We present experimental evidence under low-dose conditions transmission electron microscopy for the unfolding of the evolving changes in carbon soot during mechanical milling. The milled soot shows evolving changes as a function of the milling severity or time. Those changes are responsible for the transformation from amorphous carbon to graphenes, graphitic carbon, and highly ordered structure...

Rhodopsins are the major photopigments in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster. Drosophila express six well-characterized Rhodopsins (Rh1-Rh6) with distinct absorption maxima and expression pattern. In 2000, when the Drosophila genome was published, a novel Rhodopsin gene was discovered: Rhodopsin 7 (Rh7). Rh7 is highly conserved among the Drosophila genus and is also found in other arthropods...

Patterning the Drosophila retina for color vision relies on postmitotic specification of photoreceptor subtypes. R8 photoreceptors express one of two light-sensing Rhodopsins, Rh5 or Rh6. This fate decision involves a bistable feedback loop between Melted, a PH-domain protein, and Warts, a kinase in the Hippo growth pathway. Here, we show that a subset of the Hippo pathway-Merlin, Kibra, and Le...

Comparison between the inputs of photoreceptors with different spectral sensitivities is required for color vision. In Drosophila, this is achieved in each ommatidium by the inner photoreceptors R7 and R8. Two classes of ommatidia are distributed stochastically in the retina: 30% contain UV-Rh3 in R7 and blue-Rh5 in R8, while the remaining 70% contain UV-Rh4 in R7 and green-Rh6 in R8. We show h...

The compound eye of Drosophila melanogaster is composed of about 800 ommatidial units, each containing eight photoreceptor cells (R1–R8). Based on their spectral sensitivities, three subtypes can be distinguished [1]: The ‘pale’ (p) and ‘yellow’ (y) ommatidia [2] are distributed randomly throughout the main part of the eye (Figure 1A). They show different spectral sensitivity, at shorter and lo...

The visual system is one of the input pathways for light into the circadian clock of the Drosophila brain. In particular, extra-retinal visual structures have been proposed to play a role in both larval and adult circadian photoreception. We have analyzed the interactions between extra-retinal structures of the visual system and the clock neurons during brain development. We first show that the...

Edges represent important information in object recognition, and thus edge detection is crucial for animal survival. Various types of edges result from visual contrast, such as luminance contrast and color contrast. So far, the molecular and neural mechanisms underlying edge detection and the relationship between different edge information-processing pathways have been largely undemonstrated. I...

The Drosophila eye is a mosaic that results from the stochastic distribution of two ommatidial subtypes. Pale and yellow ommatidia can be distinguished by the expression of distinct rhodopsins and other pigments in their inner photoreceptors (R7 and R8), which are implicated in color vision. The pale subtype contains ultraviolet (UV)-absorbing Rh3 in R7 and blue-absorbing Rh5 in R8. The yellow ...

There is an extensive range of applications for fluorescent pigments based on their optical properties. Herein, we focused the synthesis a highly fluorescence colorant, hybrid perylene-3,4,9,10-tetracarboxylic diimide and rhodamine 6 G (PTCDI-Rh6 G). To this end, dianhydride (PTCDA) modified with ethylenediamine (EDA) to yield PTCDI. Then, PTCDI reacted by amidation reaction. Synthesized colora...