Here, the potential for microphagy and other feeding behaviours in Titanichthys is assessed via a comparative study of jaw mechanics in Titanichthys and other placoderms with presumably differing feeding habits (macrophagy and durophagy). Finite-element models of the lower jaws of Titanichthys termieri in comparison to Dunkleosteus terrelli and Tafilalichthys lavocati reveal considerably less resistance to von Mises stress in this taxon. Comparisons with a selection of large-bodied extant taxa of similar ecological diversity reveal similar disparities in jaw stress resistance. Our results, therefore, conform to the hypothesis that Titanichthys was a suspension feeder with jaws ill-suited for biting and crushing but well suited for gaping ram feeding.Large single crystals of (4-(Aminomethyl)pyridinium)2 MnCl4 · 2H2O (1) were grown by slow evaporation of solution. The crystal structure was solved to be Pī, which belongs to the central symmetric space group. But small pyroelectric current was detected, as well as a ferroelectric hysteresis loop. The pyroelectric and the ferroelectric properties were attributed to the strain caused by defects. Temperature-dependent magnetic curves and the M-H curve show that 1 is antiferromagnetic ordering below 2.5 K. A field-induced spin-flop is observed in the antiferromagnetic ordering state.In this research, a novel amphiphilic hydrophobically associative polymer nanocomposite (ADOS/OMMT) was prepared using acrylamide (AM), sodium 4-vinylbenzenesulfonate (SSS), N, N'-dimethyl octadeyl allyl ammonium bromide (DOAAB) and organo-modified montmorillonite (OMMT) through in situ polymerization.  https://www.selleckchem.com/products/FK-506-(Tacrolimus).html  Both X-ray diffraction patterns and transmission electron microscopy images verified the dispersion morphology of OMMT in the copolymer matrix. Then, the effect of the introduction of OMMT layers on the copolymer properties was studied by comparing with pure copolymer AM/SSS/DOAAB (ADOS). The thermal degradation results demonstrated that the thermal stability of the ADOS/OMMT were better than pure copolymer ADOS. During the solution properties tests, ADOS/OMMT nanocomposite was superior to ADOS in viscosifying ability, temperature resistance, salt tolerance, shear resistance and viscoelasticity, which was because OMMT contributed to enhance the hydrophobic association structure formed between polymer molecules. Additionally, the ADOS/OMMT nanocomposite exhibited more excellent interfacial activity and crude oil emulsifiability in comparison to pure copolymer ADOS. These performances indicated ADOS/OMMT nanocomposite had good application prospects in tertiary recovery.Freshwater green algae Chlorella vulgaris was selected as an adsorbent, and a simple, rapid, economical and environmentally friendly method for the detection of heavy metal Cd in water samples based on preconcentration with C. vulgaris combined with energy dispersive X-ray fluorescence (EDXRF) spectrometry was proposed. Chlorella vulgaris could directly and rapidly adsorb Cd2+ without any pretreatment, and the maximum adsorption efficiency could be obtained when the contact time was 1 min with an optimal pH of 10. The obtained Cd-enriched thin samples after preconcentration with C. vulgaris by suction filtration of reaction solution had very good uniformity, which could be directly measured by EDXRF spectrometry, and the net integral fluorescence intensity of Cd Kα characteristic peak had a very good linear relationship with the initial concentration of Cd in the range of 0.703-74.957 µg ml-1 with a correlation coefficient of 0.9979. When the Cd thin samples with a Cd-enriched region of 15.1 mm in diameter were formed by the developed preconcentration method with suction filtration of 10 ml reaction solution, the detection limit of this method was 0.0654 µg ml-1, which was lower than the maximum allowable discharge concentration of Cd in various industrial wastewaters. The proposed method was simple to operate, and could effectively remove the influence of matrix effect of water samples and effectively improve the sensitivity and stability of EDXRF spectrometry directly detecting heavy metals in water samples, which was successfully applied to detect Cd in real water samples with satisfactory results, and the recoveries ranged from 94.80% to 116.94%. Moreover, this method can be applied to the rapid detection and early warning of excessive Cd in discharged industrial wastewaters. This work will provide a methodological basis for the development of rapid and online monitoring technology and instrument of heavy metal pollutants in water.Object play refers to the seemingly non-functional manipulation of inanimate items when in a relaxed state. In juveniles, object play may help develop skills to aid survival. However, why adults show object play remains poorly understood. We studied potential drivers and functions of the well-known object play behaviour of rock juggling in Asian small-clawed (Aonyx cinereus) and smooth-coated (Lutrogale perspicillata) otters. These are closely related species, but Asian small-clawed otters perform extractive foraging movements to exploit crabs and shellfish while smooth-coated otters forage on fish. We thus predicted that frequent rock jugglers might be better at solving extractive foraging puzzles in the first species, but not the latter. We also assessed whether species, age, sex and hunger correlated with rock juggling frequency. We found that juvenile and senior otters juggled more than adults. However, rock juggling frequency did not differ between species or sexes. Otters juggled more when 'hungry', but frequent jugglers did not solve food puzzles faster. Our results suggest that rock juggling may be a misdirected behaviour when hungry and may facilitate juveniles' motor development, but it appears unrelated to foraging skills. We suggest future studies to reveal the ontogeny, evolution and welfare implications of this object play behaviour.The identification of sea turtle behaviours is a prerequisite to predicting the activities and time-budget of these animals in their natural habitat over the long term. However, this is hampered by a lack of reliable methods that enable the detection and monitoring of certain key behaviours such as feeding. This study proposes a combined approach that automatically identifies the different behaviours of free-ranging sea turtles through the use of animal-borne multi-sensor recorders (accelerometer, gyroscope and time-depth recorder), validated by animal-borne video-recorder data. We show here that the combination of supervised learning algorithms and multi-signal analysis tools can provide accurate inferences of the behaviours expressed, including feeding and scratching behaviours that are of crucial ecological interest for sea turtles. Our procedure uses multi-sensor miniaturized loggers that can be deployed on free-ranging animals with minimal disturbance. It provides an easily adaptable and replicable approach for the long-term automatic identification of the different activities and determination of time-budgets in sea turtles.