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Seadragons are a remarkable lineage of teleost fishes in the family Syngnathidae, renowned for having evolved male pregnancy. Comprising three known species, seadragons are widely recognized and admired for their fantastical body forms and coloration, and their specific habitat requirements have made them flagship representatives for marine conservation and natural history interests. Until recently, a gap has been the lack of significant genomic resources for seadragons. We have produced gene-annotated, chromosome-scale genome models for the leafy and weedy seadragon to advance investigations of evolutionary innovation and elaboration of morphological traits in seadragons as well as their pipefish and seahorse relatives. We identified several interesting features specific to seadragon genomes, including divergent noncoding regions near a developmental gene important for integumentary outgrowth, a high genome-wide density of repetitive DNA, and recent expansions of transposable elements and a vesicular trafficking gene family. Surprisingly, comparative analyses leveraging the seadragon genomes and additional syngnathid and outgroup genomes revealed striking, syngnathid-specific losses in the family of fibroblast growth factors (FGFs), which likely involve reorganization of highly conserved gene regulatory networks in ways that have not previously been documented in natural populations. The resources presented here serve as important tools for future evolutionary studies of developmental processes in syngnathids and hold value for conservation of the extravagant seadragons and their relatives. 

Abstract π‐conjugated polymers (CPs) that are concurrently soft and stretchable are needed for deformable electronics. Molecular‐level modification of indacenodithiophene (IDT) copolymers, a class of CPs that exhibit high hole mobilities (_hole), is an approach that can help realize intrinsically soft and stretchable CPs. Numerous examples of design strategies to adjust the stretchability of CPs exist, but imparting softness is comparatively less studied. In this study, a systematic molecular weight (MW) series is constructed on a promising candidate for soft CPs, poly(indacenodithiophene‐co‐thienopyrroledione) (p(IDT_C16‐TPD_C8)), by optimizing direct arylation polymerization conditions in hopes of improving stretchability andμ_holewithout significantly impacting softness. We found p(IDT_C16‐TPD_C8) at a degree of polymerization of 32 shows high stretchability (crack onset strain,CoS> 100%) without significantly impacting softness (elastic modulus,E= 32 MPa), which to the best of our knowledge outperforms previously reported stretchable and soft CPs. To further study how molecular‐level modifications impact polymer properties, a MW series of a new extended donor unit polymer, poly(indacenodithienothiophene‐co‐thienopyrroledione) (p(IDTT_C16‐TPD_C8)), was synthesized. The IDTT_C16copolymers did not result in a greater averageμ_holewhen comparing between p(IDTT_C16‐TPD_C8) and p(IDT_C16‐TPD_C8) despite their higher crystallinity observed by GIWAXS. While these findings warrant further investigation, this study points toward unique charge transport properties of IDT‐based polymers. 

To investigate preferences for mobile and wearable sound awareness systems, we conducted an online survey with 201 DHH participants. The survey explores how demographic factors affect perceptions of sound awareness technologies, gauges interest in specific sounds and sound characteristics, solicits reactions to three design scenarios (smartphone, smartwatch, head-mounted display) and two output modalities (visual, haptic), and probes issues related to social context of use. While most participants were highly interested in being aware of sounds, this interest was modulated by communication preference--that is, for sign or oral communication or both. Almost all participants wanted both visual and haptic feedback and 75% preferred to have that feedback on separate devices (e.g., haptic on smartwatch, visual on head-mounted display). Other findings related to sound type, full captions vs. keywords, sound filtering, notification styles, and social context provide direct guidance for the design of future mobile and wearable sound awareness systems.