Studies related to primitive chemistry. A proton and nitrogen-14 nuclear magnetic resonance amino acid and nucleic acid constituents and a and their possible relation to prebiotic

Preliminary proton nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) studies were made to determine the applicability of this technique for the study of interactions between monomeric and polymeric amino acids with monomeric nucleic acid bases and nucleotides. Proton NMR results for aqueous solutions (D2O) demonstrated interactions between the bases cytosine and adenine and acidic and aromatic amino acids. Solutions of 5'-AMP admixed with amino acids exhibited more complex behavior but stacking between aromatic rings and destacking at high amino acids concentration was evident. The multisite nature of 5'-AMP was pointed out. Chemical shift changes for adenine and 5'-AMP with three water soluble polypeptides demonstrated that significant interactions exist. It was found that the linewidth-pH profile of each amino acid is unique. It is concluded that NMR techniques can give significant and quantitative data on the association of amino acid and nucleic acid constituents

An Update on the 0Z Project

We give an update on our 0Z Survey to find more extremely metal poor (EMP) stars with [Fe/H] < -3 dex through mining the database of the Hamburg/ESO Survey. We present the most extreme such stars we have found from ~1550 moderate resolution follow up spectra. One of these, HE1424-0241, has highly anomalous abundance ratios not seen in any previously known halo giant, with very deficient Si, moderately deficient Ca and Ti, highly enhanced Mn and Co, and low C, all with respect to Fe. We suggest a SNII where the nucleosynthetic yield for explosive alpha-burning nuclei was very low compared to that for the hydrostatic alpha-burning element Mg, which is normal in this star relative to Fe. A second, less extreme, outlier star with high [Sc/Fe] has also been found. We examine the extremely metal-poor tail of the HES metallicity distribution function (MDF). We suggest on the basis of comparison of our high resolution detailed abundance analyses with [Fe/H](HES) for stars in our sample that the MDF inferred from follow up spectra of the HES sample of candidate EMP stars is heavily contaminated for [Fe/H](HES) < -3 dex; many of the supposed EMP stars below that metallicity are of substantially higher Fe-metallicity, including most of the very C-rich stars, or are spurious objects.Comment: to appear in conference proceedings "First Stars III", ed. B. O'Shea, A. Heger & T.Abel, 4 pages, 2 figure

An improved lower bound for (1,<=2)-identifying codes in the king grid

We call a subset $C$ of vertices of a graph $G$ a $(1,\leq \ell)$-identifying code if for all subsets $X$ of vertices with size at most $\ell$, the sets $\{c\in C |\exists u \in X, d(u,c)\leq 1\}$ are distinct. The concept of identifying codes was introduced in 1998 by Karpovsky, Chakrabarty and Levitin. Identifying codes have been studied in various grids. In particular, it has been shown that there exists a $(1,\leq 2)$-identifying code in the king grid with density 3/7 and that there are no such identifying codes with density smaller than 5/12. Using a suitable frame and a discharging procedure, we improve the lower bound by showing that any $(1,\leq 2)$-identifying code of the king grid has density at least 47/111

Statistically Preserved Structures and Anomalous Scaling in Turbulent Active Scalar Advection

The anomalous scaling of correlation functions in the turbulent statistics of active scalars (like temperature in turbulent convection) is understood in terms of an auxiliary passive scalar which is advected by the same turbulent velocity field. While the odd-order correlation functions of the active and passive fields differ, we propose that the even-order correlation functions are the same to leading order (up to a trivial multiplicative factor). The leading correlation functions are statistically preserved structures of the passive scalar decaying problem, and therefore universality of the scaling exponents of the even-order correlations of the active scalar is demonstrated.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev. Let

Sub-au imaging of water vapour clouds around four Asymptotic Giant Branch stars

We present MERLIN maps of the 22-GHz H2O masers around four low-mass late-type stars (IK Tau U Ori, RT Vir and U Her), made with an angular resolution of ~ 15 milliarcsec and a velocity resolution of 0.1 km s-1. The H2O masers are found in thick expanding shells with inner radii ~ 6 to 16 au and outer radii four times larger. The expansion velocity increases radially through the H2O maser regions, with logarithmic velocity gradients of 0.5--0.9. IK Tau and RT Vir have well-filled H2O maser shells with a spatial offset between the near and far sides of the shell, which suggests that the masers are distributed in oblate spheroids inclined to the line of sight. U Ori and U Her have elongated poorly-filled shells with indications that the masers at the inner edge have been compressed by shocks; these stars also show OH maser flares. MERLIN resolves individual maser clouds, which have diameters of 2 -- 4 au and filling factors of only ~ 0.01 with respect to the whole H2O maser shells. The CSE velocity structure gives additional evidence the maser clouds are density bounded. Masing clouds can be identified over a similar timescale to their sound crossing time (~2 yr) but not longer. The sizes and observed lifetimes of these clouds are an order of magnitude smaller than those around red supergiants, similar to the ratio of low-mass:high-mass stellar masses and sizes. This suggests that cloud size is determined by stellar properties, not local physical phenomena in the wind.Comment: 21 pages, including 14 figures and 8 tables. Accepted for publication in MNRA

On Toroidal Horizons in Binary Black Hole Inspirals

We examine the structure of the event horizon for numerical simulations of two black holes that begin in a quasicircular orbit, inspiral, and finally merge. We find that the spatial cross section of the merged event horizon has spherical topology (to the limit of our resolution), despite the expectation that generic binary black hole mergers in the absence of symmetries should result in an event horizon that briefly has a toroidal cross section. Using insight gained from our numerical simulations, we investigate how the choice of time slicing affects both the spatial cross section of the event horizon and the locus of points at which generators of the event horizon cross. To ensure the robustness of our conclusions, our results are checked at multiple numerical resolutions. 3D visualization data for these resolutions are available for public access online. We find that the structure of the horizon generators in our simulations is consistent with expectations, and the lack of toroidal horizons in our simulations is due to our choice of time slicing.Comment: Submitted to Phys. Rev.

NICMOS Imaging of the Dusty Microjansky Radio Source VLA J123642+621331 at z = 4.424

We present the discovery of a radio galaxy at a likely redshift of z = 4.424 in one of the flanking fields of the Hubble Deep Field. Radio observations with the VLA and MERLIN centered on the HDF yielded a complete sample of microjansky radio sources, of which about 20% have no optical counterpart to I < 25 mag. In this Letter, we address the possible nature of one of these sources, through deep HST NICMOS images in the F110W (J) and F160W (H) filters. VLA J123642+621331 has a single emission line at 6595-A, which we identify with Lyman-alpha at z = 4.424. We argue that this faint (H = 23.9 mag), compact (r = 0.2 arcsec), red (I - K = 2.0) object is most likely a dusty, star-forming galaxy with an embedded active nucleus.Comment: Accepted for publication in Astrophysical Journal Letters. 11 pages, 4 figures, uses aastex v5.0 and psfi

Temporal Correlations of Local Network Losses

We introduce a continuum model describing data losses in a single node of a packet-switched network (like the Internet) which preserves the discrete nature of the data loss process. {\em By construction}, the model has critical behavior with a sharp transition from exponentially small to finite losses with increasing data arrival rate. We show that such a model exhibits strong fluctuations in the loss rate at the critical point and non-Markovian power-law correlations in time, in spite of the Markovian character of the data arrival process. The continuum model allows for rather general incoming data packet distributions and can be naturally generalized to consider the buffer server idleness statistics

Random Walks in Local Dynamics of Network Losses

We suggest a model for data losses in a single node of a packet-switched network (like the Internet) which reduces to one-dimensional discrete random walks with unusual boundary conditions. The model shows critical behavior with an abrupt transition from exponentially small to finite losses as the data arrival rate increases. The critical point is characterized by strong fluctuations of the loss rate. Although we consider the packet arrival being a Markovian process, the loss rate exhibits non-Markovian power-law correlations in time at the critical point.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure

Sex differences in eye gaze and symbolic cueing of attention

Observing a face with averted eyes results in a reflexive shift of attention to the gazed-at location. Here we present results that show that this effect is weaker in males than in females (Experiment 1). This result is predicted by the ‘extreme male brain’ theory of autism (Baron-Cohen, 2003), which suggests that males in the normal population should display more autism-like traits than females (e.g., poor joint attention). Indeed, participants′ scores on the Autism-Spectrum Quotient (Baron-Cohen, Wheelwright, Stott, Bolton, & Goodyear, 2001) negatively correlated with cueing magnitude. Furthermore, exogenous orienting did not differ between the sexes in two peripheral cueing experiments (Experiments 2a and 2b). However, a final experiment showed that using non-predictive arrows instead of eyes as a central cue also revealed a large gender difference. This demonstrates that reduced orienting from central cues in males generalizes beyond gaze cues. These results show that while peripheral cueing is equivalent in the male and female brains, the attention systems of the two sexes treat noninformative symbolic cues very differently