Implementing classical adding circuits using unconventional, or even living substrates such as slime mould Physarum polycephalum, is made difficult and often impractical by the challenges of branching fan-out of inputs and regions where circuit lines must cross without interference.
It is also profoundly destructive in that the living coral substrate is also blasted to hell and there is no longer adequate habitat for fish to re-colonize the depleted reef.
Thermozymes are reported to be more stable at various environmental stresses with higher specific activities, longer half-lives, substrate solubility and more diffusion rates, thereby aiding in the process economy (Anbar et al. 2012; Wu and Arnold 2013).
For example, to study the functions of biomacromolecules in living cells, substrates and enzymes/proteins need to be dissolved in high-viscosity liquids and homogeneously mixed before the enzymatic reaction takes place.
Gnathiid isopods are ecologically important marine ectoparasites, micropredators that live in substrate for most of their lives, emerging only once during each juvenile stage to feed on fish blood.
For example, sand-dwelling (psammophilic) species exhibit a morphology that both adapts and restricts them to living in this substrate.
In contrast, as seen above, the species living in muddy substrate appear unaffected by the salt marsh around at the Yangtze River estuary.
GFP and other genetically-encoded autofluorescent protein reporters have a number of properties that make them ideal for multidimentional imaging of living specimens: no substrate (except photons) is required to generate signal, they have a high signal-to-noise ratio, are non-toxic, stable at 37°C and resistant to photobleaching.
For long-term (1 week) live imaging, substrates were mounted in a 24-well plate (ImageLock, Essen Instruments) using PDMS as glue and allowed to set for 24 h.
