Ar-40 to Ar-39 ages of the large impact structures Kara and Manicouagan and their relevance to the Cretaceous-Tertiary and the Triassic-Jurassic boundary

Since the discovery of the Ir enrichment in Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary clays in 1980, the effects of a 10-km asteroid impacting on the Earth 65 Ma ago have been discussed as the possible reason for the mass extinction--including the extinction of the dinosaurs--at the end of the Cretaceous. But up to now no crater of this age that is large enough (ca. 200 km in diameter) has been found. One candidate is the Kara Crater in northern Siberia. Kolesnikov et al. determined a K-Ar isochron of 65.6 +/- 0.5 Ma, indistinguishable from the age of the K-T boundary and interpreted this as confirmation of earlier proposals that the Kara bolide would have been at least one of the K-T impactors. Koeberl et al. determined Ar-40 to Ar-39 ages ranging from 70 to 82 Ma and suggested an association to the Campanian-Maastrichtian boundary, another important extinction horizon 73 Ma ago. We dated four impact melts, KA2-306, KA2-305, SA1-302, and AN9-182. Results from the investigation are discussed

Ar-40 to Ar-39 dating of pseudotachylites from the Witwatersrand basin, South Africa, with implications for the formation of the Vredefort Dome

The formation of the Vredefort Dome, a structure in excess of 100 km in diameter and located in the approximate center of the Witwatersrand basin, is still the subject of lively geological controversy. It is widely accepted that its formation seems to have taken place in a single sudden event, herein referred to as the Vredefort event, accompanied by the release of gigantic amounts of energy. It is debated, however, whether this central event was an internal one, i.e., a cryptoexplosion triggered by volcanic or tectonic processes, or the impact of an extraterrestrial body. The results of this debate are presented

Analysis of planetary analogue materials by laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy

Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) is a promising tool for elemental chemical analysis in planetary science, because it allows real-time and fast in-situ determination of the elemental composition of materials down to minute concentrations. The technique requires no special preparation of samples, can provide high lateral resolution (as low as several tenths μm), depth profiling (down to mm) and, therefore, is not disturbed by dust layers. Miniaturized LIBS instruments are currently considered for the next NASA (Mars Science Laboratory) and ESA (ExoMars) missions to Mars, as well as studied for the international Europa Lander Mission. Here we present the LIBS laboratory facility at the German Aerospace Center in Berlin for the chemical elemental analysis under simulated planetary (Mars, Europa) conditions. The main purpose of the system is the study of the LIBS capability for in-situ spectroscopy for diverse planetary missions as well as the development of a LIBS spectral database under simulated planetary conditions for planetary analogue materials

Dust observations of Comet 9P/Tempel 1 at the time of the Deep Impact

On 4 July 2005 at 05:52 UT, the impactor of NASA's Deep Impact (DI) mission crashed into comet 9P/Tempel 1 with a velocity of about 10 km/s. The material ejected by the impact expanded into the normal coma, produced by ordinary cometary activity. The characteristics of the non-impact coma and cloud produced by the impact were studied by observations in the visible wavelengths and in the near-IR. The scattering characteristics of the "normal" coma of solid particles were studied by comparing images in various spectral regions, from the UV to the near-IR. For the non-impact coma, a proxy of the dust production has been measured in various spectral regions. The presence of sublimating grains has been detected. Their lifetime was found to be about 11 hours. Regarding the cloud produced by the impact, the total geometric cross section multiplied by the albedo was measured as a function of the color and time. The projected velocity appeared to obey a Gaussian distribution with the average velocity of the order of 115 m/s. By comparing the observations taken about 3 hours after the impact, we have found a strong decrease in the cross section in J filter, while that in Ks remained almost constant. This is interpreted as the result of sublimation of grains dominated by particles of sizes of the order of some microns.Comment: Accepted by A&

Modulation of aberrant CDK5 signaling rescues impaired neurogenesis in models of Alzheimer's disease

Recent studies show that in Alzheimer's disease (AD), alterations in neurogenesis contribute to the neurodegenerative process. Neurodegeneration in AD has been associated with aberrant signaling through the cyclin-dependent kinase-5 (CDK5) pathway via its activators p35/p25; however, the role of CDK5 in the mechanisms of defective adult neurogenesis in AD is unknown. First, to study AD-like abnormal activation of CDK5 signaling in an in vitro model of neurogenesis, neuronal progenitor cells (NPCs) were infected with a viral vector expressing p35, and exposed to amyloid-β protein (Aβ1−42). These conditions resulted in impaired maturation and neurite outgrowth in vitro, and these effects were reversed by pharmacological or genetic inhibition of CDK5. Similarly, neurogenesis was impaired in a transgenic mouse model of AD that expresses high levels of amyloid precursor protein (APP), and this effect was reversed in transgenic mice crossed with a CDK5 heterozygous-deficient mouse line. A similar rescue effect was observed in APP transgenic mice treated with Roscovitine, a pharmacological inhibitor of CDK5. Taken together, these data suggest that the CDK5 signaling pathway has a critical role in maintaining the integrity of NPCs and neuronal maturation in the adult hippocampus. Moreover, potential therapeutic approaches could focus on modulating the aberrant activity of CDK5 to target the neurogenic and neurodegenerative alterations in AD

Human Adult Neurogenesis: Evidence and Remaining Questions

Renewed discussion about whether or not adult neurogenesis exists in the human hippocampus, and the nature and strength of the supporting evidence, has been reignited by two prominently published reports with opposite conclusions. Here, we summarize the state of the field and argue that there is currently no reason to abandon the idea that adult-generated neurons make important functional contributions to neural plasticity and cognition across the human lifespan

Ice Lines, Planetesimal Composition and Solid Surface Density in the Solar Nebula

To date, there is no core accretion simulation that can successfully account for the formation of Uranus or Neptune within the observed 2-3 Myr lifetimes of protoplanetary disks. Since solid accretion rate is directly proportional to the available planetesimal surface density, one way to speed up planet formation is to take a full accounting of all the planetesimal-forming solids present in the solar nebula. By combining a viscously evolving protostellar disk with a kinetic model of ice formation, we calculate the solid surface density in the solar nebula as a function of heliocentric distance and time. We find three effects that strongly favor giant planet formation: (1) a decretion flow that brings mass from the inner solar nebula to the giant planet-forming region, (2) recent lab results (Collings et al. 2004) showing that the ammonia and water ice lines should coincide, and (3) the presence of a substantial amount of methane ice in the trans-Saturnian region. Our results show higher solid surface densities than assumed in the core accretion models of Pollack et al. (1996) by a factor of 3 to 4 throughout the trans-Saturnian region. We also discuss the location of ice lines and their movement through the solar nebula, and provide new constraints on the possible initial disk configurations from gravitational stability arguments.Comment: Version 2: reflects lead author's name and affiliation change, contains minor changes to text from version 1. 12 figures, 7 tables, accepted for publication in Icaru

Alternative Systems of Crime Control. National, Transnational, and International Dimensions

The typical trial-oriented systems of criminal justice that are primarily based on the strict application of substantive criminal law have reached their functional and logistical limits in most parts of the modern legal world. As a result, new sanction models, less formal, administrative, and discretionary case disposals, plea bargaining arrangements, and other alternative procedural and transitional justice mechanisms have emerged at unprecedented levels in national and international legal orders affiliated both with the civil law and the common law tradition. These normative constructs and practices aim at abbreviating, simplifying, or circumventing the conventional criminal investigation and prosecution. They seek to enhance the effectiveness of conflict resolution proceedings and to shift the focus of crime control from repression to prevention. The present volume explores these alternative, informal, preventive, and transitional types of criminal justice and the legitimacy of new sanction models in the global risk society from the perspective of national and international justice and by focusing on the special regimes of anti-terrorism measures and security law. The authors of the papers are experts and internationally acclaimed scholars in this field. Their research results were presented and discussed at an inter-national conference held on 26-27 January 2018 at Middle Temple in London, UK, which was organized by the School of Law of the Queen Mary University of London, the Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Criminal Law (Freiburg), and the European & International Criminal Law Institute (Athens)

Novel Experimental Simulations of the Atmospheric Injection of Meteoric Metals

A newly developed laboratory, Meteoric Ablation Simulator (MASI), is used to test model predictions of the atmospheric ablation of interplanetary dust particles (IDPs) with experimental Na, Fe, and Ca vaporization profiles. MASI is the first laboratory setup capable of performing time-resolved atmospheric ablation simulations, by means of precision resistive heating and atomic laser-induced fluorescence detection. Experiments using meteoritic IDP analogues show that at least three mineral phases (Na-rich plagioclase, metal sulfide, and Mg-rich silicate) are required to explain the observed appearance temperatures of the vaporized elements. Low melting temperatures of Na-rich plagioclase and metal sulfide, compared to silicate grains, preclude equilibration of all the elemental constituents in a single melt. The phase-change process of distinct mineral components determines the way in which Na and Fe evaporate. Ca evaporation is dependent on particle size and on the initial composition of the molten silicate. Measured vaporized fractions of Na, Fe, and Ca as a function of particle size and speed confirm differential ablation (i.e., the most volatile elements such as Na ablate first, followed by the main constituents Fe, Mg, and Si, and finally the most refractory elements such as Ca). The Chemical Ablation Model (CABMOD) provides a reasonable approximation to this effect based on chemical fractionation of a molten silicate in thermodynamic equilibrium, even though the compositional and geometric description of IDPs is simplistic. Improvements in the model are required in order to better reproduce the specific shape of the elemental ablation profiles