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1. An Enigmatic Miniaturized and Attenuate Whole Lizard from the Mid-Cretaceous Amber of Myanmar

   https://doi.org/doi.org/10.3099/MCZ49.1  

   DAZA, JD; BAUER, AM; STANLEY, EL; BOLET, A; DICKSON, B; LOSOS, JB (November 2018, Breviora)

   We report the discovery of a new genus and species of amber-preserved lizard from the mid-Cretaceous of Myanmar. The fossil is one of the smallest and most complete Cretaceous lizards ever found, preserving both the articulated skeleton and remains of the muscular system and other soft tissues. Despite its completeness, its state of preservation obscures important diagnostic features.We determined its taxonomic allocation using two approaches: we used previously identified autapomorphies of squamates that were observable in the fossil; and we included the fossil in a large squamate morphological data set. The apomorphy-based identification of this specimen, including comparative data on trunk elongation in squamates, suggests its allocation to the stem-group Anguimorpha. Results from the phylogenetic analysis places the fossil in one of four positions: as sister taxon of either Shinisaurus crocodilurus or Parasaniwa wyomingensis, at the root of Varanoidea, or in a polytomy with Varanoidea and a fossorial group retrieved in a previous assessment of squamate relationships. It is clear that this fossil has many similarities with anguimorph squamates and, if this taxonomic allocation is correct, this fossil would represent the first amber-preserved member of stem Anguimorpha ever recorded, and the smallest known member of that group. It further emphasizes the role of amber inclusions in expanding our understanding of the diversity of Cretaceous lizard communities. 

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2. Hirsutisoma grimaldii sp. nov., a ca. 99-million-year-old ricinuleid (Primoricinulei, Hirsutisomidae) from Cretaceous Burmese amber with a corticolous, scansorial lifestyle

   https://doi.org/10.11646/palaeoentomology.5.5.11  

   BOTERO-TRUJILLO, RICARDO; DAVIS, STEVEN R.; MICHALIK, PETER; PRENDINI, LORENZO (September 2022, Palaeoentomology)

   Ricinulei Thorell, 1876 is an order of Arachnida currently represented in the New and Old Worlds by 103 living species. The order is also represented in the fossil record from the Carboniferous (ca. 305–319 Ma) and the Cretaceous (ca. 99 Ma) periods. In the present contribution, Hirsutisoma grimaldii sp. nov., a new extinct species of the suborder Primoricinulei Wunderlich, 2015, is described from a specimen preserved in Cretaceous Burmese amber. The specimen is a well-preserved adult male in which several taxonomically informative structures are visible, allowing the new species to be differentiated from Hirsutisoma bruckschi Wunderlich, 2017, the only other congener for which a male is known. This description raises the number of Cretaceous Ricinulei species to six. A comparative table documents morphological differences among the various species of this lineage. Hypotheses concerning the paleoecology and functional morphology of this species and, by extrapolation, other primoricinuleids, are presented. The evidence suggests that Primoricinulei were corticolous, scansorial predators. 

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3. A New Genus and Species Representing the First Leafhopper (Hemiptera: Cicadellidae) from Eocene Rovno Amber

   https://doi.org/10.11646/palaeoentomology.3.2.7  

   DIETRICH, CHRISTOPHER H.; PERKOVSKY, EVGENY E. (April 2020, Palaeoentomology)

   null (Ed.)

   Rovnotettix brachypterus gen. et sp. nov. is described and illustrated from Eocene Rovno (Ukraine) amber and tentatively placed in subfamily Bathysmatophorinae, tribe Malmaemichungiini. The new fossil is the first cicadellid described from Rovno amber from the Volyn region and the second brachypterous leafhopper adult described from the fossil record. It does not appear to be closely related to Brevaphrodella Dietrich & Gonçalves from Eocene Baltic amber, indicating that multiple flightless cicadellid lineages, now mostly associated with dry habitats with patchy vegetation, had evolved in Europe by the Eocene. 

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4. An Autonomous Molecular Bioluminescent Reporter (AMBER) for Voltage Imaging in Freely Moving Animals

   https://doi.org/10.1002/adbi.202100842  

   Srinivasan, Prasanna; Griffin, Nicole_M; Thakur, DhananjayP; Joshi, PradeepM; Nguyen‐Le, Alex; McCotter, Sean; Jain, Akshar; Saeidi, Mitra; Kulkarni, Prajakta; Eisdorfer, Jaclyn_T; et al (November 2021, Advanced Biology)

   Abstract Genetically encoded reporters have greatly increased our understanding of biology. While fluorescent reporters have been widely used, photostability and phototoxicity have hindered their use in long‐term experiments. Bioluminescence overcomes some of these challenges but requires the addition of an exogenous luciferin limiting its use. Using a modular approach, Autonomous Molecular BioluminEscent Reporter (AMBER), an indicator of membrane potential is engineered. Unlike other bioluminescent systems, AMBER is a voltage‐gated luciferase coupling the functionalities of the Ciona voltage‐sensing domain (VSD) and bacterial luciferase, luxAB. When co‐expressed with the luciferin‐producing genes, AMBER reversibly switches the bioluminescent intensity as a function of membrane potential. Using biophysical and biochemical methods, it is shown that AMBER switches its enzymatic activity from an OFF to an ON state as a function of the membrane potential. Upon depolarization, AMBER switches from a low to a high enzymatic activity state, showing a several‐fold increase in the bioluminescence output (ΔL/L). AMBER in the pharyngeal muscles and mechanosensory touch neurons ofCaenorhabditis elegansis expressed. Using the compressed sensing approach, the electropharingeogram of theC. eleganspharynx is reconstructed, validating the sensor in vivo. Thus, AMBER represents the first fully genetically encoded bioluminescent reporter without requiring exogenous luciferin addition. 

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5. Amber: A 16-nm System-on-Chip With a Coarse- Grained Reconfigurable Array for Flexible Acceleration of Dense Linear Algebra

   https://doi.org/10.1109/JSSC.2023.3313116  

   Feng, Kathleen; Kong, Taeyoung; Koul, Kalhan; Melchert, Jackson; Carsello, Alex; Liu, Qiaoyi; Nyengele, Gedeon; Strange, Maxwell; Zhang, Keyi; Nayak, Ankita; et al (March 2024, IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits)

   Amber is a system-on-chip (SoC) with a coarse-grained reconfigurable array (CGRA) for acceleration of dense linear algebra applications, such as machine learning (ML), image processing, and computer vision. It is designed using an agile accelerator-compiler co-design flow; the compiler updates automatically with hardware changes, enabling continuous application-level evaluation of the hardware-software system. To increase hardware utilization and minimize reconfigurability overhead, Amber features the following: 1) dynamic partial reconfiguration (DPR) of the CGRA for higher resource utilization by allowing fast switching between applications and partitioning resources between simultaneous applications; 2) streaming memory controllers supporting affine access patterns for efficient mapping of dense linear algebra; and 3) low-overhead transcendental and complex arithmetic operations. The physical design of Amber features a unique clock distribution method and timing methodology to efficiently layout its hierarchical and tile-based design. Amber achieves a peak energy efficiency of 538 INT16 GOPS/W and 483 BFloat16 GFLOPS/W. Compared with a CPU, a GPU, and a field-programmable gate array (FPGA), Amber has up to 3902x, 152x, and 107x better energy-delay product (EDP), respectively. 

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