Effects of Feeding Bt Maize to Sows during Gestation and Lactation on Maternal and Offspring Immunity and Fate of Transgenic Material

peer-reviewedBackground: We aimed to determine the effect of feeding transgenic maize to sows during gestation and lactation on maternal and offspring immunity and to assess the fate of transgenic material. Methodology/Principal Findings: On the day of insemination, sows were assigned to one of two treatments (n = 12/treatment); 1) non-Bt control maize diet or 2) Bt-MON810 maize diet, which were fed for ~143 days throughout gestation and lactation. Immune function was assessed by leukocyte phenotyping, haematology and Cry1Ab-specific antibody presence in blood on days 0, 28 and 110 of gestation and at the end of lactation. Peripheral-blood mononuclear cell cytokine production was investigated on days 28 and 110 of gestation. Haematological analysis was performed on offspring at birth (n = 12/treatment). Presence of the cry1Ab transgene was assessed in sows' blood and faeces on day 110 of gestation and in blood and tissues of offspring at birth. Cry1Ab protein presence was assessed in sows' blood during gestation and lactation and in tissues of offspring at birth. Blood monocyte count and percentage were higher (P<0.05), while granulocyte percentage was lower (P<0.05) in Bt maize-fed sows on day 110 of gestation. Leukocyte count and granulocyte count and percentage were lower (P<0.05), while lymphocyte percentage was higher (P<0.05) in offspring of Bt maize-fed sows. Bt maize-fed sows had a lower percentage of monocytes on day 28 of lactation and of CD4+CD8+ lymphocytes on day 110 of gestation, day 28 of lactation and overall (P<0.05). Cytokine production was similar between treatments. Transgenic material or Cry1Ab-specific antibodies were not detected in sows or offspring. Conclusions/Significance: Treatment differences observed following feeding of Bt maize to sows did not indicate inflammation or allergy and are unlikely to be of major importance. These results provide additional data for Bt maize safety assessment.The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007–2013) under grant agreement number 211820 and the Teagasc Walsh Fellowship Programme

Swift follow-up observations of candidate gravitational-wave transient events

We present the first multi-wavelength follow-up observations of two candidate gravitational-wave (GW) transient events recorded by LIGO and Virgo in their 2009-2010 science run. The events were selected with low latency by the network of GW detectors and their candidate sky locations were observed by the Swift observatory. Image transient detection was used to analyze the collected electromagnetic data, which were found to be consistent with background. Off-line analysis of the GW data alone has also established that the selected GW events show no evidence of an astrophysical origin; one of them is consistent with background and the other one was a test, part of a "blind injection challenge". With this work we demonstrate the feasibility of rapid follow-ups of GW transients and establish the sensitivity improvement joint electromagnetic and GW observations could bring. This is a first step toward an electromagnetic follow-up program in the regime of routine detections with the advanced GW instruments expected within this decade. In that regime multi-wavelength observations will play a significant role in completing the astrophysical identification of GW sources. We present the methods and results from this first combined analysis and discuss its implications in terms of sensitivity for the present and future instruments.Comment: Submitted for publication 2012 May 25, accepted 2012 October 25, published 2012 November 21, in ApJS, 203, 28 ( http://stacks.iop.org/0067-0049/203/28 ); 14 pages, 3 figures, 6 tables; LIGO-P1100038; Science summary at http://www.ligo.org/science/Publication-S6LVSwift/index.php ; Public access area to figures, tables at https://dcc.ligo.org/cgi-bin/DocDB/ShowDocument?docid=p110003

A First Search for coincident Gravitational Waves and High Energy Neutrinos using LIGO, Virgo and ANTARES data from 2007

We present the results of the first search for gravitational wave bursts associated with high energy neutrinos. Together, these messengers could reveal new, hidden sources that are not observed by conventional photon astronomy, particularly at high energy. Our search uses neutrinos detected by the underwater neutrino telescope ANTARES in its 5 line configuration during the period January - September 2007, which coincided with the fifth and first science runs of LIGO and Virgo, respectively. The LIGO-Virgo data were analysed for candidate gravitational-wave signals coincident in time and direction with the neutrino events. No significant coincident events were observed. We place limits on the density of joint high energy neutrino - gravitational wave emission events in the local universe, and compare them with densities of merger and core-collapse events.Comment: 19 pages, 8 figures, science summary page at http://www.ligo.org/science/Publication-S5LV_ANTARES/index.php. Public access area to figures, tables at https://dcc.ligo.org/cgi-bin/DocDB/ShowDocument?docid=p120000

Search for gravitational waves associated with the InterPlanetary Network short gamma ray bursts

We outline the scientific motivation behind a search for gravitational waves associated with short gamma ray bursts detected by the InterPlanetary Network (IPN) during LIGO's fifth science run and Virgo's first science run. The IPN localisation of short gamma ray bursts is limited to extended error boxes of different shapes and sizes and a search on these error boxes poses a series of challenges for data analysis. We will discuss these challenges and outline the methods to optimise the search over these error boxes.Comment: Methods paper; Proceedings for Eduardo Amaldi 9 Conference on Gravitational Waves, July 2011, Cardiff, U

Effects of Precursor Concentration and Acidic Sulfate in Aqueous Glyoxal−OH Radical Oxidation and Implications for Secondary Organic Aerosol

Previous experiments demonstrated that aqueous OH radical oxidation of glyoxal yields low-volatility compounds. When this chemistry takes place in clouds and fogs, followed by droplet evaporation (or if it occurs in aerosol water), the products are expected to remain partially in the particle phase, forming secondary organic aerosol (SOA). Acidic sulfate exists ubiquitously in atmospheric water and has been shown to enhance SOA formation through aerosol phase reactions. In this work, we investigate how starting concentrations of glyoxal (30−3000 μM) and the presence of acidic sulfate (0−840 μM) affect product formation in the aqueous reaction between glyoxal and OH radical. The oxalic acid yield decreased with increasing precursor concentrations, and the presence of sulfuric acid did not alter oxalic acid concentrations significantly. A dilute aqueous chemistry model successfully reproduced oxalic acid concentrations, when the experiment was performed at cloud-relevant concentrations (glyoxal <300 μM), but predictions deviated from measurements at increasing concentrations. Results elucidate similarities and differences in aqueous glyoxal chemistry in clouds and in wet aerosols. They validate for the first time the accuracy of model predictions at cloud-relevant concentrations. These results suggest that cloud processing of glyoxal could be an important source of SOA

Einstein@Home all-sky search for periodic gravitational waves in LIGO S5 data

This paper presents results of an all-sky searches for periodic gravitational waves in the frequency range [50, 1190] Hz and with frequency derivative ranges of [-2 x 10^-9, 1.1 x 10^-10] Hz/s for the fifth LIGO science run (S5). The novelty of the search lies in the use of a non-coherent technique based on the Hough-transform to combine the information from coherent searches on timescales of about one day. Because these searches are very computationally intensive, they have been deployed on the Einstein@Home distributed computing project infrastructure. The search presented here is about a factor 3 more sensitive than the previous Einstein@Home search in early S5 LIGO data. The post-processing has left us with eight surviving candidates. We show that deeper follow-up studies rule each of them out. Hence, since no statistically significant gravitational wave signals have been detected, we report upper limits on the intrinsic gravitational wave amplitude h0. For example, in the 0.5 Hz-wide band at 152.5 Hz, we can exclude the presence of signals with h0 greater than 7.6 x 10^-25 with a 90% confidence level.Comment: 29 pages, 14 figures, 6 tables. Science summary page at http://www.ligo.org/science/Publication-FullS5EatH/index.php ; Public access area to figures and tables at https://dcc.ligo.org/cgi-bin/DocDB/ShowDocument?docid=p120002

The characterization of Virgo data and its impact on gravitational-wave searches

Between 2007 and 2010 Virgo collected data in coincidence with the LIGO and GEO gravitational-wave (GW) detectors. These data have been searched for GWs emitted by cataclysmic phenomena in the universe, by non-axisymmetric rotating neutron stars or from a stochastic background in the frequency band of the detectors. The sensitivity of GW searches is limited by noise produced by the detector or its environment. It is therefore crucial to characterize the various noise sources in a GW detector. This paper reviews the Virgo detector noise sources, noise propagation, and conversion mechanisms which were identified in the three first Virgo observing runs. In many cases, these investigations allowed us to mitigate noise sources in the detector, or to selectively flag noise events and discard them from the data. We present examples from the joint LIGO-GEO-Virgo GW searches to show how well noise transients and narrow spectral lines have been identified and excluded from the Virgo data. We also discuss how detector characterization can improve the astrophysical reach of gravitational-wave searches.Comment: 50 pages, 12 figures, 5 table

Parameter estimation for compact binary coalescence signals with the first generation gravitational-wave detector network

Compact binary systems with neutron stars or black holes are one of the most promising sources for ground-based gravitational-wave detectors. Gravitational radiation encodes rich information about source physics; thus parameter estimation and model selection are crucial analysis steps for any detection candidate events. Detailed models of the anticipated waveforms enable inference on several parameters, such as component masses, spins, sky location and distance, that are essential for new astrophysical studies of these sources. However, accurate measurements of these parameters and discrimination of models describing the underlying physics are complicated by artifacts in the data, uncertainties in the waveform models and in the calibration of the detectors. Here we report such measurements on a selection of simulated signals added either in hardware or software to the data collected by the two LIGO instruments and the Virgo detector during their most recent joint science run, including a "blind injection" where the signal was not initially revealed to the collaboration. We exemplify the ability to extract information about the source physics on signals that cover the neutron-star and black-hole binary parameter space over the component mass range 1 M⊙-25 M⊙ and the full range of spin parameters. The cases reported in this study provide a snapshot of the status of parameter estimation in preparation for the operation of advanced detectors. © 2013 American Physical Society.J. Aasi ... J. Munch ... D. J. Ottaway ... P. J. Veitch ... et al. (LIGO-Virgo Scientific Collaboration