Small RNA-based antiviral defense in the phytopathogenic fungus Colletotrichum higginsianum

Even though the fungal kingdom contains more than 3 million species, little is known about the biological roles of RNA silencing in fungi. The Colletotrichum genus comprises fungal species that are pathogenic for a wide range of crop species worldwide. To investigate the role of RNA silencing in the ascomycete fungus Colletotrichum higginsianum, knock-out mutants affecting genes for three RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RDR), two Dicer-like (DCL), and two Argonaute (AGO) proteins were generated by targeted gene replacement. No effects were observed on vegetative growth for any mutant strain when grown on complex or minimal media. However, Δdcl1, Δdcl1Δdcl2 double mutant, and Δago1 strains showed severe defects in conidiation and conidia morphology. Total RNA transcripts and small RNA populations were analyzed in parental and mutant strains. The greatest effects on both RNA populations was observed in the Δdcl1, Δdcl1Δdcl2, and Δago1 strains, in which a previously uncharacterized dsRNA mycovirus [termed Colletotrichum higginsianum non-segmented dsRNA virus 1 (ChNRV1)] was derepressed. Phylogenetic analyses clearly showed a close relationship between ChNRV1 and members of the segmented Partitiviridae family, despite the non-segmented nature of the genome. Immunoprecipitation of small RNAs associated with AGO1 showed abundant loading of 5'U-containing viral siRNA. C. higginsianum parental and Δdcl1 mutant strains cured of ChNRV1 revealed that the conidiation and spore morphology defects were primarily caused by ChNRV1. Based on these results, RNA silencing involving ChDCL1 and ChAGO1 in C. higginsianum is proposed to function as an antiviral mechanism

Effective Lorentz Force due to Small-angle Impurity Scattering: Magnetotransport in High-Tc Superconductors

We show that a scattering rate which varies with angle around the Fermi surface has the same effect as a periodic Lorentz force on magnetotransport coefficients. This effect, together with the marginal Fermi liquid inelastic scattering rate gives a quantitative explanation of the temperature dependence and the magnitude of the observed Hall effect and magnetoresistance with just the measured zero-field resistivity as input.Comment: 4 pages, latex, one epsf figure included in text. Several revisions and corrections are included. Major conclusions are the sam

Geometrical entanglement of highly symmetric multipartite states and the Schmidt decomposition

In a previous paper we examined a geometric measure of entanglement based on the minimum distance between the entangled target state of interest and the space of unnormalized product states. Here we present a detailed study of this entanglement measure for target states with a large degree of symmetry. We obtain analytic solutions for the extrema of the distance function and solve for the Hessian to show that, up to the action of trivial symmetries, the solutions correspond to local minima of the distance function. In addition, we show that the conditions that determine the extremal solutions for general target states can be obtained directly by parametrizing the product states via their Schmidt decomposition.Comment: 16 pages, references added and discussion expande

Damping of the de Haas-van Alphen oscillations in the superconducting state of MgB_2

The de Haas-van Alphen (dHvA) signal arising from orbits on the $\pi$ Fermi surface sheet of the two-gap superconductor MgB$_2$ has been observed in the vortex state below $H_{c2}$. An extra attenuation of the dHvA signal, beyond those effects described in the conventional Lifshitz-Kosevich expression, is seen due to the opening of the superconducting gap. Our data show that the $\pi$ band gap is still present up to $H_{c2}$. The data are compared to current theories of dHvA oscillations in the superconducting state which allow us to extract estimates for the evolution of the $\pi$ band gap with magnetic field. Contrary to results for other materials, we find that the most recent theories dramatically underestimate the damping in MgB$_2$.Comment: 10 pages with figures. Submitted to Phys. Rev. B. PDF version with higher quality figures can be found at http://www.phy.bris.ac.uk/research/cond_matt/PdfPubs/mgb2RSdhva.pd

Anisotropy of Magnetic Interactions in the Spin-Ladder Compound (C5_5H12_{12}N)2_2CuBr4_4

Magnetic excitations in the spin-ladder material (C$_5$H$_{12}$N)$_2$CuBr$_4$ [BPCB] are probed by high-resolution multi-frequency electron spin resonance (ESR) spectroscopy. Our experiments provide a direct evidence for a biaxial anisotropy ($\sim 5\%$ of the dominant exchange interaction), that is in contrast to a fully isotropic spin-ladder model employed for this system previously. It is argued that this anisotropy in BPCB is caused by spin-orbit coupling, which appears to be important for describing magnetic properties of this compound. The zero-field zone-center gap in the excitation spectrum of BPCB, $\Delta_0/k_{B}=16.5$ K, is detected directly. Furthermore, an ESR signature of the inter-ladder exchange interactions is obtained. The detailed characterization of the anisotropy in BPCB completes the determination of the full spin hamiltonian of this exceptional spin-ladder material and shows ways to study anisotropy effects in spin ladders.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figure

The effect of flares on total solar irradiance

Flares are powerful energy releases occurring in stellar atmospheres. Solar flares, the most intense energy bursts in the solar system, are however hardly noticeable in the total solar luminosity. Consequently, the total amount of energy they radiate 1) remains largely unknown and 2) has been overlooked as a potential contributor to variations in the Total Solar Irradiance (TSI), i.e. the total solar flux received at Earth. Here, we report on the detection of the flare signal in the TSI even for moderate flares. We find that the total energy radiated by flares exceeds the soft X-ray emission by two orders of magnitude, with an important contribution in the visible domain. These results have implications for the physics of flares and the variability of our star.Comment: accepted in Nature Physic