Squid Man

Squid retinochrome

Retinochrome is a photosensitive pigment located primarily in the inner portions of the visual cells of cephalopods. Its absorption spectrum resembles that of rhodopsin, but its chromophore is all-trans retinal, which light isomerizes to 11-cis, the reverse of the situation in rhodopsin. The 11-cis photoproduct of retinochrome slowly reverts to retinochrome in the dark. The chromophoric site of...

MgB2 SQUID for Magnetocardiography

Optimum SQUID Readout

We have developed a 1:30000 winding ratio cryogenic current comparator (CCC) for measurement of small currents, e.g., generated by a single electron transport device. A dedicated low-noise SQUID is used for the readout, which allows reaching a sensitivity close to ideal, that is without loss of sensitivity in the flux transformer coupling the CCC and the SQUID. The CCC-SQUID equivalent current ...

Hawaiian bobtail squid

What is a bobtail squid? Euprymna scolopes (Figure 1) is a small sepiolid squid, or bobtail squid, occurring in the marine coastal environment of the Hawaiian archipelago. Whereas most other squid are always out and about, the bobtail squid buries itself in the sand during its daylight quiescent period. Then, at night, individuals of this species emerge from the sand to forage on prey, such as ...

Multichannel Squid Biomagnetic Systems

The field of biomagnetism advanced considerably since the first recordings of magnetic fields of the human heart in 1963 and of the human brain in 1968. Since the introduction of whole-cortex magnetoencephalography (MEG) systems in 1992, the number of installed channels has dramatically increased, and the magnetic evaluation of the human brain has been gradually finding its place in clinical wo...