Echolocating bats use ultrasonic pulses to collect information about their environments. Some of this information is encoded at the baffle structures-noseleaves (emission) and pinnae (reception)-that act as interfaces between the bats' biosonar systems and the external world. The baffle beam patterns encode the direction-dependent sensory information as a function of frequency and hence represent a view of the environment. To generate diverse views of the environment, the bats can vary beam patterns by changes to (1) the wavelengths of the pulses or (2) the baffle geometries. Here we compare the variability in sensory information encoded by just the use of frequency or baffle shape dynamics in horseshoe bats. For this, we use digital and physical prototypes of both noseleaf and pinnae. The beam patterns for all prototypes were either measured or numerically predicted. Entropy was used as a measure to compare variability as a measure of sensory information encoding capacity. It was found that new information was acquired as a result of shape dynamics. Furthermore, the overall variability available for information encoding was similar in the case of frequency or shape dynamics. Thus, shape dynamics allows the horseshoe bats to generate diverse views of the environment in the absence of broadband biosonar signals.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.97.062402 | DOI Listing |
Science
January 2025
Laboratory of Quantitative Global Change Ecology, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Toronto Scarborough, Toronto, ON, Canada.
Human-driven Arctic warming and resulting sea ice loss have been associated with declines in several polar bear populations. However, quantifying how individual responses to environmental change integrate and scale to influence population dynamics in polar bears has yet to be achieved. We developed an individual-based bioenergetic model and hindcast population dynamics across 42 years of observed sea ice conditions in Western Hudson Bay, a region undergoing rapid environmental change.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFChaos
January 2025
Department of Mathematics, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA.
We study the spreading dynamics of content on networks. To do this, we use a model in which content spreads through a bounded-confidence mechanism. In a bounded-confidence model (BCM) of opinion dynamics, the agents of a network have continuous-valued opinions, which they adjust when they interact with agents whose opinions are sufficiently close to theirs.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAdv Biotechnol (Singap)
February 2024
School of Minerals Processing and Bioengineering, Central South University, Changsha, 410083, China.
While biotechnologies offer eco-friendly solutions for eliminating air contaminants, there is a scarcity of research examining the impacts of microbial purification of air pollutants on the structure and function of air microbial communities. In this study, we explored a Lactobacillus paracasei B1 (LAB) agent for removing ammoniacal odour. The impacts of LAB on air bacterial community were revealed.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBiol Open
February 2025
Department of Biology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, CB#3280, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3280, USA.
The network of proteins at the interface between cell-cell adherens junctions and the actomyosin cytoskeleton provides robust yet dynamic connections that facilitate cell shape change and motility. While this was initially thought to be a simple linear connection via classic cadherins and their associated catenins, we now have come to appreciate that many more proteins are involved, providing robustness and mechanosensitivity. Defining the full set of proteins in this network remains a key objective in our field.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMater Today Bio
April 2025
Department of Laboratory Medicine, The Third Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Changsha, 410013, Hunan Province, China.
Purpose: infection is the most common pathogen in burn wound infections, causing delayed wound healing and progression to chronic wounds. Therefore, there is an urgent need to develop antimicrobial agents that can promote wound healing for effectively treating infected wounds.
Patients And Methods: Using magnetic stirring and ultrasound to synthesize Apt-pM@UCNPmSiO-Cur-CAZ.
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