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The fossil record suggests greater diversity of insect leaf-feeding during warm climate intervals. Much published work in the palaeobotanical literature has been based on the presumed validity of this pattern. Here we investigated whether, in a tropical rainforest climate, leaves are being eaten in more ways than in a temperate forest climate. We compared forests at five sites in Malaysia (2–3°N, MAT ca. 26.5 °C) with five sites in northern Florida, USA (30°N, MAT ca. 19.5 °C) and in the north-eastern (NE) USA (40–42°N, MAT 7–9 °C). Presence and absence of damage types was determined using a standard leaf damage guide. In bulk floras, there was a consistent difference in damage diversity, per unit number of leaves (as in the fossil studies), between Malaysian and cool temperate NE USA sites. Malaysian tropical forest sites had a significantly greater number of damage types. Florida occupied an intermediate position, too similar to both Malaysia and NE USA to be statistically significant. When damage diversity on leaves of individual tree species was compared, consistently higher damage diversity was found in the five most abundant tropical species sampled, than in the five most abundant temperate species sampled in the NE USA. In Malaysia, the percentage of leaves receiving any damage was statistically significantly greater than in NE USA, a difference of around 10%. The results appear to validate that the trend of damage diversity with temperature seen in the fossil record is not a spurious effect of preservation bias. Tropical forests and tropical tree species do appear to have greater damage diversity than temperate forests and species. This may have broader, as yet unexplored, implications for community ecology.

We have succeeded in patterning narrow lines and dots with nano-scale dimensions of ZnS–SiO2 using Al90Ni3Gd7 metallic glass thin film as the thermal absorption layer. The laser thermal lithography technique was carried out using a semiconductor laser with 405 nm wavelength. The demonstrated resolution of the patterns produced is far beyond the diffraction limit of 200 nm given by our optical setup. The use of metallic glass as the thermal absorption layer has a number of advantages, including providing a cost-effective approach, high performance such as high selectivity and high aspect (height to width) ratio, loose environment requirement, reliable and stable compared with existing thermal absorption chalcogenide-based phase change layer materials, such as GeSbTe and AgInSbTe.

A nonchalcogenide inorganic blu-ray super-resolution near-field optical disk was successfully developed using an Al-based metallic glass as the recording layer. Data were recorded based on the large reflectivity change obtained during transformation from the amorphous state to the crystalline state upon laser irradiation. The optical and thermal properties of the Al90Ni3Gd7 metallic glass thin film were studied. The crystallization and melting temperatures were higher and more thermally stable than that of conventionally used Ge2Sb2Te5 chalcogenide phase-change recording material. Al90Ni3Gd7 metallic glass also demonstrated fast phase-change response to blue laser. Dynamic recording performance of this new structure showed good carrier-to-noise ratio and readout stability.

The sharptail mola, Masturus lanceolatus , is one of the largest teleost fishes in the world, and can be found in warm temperate and tropical regions worldwide. The increase of sharptail mola catch in the eastern Taiwan in recent years stimulated a concern that increasing exploitation of this species might lead to a decline of the stock. However, biological information of this species is very limited. Hence, this study provides the first information on age and growth of this species in the waters off eastern Taiwan based on 265 specimens (105 females and 160 males) collected from January 2003 to November 2006 at the Nanfanao and Hualien fish markets, eastern Taiwan. The relationships between whole weight ( W ) and standard length were expressed as: W = 9.98 × 10 −4 SL 2.45 ( n = 105, p W = 3.33 × 10 −4 SL 2.68 ( n = 160, p L ∞ ) = 262.5 cm SL, growth coefficient ( k ) = 0.046 yr −1 , age at zero length ( t 0 ) = −3.350 yr ( n = 80, p L ∞ = 231.0 cm SL, k = 0.059 yr −1 , t 0 = −1.852 yr ( n = 135, p

Humic acid (HA) in well water used by the inhabitants for drinking is one of the possible etiological factors for blackfoot disease (BFD). Moreover, within BFD endemic areas cancers occur at significantly higher rates than in areas free of BFD. In this study, the genotoxic potential of HA is assessed using human peripheral blood lymphocytes. The cells were exposed to HA (0–200 μg/mL for 2 h), and the induction of DNA primary damage in cellular DNA was evaluated by single-cell gel electrophoresis (comet assay). HA-induced DNA damage was decreased by superoxide (O 2 − ), hydrogen peroxide (H 2 O 2 ), and reactive oxygen species (ROS) scavengers (superoxide dismutase, catalase, and Trolox), and nitric oxide (NO) synthase inhibitors ( N G -nitro- l -arginine methyl ester and N G -methyl- l -arginine). Moreover, formamidopyrimidine-DNA glycosylase (Fpg) and endonuclease III (Endo III), known to catalyze the excision of oxidized bases, increase the amount of DNA migration in HA-treated cells. Pretreatment of the cells with both the Ca 2+ -chelator BAPTA and EGTA completely inhibited HA-induced DNA damage, indicating that HA-induced changes in Ca 2+ -homeostasis are the predominant pathways for the HA induction of genotoxicity. Furthermore, sister chromatid exchange was found in the HA-treated lymphocytes. Our findings suggest that HA can induce oxidative DNA damage and genotoxicity in human lymphocytes.