Tasar Silk Research Articles

Summary of the Experimental Survey in Dental Periclasia at San Quentin

A case study focusing on the socio-economic and ecological aspects of a forest-based village, Debrasai, in the Singhbhum District of Bihar, India was undertaken in 1980 to evolve village-specific community forestry package programmes that could bring stability to the village both economically as well as ecologically. The village extending over 365.07 ha is inhabited by 361 people comprising 195 males and 166 females in 81 households. The villagers are by and large dependent on agriculture and forestry for their livelihood. The largest proportion of the land in the village is under agriculture whereas forests, in a highly degraded state, occupy only 5.7% of the total area. The villagers exploit the protected forests in their vicinity removing nearly 350.9 mt of fuelwood, 22.8 mt of small timber and 393.4 mt of fodder annually.The village has a manpower potential of 40 035 man days a year. Agriculture is the main source of employment at the moment absorbing 14 266 man days. The non-agricultural sector provides employment to an extent of 4433 man days. Fresh employment opportunities are needed to absorb nearly 53% of man days of the village at present unused. Three land-resource, skill-based package programmes, a tasar silk culture, an energy plantation, and dairying have been suggested to generate employment opportunities and to meet the basic needs of the villagers. About 115 ha of the hitherto neglected land resource has been located in the village to sustain such community forestry (CF) programmes. Tasar culture suggested on 35 ha will alone generate employment to an extent of 18 690 man days from the fourth year of tasar silk plantation. A plantation, to provide energy and fodder, on 25 and 30 ha respectively is expected to yield fuelwood, timber and fodder to more than satisfy village needs. A dairy has been recommended as it will generate income, provide nutrition and promote gobar gas production — an alternative energy source to fuelwood. The cost—benefit analysis of these projects indicates their economic feasibility with the cost likely to be recovered in 4.5 years. Debrasai being an agricultural village, a land-inequity compensatory scheme has been suggested for CF project net benefit sharing, ensuring reasonable benefit flows to the landless and marginal farmers.

The color of water

Biomaterials that stimulate cell attachment and proliferation without any surface modification (e.g. RGD coating) provide potent and cost effective scaffold for regenerative medicine. This study assessed the physico-chemical properties and cell supportive potential of a silk fibroin blend scaffold derived from eri (Philosamia ricini) and tasar (Antheraea mylitta) silk (ET) respectively by electrospinning process. The scanning electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy study found that the fiber diameters are in 200 to 800 nm range with flat morphology. The porosity of ET scaffold is found to be 79 ± 5% with majority of pore diameter between 2.5 to 5 nm. Similarly, Bombyx mori (BM) silk fibroin and gelatin nanofibrous scaffolds were prepared and taken as control. The ultimate tensile strength of the ET and BM scaffold are found to be 1.83 ± 0.13 MPa and 1.47 ± 0.10 MPa respectively. The measured contact angle (a measure of hydrophilicity) for ET (54.7° ± 1.8°) is found to be lower than BM (62° ± 2.3°). The ability to deposit apatite over ET is comparable to that of BM nanofibers. All the scaffolds were seeded with cord blood derived mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs) and cultured for 14 days in vitro. The immunofluorescence study reveals enhanced cell attachment with higher metabolic activity for MSCs grown over ET than BM and gelatin. The ET scaffold also demonstrated expression of higher amount cell adhesion molecules (CD29/CD44) and higher proliferation rate than BM and gelatin as confirmed by MTT assay, DNA content estimation assay, flow cytometry study and SEM study. Overall, it may be concluded that ET scaffold may have potential in developing bone tissue grafts for clinical applications in the future.