Small Atomic displacements Recorded in Bismuth by the Optical Reflectivity of Femtosecond Laser-Pulse Excitations

Subtle atomic motion in a Bi crystal excited by a 35 fs-laser pulse has been recovered from the transient reflectivity of an optical probe measured with an accuracy of 10-5. Analysis shows that a novel effect reported here-an initial negative drop in reflectivity-relates to a delicate coherent displacement of atoms by the polarization force during the pulse. We also show that reflectivity oscillations with a frequency coinciding with that of cold Bi are related to optical phonons excited by the electron temperature gradient through electron-phonon coupling

Probing photo-induced melting of antiferromagnetic order in La0.5Sr1.5MnO4 by ultrafast resonant soft X-ray diffraction

Photo-excitation in complex oxides1 transfers charge across semicovalent bonds, drastically perturbing spin and orbital orders2. Light may then be used in compounds like magnetoresistive manganites to control magnetism on nanometre lengthscales and ultrafast timescales. Here, we show how ultrafast resonant soft x-ray diffraction can separately probe the photo-induced dynamics of spin and orbital orders in La0.5Sr1.5MnO4. Ultrafast melting of CE antiferromagnetic spin order is evidenced by the disappearance of a (1/4,1/4,1/2) diffraction peak. On the other hand the (1/4,1/4,0) peak, reflecting orbital order, is only partially reduced. Cluster calculations aid our interpretation by considering different magnetically ordered states accessible after photo-excitation. Nonthermal coupling between light and magnetism emerges as a primary aspect of photo-induced phase transitions in manganites.Comment: 7 pages manuscript, 4 figure

Demonstration of the ultrafast nature of laser produced betatron radiation

This Letter aims to demonstrate the ultrafast nature of laser produced betatron radiation and its potential for application experiments. An upper estimate of the betatron x-ray pulse duration has been obtained by performing a time-resolved x-ray diffraction experiment: The ultrafast nonthermal melting of a semiconductor crystal (InSb) has been used to trigger the betatron x-ray beam diffracted from the surface. An x-ray pulse duration of less than 1 ps at full width half-maximum (FWHM) has been measured with a best fit obtained for 100 fs FWHM. (C) 2007 American Institute of Physics.open113039sciescopu

Perlecan Maintains microvessel integrity in vivo and modulates their formation in vitro

Perlecan is a heparan sulfate proteoglycan assembled into the vascular basement membranes (BMs) during vasculogenesis. In the present study we have investigated vessel formation in mice, teratomas and embryoid bodies (EBs) in the absence of perlecan. We found that perlecan was dispensable for blood vessel formation and maturation until embryonic day (E) 12.5. At later stages of development 40% of mutant embryos showed dilated microvessels in brain and skin, which ruptured and led to severe bleedings. Surprisingly, teratomas derived from perlecan-null ES cells showed efficient contribution of perlecan-deficient endothelial cells to an apparently normal tumor vasculature. However, in perlecan-deficient EBs the area occupied by an endothelial network and the number of vessel branches were significantly diminished. Addition of FGF-2 but not VEGF165 rescued the in vitro deficiency of the mutant ES cells. Furthermore, in the absence of perlecan in the EB matrix lower levels of FGFs are bound, stored and available for cell surface presentation. Altogether these findings suggest that perlecan supports the maintenance of brain and skin subendothelial BMs and promotes vasculo- and angiogenesis by modulating FGF-2 function

Did Genetic Drift Drive Increases in Genome Complexity?

Mechanisms underlying the dramatic patterns of genome size variation across the tree of life remain mysterious. Effective population size (Ne) has been proposed as a major driver of genome size: selection is expected to efficiently weed out deleterious mutations increasing genome size in lineages with large (but not small) Ne. Strong support for this model was claimed from a comparative analysis of Neu and genome size for <30 phylogenetically diverse species ranging from bacteria to vertebrates, but analyses at that scale have so far failed to account for phylogenetic nonindependence of species. In our reanalysis, accounting for phylogenetic history substantially altered the perceived strength of the relationship between Neu and genomic attributes: there were no statistically significant associations between Neu and gene number, intron size, intron number, the half-life of gene duplicates, transposon number, transposons as a fraction of the genome, or overall genome size. We conclude that current datasets do not support the hypothesis of a mechanistic connection between Ne and these genomic attributes, and we suggest that further progress requires larger datasets, phylogenetic comparative methods, more robust estimators of genetic drift, and a multivariate approach that accounts for correlations betwee