The marine free-living organism Trichoplax (phylum Placozoa) resembles a unicellular amoeba in shape and type of movement. Trichoplax diverged from the main evolutionary tree in the Neoproterozoic Era. Trichoplax provides one of the simplest models of multicellular animals and a strong example of how cells of an organism interact to form an ensemble during its development and movement.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe ctenophore Mnemiopsis leidyi A. Agassiz, 1865 responds to gentle mechanical stimulus with intense luminescence; however, the mechanism of this phenomenon is unknown. We searched for possible mechanosensitive receptors that initiate signal transduction resulting in photoprotein luminescence.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis paper reports the results of the large-scale field testing of composite materials with antibacterial properties in a tropical climate. The composite materials, based on a cotton fabric with a coating of metal oxide nanoparticles (TiO2 and/or ZnO), were produced using high-power ultrasonic treatment. The antibacterial properties of the materials were studied in laboratory tests on solid and liquid nutrient media using bacteria of different taxonomic groups (Escherichia coli, Chromobacterium violaceum, Pseudomonas chlororaphis).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe cold alkaline treatment or mercerization of cellulose is widely used in industry to enrich the cellulose raw with high-molecular-weight [Formula: see text]-cellulose. Washing out of hemicelluloses by alkalies is accompanied by the rearrangement of the cellulose chains' packing, well known as a transition between cellulose I and cellulose II. Cellulose II can also be produced by the precipitation of the cellulose solutions (regeneration).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMan-made fibers were spun from solutions of cotton and wood cellulose in ionic liquid (1-butyl-3-methyl-imidazolium chloride, [B]Cl). Depending on the concentration, cellulose dissolved in [B]Cl down to macromolecules or nanofibrils. The artificial fibers had a diameter of about 100 nm, were uniform, transparent, helical, and optically active.
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