Chemicals, including inorganic chemicals (nanoparticles, heavy metals, and other chemicals) and organic chemicals (pesticides, POPS, PBDEs, and other organic chemicals), are widely used in the world in recent 30 years to support the rapid development of industrialization and agriculture. The extensive use and discharge of these chemicals in these processes will produce wastewater containing a v...

Catie Schwartz Ph.D. Student, Applied Mathematics and Scientific Computing Department of Mathematics University of Maryland, College Park schwa2cs AT math.umd.edu Dr. Ramani Duraswaimi Associate Professor, Department of Computer Science and Department of the University of Maryland Institute of Advanced Computer Studies (UMIACS) University of Maryland, College Park ramani AT umiacs.umd.edu Ab...

Cephalopods, and in particular the cuttlefish Sepia officinalis, are common models for studies of camouflage and predator avoidance behaviour. Preventing detection by predators is especially important to this group of animals, most of which are soft-bodied, lack physical defences, and are subject to both visually and non-visually mediated detection. Here, we report a novel cryptic mechanism in ...

The cephalopod circulatory system includes an efferent systemic ventricle and two afferent branchial hearts. Branchial hearts lack coronary arteries and thus must be nourished by only venous blood. During routine metabolism in normoxic water, oxygen availability to branchial hearts is only a small percentage of that to the systemic heart; during hypoxic excursions the venous oxygen content may,...

A novel, to our knowledge, in situ photoirradiation system for solid-state NMR measurements is improved and demonstrated to successfully identify the M-photointermediate of pharaonis phoborhodopsin (ppR or sensory rhodopsin II), that of the complex with transducer (ppR/pHtrII), and T204A mutant embedded in a model membrane. The (13)C NMR signals from [20-(13)C]retinal-ppR and ppR/pHtrII reveale...

Attractant and repellent signaling conformers of the dual-signaling phototaxis receptor sensory rhodopsin I and its transducer subunit (SRI-HtrI) have recently been distinguished experimentally by the opposite connection of their retinylidene protonated Schiff bases to the outwardly located periplasmic side and inwardly located cytoplasmic side. Here we show that the pK(a) of the outwardly loca...

Cuttlefish, Sepia officinalis, commonly use their visually-guided, rapid adaptive camouflage for multiple tactics to avoid detection or recognition by predators. Two common tactics are background matching and resembling an object (masquerade) in the immediate area. This laboratory study investigated whether cuttlefish preferentially camouflage themselves to resemble a three-dimensional (3D) obj...

Rather than simply escaping, prey animals often attempt to deter an attack by signalling to an approaching predator, but this is a risky strategy if it allows time for the predator to draw closer (especially when the signal is a bluff). Because prey are vulnerable to multiple predators, the hunting techniques of which vary widely, it could well be beneficial for a prey animal to discriminate pr...

Polarization sensitivity is a characteristic of the visual system of cephalopods. It has been well documented in adult cuttlefish, which use polarization sensitivity in a large range of tasks such as communication, orientation and predation. Because cuttlefish do not benefit from parental care, their visual system (including the ability to detect motion) must be efficient from hatching to enabl...