Pholas

Abstract: According to the World Health Organization new diseases are emerging at the historically unprecedented rate of one per year. There will be another disease like AIDS, another Ebola or another SARS, sooner or later. Experts say there are now hundreds of new “superbugs”, lethal organisms totally immune to antibiotic treatments. The recent appearance of a growing number of microorganisms resistant to conventional antibiotics has become a serious medical problem. To overcome this resistance, the development of antibiotics with novel mechanisms of action is a pressing issue [1]. In an attempt to keep ahead of bacterial evolution, new antibiotics based on antimicrobial compounds produced by all multicellular organisms are being developed [2-4]. Antimicrobial compounds are widespread in the living kingdom, and a large number of these molecules have been isolated from vertebrates and invertebrates [5]. A number of molluscs Screening of Extracts of Diwal (Pholas orientalis) for Antimicrobial Activities

Abstract: In a review of Mr H J L Beadnell's important Memoir on the Topography and Geology of the Fayum Province of Egypt, published by the Egyptian Geological Survey in 1905, I briefly referred in passing to some “curious blocks of sandstone, pierced by numerous borings”, described by the author, and I added, “they appear to be the exact replica of specimens brought home from Lake Tanganyika by Mr J E S Moore” (p 519)