Cadmium Highlights Common and Specific Responses of Two Freshwater Sentinel Species, and .

Zebra mussel (ZM), , commonly used as a sentinel species in freshwater biomonitoring, is now in competition for habitat with quagga mussel (QM), This raises the question of the quagga mussel's use in environmental survey. To better characterise QM response to stress compared with ZM, both species were exposed to cadmium (100 µg·L), a classic pollutant, for 7 days under controlled conditions. The gill proteomes were analysed using two-dimensional electrophoresis coupled with mass spectrometry.

The effect of echoes interference on phonon attenuation in a nanophononic membrane.

Nanophononic materials are characterized by a periodic nanostructuration, which may lead to coherent scattering of phonons, enabling interference and resulting in modified phonon dispersions. We have used the extreme ultraviolet transient grating technique to measure phonon frequencies and lifetimes in a low-roughness nanoporous phononic membrane of SiN at wavelengths between 50 and 100 nm, comparable to the nanostructure lengthscale. Surprisingly, phonon frequencies are only slightly modified upon nanostructuration, while phonon lifetime is strongly reduced.

Chromosome-level reference genome for European flat oyster ( L.).

The European flat oyster ( L.) is a bivalve naturally distributed across Europe, which was an integral part of human diets for centuries, until anthropogenic activities and disease outbreaks severely reduced wild populations. Despite a growing interest in genetic applications to support population management and aquaculture, a reference genome for this species is lacking to date.

Two parallel chromosome-level reference genomes to support restoration and aquaculture of European flat oyster .

This volume of Evolutionary Applications sees the publication of two genomes for the European native flat oyster , a species of significant evolutionary, ecological and commercial value. Each is a highly contiguous chromosome-level assembly from individuals of different genetic backgrounds, which have been benchmarked against one another. This situation has resulted from the serendipitous discovery that two independent research groups were both deep into the process of building, annotating and investigating separately produced assemblies.

Does the environmental history of mussels have an effect on the physiological response to additional stress under experimental conditions?

Expected effects on marine biota of the ongoing elevation of water temperature and high latitudes is of major concern when considering the reliability of coastal ecosystem production. To compare the capacity of coastal organisms to cope with a temperature increase depending on their environmental history, responses of adult blue mussels (Mytilus spp.) taken from two sites differentially exposed to chemical pollution were investigated during an experimental exposure to a thermal stress.

Ballistic Heat Transport in Nanocomposite: The Role of the Shape and Interconnection of Nanoinclusions.

In this article, the effect on the vibrational and thermal properties of gradually interconnected nanoinclusions embedded in an amorphous silicon matrix is studied using molecular dynamics simulations. The nanoinclusion arrangement ranges from an aligned sphere array to an interconnected mesh of nanowires. Wave-packet simulations scanning different polarizations and frequencies reveal that the interconnection of the nanoinclusions at constant volume fraction induces a strong increase of the mean free path of high frequency phonons, but does not affect the energy diffusivity.

Unique and universal dew-repellency of nanocones.

Surface structuring provides a broad range of water-repellent materials known for their ability to reflect millimetre-sized raindrops. Dispelling water at the considerably reduced scale of fog or dew, however, constitutes a significant challenge, owing to the comparable size of droplets and structures. Nonetheless, a surface comprising nanocones was recently reported to exhibit strong anti-fogging behaviour, unlike pillars of the same size.

Non-oxide precipitates in additively manufactured austenitic stainless steel.

Precipitates in an austenitic stainless steel fabricated via any Additive Manufacturing (AM), or 3D printing, technique have been widely reported to be only Mn-Si-rich oxides. However, via Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) studies on a 316L stainless steel, we show that non-oxide precipitates (intermetallics, sulfides, phosphides and carbides) can also form when the steel is fabricated via Laser Metal Deposition (LMD)-a directed energy deposition-type AM technique. An investigation into their origin is conducted with support from precipitation kinetics and finite element heat transfer simulations.

Principal image decomposition for multi-detector backscatter electron topography reconstruction.

Scanning Electron Microscopes (SEMs) often generate images with a shaded appearance which gives a natural 3D impression. Ergo, quite a few methods to reconstruct the 3D surface topography from these using shape-from-shading methods are available in the literature. Here, a novel approach is discussed which uses BackScatter Electron (BSE) images from multiple detectors to reconstruct the topography.

Continuum constitutive laws to describe acoustic attenuation in glasses.

Nowadays metamaterials are at the focus of an intense research as promising for thermal and acoustic engineering. However, the computational cost associated to the large system size required for correctly simulating them imposes the use of finite-elements simulations, developing continuum models, able to grasp the physics at play without entering in the atomistic details. Still, a correct description should be able to reproduce not only the extrinsic scattering sources on waves propagation, as introduced by the metamaterial microstructure, but also the intrinsic wave attenuation of the material itself.

Biological rhythms in the deep-sea hydrothermal mussel Bathymodiolus azoricus.

Biological rhythms are a fundamental property of life. The deep ocean covers 66% of our planet surface and is one of the largest biomes. The deep sea has long been considered as an arrhythmic environment because sunlight is totally absent below 1,000 m depth.

Thermal Transport in a 2D Nanophononic Solid: Role of bi-Phasic Materials Properties on Acoustic Attenuation and Thermal Diffusivity.

Nanophononic materials have recently arisen as a promising way for controlling heat transport, mirroring the results in macroscopic phononic materials for sound transmission, filtering and attenuation applications. Here we present a Finite Element numerical simulation of the transient propagation of an acoustic Wave-Packet in a 2D nanophononic material, which allows to identify the effect of the nanostructuration on the acoustic attenuation length and thus on the transport regime for the vibrational energy. Assuming elastic behavior in the matrix and in the inclusions, we find that the rigidity contrast between them not only tunes the apparent attenuation length of the wave packet along its main trajectory, but gives rise to different behaviours, from weak to strong scattering, and waves pinning.

A review of the potential genes implicated in follicular atresia in teleost fish.

In recent years, numerous studies conducted on teleost fish have highlighted the contribution of transcriptomic studies in elucidating the physiological mechanisms underlying the molecular events of oogenesis and follicular atresia, enabling the identification of potential genes and molecular networks that participate in both the reproductive cycle and the process of follicular atresia. Atresia can affect the reproductive potential of females by reducing the healthy eggs that a female can spawn in both aquaculture and wild populations. The substantial diversity of reproductive strategies exhibited by teleost fish has contributed to the difficulty in identifying common genes between species, but a set of core genes has emerged as potential markers for atresia in relation to apoptosis/autophagy, lipid metabolism, oxidative metabolism and other physiological processes similar to those identified in other vertebrates, even mammals.