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Macrosolen plants are parasitic shrubs, several of which are important medicinal plants, that are used as folk medicine in some provinces of China. However, reports on Macrosolen are limited. In this study, the complete chloroplast genome sequences of Macrosolen cochinchinensis, Macrosolen tricolor and Macrosolen bibracteolatus are reported. The chloroplast genomes were sequenced by Illumina HiSeq X. The length of the chloroplast genomes ranged from 129,570 bp (M. cochinchinensis) to 126,621 bp (M. tricolor), with a total of 113 genes, including 35 tRNA, eight rRNA, 68 protein-coding genes, and two pseudogenes (ycf1 and rpl2). The simple sequence repeats are mainly comprised of A/T mononucleotide repeats. Comparative genome analyses of the three species detected the most divergent regions in the non-coding spacers. Phylogenetic analyses using maximum parsimony and maximum likelihood strongly supported the idea that Loranthaceae and Viscaceae are monophyletic clades. The data obtained in this study are beneficial for further investigations of Macrosolen in respect to evolution and molecular identification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Amomum villosum is an important medicinal and edible plant with several pharmacologically active volatile oils. However, identifying A. villosum from A. villosum var. xanthioides and A. longiligulare which exhibit similar morphological characteristics to A. villosum, is difficult. The main goal of this study, therefore, is to mine genetic resources and improve molecular methods that could be used to distinguish these species. A total of eight complete chloroplasts (cp) genomes of these Amomum species which were collected from the main producing areas in China were determined to be 163,608–164,069 bp in size. All genomes displayed a typical quadripartite structure with a pair of inverted repeat (IR) regions (29,820–29,959 bp) that separated a large single copy (LSC) region (88,680–88,857 bp) from a small single copy (SSC) region (15,288–15,369 bp). Each genome encodes 113 different genes with 79 protein-coding genes, 30 tRNA genes, and four rRNA genes. More than 150 SSRs were identified in the entire cp genomes of these three species. The Sanger sequencing results based on 32 Amomum samples indicated that five highly divergent regions screened from cp genomes could not be used to distinguish Amomum species. Phylogenetic analysis showed that the cp genomes could not only accurately identify Amomum species, but also provide a solid foundation for the establishment of phylogenetic relationships of Amomum species. The availability of cp genome resources and the comparative analysis is beneficial for species authentication and phylogenetic analysis in Amomum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

(1) Background: To analyze factors of people's wearing masks based on two online surveys, and to explore whether living area factor or quarantine status could have an impact on mask-wearing. (2) Methods: Chi-square test and logistic regression analysis were used to explore the influence of different factors on people's behavior of mask-wearing in the present study. R3.6.2 was used for data cleaning, SPSS 26.0 was used to conduct corresponding statistical analysis, and a two-sided p -value less than 0.05 was considered to be statistically significant. (3) Results: According to our study, the proportion of participants who wore face masks was higher than 90.0% in both surveys. Single factor analysis showed that the proportion of people wearing face masks raised with the increase of people's education, age, and monthly income (Yuan) in both surveys. People who lived in rural areas were less likely to wear masks. Mask-wearing rate was lower in the isolated individuals than in the non-isolated ones. (4) Conclusions: Masks-wearing is one of the effective measures for COVID-19 pandemic prevention and control. After the Chinese government made wearing face masks mandatory in public places, most residents in China had developed the habit of wearing masks, contributing to the high rate of masks-wearing in China. However, people in rural areas need to raise their awareness of wearing masks. Meanwhile, the mask-wearing of the isolated individuals needs to be enhanced.