Vol. 18 No. 4 (2011): December 2011

Bartek is one of local melon varieties mainly cultivated in Pemalang, Central Java. Bartek has three variations of fruits; Long-Green, Ellips-Green, and Yellow. Chromosome characterization of the Bartek was investigated to determine the genetic variation. The main purpose of this research was to determine the genetic characters of Bartek including chromosome number, mitosis, cell cycle, and karyotype. Squash method was used for chromosome preparation. The results showed that all of Bartek observed in this study have similar diploid (2n) chromosome number = 24. According to the total number of chromosome, Bartek is closer to melon than cucumber. The mitotic analysis exhibited that the Bartek has similar karyotype formula, 2n = 2x = 24m. Based on the R value of the three kinds of Bartek (R < 0.27), it indicated that three kinds of Bartek were considered to be originated from similar species and one of melon varieties (Cucumis melo L. var. Bartek).

Human brain posseses the ability to create a concept to assist the process of grouping individual object or events into different classes or categories. We call this grouping process as categorization. In addition to humans, the ability to categorize has also been proposed for animals. Being able to identify, visually or otherwise, a new object as a member of a category is an advantage for animals. Present experiment aims to test the categorization ability in discriminating species by Macaca fascicularis. Using match-to-sample task with photographs of monkeys and human as stimuli, we tested whether monkeys able to categorize monkey individuals as a class against human individuals as another class. We found that monkeys categorized humans differently from monkeys. The monkeys used physical characteristic such as shape and colors from the photographs to create different concepts of human and monkeys.

Growth of body size (body height and body weight) and somatotype in 363 girls and 299 boys aged 4 to 20 years of ethnic Javanese lived in Magelang Regency Indonesia were studied cross-sectionally. Over half of them were categorized in the well-off family, therefore underweight or underfat prevalence in our subjects was low (14.3%) but overweight and obesity prevalence was also low (14%). They were shorter and lighter than reference children from U.S., Japan and Yogyakarta but they improved when compared with those of the same ethnic of Bantul and with the different ethnic of rural India. There was a clear age-related change of their somatotype. At age 4 years, the physique of children subjects in both sexes is found to be mesomorph-endomorph. Thereafter it is transformed into ectomorphic-endomorph in girls and to mesomorph-ectomorph in boys at the age of 20 years. In girl subjects, the onset of puberty was characterized by an acceleration of endomorphy component at age 8 years. While in our boys it was characterized by an acceleration of ectomorphy since age 9 years. The different growth pattern of somatotype components showed that the use of BMI as an indicator of fatness in children should be reassessed.