
	Where results make sense

Topic: Ophiocoma wendtii

Related Topics

Bank of South Australia

Strepsiptera

Copernicus

Elda

Bee

Curtiss JN 4

XII

Pythonidae

2002 in Australia

Bear Run, Pennsylvania

In the News (Sun 20 Dec 09)

Northern Trust

Marvin Harrison

Peter Chernin

Gary Locke

Match Play

Penelope Cruz

Mickey Rourke

AR Rahman

Danny Boyle

Hugh Jackman

	Ophiocoma wendtii - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		The brittle star Ophiocoma wendtii inhabits coral reefs from Bermuda to Brazil.
		It is known for its advanced compound eyes.
		The only known animals to employ a similar visual system were the now-extinct trilobites.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Ophiocoma_wendtii (123 words)

	Brittlestars use crystal lenses to spot approaching predators unique “visual” system is the first of its kind to be ...
		Dr. Hendler brought their attention to one particular species of brittlestars, Ophiocoma wendtii; he had found that this species, which appears to be particularly sensitive to light, can change its color.
		By altering the distance between the lenses and the material, she found that the estimated focal distance of each lens — at which the lens concentrates the light by about 50 times- coincided with the depth at which nerve bundles, which presumably serve as photoreceptors, are located in the bodies of brittlestars.
		Thus the crystalline lenses and the pigmented cells in the skeletons of Ophiocoma wendtii brittlestars act as “corrective glasses,” filtering and focusing light on the photoreceptors.
	www.eurekalert.org /pub_releases/2001-08/wi-buc082001.php (827 words)

	The Reef Tank - Keep an EYE on your Brittle Stars...
		The visual system of lenses in the species Ophiocoma wendtii is the first of its kind observed in nature and is superior to any manufactured lenses, said Joanna Aizenberg, a researcher at Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey.
		wendtii is about the size of an outstretched human hand and lives in coral reefs from Bermuda to Brazil.
		She removed a cluster of the calcite crystals from O. wendtii and placed them on a sheet of light-sensitive material.
	www.thereeftank.com /forums/showthread.php?t=11508 (842 words)

	Brittle Star Features Calcite Lenses - November, 2001 (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-03)
		O. wendtii, in particular, is intriguing because the animal reacts to visual stimuli, such as those indicating the presence of a predator or of a refuge on the seafloor.
		wendtii and a related but fairly photoinsensitive species, Ophiocoma pumila, under a scanning electron microscope, they noted a clear difference in the structure of the dorsal arm plates.
		wendtii's feature an array of 40- to 50-µm-diameter spherical calcite crystals, which they characterized in lithography experiments, using the lenses as a mask.
	www.photonics.com /spectra/tech/XQ/ASP/techid.1234/QX/read.htm (607 words)

	California Wild Winter 2002 - Horizons (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-03)
		A brittlestar known as Ophiocoma wendtii arms itself with thousands of microscopic lenses when it constructs its skeleton.
		wendtii’s lenses began with the simple observation that, come nightfall, its color changes from a drab reddish-brown to dramatic stripes of gray and fl.
		wendtii’s optical achievement possible is the very substance of its skeleton, calcium carbonate.
	www.calacademy.org /calwild/2002winter/stories/horizons.html (1473 words)

	Physics Today October 2001
		These marine invertebrates lack anything immediately recognizable as eyes, yet some species, such as Ophiocoma wendtii, show a remarkable light sensitivity: As shown in the top figure, they change color from day (upper) to night (lower), and they can detect and dart into shadows or crevices when predators approach.
		wendtii is due to mobile pigment-containing cells that act somewhat as irises, regulating the amount of light that reaches the lenses.
		wendtii is sensitive to lower levels of illumination at night than it is during the day.
	www.physicstoday.org /pt/vol-54/iss-10/p20.html (625 words)

	Brittle Star Found Covered With Optically Advanced "Eyes" (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-03)
		Gordon Hendler, a marine biologist at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County in Los Angeles, California, and co-author of the study, discovered that O.
		wendtii is sensitive to light and can change color.
		The brittle star Ophiocoma wendtii has a bodily network of lenses that scientists say are superior to manufactured lenses.
	news.nationalgeographic.com /news/2001/08/0822_starfisheyes.html (539 words)

	Chemical & Engineering News NanoFocus: MATERIALS POTPOURRI (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-03)
		wendtii with the fact that the organism seems to have no specialized eyes.
		wendtii's dorsal arm plates, which are on every joint of the brittlestar, she noted that they are covered by a thick, transparent material made up of hemispherical structures [J.
		wendtii's diurnal to nocturnal color change is caused by pigment-filled tissue, which comes out of the pores surrounding each lens.
	pubs.acs.org /cen/nanofocus/top/83/8301materials.html (3073 words)

	ExtremeTech: Starfish Cousin Evolves Natural, Superior Microlenses
		It is commonly called the serpent star for the snake-like movements of its five long, slender, fragile arms which are set off sharply from its star-shaped body.
		Each microlens of the brittlestar Ophiocoma wendtii acts as an independent light collector -- focusing light about 5 micrometers (5 millionths of a meter) behind its surface.
		Hendler recalled noting that Ophiocoma wendtii, which appears to be particularly sensitive to light, can change its color.
	www.findarticles.com /p/articles/mi_zdext/is_200108/ai_ziff12773 (815 words)

	See Creature - National Wildlife Magazine (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-03)
		The five limbs of Ophiocoma wendtii, a spindly relative of the starfish, are covered with hundreds of tiny lenses that allow the creature to see approaching enemies.
		wendtii, common in the Caribbean, changes its color at night and moves to dark crevices when threatened.
		Alexei Tkachenko and Joanna Aizenberg at Lucent Technologies' Bell Labs and colleagues in Israel and California recently found that tiny calcite crystals in the brittle star's external skeleton focus light onto nerve bundles in the creature's body.
	www.nwf.org /nationalwildlife/printerFriendly.cfm?issueID=40&articleID=456 (193 words)

	VEN: Echinoderms in the News
		The "Nature" paper describes a remarkable experiment that characterizes the crystalline microlenses on the arms of Ophiocoma wendtii, and discusses some implications of their optical properties, including the potential for a compound eye system in echinoderms.
		Their contributions substantiated the interactions between skeleton, chromatophores, and nerves that are responsible for Ophiocoma's sensitivity to light, and set the stage for the publication by Aizenberg et al.
		SEM of a cross section of the dorsal arm plate of Ophiocoma wendtii.
	www.nmnh.si.edu /iz/echinoderm/news/body_news.html (215 words)

	California Academy of Sciences - Science Now (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-03)
		Some brittlestars such as Ophiocoma wendtii have taken crystal construction further.
		wendtii is studded with beadlike, microscopic lenses that together may function like a compound eye.
		While the animal probably doesn't see images, each lens collects light from a single direction and focuses it onto underlying nerve bundles, allowing it to detect a predator's shadow from nearly anywhere on its body.
	www.calacademy.org /science_now/archive/wild_lives/brittlestar.html (207 words)

	ScienceWeek
		For example, arm ossicles from light-sensitive species of brittlestar, Ophiocoma wendtii, have regular arrays of inorganic microstructures with a characteristic double-lens design(2).
		The authors report that certain single calcite crystals used by brittlestars for skeletal construction are also a component of specialized photosensory organs, conceivably with the function of a compound eye.
		2) The analysis of arm ossicles in Ophiocoma showed that in light-sensitive species, the periphery of the labyrinthic calcitic skeleton extends into a regular array of spherical microstructures that have a characteristic double-lens design.
	scienceweek.com /2004/sc040116-3.htm (935 words)

	Title of Web Page: The title should be a maximum of 64 characters long and include the most relevant keywords of your ... (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-03)
		The cuticles of certain brittlestar species are made up of tiny natural lenses, as evident in this scanning electron microscopic image.
		(Lucent Technologies/Bell Labs) The protective plates of the brittlestar species Ophiocoma wendtii are made up of thousands of rows of very regular, microscopic bumps that are shaped as perfect lenses.
		After placing a light-sensitive lithograph under a section of the brittlestar's cuticle, Aizenberg revealed the tiny bumps focus spots of light toward a grid of regular points.
	www.skwerl.net /~cheetasearch/ryan/Tech (873 words)

	Scientific American: Study Suggests Brainless Brittlestars Have Sophisticated Visual System (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-03)
		The crystals found in their light-sensitive cousins, the researchers reasoned, thus might well function to focus light onto underlying photosensitive tissues.
		To assess the lensing effect, the team placed a calcite crystal array from the species Ophiocoma wendtii above a layer of photosensitive material and exposed it to light.
		Subsequent examination of the photosensitive material showed that the light had left its mark in spots that had been directly underneath calcite crystals.
	www.sciam.com /print_version.cfm?articleID=000D9390-A91A-1C60-B882809EC588ED9F (361 words)

	Integrative and Comparative Biology: Poster Abstracts (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-03)
		We have begun to develop the brittle star system as a means to study evolution of the genes that underlay skeleton formation in echinoderms.
		We here describe methods to obtain gametes from and the development of Ophiocoma wendtii.
		We compare this to sea urchin development, and find interesting variations on morphogenetic processes, including a lack of embryonic pigment cells and differences in formation of the 1.rval arms.
	www.findarticles.com /p/articles/mi_qa4054/is_200412/ai_n9520517/pg_41 (1364 words)

	NPR's All Things Considered: Optically Perfect Lenses on Brittlestars
		Researchers quoted in this week's edition of Nature have discovered that built into the skeletons of brittlestars -- animals similar to starfish, but much more mobile -- are arrays of near-perfect microscopic crystals that focus light.
		Scientist Joanna Aizenberg of Bell Laboratories/Lucent Technologies in Murray Hill, New Jersey, working with marine biologist Gordon Hendler and a team of colleagues, discovered that tiny lenses on the surface of the brittlestar Ophiocoma wendtii focus light about five micrometers (5/1,000,000th of a meter) below the surface.
		And just below the surface are bundles of nerves that the scientists believe pick up the light signal and transmit it to the animal's nervous system.
	www.npr.org /programs/atc/features/2001/aug/010822.brittlestars.html (266 words)

	Untitled Document (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-03)
		Ophiocoma wendtii, a brittle star, prefers the dark.
		The investigators used a scanning electron microscope to look at skeletal calcite plates from the upper surface of a member of the light-sensitive brittle star species Ophiocoma wendtii.
		What they saw was an unusual pattern of densely packed, crystal-clear bumps, each thinner than a human hair.
	biomechanics.bio.uci.edu /_html/nh_biomech/brittlestar/brittle.htm (1152 words)

	Ophiocoma wendtii (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-03)
		Set home page · Bookmark site · Add search
		The brittlestar Ophiocoma wendtii inhabits coral reefs from Bermuda to Brazil.
		The only known animal to employ a similar visual system, are the trilobites.
	www.sciencedaily.com /encyclopedia/ophiocoma_wendtii (169 words)

	Starfish Story
		A spidery relative of the starfish has turned its entire body into an all-seeing eye, scientists revealed today.
		Researchers have discovered microscopic crystals built into the external skeleton of the brittlestar Ophiocoma wendtii which act as eyes.
		Each crystal is a near-perfect lens far smaller than anything made by human technology.
	www.jnweb.com /life/starfish.html (490 words)

	Feeding Guilds in Reef Echinoderms
		Examination of the arm shields in the brittlestar
		wendtii showed the presence of a regular array of spherical microstructures that look like lenses.
		Experiments showed that these microstructures, which are absent in closely related but light-indifferent species of brittlestars, were indeed sophisticated optical elements that have the optimal design for focusing light.
	www.fiu.edu /~goldberg/coralreefs/Echinoderms.htm (3362 words)

	In the News: Eyeless Creature Turns Out to Be All Eyes
		Now scientists have discovered its secret: its entire skeleton forms a big eye.
		A new study shows that a brittle star species called Ophiocoma wendtii has a skeleton with crystals that function as a visual system, apparently furnishing the information that lets the animal see its surroundings and escape harm.
		The brittlestar architecture is giving ideas to scientists who want to build tiny lenses for things like optical computing.
	www.arn.org /docs2/news/neweyedesign90401.htm (738 words)

	Figure - Nature Biotechnology
		(b) The calcite microlenses of Ophiocoma wendtii after chemical cleaning to remove proteins and other organic substances.
		Bottom, the pathway of light is focused by the microlens
		Spicules embedded in epoxide act as single-mode or few-mode waveguide (left); free-standing spicules act as multimode waveguide (right panel)
	www.nature.com /nbt/journal/v21/n10/fig_tab/nbt874_F4.html (103 words)

	DCMP Image Gallery (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-03)
		Theoretical potential-energy surface for Mn adsorption on GaAs(001), calculated within density-functional theory.
		Scanning electron micrograph (SEM) of a part of the skeleton of a brittlestar Ophiocoma wendtii (Ophioroidea, Echinodermata).
		The entire structure (the mesh and the array of microlenses) is composed of a single calcite crystal used by the organism for mechanical and optical functions.
	dcmp.bc.edu /page?name=gallery (1145 words)

	Ron Claxton Personal Web Site
		They also sport a darker hue during daylight and turn lighter at night.
		At least one brittle star species, Ophiocoma wendtii, is covered with 50,000 to 100,000 tiny lenses that gather light like eyes.
		According to Joanna Aizenberg, a materials scientist at Lucent Technologies' Bell Laboratories, "By day it's as if they're wearing sunglasses.
	www.ronclaxton.com (2121 words)

	Fabrication of novel biomaterials through molecular self-assembly - Nature Biotechnology
		The most advanced top-down technology for fabricating a complex optical systems falls far short when compared with the accomplishments of living organisms at ambient temperature and low pressure (and without clean rooms)
		Several groups have studied biomineralization in diverse marine organisms, notably the brittlestar Ophiocoma wendtii and the sponge Euplectella.
		Some remarkable living optical systems have been uncovered, such as the fiber-optical spicules from Euplectella that have the dimensions of a single human hair and can act as multimode waveguides (Fig.
	www.nature.com /cgi-taf/DynaPage.taf?file=/nbt/journal/v21/n10/full/nbt874.html (5330 words)

	Come, and close my eyes - Deccan Herald (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-03)
		If elegance is what you crave, how about a total body eyesuit?
		Check out the brittle star, a five-armed echinoderm, the Ophiocoma wendtii.
		Its spiky bodysuit is made up of hundreds of calcite crystals that function as lenses, focussing on a scatter of photosensitive cells which trigger the neural network beneath its skin.
	www.deccanherald.com /deccanherald/sep062004/snt10.asp (813 words)

Try your search on: Qwika (all wikis)