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Steve Haddock

@stevehaddock.bsky.social
2K followers 283 following 262 posts

Marine biology, ctenophores, bioluminescence, deep-sea, genomics, computing for biologists. The Radiant Sea. Photo book. Cello? Views my own. bit.ly/arms-deep bit.ly/radsea

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Steve Haddock @stevehaddock.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Obsoleting my previous post..! Custom sequence logo generation for proteins is now avaiable through a browser interface, with a dark theme option for your conference presentations. 🧪 beroe.github.io/sequence-log...
preview of the web page for sequence-logo generation.
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Steve Haddock @stevehaddock.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
I have never liked the style of these protein sequence logos, so I subdued the colors and had Claude make a custom version that can use any typeface. Small details: it does not fatten sans serif 'I' characters and puts a tiny gap between letters. All user configurable. 🧪 github.com/beroe/sequen...
Colored images of letters on a white background. The letters are derived from an amino acid sequence alignment, and their height represents their frequency in the sequence. Generated by the seqlogo.py script linked from the repo in the main text.
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Steve Haddock @stevehaddock.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
If you’re known by the company you keep, I’m in good shape with this article about ctenophores. Great to be paired up with these luminaries, including @ibudin.bsky.social 🦑🌊🧪
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Steve Haddock @stevehaddock.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
One year ago, The Radiant Sea appeared in print! Still super happy with how it turned out. Our mission to share a different view of ocean life seems to have succeeded.💙 Named a top ten photography book of 2025 by @smithsonianmag.bsky.social, and many anecdotes from people who appreciated it. 🙏 🌊🧪🦑
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Corey Garza @profcgarza.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
Attending the 2026 Western Society of Naturalists Meeeting in Sacramento? Consider submitting an abstract to our session on the use of autonomous systems & machine learning in marine science. Research & education talks welcomed. Abstracts due September 9th. www.wsn-online.org/annual-meeti...
Collage of drones and other autonomous systems being used in the marine environment.
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Steve Haddock @stevehaddock.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
5800+ chromosome-scale genomes? ✅ Eye-popping visualizations? ✅ Spanning the entirety of animal evolution? ✅ The latest from Prof. Darrin Schultz and company 🧪
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Steve Haddock @stevehaddock.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
You know that feeling when you’re chasing a dream you’ve had for 20 years, and …. you get stung in the face by a Portuguese man o’war? Same. 🦑🌊🧪
Moon and  emus shining above a dark cloud.
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alex jaffe @alexjaf.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
my first 'data descriptor'! hoping this one will be useful for folks interested in tracing the distribution of genomes/genes/proteins over physicochemical gradients in the (deep) marine water column.
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Steve Haddock @stevehaddock.bsky.social · 27/05/2026
Attention fans of #ctenophores 🌊🦑🧪 Please consider joining us at the Ctenopalooza Ctwo conference/celebration in California this August. Support is potentially available for artists and communicators. www.mbari.org/event/ctenop... Register soon or miss out on the fun! Meals included!
mbari.org
Ctenopalooza Ctwo • MBARI
Ctenopalooza Ctwo – a meeting of those interested in ctenophores About the meeting The past decade has seen remarkable advances in our understanding of these fascinating animals—spanning genomics, cel...
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Michael LaFrance @mlafrance.bsky.social · 25/05/2026
A livestream of a volcano in the Philippines captured a meteor crashing to Earth today. What are the odds? Mayon Volcano, Location: Albay, Luzon, Philippines
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Michael Bok @mikebok.bsky.social · 21/04/2026
I am hiring a postdoc for scRNA-seq research in Lund, Sweden on the visual systems of non-model inverts as part of an ERC project on the evolution and ecology of advanced color and polarization vision. Apply here or share the link with someone who may be interested! 🧪 lu.varbi.com/en/what:job/...
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Steve Haddock @stevehaddock.bsky.social · 26/03/2026
Just when you thought one couldn't revolutionize typography, Riley and the Lettermatic team blow your mind! Nearly 750,000 glyphs! But my favorite is Texture Healing. Check it out!
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Riley Cran @rileycran.bsky.social · 25/03/2026
New work for GitHub: Monaspace. 🔤 A superfamily of 5 open-source typefaces for code. Full case study here: lettermatic.com/custom/monas...
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WoRMS @marinespecies.bsky.social · 19/03/2026
(3/10) The Golden Glow Zoantharian is the first documented deep-sea cave species to bioluminesce. www.marinespecies.org/worms-top-te... #toptenmarinespecies #taxonomistappreciationday #OceanDecade #GenOcean
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Julie Packard @juliepackard.montereybayaquarium.org · 14/03/2026
The ocean and all who love it lost an inspiring advocate with the passing this week of Tierney Thys. She brought such joy to the work of protecting and restoring our blue planet. This wonderful tribute from Danielle Thys captures her spirit so beautifully: bit.ly/4s4hVq6
bit.ly
The Ocean Legacy of National Geographic Explorer Dr. Tierney Thys
In Memoriam
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Darrin T. Schultz @dts.bsky.social · 05/03/2026
When you zoom out from individual genes to consider the context of whole chromosomes across animal diversity, animal evolution takes on a different look. Oleg Simakov and I published a review in @annualreviews.bsky.social on topological approaches in comparative genomics. 🧬 doi.org/10.1146/annu...
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Steve Haddock @stevehaddock.bsky.social · 25/02/2026
San Francisco-area fans of ocean animals and flashy colors. 🦑🌊🧪 I'll be giving a presentation about our book The Radiant Sea at 1 pm on Saturday Feb 28 at the Book Passage shop in Corte Madera. (Preposition overload!) Swing by and say Hi. www.bookpassage.com/event/steven...
Brittle star with green fluorescent armtip on black background.
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Michael Bok @mikebok.bsky.social · 24/02/2026
From our new paper out now in @currentbiology.bsky.social: www.cell.com/current-biol... w/ @neurofishh.bsky.social @gkafetzis.bsky.social @denilsson.bsky.social Looking across animals, the vertebrate eye is an obvious outlier. Why is it so different that other highly visual animals?
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George Matsumoto @georgeimatsumoto.bsky.social · 24/02/2026
🧪📍🌊 🦑🍎 We’re excited to announce that we are organizing a second ctenophore meeting — Ctenopalooza Ctwo — to be held at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) in Monterey Bay, California, on August 23–25, 2026. Registration is now open! www.mbari.org/event/ctenop...
mbari.org
Ctenopalooza Ctwo • MBARI
Ctenopalooza Ctwo – a meeting of those interested in ctenophores About the meeting The past decade has seen remarkable advances in our understanding of these fascinating animals—spanning genomics, cel...
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Steve Haddock @stevehaddock.bsky.social · 23/02/2026
Calling all #ctenophore researchers and artists! Joe Ryan is organizing the Ctenopalooza Ctwo meeting, which we will host at MBARI in California August 23-25. 🦑🧪🌊 www.mbari.org/event/ctenop... Come swap notes with fellow enthusiasts about the latest news in comb jellies.
A photo of a large red comb jelly on a black background.
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Jilanne Hoffmann | Kidlit @jilanne.bsky.social · 17/02/2026
Under cover of darkness, it's a race to eat before being eaten! Attention #teachers #librarians #ocean lovers! Win a copy of THE OCEAN'S HEART, illus. by Khoa Le! Releasing March 3! 📚👍 kathytemean.wordpress.com/2026/02/17/b... #kidlit #picturebook @pbspree.bsky.social @lernerbooks.bsky.social
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Steve Haddock @stevehaddock.bsky.social · 09/01/2026
Related to high pressure, @ibudin.bsky.social and Jacob Winnikoff led a study which showed that a particular lipid headgroup (PPE) is more abundant in membranes of deep #ctenophores. 🧪🦑 What was amazing was when they put PPE into bacterial membranes, the bacteria became more pressure tolerant!
youtube.com
Grace under pressure: How membranes help comb jellies thrive in the deep
YouTube video by MBARI (Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute)
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Steve Haddock @stevehaddock.bsky.social · 09/01/2026
The re-analysis of this #sponge #ctenophore study made me realize how important it is to really *look* at your data. Their filtering pipeline was meant to retain "strong" genes, but many of them had NO ctenophores and most had polyphyletic sponges. Time to put down the pitchforks for a while.
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Steve Haddock @stevehaddock.bsky.social · 07/01/2026
This is a limited, regionally relevant post, but… I’ll be giving a talk at the Sanctuary Exploration Center in Santa Cruz on Friday Jan 16th. Come say hi if you’re in town. 🦑🧪 (I’m presenting in San Francisco in early Feb as well)
Poster showing details for a talk entitled The Radiant Sea, Unveiled.  To be held at 6pm on Friday January 16th at 35 Pacific Ave in Santa Cruz, CA
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Merriam-Webster @merriam-webster.com · 05/01/2026
‘Cleave’ can refer to splitting something apart. ‘Cleave’ can also refer to the uniting of two things. …what? A word that is also its own opposite is called a ‘contronym.’
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Pawel Burkhardt @pawelburkhardt.bsky.social · 17/12/2025
Thrilled to see our review article "The evolutionary origins of synaptic proteins" highlighted on the cover of Nature Reviews Neuroscience 🤩. www.nature.com/articles/s41... @msarscentre.bsky.social 🧠✨🧬🌊🪼🧽
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Trevor A. Branch @trevorabranch.bsky.social · 16/12/2025
This could be your dream job: working full time at the Friday Harbor Labs on marine invertebrate organismal biology. Nine month salary from an endowment, teaching and research faculty position. apply.interfolio.com/178804
apply.interfolio.com
Apply - Interfolio {{$ctrl.$state.data.pageTitle}} - Apply - Interfolio
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Steve Haddock @stevehaddock.bsky.social · 16/12/2025
A survey for Ctenophore Ctuesday: * What way is this comb jelly swimming? Up or Down? 🧪🦑🤷‍♂️🌊🤿
A pinkish, translucent, roughly bell-shaped jelly on a black background. Iridescent and red vertical stripe run down its tapered body. The top comes to a point, and the bottom is slightly flared. Upon close inspection, you can see little grape-like clusters of gonads next to the vertical stripes, which are the comb rows and main canals. 

This [relatively] massive Beroe was observed on a blue-water scuba dive off California. It is 18cm (7 inches) long. Photo: S.Haddock ©MBARI 2025

Fun faCT: If you look closely, you can see the reproductive cells on both sides of the canals. Viewed from the end, rather than the side, the female eggs develop next to the major body axis (like North, S, E, W), and male cells develop on the sides of the canal that are 45° off from the axes (NorthEast, SE, SW, NW). So here you can see 2 sets of eggs, and 4 sets of male gonads.
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Steve Haddock @stevehaddock.bsky.social · 10/12/2025
OK, this is wild! Smithsonian Magazine included The Radiant Sea in their Best Photography Books of 2025! 😲 From the start, our goal was to entice people with pretty pictures, and then sneak in the science, so to have both appreciated is a complete thrill. 🦑🧪📸 Not bad for a couple biologists :^)
Screen shot of the Smithsonian Magazine web page showing the covers of 10 photography books, one of which is our book The Radiant Sea.
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Steve Haddock @stevehaddock.bsky.social · 04/12/2025
Not to mention… we just had our 4th ever sighting of Haliphron in over 35 years (7000+ ROV dives). Its arms were closed up but we followed it until we could see that it was again holding a jellyfish… m.youtube.com/watch?v=4_lt... See also: www.nature.com/articles/sre...
m.youtube.com
Fresh from the deep: Rarely encountered seven-arm octopus in Monterey Bay
YouTube video by MBARI (Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute)
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Steve Haddock @stevehaddock.bsky.social · 24/11/2025
Our book The Radiant Sea was chosen as one of five "Must Buy" science books by the Wall Street Journal! :^D I don't like to promote Am@z0n, but... it is on sale there for super cheap right now too. Image below showing fluorescence of one of the animals featured in the book. 🦑🧪🌊
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Pawel Burkhardt @pawelburkhardt.bsky.social · 27/10/2025
First neurons didn’t appear overnight. We trace their roots to ancient secretory cells - showing how lifestyle & behavior shaped the evolution of first synapses.🧠🌊 #Evolution #Neuroscience Our latest in @natrevneuro.nature.com Link: rdcu.be/eMX3E @jeffcolgren.bsky.social @msarscentre.bsky.social
rdcu.be
The evolutionary origins of synaptic proteins and their changing roles in different organisms across evolution
Nature Reviews Neuroscience - Recent studies have shed further light on the evolutionary origins of chemical synapses, In this Review, Colgren and Burkhardt explore how ancient proteins were...
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Prakash Lab at Stanford @prakashlab.bsky.social · 24/10/2025
“Cellular Olympics” our catalog of freeky ultra fast cellular superhero’s is freely available “Ann Rev of microbiology” www.annualreviews.org/content/jour... This is a compilation of world’s fastest single cell organisms - enjoy this buffet of rare delightful protists with mind bending speeds. 🧪
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Steve Haddock @stevehaddock.bsky.social · 20/10/2025
Let's do another #ctenophore survey. You are scuba divining and see this lobate comb jelly cruising in search of prey. Is it swimming to the LEFT or RIGHT? 🦑🧪🌊
Bolinopsis microptera comb jelly (ctenophore) swimming horizonally.
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Steve Haddock @stevehaddock.bsky.social · 10/10/2025
Apologies that I'm going to be all about THE RADIANT SEA for the foreseeable future, but .... 😉 Our book has been released in the U.K. now and should be available at your local bookshops! 🦑🧪 (with @sonkejo.bsky.social)
Panel of photos. At left the cover with a squid embracing the text The Radiant Sea, and examples from the pigments, bioluminescence, fluorescence, and iridescence sections.
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Steve Haddock @stevehaddock.bsky.social · 06/10/2025
Thanks to those of you brave enough to vote. :^) Still time to sway the results with your own thoughts on #ctenophore anatomy. 🦑🧪
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Steve Haddock @stevehaddock.bsky.social · 04/10/2025
For CTENOPHORE DAY, a little survey: Which end of this fishing Pleurobrachia is the mouth on? Please just "vote" in the comments — no definitive answers. 🦑🧪🌊 P.S. this is one of my earliest #ctenophore photos, shot on film in a home-built kreisel. P.P.S. Legit data-gathering for a future paper.
A spherical comb jelly floating against a dark background, with its tentacles deployed, tentilla (side branches) fanned out. There is a number 1 above the body and number 2 below the body. Photo by S. Haddock taken around 1990.
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Steve Haddock @stevehaddock.bsky.social · 01/10/2025
Not to hijack this thread, but our book The Radiant Sea includes 35 pages of fluorescent animals (and humans.. and asparagus). Here is a young strawberry squid showing green fluorescence in the eyes and red fluorescent caps on its photophores. 🦑🧪🌊
Juvenile Histioteuthis squid, illuminated by blue light and photographed through a yellow blue-blocking filter. Red dots are photophores, and green sphere is the lens of its enlarged eye. Photo: S. Haddock • MBARI
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Steve Haddock @stevehaddock.bsky.social · 15/09/2025
@sonkejo.bsky.social and I were interviewed by @mdlaplante.bsky.social for his UnDisciplined podcast www.upr.org/podcasts/103... I don’t like hearing myself speak so I haven’t listened back, but my mom “LOVED IT”, so that counts for something. 😉 Support public radio, Utah PR, and @npr.org 🦑🧪🌊
upr.org
UnDisciplined: Under the sea
Deep in the ocean, jellyfish, shrimp, fireworms and other creatures use multi–colored lights for defense, luring food, attracting mates, and communication. In their new book, Steven Haddock and Sönke ...
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Steve Haddock @stevehaddock.bsky.social · 08/09/2025
It is great to see Mackenzie Gerringer's taxonomic work, describing a fish we collected from 3800 meters, featured in the @nytimes.com. We tried to spin this story to combat the blobfish's "ugliest creature" reputation, to get people excited by deep-sea exploration, not turned away. 🧪🦑
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Steve Haddock @stevehaddock.bsky.social · 07/09/2025
My first sighting of The Radiant Sea in the wild, at our local bookshop. If you have any “encounters” I would love to see them. 🙃 #booksky
Picture of several piles of books including The Radiant Sea, looking shiny.
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Steve Haddock @stevehaddock.bsky.social · 29/08/2025
Thanks to your incredible support, THE RADIANT SEA is already the top-selling new release in... Entomology? There are going to be some disappointed bug-huggers out there (looking at you @franzanth.bsky.social). 😉 I am hopeful they will warm up to pictures of ocean bugs like Cystisoma.
Top view of the large hyperiid amphipod Cystisoma, showing the mosaic of orange pigmentation in its eyes. 
Photo by S. Haddock from the book The Radiant Sea.
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Steve Haddock @stevehaddock.bsky.social · 28/08/2025
BTW I updated the Bioluminescence and Biooptics starter pack with a couple new faces. Let me know if you should be included..! go.bsky.app/9wFuWB9
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Casey Dunn @caseywdunn.bsky.social · 28/08/2025
I hope to take a PhD student in 2026 to study siphonophores. Please reach out if you are interested in applying this fall. For examples of recent lab projects see www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... and academic.oup.com/gbe/article/...
sciencedirect.com
Population genomics of a sailing siphonophore reveals genetic structure in the open ocean
The open ocean is a vast, highly connected environment, and the organisms found there have been hypothesized to represent massive, well-mixed populati…
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Steve Haddock @stevehaddock.bsky.social · 28/08/2025
Our science photo book The Radiant Sea is out Sept 2nd!! 30 years of research, 10 years of "we should", and a year of collating pix and writing. Sönke and I show (mostly for the first time) images of how organisms produce, use, and interact with light in the sea. #bioluminescence #fluorescence 🦑🧪🌊
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Pawel Burkhardt @pawelburkhardt.bsky.social · 07/08/2025
Ctenophores possess a unique aboral organ that acts as a multisensory center, controlling complex behaviors. We’ve now created a ctenophore model integrated with our 3D volume EM data. Puts it into perspective. Check out our recent work here: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... #ctenophores #volumeEM
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Cathy Lucas @drjello67.bsky.social · 01/08/2025
www.ucc.ie/en/bees/rese... Calling all those interested in #jellyfish - preliminary information about the 8th International Jellyfish Blooms Symposium being held in Cork in 2026 is available. Follow the link.
ucc.ie
8th Jellyfish Blooms Symposium | University College Cork
Learn, Study and Research in UCC, Ireland's first 5 star university. Our tradition of independent thinking will prepare you for the world and the workplace in a vibrant, modern, green campus.
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Steve Haddock @stevehaddock.bsky.social · 11/07/2025
Come out and say Hi at MBARI’s open house Saturday the 12th from noon to 5. This is the one day a year that we are open to the public. We will have a biooptics and plankton booth set up!
Iridescence of the ctenophore Beroe
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Samuel Church @shchurch.bsky.social · 21/06/2025
Wish I could be at #Evol2025 this year! I’ll be starting a new lab at NYU this fall, and will be recruiting at all levels. Please spread the word if you know anyone who wants to work on evo. genomics, phylogenies, and comparative development of inverts (like Hawaiian Drosophila!) shchurch.github.io
Drosophila picticornis, a Hawaiian fly with patterned wings
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Samuel Church @shchurch.bsky.social · 19/06/2025
Excited to share our study on sailing siphonophores, AKA bluebottles or man-o'-war! 🌊 we received hundreds of samples from scientists around the world, part of a huge effort to sequence genomes and test for multiple species 🧬 out today in @currentbiology.bsky.social doi.org/10.1016/j.cu... 🦑🧪📌
Physalia megalista, a cnidiran with a gas filled float, raised sail, and long blue tentacles hanging below. Image credit: Dalila Destanović
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