Meat and bone meal biochar can effectively reduce chemical fertilizer requirements for crop production and impart competitive advantages to soil.

Safe and effective circulation of nutrient-rich meat and bone meal (MBM) could become a carbon-based alternative to limited chemical fertilizers (CFs). Therefore, MBM biochars (MBMCs) were produced at 500, 800, and 1000 °C to evaluate their effects on plant growth, nutrient uptake, and soil characteristics. The results revealed that MBMC produced at 500 °C (MBMC500) contained the maximum amount of C, N, and phytoavailable P. All additional MBMC doses with recommended CF increased sorghum shoot yield (6.7-16%) and significantly improved P uptake. Additional experiments were conducted with decreasing doses of CF (100-0%) with or without MBMC500 (7 t/ha) to quantify its actual fertilizing value. MBMC500 showed the capability to reduce CF requirement by 20% without compromising the optimum yield (by 100% CF) while increasing pH, CEC, total-N, available-P, Mg, and microbial population of post-harvest soil. Although a δ15N analysis confirmed MBMC500 as a source of plant N, a reduction in N uptake by MBMC500 + 80% CF treatment compared to 100% CF might have limited further sorghum growth. Thus, future studies should concentrate on producing MBMC with better N utilization capability and achieving maximum CF reduction without negative environmental impacts.

Difference in the generalization of response tolerance across views between the anterior and posterior part of the inferotemporal cortex.

The inferotemporal cortex consists of an anterior (cytoarchitectonic area TE) and a posterior (area TEO) part, which together constitute the final areas of the ventral visual stream, which is critical for object discrimination. Area TE receives dense projections from area TEO. We have previously identified a response tolerance in the cells in area TE in monkeys to a range of viewing angles after object discrimination at each of several views. To investigate the contribution of area TEO to the establishment of such a response tolerance in area TE, we conducted electrophysiological recordings of the responses of the single cells in area TEO after performance saturation of object discrimination at several independent views, without any association across views, and compared them with those obtained from the TE cells. The cells in area TEO showed responses to the experienced object views, but not to nearby views. Comparisons of the tunings of the TE and TEO cells to different viewing angles for the same object sets in the same animal showed that cells in area TEO had a significantly narrower tuning width, whereas the response tolerance was usually observed in the TE cells across viewing angles up to 60°. Our findings revealed a significant difference in the representation of the object views between areas TE and TEO, and suggested that such a representation in area TE may be completed through neuronal mechanisms within area TE, which is not a property of the earlier stages of the ventral visual stream.