The Muller F element (4.2 Mb, ~80 protein-coding genes) is an unusual autosome of Drosophila melanogaster; it is mostly heterochromatic with a low recombination rate. To investigate how these properties impact the evolution of repeats and genes, we manually improved the sequence and annotated the genes on the D. erecta, D. mojavensis, and D. grimshawi F elements and euchromatic domains from the Muller D element. We find that F elements have greater transposon density (25–50%) than euchromatic reference regions (3–11%). Among the F elements, D. grimshawi has the lowest transposon density (particularly DINE-1: 2% vs. 11–27%). F element genes have larger coding spans, more coding exons, larger introns, and lower codon bias. Comparison of the Effective Number of Codons with the Codon Adaptation Index shows that, in contrast to the other species, codon bias in D. grimshawi F element genes can be attributed primarily to selection instead of mutational biases, suggesting that density and types of transposons affect the degree of local heterochromatin formation. F element genes have lower estimated DNA melting temperatures than D element genes, potentially facilitating transcription through heterochromatin. Most F element genes (~90%) have remained on that element, but the F element has smaller syntenic blocks than genome averages (3.4–3.6 vs. 8.4–8.8 genes per block), indicating greater rates of inversion despite lower rates of recombination. Overall, the F element has maintained characteristics that are distinct from other autosomes in the Drosophila lineage, illuminating the constraints imposed by a heterochromatic milieu.

Composite materials are of interest because they can potentially combine the properties of their respective components in a manner that is useful for specific applications. Here, we report on the use of coffee as a low-cost, green reductant for the room temperature formation of catalytically active, supported metal nanoparticles. Specifically, we have leveraged the reduction potential of coffee in order to grow Pd and Ag nanoparticles at the surface of porous carbon microspheres synthesized via ultraspray pyrolysis. The metal nanoparticle-on-carbon microsphere composites were characterized using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA). To demonstrate the catalytic activity of Pd/C and Ag/C materials, Suzuki coupling reactions and nitroaromatic reduction reactions were employed, respectively.3