Ecological Guild Evolution and the Discovery of the World's Smallest Vertebrate

Living vertebrates vary drastically in body size, yet few taxa reach the extremely minute size of some frogs and teleost fish. Here we describe two new species of diminutive terrestrial frogs from the megadiverse hotspot island of New Guinea, one of which represents the smallest known vertebrate species, attaining an average body size of only 7.7 mm. Both new species are members of the recently described genus Paedophryne, the four species of which are all among the ten smallest known frog species, making Paedophryne the most diminutive genus of anurans. This discovery highlights intriguing ecological similarities among the numerous independent origins of diminutive anurans, suggesting that minute frogs are not mere oddities, but represent a previously unrecognized ecological guild

Electrochemical behaviour of cytochrome c at electrically heated microelectrodes

The structural changes in cytochrome c with temperature have been been followed using a recently developed electrically-heated microelectrode sensor. Differential pulse voltammetry was used to perform electrochemical measurements of cytochrome c oxidation at different temperatures at heated bare gold electrodes contained in phosphate-buffered cytochrome c solution at room temperature. The voltammetric response shows the onset of unfolding and a marked dependence of the signal on electrode temperature. This augurs well for applications of heated electrodes as local probes in the study of the temperature dependence of electron transfer processes of other redox proteins, avoiding problems of bulk deterioration.http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B6TGX-3VKCCRN-D/1/171b8580ef00f2e0f90392182b57bde