Intercalation of naphthalene and anthracene into alkyltrimethylammonium (CnH2n+1(CH3)3N+; n = 8, 12, 14, 16, and 18)-montmorillonites was carried out by novel solid-solid reactions at room temperature. Octyltrimethylammonium(C8)-montmorillonite did not form an intercalation compound with either naphthalene or anthracene. Naphthalene was intercalated into both dodecyltrimethylammonium(C12)- and octadecyltrimethylammonium(C18)-montmorillonites to give intercalation compounds. On the other hand, the solid-solid reaction between dodecyltrimethylammonium(C12)- or tetradecyltrimethylammonium(C14)-montmorillonite and anthracene gave only partly intercalated compounds while hexadecyltrimethylammonium(C16)- and octadecyltrimethylammonium(C18)-montmorillonites gave single phase intercalation compounds. The hydrophobic interactions between alkylammonium-montmorillonites and the aromatic compounds are thought to be the driving force for the solid-state intercalation. The extent of the increase in the basal spacing may also be involved in the different reactivity.

Deep-sea ecosystems are generally oligotrophic because they lack photosynthesizing producers. On deep-sea slopes near land, however, various terrestrial plant remains flow to and are deposited on near-shore deep bottoms. From a depth of 300 m off the Pacific coast of Owase, central Japan, we collected an onuphid polychaete, Anchinothria cirrobranchiata (Annelida: Onuphidae), which lives in a dorsoventrally flattened portable tube. The polychaete tubes were made of sand, as well as leaves and twigs of terrestrial evergreen trees. The leaves glued on the portable tubes were chartaceous, blackish and tough; they belonged mainly to two genera of Fagaceae, Castanopsis and Quercus, which are dominant components of coastal evergreen oak forests. In aquaria, the polychaetes fed on the leaves on their tubes, as well as autochthonous sedimented leaves, suggesting utilization of terrigenous plant litter as food. As to the evolution of Anchinothria, a molecular phylogenetic analysis suggests that Anchinothria is monophyletic with other Hyalinoeciinae (Nothria, Leptoecia, Hyalinoecia).

Coastal tide pools in southern Japan are inhabited by the rock-boring sea urchin Echinostrephus molaris, which excavate pits in the substrate. These pits are subsequently used by non-boring sea urchins such as Anthocidaris crassispina and Echinometra sp. B, and the recolonized pits are often inhabited by a commensal limpet-like trochid snail species, Broderipia iridescens. We explored the population and community dynamics of these sea urchins and the limpet-like snail by monitoring occupancy of 512 pits in tide pools in Shirahama, Japan from May 2017–May 2019. Initially, nearly all pits were occupied by any one of the three sea urchin species, but an unusual cold event in February 2018 caused a mass die off of these sea urchins. After this event, occupancy decreased from 99% to 15%, and the tropical species Echinometra sp. B disappeared from the study pools. We observed slow population recovery of E. molaris and A. crassispina, provably via migration of sub-adults from the subtidal zone. Turnover rate of the pit-occupying sea urchin species was <1.0% before the cold event, but drastically increased after the cold event. Population size of the commensal snail decreased along with those of their host, but the rate of commensalism was constant at 50–55% throughout the study period, suggesting that these snails followed their host sea urchins repeating inter-pit migration. Despite mass mortality and slow recovery, the sea urchin density remained high enough to maintain persistent sea urchin barrens throughout the study period.

Although there are numerous reports on the synthesis of spherical materials, the development of new approaches remains important for theory construction to realize tailor-made synthesis of spherical materials. Herein, we report the synthesis of polydispersed spherical particles of H2Ti2O5 intercalated with a polyethyleneamine, such as an ethylenediamine, on the basis of a solvothermal treatment using concentrated polyethyleneamine aqueous solutions. The diameter of the micrometer-sized spheres enlarged with increasing amine concentration in the reaction solution. It was speculated that high ionic strength caused the self-assembly of polyethyleneamine-intercalated H2Ti2O5, resulting in the formation of spherical agglomerates. The spheres had a specific a surface area of 200 m2 g−1 and approximately 5 nm pores, and these values were controlled by amine concentration and treatment time. Conversion to single phase anatase and rutile without changes in spherical morphology was achieved by heat treatment. The present approach may assist with the design morphology of agglomerates.

New strategies for materials fabrication are of fundamental importance in theadvancement of science and technology. Nanocrystals, especially with ananisotropic shape such as cubic, are candidates for building blocks for newbottom-up approaches to materials assembly, yielding a functional architecture.Such materials also receive attention because of their intrinsic size-dependentproperties and resulting applications. Here, we report synthesis andcharacteristics of BaTiO3 and SrTiO3 nanocubes and theordered assemblies as ferroelectric supracrystals. BaTiO3 andSrTiO3 nanocubes with narrow size distributions were obtained inan aqueous process. BaTiO3 films made up of ordered nanocubeassemblies were fabricated on various substrates by evaporation-inducedself-assembly method. Regardless of the substrate, the nanocubes exhibited {100}orientations and a high degree of face-to-face ordering, which remained evenafter heat treatment at 850 °C. Piezoresponse force microscopy wascarried out on the supracrsytal films to obtain plots of thed33 piezoelectric coefficient against the polingfield, and ferroelectric hysteresis curves were shown.

Novel water-soluble titanium complexes coordinated by hydroxycarboxylic acids or amines were developed, and the hydrothermal treatment of the new complexes was carried out to elucidate the formation mechanism of the titania polymorphs including rutile, anatase, and brookite. An empirical relationship among the crystal structure of TiO2, the ligand, and the complex structure was found. Anatase, rutile, or a mixture of both was obtained by the hydrothermal treatment of the complexes coordinated by hydroxycarboxylic acids. The structure of complexes prepared using hydroxycarboxylic acids, which have one hydroxyl and one carboxylic groups, seems to be preferable for the formation of rutile. It was also found that the hydrothermal treatment of titanium complexes coordinated by amine with NAc2 structure resulted in the formation of brookite. Thus, the effect of ligand and complex structure on the crystal structure of TiO2 synthesized by the hydrothermal treatment of the complexes was proposed.

Evidence for herbivory on early vascular plants in the Paleozoic has recently been accumulated from trace fossils and coprolites (Edwards et al. 1995; Labandeira 1998), although it is not well understood which arthropods were true herbivores during the Paleozoic. The great diversity of extant herbivorous insects was thought to have originated in the Cretaceous, when the adaptive radiation of angiosperms occurred; thus, it would be intriguing to find ancient plant–herbivore interactions on extant primeval vascular plants. In this paper, I report a unique dipteran fly associated with a species of the class Lycopsida as the first record of non-lepidopteran herbivory on the extant plant order Lycopodiales.

Interspecies somatic cell nuclear transfer (ISCNT) has been proposed as a technique to produce cloned offspring of endangered species as well as to investigate nucleus–cytoplasm interactions in mammalian embryo. However, it is still not known which embryo culture medium is optimal for ISCNT embryos for the nuclear donor or the oocyte recipient. We assessed the effects of the culture medium on the developmental competence of the ISCNT embryos by introducing cynomolgus monkey (Macaca fascicularis) fibroblast nuclei into enucleated rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) oocytes (monkey–rabbit embryo). The monkey–rabbit ISCNT embryos that were cultured in mCMRL-1066 developed to the blastocyst stage, although all monkey–rabbit ISCNT embryos cultured in M199 were arrested by the 4-cell stage. When monkey–rabbit ISCNT and rabbit–rabbit somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT) embryos were cultured in mCMRL-1066, the blastocyst cell numbers of the monkey–rabbit ISCNT embryos corresponded to the cell numbers of the control rabbit–rabbit SCNT embryos, which were produced from a rabbit fibroblast nucleus and an enucleated rabbit oocyte. In addition, the presence of mitochondria, which were introduced with monkey fibroblasts into rabbit recipient cytoplasm, was confirmed up to the blastocyst stage by polymerase chain reaction (PCR). This study demonstrated that: (1) rabbit oocytes can reprogramme cynomolgus monkey somatic cell nuclei, and support preimplantation development; (2) monkey–rabbit ISCNT embryos developed well in monkey culture medium at early embryonic developmental stages; (3) the cell number of monkey–rabbit ISCNT embryos is similar to that of rabbit–rabbit SCNT embryos; and (4) the mitochondrial fate of monkey–rabbit ISCNT embryos is heteroplasmic from the time just after injection to the blastocyst stage that has roots in both rabbit oocytes and monkey fibroblasts.

The electrical characteristics of silicon nanowire (SiNW) solar cells with p-type hydrogenated amorphous silicon oxide (Eg =1.9 eV)/n-type SiNWs embedded in SiO2/n-type hydrogenated amorphous silicon (Eg =1.7 eV) structure have been investigated using a two-dimensional device simulator with taking the quantum size effects into account. The average bandgap of a SiNW embedded in SiO2 increased from 1.15 eV to 2.71 eV with decreasing the diameter from 10 nm to 1 nm due to the quantum size effect. It should be noted that under the sunlight with AM1.5G the open-circuit voltage (Voc ) of SiNW solar cells also increased to 1.54 V with decreasing the diameter of the SiNWs to 1 nm. This result suggests that it is possible to enhance the Voc by the quantum size effect and a SiNW is a promising material for the all silicon tandem solar cells.

The infrared astronomical satellite AKARI performed an all sky survey at six infrared bands. We report here on the calibration of the all-sky image data, observed in the four long wavelength bands with the FIS instrument (AKARI Far-infrared All Sky Survey : AFASS). The preliminary image attains a calibration uncertainty and sensitivity of better than ~ 30% and ~ 10 MJy str−1, respectively, for all four bands. The point spread function (PSF) is obtained via a stacking technique. The data are shown to be useful for exploring the internal structure and dust spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of nearby galaxies.

Ecological, behavioural and anatomical observations of a commensal bivalve, Peregrinamor ohshimai (Mollusca: Galeommatoidea), were carried out in a tidal mudflat in the Seto Inland Sea, Japan. The bivalve attached specifically to the longitudinal groove of the ventral side of the cephalothorax of thalassinidean burrowing shrimps, Upogebia major and Lf. narutensis (Crustacea: Decapoda), singly, dorso-ventrally and longitudinally, using its byssus, with its anterior part towards the head of the host. The mantle of the commensal bivalve has wide anterior (branchio-pedal) and narrow posterior (exhalant) apertures. In the living organism, the extended anterior edges of the mantle protrude from the shell and are inserted into the host's filtering basket, which is formed by the setal rows of the first two pairs of pereiopods and utilized for intercepting suspended matter. By beating its pleopods in a U-shaped burrow, the filter-feeding Upogebia shrimp creates water currents, which are also utilized by the commensal bivalve for filter-feeding. The shell length of the commensal bivalve was in proportion to the host's carapace length. This suggests that the veliger larva attaches to a young host and grows, thus maintaining the host-commensal morphological matching. The bivalve is a hermaphrodite and individuals of >8–5 mm in shell length were already producing eggs. Anatomical observations suggest that P. ohshimai is most closely related to the Montacutidae in Galeommatoidea.

We investigated the fabrication of Si nanocrystals, including thin films, by annealing the SiO/C/SiO thin films in an Ar atmosphere. The SiO/C/SiO trilayered thin films were deposited on α-Al2O3 (0001), Si (111), or ITO-coated borosilicate glass substrates at room temperature by pulsed laser deposition using dual sintered SiO and graphite targets. The SiO/C/SiO thin films subjected to heat treatment at 500°C included nanocrystalline Si. Measurements by synchrotron radiation X-ray diffraction indicated the formation of Si nanocrystals having a size of 5–10 nm. Fourier transform infrared spectra showed that Si–O stretching and vibrational peak intensities of the as-deposited thin film decreased remarkably after annealing. The C layer in the SiO/C/SiO trilayered thin films is considered to play a role in enhancing the chemical reaction that produces Si nanocrystals through reduction of SiO during heat treatment. The annealed SiO/C-based thin films, including Si nanocrystals, exhibited photosensitive conduction behavior in current–voltage measurements.

The crystal growth of lanthanum hexaboride (LaB6) thin films was examined by applying the laser molecular beam epitaxy (laser MBE) process. C-axis (100) highly-oriented LaB6 thin films could be fabricated on ultrasmooth sapphire (α-Al2O3 single crystal) (0001) substrates with atomic steps of 0.2 nm in height and atomically flat terraces. The obtained film exhibited a smooth surface with root mean square roughness of 0.15 nm. The lattice parameter of the LaB6 thin film was close to the bulk value reported previously. In the case of deposition on commercial mirror-polished sapphire substrates, the grown film was amorphous. The resistivity of the prepared crystalline LaB6 thin films was as low as 2.2 × 10−4 Ω cm and almost constant in the temperature range of 10–300 K.

Selective heteroepitaxial growth of α-Al2O3 thin films on a NiO layer was investigated using an electron-beam assisted pulsed laser deposition process. The epitaxial NiO layer was grown on an ultrasmooth sapphire (α-Al2O3 single crystal) (0001) substrate. The α-Al2O3 thin film could be grown epitaxially only in the electron-beam irradiated region of the epitaxial NiO layer at 300°C, while the amorphous Al2O3 film was grown in the non-irradiated region. The homoepitaxial growth of α-Al2O3 thin films could not be attained on the sapphire (0001) substrate at 300°C. This indicates that the electron-beam irradiation enhances heteroepitaxial growth of the α-Al2O3 thin films on the NiO layer at 300°C. When we annealed the epitaxial Al2O3/NiO bilayer film at 350°C in a hydrogen atmosphere, we could reduce only the NiO layer to an epitaxial Ni metal layer, allowing the fabrication of epitaxial Al2O3/Ni (insulator/metal structure) films. The fabricated Al2O3/Ni bilayer films exhibited a very smooth surface.

We report on time-resolved CCD photometry of the newly-discovered dwarf nova, TSS J022216.4+412259.9 during its outburst in 2005 November–December. The best-estimated superhump period was 0.0554 days, which is the shortest superhump period among WZ Sge-type dwarf novae ever known. Double-peaked humps were also detected with a period of 0.05487 days in the early stage of the outburst. A rebrightening exhibited after the end of the plateau phase. All of these observations indicate the WZ Sge nature of the system. We mainly discuss the rebrightening stage of the superoutburst, compared with other WZ Sge-type dwarf novae.

We photometrically observed the 2003 superoutburst of GO Com, which is a candidate for WZ Sge-type dwarf novae (WZ). However, the obtained light curve is atypical of both types: a plateau stage is too short for SU UMa-type dwarf novae (SU) while the amplitude of the superoutburst is too small for WZ. In order to explain this behavior, it might be taken into account that the mass accretion onto the white dwarf is efficient during quiescence.

An ecologically unique cirripede, Octolasmis unguisiformis sp. nov. (Cirripedeia: Thoracica: Poecilasmatidae), was found to be ectosymbiotic with an ocypodid crab, Macrophthalmus milloti, on tidal flats of the Amami Islands, the Ryukyu Archipelago, Japan. The cirripedes were attached to the ventral side of the crab carapace, around the bases of the first and second ambulatory legs. The cirripedes resemble the chelipeds of male host crabs. Adult cirripedes were found only on female crabs, whereas juvenile cirripedes were present on crabs of both sexes, suggesting that the survival rate of the cirripedes on female crabs was higher than that of those on male crabs. The cheliped-like appearance and female-biased distribution of the cirripedes are discussed from the standpoint of mutualism between the crab and the epizoic cirripede.

We studied the crystallization mechanism of ultra-fast phase change optical disks with recording layers made of GaSb material for digital versatile disk (DVD) systems. The results of a static recording test and an amorphous mark formation simulation suggest that GaSb maintains a high crystal growth rate even at temperatures 150 degrees lower than the material's melting point. Disks with recording layers made of this material have a write speed margin ranging from DVD 3× to 8× or more.