Bayesian inference of population expansions in domestic bovines

The past population dynamics of four domestic and one wild species of bovine were estimated using Bayesian skyline plots, a coalescent Markov chain Monte Carlo method that does not require an assumed parametric model of demographic history. Four domestic species share a recent rapid population expansion not visible in the wild African buffalo (Syncerus caffer). The estimated timings of the expansions are consistent with the archaeological records of domestication

Predictions of total and total reaction cross sections for nucleon-nucleus scattering up to 300 MeV

Total reaction cross sections are predicted for nucleons scattering from various nuclei. Projectile energies to 300 MeV are considered. So also are mass variations of those cross sections at selected energies. All predictions have been obtained from coordinate space optical potentials formed by full folding effective two-nucleon (NN) interactions with one body density matrix elements (OBDME) of the nuclear ground states. Good comparisons with data result when effective NN interactions defined by medium modification of free NN t matrices are used. Coupled with analyses of differential cross sections, these results are sensitive to details of the model ground states used to describe nuclei

Size Doesn't Matter: Towards a More Inclusive Philosophy of Biology

notes: As the primary author, O’Malley drafted the paper, and gathered and analysed data (scientific papers and talks). Conceptual analysis was conducted by both authors.publication-status: Publishedtypes: ArticlePhilosophers of biology, along with everyone else, generally perceive life to fall into two broad categories, the microbes and macrobes, and then pay most of their attention to the latter. ‘Macrobe’ is the word we propose for larger life forms, and we use it as part of an argument for microbial equality. We suggest that taking more notice of microbes – the dominant life form on the planet, both now and throughout evolutionary history – will transform some of the philosophy of biology’s standard ideas on ontology, evolution, taxonomy and biodiversity. We set out a number of recent developments in microbiology – including biofilm formation, chemotaxis, quorum sensing and gene transfer – that highlight microbial capacities for cooperation and communication and break down conventional thinking that microbes are solely or primarily single-celled organisms. These insights also bring new perspectives to the levels of selection debate, as well as to discussions of the evolution and nature of multicellularity, and to neo-Darwinian understandings of evolutionary mechanisms. We show how these revisions lead to further complications for microbial classification and the philosophies of systematics and biodiversity. Incorporating microbial insights into the philosophy of biology will challenge many of its assumptions, but also give greater scope and depth to its investigations

A meta-analysis for bovine tuberculosis resistance in dairy cattle

Now that the Higgs particle has been observed by the ATLAS and CMS experiments at the LHC, the next endeavor would be to probe its fundamental properties and to measure its couplings to fermions and gauge bosons with the highest possible accuracy. However, the measurements will be limited by significant theoretical uncertainties that affect the production cross section in the main production channels as well as by experimental systematical errors. Following earlier work, we propose in this paper to consider ratios of Higgs production cross sections times decay branching ratios in which most of the theoretical uncertainties and some systematical errors, such as the ones due to the luminosity measurement and the Higgs decay branching fractions, cancel out. The couplings of the Higgs particle could be then probed in a way that will be mostly limited by the statistical accuracy achievable at the LHC and accuracies at the percent level are foreseen for some of the ratios at the end of the LHC run. At the theoretical level, these ratios are also interesting as they do not involve the ambiguities that affect the Higgs total decay width in new physics scenarios. To illustrate how these ratios can be used to determine the Higgs couplings, we perform a rough analysis of the recent ATLAS and CMS data which shows that there is presently no significant deviation from the Standard Model expectation