Interstellar Turbulence II: Implications and Effects

Interstellar turbulence has implications for the dispersal and mixing of the elements, cloud chemistry, cosmic ray scattering, and radio wave propagation through the ionized medium. This review discusses the observations and theory of these effects. Metallicity fluctuations are summarized, and the theory of turbulent transport of passive tracers is reviewed. Modeling methods, turbulent concentration of dust grains, and the turbulent washout of radial abundance gradients are discussed. Interstellar chemistry is affected by turbulent transport of various species between environments with different physical properties and by turbulent heating in shocks, vortical dissipation regions, and local regions of enhanced ambipolar diffusion. Cosmic rays are scattered and accelerated in turbulent magnetic waves and shocks, and they generate turbulence on the scale of their gyroradii. Radio wave scintillation is an important diagnostic for small scale turbulence in the ionized medium, giving information about the power spectrum and amplitude of fluctuations. The theory of diffraction and refraction is reviewed, as are the main observations and scintillation regions.Comment: 46 pages, 2 figures, submitted to Annual Reviews of Astronomy and Astrophysic

Binary and Millisecond Pulsars at the New Millennium

We review the properties and applications of binary and millisecond pulsars. Our knowledge of these exciting objects has greatly increased in recent years, mainly due to successful surveys which have brought the known pulsar population to over 1300. There are now 56 binary and millisecond pulsars in the Galactic disk and a further 47 in globular clusters. This review is concerned primarily with the results and spin-offs from these surveys which are of particular interest to the relativity community.Comment: 59 pages, 26 figures, 5 tables. Accepted for publication in Living Reviews in Relativity (http://www.livingreviews.org

The Early Apoptotic DNA Fragmentation Targets a Small Number of Specific Open Chromatin Regions

We report here that early apoptotic DNA fragmentation, as obtained by using an entirely new approach, is the result of an attack at a small number of specific open chromatin regions of interphase nuclei. This was demonstrated as follows: (i) chicken liver was excised and kept in sterile tubes for 1 to 3 hours at 37°C; (ii) this induced apoptosis (possibly because of oxygen deprivation), as shown by the electrophoretic nucleosomal ladder produced by DNA preparations; (iii) low molecular-weight DNA fragments (∼200 bp) were cloned, sequenced, and shown to derive predominantly from genes and surrounding 100 kb regions; (iv) a few hundred cuts were produced, very often involving the same chromosomal sites; (v) at comparable DNA degradation levels, micrococcal nuclease (MNase) also showed a general preference for genes and surrounding regions, but MNase cuts were located at sites that were quite distinct from, and less specific than, those cut by apoptosis. In conclusion, the approach presented here, which is the mildest and least intrusive approach, identifies a preferred accessibility landscape in interphase chromatin

Accreting Millisecond X-Ray Pulsars

Accreting Millisecond X-Ray Pulsars (AMXPs) are astrophysical laboratories without parallel in the study of extreme physics. In this chapter we review the past fifteen years of discoveries in the field. We summarize the observations of the fifteen known AMXPs, with a particular emphasis on the multi-wavelength observations that have been carried out since the discovery of the first AMXP in 1998. We review accretion torque theory, the pulse formation process, and how AMXP observations have changed our view on the interaction of plasma and magnetic fields in strong gravity. We also explain how the AMXPs have deepened our understanding of the thermonuclear burst process, in particular the phenomenon of burst oscillations. We conclude with a discussion of the open problems that remain to be addressed in the future.Comment: Review to appear in "Timing neutron stars: pulsations, oscillations and explosions", T. Belloni, M. Mendez, C.M. Zhang Eds., ASSL, Springer; [revision with literature updated, several typos removed, 1 new AMXP added

Binary and Millisecond Pulsars

We review the main properties, demographics and applications of binary and millisecond radio pulsars. Our knowledge of these exciting objects has greatly increased in recent years, mainly due to successful surveys which have brought the known pulsar population to over 1700. There are now 80 binary and millisecond pulsars associated with the disk of our Galaxy, and a further 103 pulsars in 24 of the Galactic globular clusters. Recent highlights have been the discovery of the first ever double pulsar system and a recent flurry of discoveries in globular clusters, in particular Terzan 5.Comment: 77 pages, 30 figures, available on-line at http://www.livingreviews.org/lrr-2005-

Balancing repair and tolerance of DNA damage caused by alkylating agents

Alkylating agents constitute a major class of frontline chemotherapeutic drugs that inflict cytotoxic DNA damage as their main mode of action, in addition to collateral mutagenic damage. Numerous cellular pathways, including direct DNA damage reversal, base excision repair (BER) and mismatch repair (MMR), respond to alkylation damage to defend against alkylation-induced cell death or mutation. However, maintaining a proper balance of activity both within and between these pathways is crucial for a favourable response of an organism to alkylating agents. Furthermore, the response of an individual to alkylating agents can vary considerably from tissue to tissue and from person to person, pointing to genetic and epigenetic mechanisms that modulate alkylating agent toxicity

Virus-Neutralizing and Passively Protective Monoclonal-Antibodies to Infectious Bursal Disease Virus of Chickens

Murine monoclonal antibodies (MAbs) were produced to assist in the identification and characterization of the virus-neutralizing epitopes of infectious bursal disease virus (IBDV). Only MAbs that reacted in Western blotting with viral protein 2 (VP2) or immunoprecipitated VP2 neutralized the infectivity of the virus in cell culture and passively protected young chickens from infection. Three of the neutralizing MAbs did not react with denatured viral proteins. Additivity enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays indicated that the six virus-neutralizing MAbs recognized two spatially independent epitopes. The ability of two of the virus-neutralizing MAbs to neutralize a variant of IBDV that had escaped neutralization by all the other MAbs confirmed the existence of two distinct neutralizing epitopes. The results support the hypothesis that there are at least two non-overlapping epitopes recognized by the virus-neutralizing MAbs reported in this study, although these may still be within one conformational site on VP2 of IBDV