Surusono (Piper ribesioides)

Surusono (Piper ribesioides) is a plant species in Piperaceae, evergreen, grows from roots in the soil and climbs with aerial roots, woody and strong stems, tubular, spreads using seeds, fruit has a spicy flavor used as food flavoring and drug.

P. ribesioides has a sturdy and woody old trunk that climbs by sticking very strongly and wrapped around a large tree, shaped like a pipe, branching in an irregular direction, having broad columns, rough bark and slightly reddish brown.

The young stem is very long, shaped like a small pipe, segmented with varying distances, forming branches on a segment, brown, hanging, moving freely and generally downward.

A single leaf grows at each end of a long, brownish-green stem that appears on each of the young stem segments. The leaves are heart shaped or oval or elongated, symmetrical or asymmetrical and green. Rounded base and pointed tip. A main bone in the middle and several minor bones are linearly pinned.

The fruits are in panicles and have branch supports that grow on young stem segments and upright or downward directions. Each panicle has dozens of fruits, has long stems, is perfectly round in shape and is dark green and shiny.

Fruits contain a number of active medical compounds including essential oils, cubebin, piperidin and resins. The fruit contains oil which is used as a spice, the stem is used as a spice and has a spicy taste.

Essential oils have a diuretic and expectorant effect. Dried and immature fruits to treat coughs, bronchitis, sinusitis, throat and genito-urine infections, poor digestion and amoebic dysentery.

Kingdom: Plantae
Phylum: Tracheophyta
Subphylum: Angiospermae
Class: Magnoliopsida
Order: Piperales
Family: Piperaceae
Genus: Piper
Species: Piper ribesioides

Thomas Sutikna lives with Homo floresiensis

BLOG - On October 28, 2004, a paper was published in Nature describing the dwarf hominin we know today as Homo floresiensis that has shocked the world. The report changed the geographical landscape of early humans that previously stated that the Pleistocene Asia was only represented by two species, Homo erectus and Homo sapiens . The report titled "A new small-bodied hominin from the Late Pleistocene of Flores, Indonesia" written by Peter Brown and Mike J. Morwood from the University of New England with Thomas Sutikna, Raden Pandji Soejono, Jatmiko, E. Wahyu Saptomo and Rokus Awe Due from the National Archaeology Research Institute (ARKENAS), Indonesia, presents more diversity in the genus Homo. “Immediately, my fever vanished. I couldn’t sleep well that night. I couldn’t wait for sunrise. In the early morning we went to the site, and when we arrived in the cave, I didn’t say a thing because both my mind and heart couldn’t handle this incredible moment. I just went down...

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