Responding to Water Challenges Through Desalination: Energy Considerations

Desalination technology and reverse osmosis in particular, is used by several island authorities in Greece to address water scarcity. However, this is a highly energy‐intensive technique, requiring the consumption of significant quantities of fossil fuels. The case of Syros island is presented to demonstrate the strong water‐energy link in the operation of desalination plants. The use of renewable energy sources as a means for reducing water cost from desalination is also discussed. A simple algorithm to calculate estimating water costs with renewable energy sources (RES) is presented and is applied in the island of Patmos and in Hermoupolis, Syros island

Testing non-autonomous antimalarial gene drive effectors using self-eliminating drivers in the African mosquito vector Anopheles gambiae

Gene drives for mosquito population modification are novel tools for malaria control. Strategies to safely test antimalarial effectors in the field are required. Here, we modified the Anopheles gambiae zpg locus to host a CRISPR/Cas9 integral gene drive allele (zpgD) and characterized its behaviour and resistance profile. We found that zpgD dominantly sterilizes females but can induce efficient drive at other loci when it itself encounters resistance. We combined zpgD with multiple previously characterized non-autonomous payload drives and found that, as zpgD self-eliminates, it leads to conversion of mosquito cage populations at these loci. Our results demonstrate how self-eliminating drivers could allow safe testing of non-autonomous effector-traits by local population modification. They also suggest that after engendering resistance, gene drives intended for population suppression could nevertheless serve to propagate subsequently released non-autonomous payload genes, allowing modification of vector populations initially targeted for suppression

Estudo do universo primitivo no modelo bianchi IX

Drawn by Capt. Batty, engraved by J. LewisAnsicht von Burg Fürstenberg, eine mittelalterliche Burgruine bei Rheindiebac

What are Scientific Leaders? The Introduction of a Normalized Impact Factor

We define a normalized impact factor (NIF) suitable for assessing in a simple way both the strength of scientific communities and the research influence of individuals. We define those with NIF a parts per thousand yenaEuro parts per thousand 1 as scientific leaders because they influence their peers at least as much as they are influenced by them. The NIF has two outstanding characteristics: (a) it has a clear and universal meaning and (b) it is robust against self-citation misuse. We show how a single lognormal function obtained from a simplified version of the NIF leads to a clear radiography of the corresponding scientific community. An illustrative application analyzes a community derived from the list of outstanding referees recognized by the American Physical Society in 2008.Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP

Gravitação semiclássica

Fazemos aqui uma breve descrição da teoria semiclássica da gravitação que tem conseguido antecipar de forma bastante robusta alguns efeitos de gravitação quântica.We make a brief description of the semiclassical gravity theory, which has been able to anticipate some effects of quantum gravity