Baryogenesis and the New Cosmology

In this talk I begin with a brief review of the status of approaches to understanding the origin of the baryon asymmetry of the universe (BAU). I then describe a recent model unifying three seemingly-distict problems facing particle cosmology: the origin of inflation, the generation of the BAU and the nature of dark energy.Comment: 16 pages, RevTeX, Plenary talk presented at PASCOS-03, Mumbai, India; COSMO-02, Chicago, and at the Aspen Winter 2003 Conference on Particle Physics: At the Frontiers of Particle Physics, Aspen Center for Physics. To appear in the proceedings of PASCOS-0

Structure formation with a self-tuning scalar field

A scalar field with an exponential potential has the particular property that it is attracted into a solution in which its energy scales as the dominant component (radiation or matter) of the Universe, contributing a fixed fraction of the total energy density. We study the growth of perturbations in a CDM dominated $\Omega=1$ universe with this extra field, with an initial flat spectrum of adiabatic fluctuations. The observational constraints from structure formation are satisfied as well, or better, than in other models, with a contribution to the energy density from the scalar field $\Omega_\phi \sim 0.1$ which is small enough to be consistent with entry into the attractor prior to nucleosynthesis.Comment: 4 pages, uses RevTex, 2 figure

Multiple Muon Events in Soudan 2

Abstract: This is a progress report on multiple muon events recorded by the Soudan 2 detector. 6 refs

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

Application guide for omics approaches to cell signaling

Research in signal transduction aims to identify the functions of different signaling pathways in physiological and pathological states. Traditional techniques using biochemical, genetic or cell biological approaches have made important contributions to our understanding of cellular signaling. However, the single-gene approach does not take into account the full complexity of cell signaling. With the availability of omics techniques, great progress has been made in understanding signaling networks. Omics approaches can be classified into two categories: 'molecular profiling', including genomic, proteomic, post-translational modification and interactome profiling; and 'molecular perturbation', including genetic and functional perturbations

Using External Review in the Honors Project Process

Understanding the competitive nature of applications to graduate programs, Ferrari and Davis (2000) surveyed psychology faculty to discover their level of awareness of resources for undergraduate research publication. They found that most of the psychology faculty members they surveyed were unaware of such resources. Their finding made me curious about how many honors directors, faculty, and advisors are aware of such resources for their students not only in psychology but in all disciplines across the curriculum. Most of us realize the importance of helping our students become competitive for graduate work, and we know that publication and/or presentation of research may add to their chances for acceptance into the program of their choice. For many of our honors students, the capstone project in their major, which is also typically their honors project, may represent opportunities for increasing their marketability in graduate and professional arenas