Iron Behaving Badly: Inappropriate Iron Chelation as a Major Contributor to the Aetiology of Vascular and Other Progressive Inflammatory and Degenerative Diseases

The production of peroxide and superoxide is an inevitable consequence of aerobic metabolism, and while these particular "reactive oxygen species" (ROSs) can exhibit a number of biological effects, they are not of themselves excessively reactive and thus they are not especially damaging at physiological concentrations. However, their reactions with poorly liganded iron species can lead to the catalytic production of the very reactive and dangerous hydroxyl radical, which is exceptionally damaging, and a major cause of chronic inflammation. We review the considerable and wide-ranging evidence for the involvement of this combination of (su)peroxide and poorly liganded iron in a large number of physiological and indeed pathological processes and inflammatory disorders, especially those involving the progressive degradation of cellular and organismal performance. These diseases share a great many similarities and thus might be considered to have a common cause (i.e. iron-catalysed free radical and especially hydroxyl radical generation). The studies reviewed include those focused on a series of cardiovascular, metabolic and neurological diseases, where iron can be found at the sites of plaques and lesions, as well as studies showing the significance of iron to aging and longevity. The effective chelation of iron by natural or synthetic ligands is thus of major physiological (and potentially therapeutic) importance. As systems properties, we need to recognise that physiological observables have multiple molecular causes, and studying them in isolation leads to inconsistent patterns of apparent causality when it is the simultaneous combination of multiple factors that is responsible. This explains, for instance, the decidedly mixed effects of antioxidants that have been observed, etc...Comment: 159 pages, including 9 Figs and 2184 reference

Search for new phenomena in final states with two opposite-charge, same-flavor leptons, jets, and missing transverse momentum in pp collisions at √s = 13 TeV

Search results are presented for physics beyond the standard model in final states with two opposite-charge, same-flavor leptons, jets, and missing transverse momentum. The data sample corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 35.9 fb(-1) of proton-proton collisions at root s = 13TeV collected with the CMS detector at the LHC in 2016. The analysis uses the invariant mass of the lepton pair, searching for a kinematic edge or a resonant-like excess compatible with the Z boson mass. The search for a kinematic edge targets production of particles sensitive to the strong force, while the resonance search targets both strongly and electroweakly produced new physics. The observed yields are consistent with the expectations from the standard model, and the results are interpreted in the context of simplified models of supersymmetry. In a gauge mediated supersymmetry breaking (GMSB) model of gluino pair production with decay chains including Z bosons, gluino masses up to 1500-1770 GeV are excluded at the 95% confidence level depending on the lightest neutralino mass. In a model of electroweak chargino-neutralino production, chargino masses as high as 610 GeV are excluded when the lightest neutralino is massless. In GMSB models of electroweak neutralino-neutralino production, neutralino masses up to 500-650 GeV are excluded depending on the decay mode assumed. Finally, in a model with bottom squark pair production and decay chains resulting in a kinematic edge in the dilepton invariant mass distribution, bottom squark masses up to 980-1200 GeV are excluded depending on the mass of the next-to-lightest neutralino

Search for microscopic black holes in pp collisions at root s=8 TeV

A search for microscopic black holes and string balls is presented, based on a data sample of pp collisions at √s=8 TeV recorded by the CMS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider and corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 12 fb-1. No excess of events with energetic multiparticle final states, typical of black hole production or of similar new physics processes, is observed. Given the agreement of the observations with the expected standard model background, which is dominated by QCD multijet production, 95% confidence level limits are set on the production of semiclassical or quantum black holes, or of string balls, corresponding to the exclusions of masses below 4.3 to 6.2 TeV, depending on model assumptions. In addition, model-independent limits are set on new physics processes resulting in energetic multiparticle final states. [Figure not available: see fulltext.] © 2013 CERN for the benefit of the CMS collaboration

Observation of Gravitational Waves from the Coalescence of a 2.5–4.5 M _⊙ Compact Object and a Neutron Star

Abstract We report the observation of a coalescing compact binary with component masses 2.5–4.5 M ⊙ and 1.2–2.0 M ⊙ (all measurements quoted at the 90% credible level). The gravitational-wave signal GW230529_181500 was observed during the fourth observing run of the LIGO–Virgo–KAGRA detector network on 2023 May 29 by the LIGO Livingston observatory. The primary component of the source has a mass less than 5 M ⊙ at 99% credibility. We cannot definitively determine from gravitational-wave data alone whether either component of the source is a neutron star or a black hole. However, given existing estimates of the maximum neutron star mass, we find the most probable interpretation of the source to be the coalescence of a neutron star with a black hole that has a mass between the most massive neutron stars and the least massive black holes observed in the Galaxy. We provisionally estimate a merger rate density of 55 − 47 + 127 Gpc − 3 yr − 1 for compact binary coalescences with properties similar to the source of GW230529_181500; assuming that the source is a neutron star–black hole merger, GW230529_181500-like sources may make up the majority of neutron star–black hole coalescences. The discovery of this system implies an increase in the expected rate of neutron star–black hole mergers with electromagnetic counterparts and provides further evidence for compact objects existing within the purported lower mass gap.</jats:p

Open Data from the Third Observing Run of LIGO, Virgo, KAGRA, and GEO

Abstract The global network of gravitational-wave observatories now includes five detectors, namely LIGO Hanford, LIGO Livingston, Virgo, KAGRA, and GEO 600. These detectors collected data during their third observing run, O3, composed of three phases: O3a starting in 2019 April and lasting six months, O3b starting in 2019 November and lasting five months, and O3GK starting in 2020 April and lasting two weeks. In this paper we describe these data and various other science products that can be freely accessed through the Gravitational Wave Open Science Center at https://gwosc.org. The main data set, consisting of the gravitational-wave strain time series that contains the astrophysical signals, is released together with supporting data useful for their analysis and documentation, tutorials, as well as analysis software packages.</jats:p