The discovery of a radio galaxy of at least 5 Mpc

We discover what is in projection the largest known structure of galactic origin: a giant radio galaxy with a projected proper length of $4.99 \pm 0.04\ \mathrm{Mpc}$. The source, named Alcyoneus, was first identified in low-resolution LOFAR Two-metre Sky Survey images from which angularly compact sources had been removed. Being an extreme example in its class, Alcyoneus could shed light on the main mechanisms that drive radio galaxy growth. We find that - beyond geometry - Alcyoneus and its host galaxy appear suspiciously ordinary: the total low-frequency luminosity density, stellar mass and supermassive black hole mass are all lower than, though similar to, those of the medial giant radio galaxy (percentiles$45 \pm 3\%$,$25 \pm 9 \%$and$23 \pm 11 \%$, respectively). The source resides in a filament of the Cosmic Web, with which it might have significant thermodynamic interaction. At$5 \cdot 10^{-16}\ \mathrm{Pa}$, the pressures in the lobes are the lowest hitherto found, and Alcyoneus therefore represents one of the most promising radio galaxies yet to probe the warm-hot intergalactic medium.Comment: 18 pages, 14 figures, 3 tables, accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysic

A preliminary overview of the multiconjugate adaptive optics module for the E-ELT

ABSTRACT The multi-conjugate adaptive optics module for the European Extremely Large Telescope has to provide a corrected field of medium to large size (up to 2 arcmin), over the baseline wavelength range 0.8-2.4 µm. The current design is characterized by two post-focal deformable mirrors, that complement the correction provided by the adaptive telescope; the wavefront sensing is performed by means of a high-order multiple laser guide star wavefront sensor and by a loworder natural guide star wavefront sensor. The present status of a two years study for the advanced conceptual design of this module is reported

Segmented flow generator for serial crystallography at the European X-ray free electron laser

Serial femtosecond crystallography (SFX) with X-ray free electron lasers (XFELs) allows structure determination of membrane proteins and time-resolved crystallography. Common liquid sample delivery continuously jets the protein crystal suspension into the path of the XFEL, wasting a vast amount of sample due to the pulsed nature of all current XFEL sources. The European XFEL (EuXFEL) delivers femtosecond (fs) X-ray pulses in trains spaced 100 ms apart whereas pulses within trains are currently separated by 889 ns. Therefore, continuous sample delivery via fast jets wastes >99% of sample. Here, we introduce a microfluidic device delivering crystal laden droplets segmented with an immiscible oil reducing sample waste and demonstrate droplet injection at the EuXFEL compatible with high pressure liquid delivery of an SFX experiment. While achieving ~60% reduction in sample waste, we determine the structure of the enzyme 3-deoxy-D-manno-octulosonate-8-phosphate synthase from microcrystals delivered in droplets revealing distinct structural features not previously reported

Multiple novel prostate cancer susceptibility signals identified by fine-mapping of known risk loci among Europeans

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified numerous common prostate cancer (PrCa) susceptibility loci. We have fine-mapped 64 GWAS regions known at the conclusion of the iCOGS study using large-scale genotyping and imputation in 25 723 PrCa cases and 26 274 controls of European ancestry. We detected evidence for multiple independent signals at 16 regions, 12 of which contained additional newly identified significant associations. A single signal comprising a spectrum of correlated variation was observed at 39 regions; 35 of which are now described by a novel more significantly associated lead SNP, while the originally reported variant remained as the lead SNP only in 4 regions. We also confirmed two association signals in Europeans that had been previously reported only in East-Asian GWAS. Based on statistical evidence and linkage disequilibrium (LD) structure, we have curated and narrowed down the list of the most likely candidate causal variants for each region. Functional annotation using data from ENCODE filtered for PrCa cell lines and eQTL analysis demonstrated significant enrichment for overlap with bio-features within this set. By incorporating the novel risk variants identified here alongside the refined data for existing association signals, we estimate that these loci now explain ∼38.9% of the familial relative risk of PrCa, an 8.9% improvement over the previously reported GWAS tag SNPs. This suggests that a significant fraction of the heritability of PrCa may have been hidden during the discovery phase of GWAS, in particular due to the presence of multiple independent signals within the same regio

Multi-messenger searches via IceCube’s high-energy neutrinos and gravitational-wave detections of LIGO/Virgo

We summarize initial results for high-energy neutrino counterpart searches coinciding with gravitational-wave events in LIGO/Virgo\u27s GWTC-2 catalog using IceCube\u27s neutrino triggers. We did not find any statistically significant high-energy neutrino counterpart and derived upper limits on the time-integrated neutrino emission on Earth as well as the isotropic equivalent energy emitted in high-energy neutrinos for each event