Biodiversity contributes significantly towards human livelihood and development and thus plays a predominant role in the well being of the global population. According to WHO reports, around 80 % of the global population still relies on botanical drugs; today several medicines owe their origin to medicinal plants. Natural substances have long served as sources of therapeutic drugs, where drugs including digitalis (from foxglove), ergotamine (from contaminated rye), quinine (from cinchona), and salicylates (willow bark) can be cited as some classical examples.Drug discovery from natural sources involve a multifaceted approach combining botanical, phytochemical, biological, and molecular techniques. Accordingly, medicinal-plant-based drug discovery still remains an important area, hitherto unexplored, where a systematic search may definitely provide important leads against various pharmacological targets.Ironically, the potential benefits of plant-based medicines have led to unscientific exploitation of the natural resources, a phenomenon that is being observed globally. This decline in biodiversity is largely the result of the rise in the global population, rapid and sometimes unplanned industrialization, indiscriminate deforestation, overexploitation of natural resources, pollution, and finally global climate change.Therefore, it is of utmost importance that plant biodiversity be preserved, to provide future structural diversity and lead compounds for the sustainable development of human civilization at large. This becomes even more important for developing nations, where well-planned bioprospecting coupled with nondestructive commercialization could help in the conservation of biodiversity, ultimately benefiting mankind in the long run.Based on these findings, the present review is an attempt to update our knowledge about the diverse therapeutic application of different plant products against various pharmacological targets including cancer, human brain, cardiovascular function, microbial infection, inflammation, pain, and many more.

Plate motion, crustal deformation, and earthquake occurrence processes in the northwest Sunda Arc, which includes the Indo-Burmese wedge (IBW) in the forearc and the Sagaing fault in the backarc, are very poorly constrained. Plate reconstruction models and geological structures in the region suggest that subduction in the IBW occurred in the geological past, but whether it is still active and how the plate motion between the India and Sunda plates is partitioned between motion in the IBW and Sagaing fault is largely unknown. Recent GPS measurements of crustal deformation and available long-term rates of motion across the Sagaing fault suggest that ~20 ± 3 mm/yr of the relative plate motion of ~36 mm/yr between the India and Sunda plates is accommodated at the Sagaing fault through dextral strike-slip motion. We report results from a dense GPS network in the IBW that has operated since 2004. Our analysis of these measurements and the seismicity of the IBW suggest that the steeply dipping Churachandpur-Mao fault in the IBW accommodates the remaining motion of ~18 ± 2 mm/yr between the India and Sunda plates through dextral strike-slip motion, and this motion occurs predominantly through velocity strengthening frictional behavior, i.e., aseismic slip. The aseismic motion on this plate boundary fault signifi cantly lowers the seismic hazard due to major and great interplate earthquakes along this plate boundary.

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