New science in plain sight: Citizen scientists lead to the discovery of optical structure in the upper atmosphere.

A glowing ribbon of purple light running east-west in the night sky has recently been observed by citizen scientists. This narrow, subauroral, visible structure, distinct from the traditional auroral oval, was largely undocumented in the scientific literature and little was known about its formation. Amateur photo sequences showed colors distinctly different from common types of aurora and occasionally indicated magnetic field-aligned substructures.

Lengsin expression and function during zebrafish lens formation.

A zebrafish ortholog of human lengsin was identified by EST analysis of an adult lens cDNA library. During zebrafish development, lengsin transcription is first detected at 24 h post-fertilization (hpf). Immunolocalization, using polyclonal antiserum generated against a Lengsin bacterial fusion protein, detects lens-specific protein in whole-mount embryos at 30 hpf.

Evidence of a microtrabecular cytoskeletal lattice in glandular cells of hydrozoan planulae.

Hydrozoan planulae of Pennaria tiarella and Podocoryne carnea were processed for transmission electron microscopy using diethylene glycol distearate (DGD). The DGD functions as a removable embedding medium to produce embedment-free sections of intact planulae. Images of glandular cells obtained using embedment-free sections were compared with those from conventional Spurr-embedded sections.