Pathogenic microbial ancient DNA: a problem or an opportunity?

Copyright © Royal Society 2006Eske Willerslev, Alan Coope

Limiting velocities as running parameters and superluminal neutrinos

In the context of theories where particles can have different limiting velocities, we review the running of particle speeds towards a common limiting velocity at low energy. Motivated by the recent OPERA experimental results, we describe a model where the neutrinos would deviate from the common velocity by more than do other particles in the theory, because their running is slower due to weaker interactions.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure

Infrared behavior of graviton-graviton scattering

The quantum effective theory of general relativity, independent of the eventual full theory at high energy, expresses graviton-graviton scattering at one loop order O(E^4) with only one parameter, Newton's constant. Dunbar and Norridge have calculated the one loop amplitude using string based techniques. We complete the calculation by showing that the 1/(d-4) divergence which remains in their result comes from the infrared sector and that the cross section is finite and model independent when the usual bremsstrahlung diagrams are included.Comment: 12 pages, uses axodra

Methods of selecting and using therapeutic and prophylactic probiotic cultures to reduce bacterial pathogen loads

Methods are provided for selecting a bacterium capable of reducing pathogenic bacterial colonization of the intestinal tract in a subject comprising selecting the bacterium capable of migrating at least 0.75 cm from the point of inoculation on motility agar after incubation for 24 hours at 37° C. It is also capable of migrating from the point of inoculation to a diameter of at least 1.5 cm based on the farthest colonies from the point of inoculation on motility agar after incubation for 24 hours at 37° C. Bacteria selected using the method and compositions comprising these bacteria are also provided

Quantum power correction to the Newton law

We have found the graviton contribution to the one-loop quantum correction to the Newton law. This correction results in interaction decreasing with distance as 1/r^3 and is dominated numerically by the graviton contribution. The previous calculations of this contribution to the discussed effect are demonstrated to be incorrect.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures; numerical error corrected, few references adde

'Cohesion' in the context of welfare and citizenship: discourse, policy and common sense

This thesis deals with New Labour’s development of Community Cohesion and welfare reform policy between 2001 and 2010. It argues that there was a disjuncture between the linguistic presentation and the actual aims of cohesion and welfare policy. This was symptomatic of deeper processes of coercion and consent, designed to create citizens amenable to socioeconomic adjustment and increasing responsibility onto the citizen. Discourses in policy are contrasted with everyday narratives of people living in Bradford and Birmingham to draw out this disjuncture, but also to show elements of dissent from dominant discourses, as well as the multiple ways in which the everyday narratives conform to a series of discursive logics, potentially lessening the impact of this disjuncture. The thesis uses a critical analytical framework, adopting Gramscian concepts of ‘common sense’ and hegemony, within which the methods of Critical Discourse Analysis and focus groups are used. Critical Discourse Analysis is used to analyse cohesion and welfare documents from between 2001 and 2010, whilst focus group research investigates the plausibility of the disjuncture between language and aims, as well as the underlying construction of a common sense understanding of ‘cohesion’ based on hegemonic discourses. However, these hegemonic discourses can still be challenged through what Laclau calls ‘contamination’, providing the everyday narratives with the capacity to question discursive logics and subtly alter the discourses themselves. The thesis’ contribution to knowledge comes from the combined use of critical discourse analysis and focus groups within the Gramscian analytical frame, as well as its findings that a disjuncture between the language and aims of policy, and how citizens in selected areas have reacted to this, points to wider questions about community, empowerment and responsibility in the New Labour years. This is placed in the context of New Labour’s approach to, and ambitions of, creating British citizens that followed an appropriate ideology (Bieling, 2003: 66) based on community as a new plane from which to administer micro-moral relations (Rose, 1996: 331)

The anthropic principle and the mass scale of the Standard Model

In theories in which different regions of the universe can have different values of the the physical parameters, we would naturally find ourselves in a region which has parameters favorable for life. We explore the range of anthropically allowed values of the mass parameter in the Higgs potential, $\mu^2$. For $\mu^2<0$, the requirement that complex elements be formed suggests that the Higgs vacuum expectation value $v$ must have a magnitude less than 5 times its observed value. For $\mu^2>0$, baryon stability requires that $|\mu|<<M_P$, the Planck Mass. Smaller values of $|\mu^2|$ may or may not be allowed depending on issues of element synthesis and stellar evolution. We conclude that the observed value of $\mu^2$ is reasonably typical of the anthropically allowed range, and that anthropic arguments provide a plausible explanation for the closeness of the QCD scale and the weak scale.Comment: 28 pages, LaTeX. No changes from version originally submitted to archive, except that problem with figure file has been correcte

Confirmation of the presence of Mycobacterium-tuberculosis complex-specific DNA in three archaeological specimens

This journal published the first reported identification of Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (MTE) DNA in ancient human remains but CONCERNS were raised about the article two years after publication. These were based on methodology which, in the field of ancient DNA, was still developing. Here we present a re-examination of the 1993 research conducted on three specimens which exhibited palaeopathologies indicative of tuberculosis. The specimens were: an ulna from pre-European-contact Borneo, a spine from Byzantine Turkey, and a lumbar-sacral spine from 17th century Scotland. There was insufficient material to permit re-examination of all of the original samples. The earlier results were confirmed in two independent laboratories using different methodologies. MTB DNA complex-specific Dna amplicons were obtained, and sequenced in both laboratories, in a re-analysis of samples which supported the earlier findings