A new species of Askola Peters, 1969 (Ephemeroptera: Leptophlebiidae) from Southeastern Brazil.

Askola fortuita sp. nov. is described based on male imagos from Southeastern Brazil, near Caparaó National Park. The new species is somewhat similar to A. froehlichi Peters, 1969 in regards to development of the male compound eyes and relative length of penis, but can be readily distinguished from this and other species of the genus by the following characteristics: dorsal portion of compound eyes widely meeting on meson of head; forewings hyaline; femora white, with a submedial mark and an apical band, both orangish brown; abdominal coloration mostly translucent white; genitalia with styliger plate washed with brown and red laterally, forceps segment I reddish-brown on basal » , remainder translucent white, penes yellowish brown; penes not extending beyond posterior margin of styliger plate.

Experimental and Simulation Studies on Nonwoven Polypropylene-Nitrile Rubber Blend: Recycling of Medical Face Masks to an Engineering Product.

The battle against the COVID-19 pandemic counters the waste management system, as billions of single-use face masks are used per day all over the world. Proper disposal of used face masks without jeopardizing the health and the environment is a challenge. Herein, a novel method for recycling of medical face masks has been studied. This method incorporates the nonwoven polypropylene (PP) fiber, which is taken off from the mask after disinfecting it, with acrylonitrile butadiene rubber (NBR) using maleic anhydride as the compatibilizer, which results in a PP-NBR blend with a high percentage economy. The PP-NBR blends show enhanced thermomechanical properties among which, 70 wt % PP content shows superior properties compared to other composites with 40, 50, and 60 wt % of PP. The fully Atomistic simulation of PP-NBR blend with compatibilizer shows an improved tensile and barrier properties, which is in good agreement with the experimental studies. The molecular dynamics simulation confirms that the compatibility between non-polar PP and polar NBR phases are vitally important for increasing the interfacial adhesion and impeding the phase separation.

Two new species and two new records of the genus Tenuibaetis Kang & Yang, 1994 (Ephemeroptera: Baetidae) from Indian Himalaya.

As part of ongoing exploration of the mayflies of streams and rivers of Indian Himalayan regions, we describe two new species of the genus Tenuibaetis based on recently collected materials from Western Himalaya viz., Tenuibaetis himani Kubendran, Vasanth & Subramanian sp. nov. and Tenuibaetis kangi Kubendran, Vasanth & Subramanian sp. nov. Additionally, two new records from Eastern Himalaya viz., T. arduus (Kang & Yang, 1994) and T. inornatus (Kang & Yang, 1994) are presented. The biological notes of the stream/rivers are appended. A key to the known Indian species of the genus Tenuibaetis and a distribution maps are provided.

A new species and new record of the genus Platybaetis Mller-Liebenau, 1980 (Ephemeroptera: Baetidae) from Eastern Himalaya, India.

A new species of Platybaetis viz., P. selvai sp. nov. is described herein based on larval collections from Tangon stream in the state of Arunachal Pradesh in Eastern region of Indian Himalaya. It can be differentiated by the following combination of characters: (i) posterior margin of abdominal segments IX with rounded 'U shaped spines; (ii) anterolateral margin of gills IVII with minute setae; (iii) claw with 78 denticles; (iv) paracercus composed of 1011 segments; (v) hindwing pads reduced, small. Brief ecological notes are appended.

Defect minimized Ag-ZnO microneedles for photocatalysis.

A facile solution processing strategy has been developed for the formation of Ag-modified ZnO microneedles at various calcination temperatures such as 300, 500, and 700 °C (AZ3, AZ5, and AZ7 respectively). Due to the heavy doping of AgNO3, Ag+ ions have been incorporated in to the crystal lattice of ZnO in all the Ag-ZnO samples, which facilitated the formation of Ag-ZnO microneedle morphology with minimized defect states, and obviously, the plasmon peaks were observed due to Ag modification. These Ag-ZnO microneedle structures have been evaluated for their photocatalytic performance using methylene blue as model target contaminant and their activity was compared with the commercially available titania P25 photocatalyst. The photoactivity of all the Ag-ZnO microneedle structures was significantly higher than that of the commercially available P25 photocatalyst with the most active Ag-ZnO material having a photocatalytic activity ~ 1.4 times greater than that of P25 titania.