Malaysian tropical rainforest has been reported to home for more than 15,000 species of flora and fauna. The plants represent diversed lifeform of trees, shrubs, herbs, climbers, creepers, ferns, palms, liana, parasite and saprophyte. These plants diversity give substantial contribution to richness of plants for foods, beverages, medicinal and ornamentals. The number does not include species which have not been documented due to limited distributions or restricted to only a certain microclimate. Most lowland tropical rainforest has been logged and replanted with agriculture crops such as rubber, palm oil, coconuts and cocoa, whilst others being developed into new township, settlement and infrastructures such as highways and dam. Slim Forest Reserve is a reserve that composed small acerage of lowland tropical rainforest. The proposed study is important and necessary to be pursued for identification of plants and animals diversity (biodiversity), because majority of tropical rainforest b.....

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Intercropping is very popular in agricultural sector nowadays because this practice can give high returns to the farmers and planters. However, the intercropping system practised by farmers and planters has affected the soil physical properties. The aim of this research is to study the effects of short-term crops in karas plantation to the soil physical properties (soil pH, soil moisture content and the presence of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium in soil). Soil pH was measured using pH metre whereas soil moisture content (%) was measured by weighing method. Kjeldahl method was used to determine the presence of nitrogen in which three process were involved – digestion, distillation and nitration. Meanwhile, phosphorus was analysed using UV-VIS spectrophotometer whilst potassium was determined using ICP-MS. The results were analysed using descriptive statistics (mean and frequency) and inferential statistical (One-way Analysis of Variance, ANOVA). The results were expressed in mean .....

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The study was conducted to investigate the effects of Aquilaria malaccensis leaves aqueous extracts on the aphrodisiac properties, which included; sexual behaviour, orientation activity, and testosterone level in ICR mice. Thirty healthy and sexually experienced male and thirty non-estrous female mice were used. In this experiment, each male was cohabitated with one female in a polysulfone cage. The mice were divided into 6 groups that received normal saline (control group), 50 mg/kg, 100 mg/kg, 200 mg/kg, 500 mg/kg, and 1000 mg/kg body weight of A. malaccensis leaves aqueous extract orally for 21 days consecutively. Results showed that all aphrodisiac parameters investigated in this study were similar between the treatment groups to the control group. However, two treated groups that received 100 mg/kg (day 14; day 21) and 200 mg/kg (day 0; day 21) resulted in significantly higher in mount frequency as compared to the control group. Overall, the results revealed that A. malaccensis le.....

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The present study focuses on using jackfruit seed waste (JSW) for bioremediation of heavy toxic metals from water. The fruit is abundantly grown in India and Far East countries and produces myriad tons of seeds. A simple procedure is developed in the laboratory by thermally activating JSW by orthophosphoric acid at 500 C. Surface morphology, porosity, and structural analyses of the resultant biochar were conducted. The activated biochar was applied for batch adsorption of several heavy metal ions: Fe(III), Cd(II), Cu(II), Pb(II), and Mn(VII) at pH 7. The average heavy metal uptake by activated JSW biochar is 76.4 mg g?1, 79.4 mg g?1, 97.9 mg g?1, 79.9 mg g?1, and 79.8 mg g?1 for Fe(III), Pb(II), Cu(II), Cd(II), and Mn(VII), respectively. The experimental conditions were optimized to remove heavy metals at neutral pH. The adsorption process was exothermic, and Langmuir and pseudo-second-order kinetic study models were best fitted. The observation was in close agreement with the experime.....

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