Finding Bix: The Life and Afterlife of a Jazz Legend

Review of: "Finding Bix: The Life and Afterlife of a Jazz Legend," by Brendan Wolfe

Finding Bix: The Life and Afterlife of a Jazz Legend

Review of: Finding Bix: The Life and Afterlife of a Jazz Legend, by Brendan Wolfe

Newly discovered Synechococcus sp. PCC 11901 is a robust cyanobacterial strain for high biomass production.

Cyanobacteria, which use solar energy to convert carbon dioxide into biomass, are potential solar biorefineries for the sustainable production of chemicals and biofuels. However, yields obtained with current strains are still uncompetitive compared to existing heterotrophic production systems. Here we report the discovery and characterization of a new cyanobacterial strain, Synechococcus sp. PCC 11901, with promising features for green biotechnology. It is naturally transformable, has a short doubling time of ≈2 hours, grows at high light intensities and in a wide range of salinities and accumulates up to ≈33 g dry cell weight per litre when cultured in a shake-flask system using a modified growth medium - 1.7 to 3 times more than other strains tested under similar conditions. As a proof of principle, PCC 11901 engineered to produce free fatty acids yielded over 6 mM (1.5 g L-1), an amount comparable to that achieved by similarly engineered heterotrophic organisms

Fermi Surface reconstruction in the CDW state of CeTe3 observed by photoemission

CeTe3 is a layered compound where an incommensurate Charge Density Wave (CDW) opens a large gap (400 meV) in optimally nested regions of the Fermi Surface (FS), whereas other sections with poorer nesting remain ungapped. Through Angle-Resolved Photoemission, we identify bands backfolded according to the CDW periodicity. They define FS pockets formed by the intersection of the original FS and its CDW replica. Such pockets illustrate very directly the role of nesting in the CDW formation but they could not be detected so far in a CDW system. We address the reasons for the weak intensity of the folded bands, by comparing different foldings coexisting in CeTe3

Targeting Extracellular Vesicles to the Arthritic Joint using a Damaged Cartilage Specific Antibody

The targeted delivery of therapies to diseased tissues offers a safe opportunity to achieve optimal efficacy whilst limiting systemic exposure. These considerations apply to many disease indications, but are especially relevant for rheumatoid arthritis (RA), as RA is a systemic autoimmune disease which affects multiple joints. We have identified an antibody that is specific to damaged arthritic cartilage (anti-ROS-CII) that can be used to deliver treatments specifically to arthritic joints, yielding augmented efficacy in experimental arthritis. In the current study, we demonstrate that scaffold enriched with bioactive payloads can be delivered precisely to an inflamed joint and achieve superior efficacy outcomes consistent with the pharmacological properties of these payloads. As a scaffold, we have used extracellular vesicles (EV) prepared from human neutrophils (PMN), which possess intrinsic anti-inflammatory properties and the ability to penetrate inflamed arthritic cartilage. EV fortified with anti-ROS-CII (EV/anti-ROS-CII) retained anti-ROS-CII specificity and bound exclusively to the damaged cartilage. Following systemic administration EV/anti-ROS-CII: a) exhibited the ability to localise specifically in the arthritic joint in vivo and b) was able to specifically target single (viral IL-10 or anti-TNF) or combined (viral IL-10 and anti-TNF) anti-inflammatory treatments to the arthritic joint, which accelerated attenuation of clinical and synovial inflammation. Overall, this study demonstrates the attainability of targeting a pro-resolving biological scaffold to the arthritic joint. The potential of targeting scaffolds such as EV, nanoparticles or combination thereof alongside combined therapeutics is paramount for designing systemically administered broad-spectrum of anti-inflammatory treatments

Role of intergranular silver in modulating the aperiodicity in disordered Josephson junction arrays : impact on relaxation of intergranular critical state

Relaxation of the intergranular critical state has been observed at a very low applied magnetic field (10-50 Oe) over a temperature regime of 20-77 K in bulk polycrystalline YBa(2)Cu(3)O(7-x) (YBCO) and Bi(1.75)Pb(0.35)Sr(2)Ca(2)Cu(3)O(10+x) (BPSCCO) samples. In such a disordered Josephson junction network, the relaxation is slower than the intragranular relaxation and, hence, it yields higher flux pinning energy U0 than the corresponding intragranular values. Silver addition seems to have given rise to much uniformity in the grain boundary characteristics which results in sharp drop in the flux pinning energy since it depends on the variation of the junction coupling energy EJ across the network. While U0 ~ 0.5 and 0.55 eV for the parent BPSCCO and YBCO samples, respectively, in silver added (10-15 wt%) samples the corresponding values are ~0.15 and 0.27 eV. The distribution functions m(U) for the flux pinning energy and n(theta) for the grain boundary mis-alignment angle(theta) have been evaluated from the experimentally observed patterns of magnetic relaxation and variation of the grain boundary critical fields with temperature. The distribution functions become narrower in the case of silver added samples reflecing a reduction in the degree of disorder. The variation of the effective vortex mass m* with the variation in the degree of disorder is observed. Considering the width of the superconducting transition delTc as the measure of the degree of disorder (inhomogeneity), it has been shown that the transport critical current density Jc follows a relationship Jc \~exp(-delTc) while the flux pinning energy U ~ delTc. These relations may help in devising a suitable strategy for achieving the desired effect : high Jc yet slower decay rate, i.e., large U.Comment: 14 pages including 10 figure