We have studied the myosin types present in developing fast and slow muscles of the chicken embryo. Myosin light chains were characterized by their mobility on sodium dodecyl sulfate/polyacrylamide gels; myosin heavy chains were identified by their reaction with antibodies specific for adult fast or adult slow myosin heavy chains. During development, the pectoralis muscle, a fast muscle in the ...

Intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells (ipRGCs) mediate numerous nonvisual phenomena, including entrainment of the circadian clock to light-dark cycles, pupillary light responsiveness, and light-regulated hormone release. We have applied multielectrode array recording to characterize murine ipRGCs. We find that all ipRGC photosensitivity is melanopsin dependent. At least three popu...

Paradoxically, slow light promises to increase the speed of telecommunications in novel photonic structures, such as coupled resonators [1] and photonic crystals [2,3]. Apart from signal delays, the key consequence of slowing light down is the enhancement of light-matter interactions. Linear effects such as refractive index modulation scale linearly with slowdown in photonic crystals [3], and n...

We analyze the resonant transmission of light through a photonic-crystal waveguide side coupled to a Kerr nonlinear cavity, and demonstrate how to design the structure geometry for achieving bistability and all-optical switching at ultralow powers in the slow-light regime. We show that the resonance quality factor in such structures scales inversely proportional to the group velocity of light a...