE SCIENTIFIC PICTURE OF THE WORLD IN THE CONTEXT OF KNOWLEDGE DEVELOPMENT

The scientific picture of the world enters into constant interaction with cognitive experience. And changes in the structure of informational space change behavioral patterns and criteria of influence of environment on individuals are determined. The purpose of this work is to review individual branches of scientific knowledge as a component of the scientific picture of the world and to identify characteristic figures of scientific research of the XV-XVI centuries as an epoch of "flight" of thought. The descriptive method of the investigated phenomenon is used in the work. The purpose of the research is to form a reliable and verified knowledge of the scientific picture of the world of the stated period, to identify the value potential of the representatives of different branches of knowledge, because it is impossible to relieve the phenomenon of current science and set the prospects for its further development without analysis and interpretation of the sources from the previous centuries. The scientific picture of the mentioned period shows the discordance of ideas and the scale of their theoretical and practical implementation (from philosophy to art). The author highlights the most characteristic features of the scientific picture, which contributed to the appearance of new lines of research, a new necklace base on which the scientific thinking of the next centuries was built.

Analysis of The Influence of Web of Things on Computer Communication Network

The web of things is an important symbol of the informational age. It has brought a positive impact on the technology market of our society and made the connection between logistics and the Internet increasingly close. Its application has broad development space and value. The web of things has developed into a carrier that can make the current science and technology progress faster and further. This paper analyzes the current situation of the web of things and preliminarily studies the significant influence of the three levels of the web of things on the computer network. This paper simply analyzes the future development of the web of things. We hope that people can improve their market application ability and fully tap their potential economic effect and technical value.

Magna Cosmogony

<p><strong>Abstract:</strong> This article aims to show that science and faith have always walked closer than is usually thought, and that they can even coexist harmoniously in the same individual. It also seeks to show the sterility of the debate that puts both in direct confrontation, evidencing the often prejudiced and disdainful position of current science towards faith as a characteristic of the human condition, whether or not it is associated with a religion. In a broader approach, it discusses currently existing beliefs about the existence of intelligent life outside the Earth in contrast to the possibilities that science offers in our actual state of technological development. In addition, the work intends to convey the perception that it would be much more constructive to accept faith as a natural manifestation of consciousness that recognizes the limits of knowledge, rather than rejecting it through scientific arguments that, being faith, is manifestly inapplicable.</p><p><strong>Key-words:</strong><strong> </strong>science, faith, cosmogony, cosmology.</p><p>================================================================ </p><p><strong>Resumo:</strong> Este artigo tem como objetivo mostrar que ciência e fé sempre estiveram mais próximas do que normalmente se pensa, e que podem até coexistir harmoniosamente no mesmo indivíduo. Também busca mostrar a esterilidade do debate que as coloca em confronto direto, evidenciando a posição muitas vezes preconceituosa e desdenhosa da ciência atual em relação à fé como característica da condição humana, associada ou não a uma religião. Em uma abordagem mais ampla, discute-se as crenças atualmente existentes sobre a existência de vida inteligente fora da Terra em contraste com as possibilidades que a ciência oferece em nosso atual estado de desenvolvimento tecnológico. Além disso, o trabalho pretende transmitir a percepção de que seria muito mais construtivo aceitar a fé como manifestação natural da consciência que reconhece os limites do conhecimento, do que rejeitá-la por meio de argumentos científicos que, para ela, sendo fé, não se aplicam.</p><p><strong>Palavras-chave:</strong> ciência, fé, cosmogonia, cosmologia.</p>

Opioids: Current Science

Evidence shows that chronic opioid therapy is usually not beneficial; weaning patients off opioids many times results in less pain and better function, and opioid-induced hyperalgesia is real and frequent. Further evidence suggests that surgical outcomes are better if patients are weaned off opioids before surgery, and that the chronic use of opioids may adversely alter the assessment of maximum medical improvement (MMI).

GC Insights: Scientists as Marketers

Motivated by pressing planetary concerns, scientists are increasingly taking their work into the public arena, but it remains uncertain whether current science communication practices are appropriate for tackling complex and contested societal issues. A fresh perspective emerges from the business sector, and from the contrasting marketing paradigms of ‘make and sell’, ‘sense and respond’, and ‘guide and co‐create’. The newly emergent guide‐and‐co‐ create paradigm – purpose‐driven, interdisciplinary, participatory, and reflexive – would seem to offer the best template for science communicators addressing long‐term geo‐environmental concerns.