93 research outputs found
The Search for Higher in Houston
It is a great pleasure to be invited to join the chorus on this auspicious
occasion to celebrate Professor K. Alex Mueller's 90th birthday by Professors
Annette Bussman-Holder, Hugo Keller, and Antonio Bianconi. As a student in high
temperature superconductivity, I am forever grateful to Professor Alex Mueller
and Dr. Georg Bednorz "for their important breakthrough in the discovery of
superconductivity in the ceramic materials" in 1986 as described in the
citation of their 1987 Nobel Prize in Physics. It is this breakthrough
discovery that has ushered in the explosion of research activities in high
temperature superconductivity (HTS) and has provided immense excitement in HTS
science and technology in the ensuing decades till now. Alex has not been
resting on his laurels and has continued to search for the origin of the
unusual high temperature superconductivity in cuprates.Comment: Dedicated to Alex Mueller, whose "important breakthrough in the
discovery of superconductivity in ceramic materials" in 1986 has changed the
world of superconductivit
Quantum hydrogen-bond symmetrization in the superconducting hydrogen sulfide system.
The quantum nature of the proton can crucially affect the structural and physical properties of hydrogen compounds. For example, in the high-pressure phases of H2O, quantum proton fluctuations lead to symmetrization of the hydrogen bond and reduce the boundary between asymmetric and symmetric structures in the phase diagram by 30 gigapascals (ref. 3). Here we show that an analogous quantum symmetrization occurs in the recently discovered sulfur hydride superconductor with a superconducting transition temperature Tc of 203 kelvin at 155 gigapascals--the highest Tc reported for any superconductor so far. Superconductivity occurs via the formation of a compound with chemical formula H3S (sulfur trihydride) with sulfur atoms arranged on a body-centred cubic lattice. If the hydrogen atoms are treated as classical particles, then for pressures greater than about 175 gigapascals they are predicted to sit exactly halfway between two sulfur atoms in a structure with Im3m symmetry. At lower pressures, the hydrogen atoms move to an off-centre position, forming a short H-S covalent bond and a longer H···S hydrogen bond in a structure with R3m symmetry. X-ray diffraction experiments confirm the H3S stoichiometry and the sulfur lattice sites, but were unable to discriminate between the two phases. Ab initio density-functional-theory calculations show that quantum nuclear motion lowers the symmetrization pressure by 72 gigapascals for H3S and by 60 gigapascals for D3S. Consequently, we predict that the Im3m phase dominates the pressure range within which the high Tc was measured. The observed pressure dependence of Tc is accurately reproduced in our calculations for the phase, but not for the R3m phase. Therefore, the quantum nature of the proton fundamentally changes the superconducting phase diagram of H3S.We acknowledge financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (FIS2013- 48286-C2-2-P), French Agence Nationale de la Recherche (Grant No. ANR-13-IS10-0003- 392 01), EPSRC (UK) (Grant No. EP/J017639/1), Cambridge Commonwealth Trust, National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grants No. 11204111, 11404148, and 11274136), and 2012 Changjiang Scholars Program of China. Work at Carnegie was supported by EFree, an Energy Frontier Research Center funded by the DOE, Office of Science, Basic Energy Sciences under Award No. DE-SC-0001057. Computer facilities were provided by the PRACE project AESFT and the Donostia International Physics Center (DIPC).This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Nature Publishing Group via http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature1717
Rapid and Sensitive Detection of Yersinia pestis Using Amplification of Plague Diagnostic Bacteriophages Monitored by Real-Time PCR
BACKGROUND: Yersinia pestis, the agent of plague, has caused many millions of human deaths and still poses a serious threat to global public health. Timely and reliable detection of such a dangerous pathogen is of critical importance. Lysis by specific bacteriophages remains an essential method of Y. pestis detection and plague diagnostics. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: The objective of this work was to develop an alternative to conventional phage lysis tests--a rapid and highly sensitive method of indirect detection of live Y. pestis cells based on quantitative real-time PCR (qPCR) monitoring of amplification of reporter Y. pestis-specific bacteriophages. Plague diagnostic phages phiA1122 and L-413C were shown to be highly effective diagnostic tools for the detection and identification of Y. pestis by using qPCR with primers specific for phage DNA. The template DNA extraction step that usually precedes qPCR was omitted. phiA1122-specific qPCR enabled the detection of an initial bacterial concentration of 10(3) CFU/ml (equivalent to as few as one Y. pestis cell per 1-microl sample) in four hours. L-413C-mediated detection of Y. pestis was less sensitive (up to 100 bacteria per sample) but more specific, and thus we propose parallel qPCR for the two phages as a rapid and reliable method of Y. pestis identification. Importantly, phiA1122 propagated in simulated clinical blood specimens containing EDTA and its titer rise was detected by both a standard plating test and qPCR. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Thus, we developed a novel assay for detection and identification of Y. pestis using amplification of specific phages monitored by qPCR. The method is simple, rapid, highly sensitive, and specific and allows the detection of only live bacteria
Promoter Complexity and Tissue-Specific Expression of Stress Response Components in Mytilus galloprovincialis, a Sessile Marine Invertebrate Species
The mechanisms of stress tolerance in sessile animals, such as molluscs, can offer fundamental insights into the adaptation of organisms for a wide range of environmental challenges. One of the best studied processes at the molecular level relevant to stress tolerance is the heat shock response in the genus Mytilus. We focus on the upstream region of Mytilus galloprovincialis Hsp90 genes and their structural and functional associations, using comparative genomics and network inference. Sequence comparison of this region provides novel evidence that the transcription of Hsp90 is regulated via a dense region of transcription factor binding sites, also containing a region with similarity to the Gamera family of LINE-like repetitive sequences and a genus-specific element of unknown function. Furthermore, we infer a set of gene networks from tissue-specific expression data, and specifically extract an Hsp class-associated network, with 174 genes and 2,226 associations, exhibiting a complex pattern of expression across multiple tissue types. Our results (i) suggest that the heat shock response in the genus Mytilus is regulated by an unexpectedly complex upstream region, and (ii) provide new directions for the use of the heat shock process as a biosensor system for environmental monitoring
Understanding Novel Superconductors with Ab Initio Calculations
This chapter gives an overview of the progress in the field of computational
superconductivity.
Following the MgB2 discovery (2001), there has been an impressive
acceleration in the development of methods based on Density Functional Theory
to compute the critical temperature and other physical properties of actual
superconductors from first-principles. State-of-the-art ab-initio methods have
reached predictive accuracy for conventional (phonon-mediated) superconductors,
and substantial progress is being made also for unconventional superconductors.
The aim of this chapter is to give an overview of the existing computational
methods for superconductivity, and present selected examples of material
discoveries that exemplify the main advancements.Comment: 38 pages, 10 figures, Contribution to Springer Handbook of Materials
Modellin
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Northern Eurasia Future Initiative (NEFI): facing the challenges and pathways of global change in the 21st century
During the past several decades, the Earth system has changed significantly, especially across Northern Eurasia. Changes in the socio-economic conditions of the larger countries in the region have also resulted in a variety of regional environmental changes that can
have global consequences. The Northern Eurasia Future Initiative (NEFI) has been designed as an essential continuation of the Northern Eurasia Earth Science
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better prepare societies for future developments. A key principle of NEFI is that these developments must now be secured through science-based strategies co-designed
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models have created a solid knowledge base to support the NEFI program. This paper presents the NEFI research vision consensus based on that knowledge. It provides the reader with samples of recent accomplishments in regional studies and formulates new NEFI science questions. To address these questions, nine research foci are identified and their selections are briefly justified. These foci include: warming of the Arctic; changing frequency, pattern, and intensity of extreme and inclement environmental conditions; retreat of the cryosphere; changes in terrestrial water cycles; changes in the biosphere; pressures on land-use; changes in infrastructure; societal actions in response to environmental change; and quantification of Northern Eurasia's role in the global Earth system. Powerful feedbacks between the Earth and human systems in Northern Eurasia (e.g., mega-fires, droughts, depletion of the cryosphere essential for water supply, retreat of sea ice) result from past and current human activities (e.g., large scale water withdrawals, land use and governance change) and
potentially restrict or provide new opportunities for future human activities. Therefore, we propose that Integrated Assessment Models are needed as the final stage of global
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Electrical and Magnetic Behavior of GdOH Thin Films: A Search for Hydrogen Anion Superconductivity
Anomalous resistive and magnetic behavior of GdOH thin films, which belong to the novel class of materials known as oxyhydrides, is reported. The oxyhydrides contain hydrogen in its rare negatively-charged anion state in combination with oxygen, which is also in the anion state. A range of GdOH films prepared on glass and single-crystalline substrates demonstrate a resistive transition from an insulating to conducting state with decrease of resistance starting as high as at about 200 K. At room temperature, the resistance per square area for the best GdOH films of the thickness of 200 nm is about 100 Ω, which is close to the resistance of the films of high-temperature superconductors of similar thickness. Apparent zero resistance is observed at about 40 K. Magneto-optical imaging registers effect of trapping magnetic flux typical for the superconducting state. The possible anion superconductivity is discussed in connection with recently published papers on near-room-temperature superconductivity in hydrides at high pressure and hydrogen-based superconductivity in biological systems
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