Abstract Phosphate-shelled brachiopods differ in filter-feeding lifestyle, with Lingula anatina an active infaunal burrower, and Discinisca tenuis a shallow marine epibenthic animal. The shells of these animals are built organophosphatic constituents, the organic fibres/sheets reinforced calcium phosphate to provide sophisticated ultrastructural robustness. This investigation examined nature fi...

For evolutionary biologists reptiles and islands provide rich pickings. One of the world’s largest land reptiles, the komodo dragon, is confined to just a couple of small Indonesian islands, and one of the rarest snakes is found on an islet off the Caribbean island of St. Lucia. Even the heavily touristed Mediterranean island of Mallorca boasts its own lizard species on an offshore islet. But f...

In this research, the application of walnut shell ash, as an adsorbent for soybean oil bleaching, has been investigated. Therefore, neutralized soybean oil was bleached with 1 and 2% of walnut shell ash as well as commercial bleaching earth. Then, a series of chemical tests such as amounts of carotenoids, chlorophylls, peroxide value, and free fatty acid content of bleached oils and oil retenti...

The efficient transport of micron-sized beads into cells, via a non-endocytosis mediated mechanism, has only recently been described. As such there is considerable scope for optimization and exploitation of this procedure to enable imaging and sensing applications to be realized. Herein, we report the design, synthesis and characterization of fluorescent microsphere-based cellular delivery agen...

Novel double-shelled hierarchical ferrihydrite hollow spheres (Fe(10)O(14)(OH)(2).4H(2)O) were successfully synthesized on a large scale by using a facile medicine-inspired solution-phase approach. Sodium nitroprusside (SNP), an ordinary and inexpensive medicine for expanding blood vessels, served as both a ferric source and an in situ formed gas-bubble template with the presence of sodium dihy...

Herein, we report an effective, facile, and low-cost route for preparing ZnO hollow microspheres with a controlled number of shells composed of small ZnO nanoparticles. The formation mechanism of multiple-shelled structures was investigated in detail. The number of shells is manipulated by using different diameters of carbonaceous microspheres. The products were characterized by X-ray powder di...