Jovian meterology: Large-scale moist convection without a lower boundary

It is proposed that Jupiter's cloud bands represent large scale convection whose character is determined by the phase change of water at a level where the temperature is about 275K. It is argued that there are three important layers in the atmosphere: a tropopause layer where emission to space occurs; an intermediate layer between the tropopause and the water cloud base; and the deep layer below the water cloud. All arguments are only semi-quantitative. It is pointed out that these ingredients are essential to Jovian meteorology

Use of fellowships

The effective use of Space Grant Program fellowships are critical in meeting program objectives. In the first year of operation, the 21 colleges/consortia will expend from 30-40 percent of their grants for fellowships; program policy will allow up to 50 percent to be spent for fellowships. Thus, fellowship policy must be carefully implemented and monitored

Dust devils on Mars

Large columns of dust have been discovered rising above plains on Mars. The storms are probably analogous to terrestrial dust devils, but their size indicates that they are more similar to tornadoes in intensity. They occur at locations where the soil has been strongly warmed by the Sun, and there the surface is smooth and fine grained. These are the same conditions that favor dust devils on Earth. Warm gas from the lowest atmospheric layer converges and rises in a thin column, with intense swirl developing at the edge of the column. In one area a mosaic of Viking images shows 97 vortices in a three day period. This represents a density of vortices of about one in each 900 square kilometers. Thus, these dust devils may be important in moving dust or starting over dust storms

Mesoscale waves as a probe of Jupiter's deep atmosphere

Images from the Voyager north/south mapping sequences were searched for waves. A remarkable class of mesoscale waves was identified, with the following features: (1) the wavetrains are usually aligned zonally, i.e., wavecrests are north-south; (2) the average wavelength is 300 km with a standard deviation of only 20%; (3) the wavetrains are long; (4) the waves occur within 25 degrees of the equator, the bulk being at the equator itself; (5) the waves are centered at the extrema (in latitude) of the zonal flow; and (6) the meridional extent of the waves is typically 1 degree of latitude. These observations are interpreted as evidence of gravity waves propagating vertically within a leaky duct. A three-level model is assumed composed of a stable duct which extends up to the base of the NH3 cloud deck near 600 mb. Above this is a thin wave-trapping region characterized by a Richardson number Ri less than 1/4 and containing a critical level, where the local value of the zonal flow velocity equals the phase speed of the wave. This in turn is overlain by a stable region, representing the tropopause region and stratosphere

Dynamics of the atmospheres of the outer planets

Current knowledge about dynamics and the thermal structure of the outer planets is reviewed with the aim of identifying important measurements which should be made in the post-Voyager era. The existence of jets and cloud bands is the puzzle that underlies all others. The discussion focuses on the particular case of Jupiter because the documentation is the most complete. It is argued that the gross dynamical parameters of the outer planetary atmospheres are the keys to their behaviors, rather than the particular specifics of radiative forcing, cloud distributions, or thermodynamic transformations. Voyager data has shown that the jet systems decay with height in the region above the visible clouds. Therefore, the highest priority must be given to establishing dynamical parameters that characterize levels within and beneath the clouds. These require the determination of the deep structure of the jets, of the density stratification, and of the horizontal density contrasts. The deep regions are not easily accessible and these measurements present challenging opportunities. Indirect inferences about the controlling processes may sometimes be possible by observing waves and other activity in the more easily accessible stratosphere

How the Protein Data Bank Changed Biology: An Introduction to The JBC Reviews Thematic Series, Part 1

This collection of articles celebrates the 50th anniversary of the Protein Data Bank (PDB), the single global digital archive of biological macromolecular structures. The impact of the PDB is immense; we have invited a number of top researchers in structural biology to illustrate its influence on an array of scientific fields. What emerges is a compelling picture of the synergism between the PDB and the explosive progress witnessed in many scientific areas. Availability of reliable, openly accessible, well-archived structural information has arguably had more impact on cell and molecular biology than even some of the enabling technologies such as PCR. We have seen the science move from a time when structural biologists contributed the lion\u27s share of the structures to the PDB and for discussion within their community to a time when any effort to achieve in-depth understanding of a biochemical or cell biological question demands an interdisciplinary approach built atop structural underpinnings

Longitudinal Variations in Jupiter's Winds

Long-term studies of Jupiter's zonal wind field revealed temporal variations on the order of 20 to 40 m/s at many latitudes, greater than the typical data uncertainties of 1 to 10 m/s. No definitive periodicities were evident, however, though some latitudinally-confined signals did appear at periods relevant to the Quasi- Quadrennial Oscillation (Simon-Miller & Gierasch, Icarus, in press). As the QQO appears, from vertical temperature profiles, to propagate downward, it is unclear why a signal is not more obvious, unless other processes dominate over possibly weaker forcing from the QQO. An additional complication is that zonal wind profiles represent an average over some particular set of longitudes for an image pair and most data sets do not offer global wind coverage. Lien avoiding known features, such as the large anticyclonic vortices especially prevalent in the south, there can be distinct variations in longitude. We present results on the full wind field from Voyager and Cassini data, showing apparent longitudinal variations of up to 60 m/s or more. These are particularly obvious near disruptions such as the South Equatorial Disturbance, even when the feature itself is not clearly visible. These two dates represent very different states of the planet for comparison: Voyagers 1 & 2 flew by Jupiter shortly after a global upheaval, while many regions were in a disturbed state, while the Cassini view is typical of a more quiescent period present during much of the 1990s and early 2000s

Reorganization of lipid domain structure in membranes by a transmembrane peptide: an ESR spin label study on the effect of the Escherichia coli outer membrane protein A signal peptide on the fluid lipid domain connectivity in binary mixtures of dimyristoyl phosphatidylcholine and distearoyl phosphatidylcholine

The effect of a transmembrane peptide on the domain structure of a two-component, two-phase lipid bilayer composed of dimyristoyl phosphatidylcholine (DMPC) and distearoyl phosphatidylcholine (DSPC) was examined by spin label electron spin resonance (ESR) spectroscopy. The peptide, pOmpA, is the hydrophobic, 25-residue signal sequence of the outer membrane protein A from Escherichia coli. Nitroxide derivatives of the phospholipid DSPC, 16-DSPCSL, and of the pOmpA signal peptide, pOmpA-IASL, were used as probes. The first-derivative lineshapes of the ESR spectra were analyzed using a normalized intensity ratio, R, that gives information on the average sizes of the disconnected fluid domains and their point of connectivity (Sankaram, M.B., D. Marsh, and T.E. Thompson. 1992. Biophys. J. 63:340–349). In the absence of the peptide, the number of fluid lipid domains does not vary with the fraction of lipid that is in the fluid phase, and phase conversion is accomplished solely by changes in the domain size. The phase boundaries of the lipid mixture remain largely unchanged by the presence of the peptide at mole fractions up to 0.02, but both the size and number of the fluid domains is changed, and the point at which they become connected is shifted to lower fractions of the fluid phase. In addition, the number of domains in the presence of the peptide no longer remains constant but increases from a domain density at low fractions of the fluid phase that is much lower than that in the absence of peptide to one that is comparable to the natural state in the absence of peptide at the point of domain connectivity. A simple model is presented for the process of domain fission, where the latter is determined by a balance between the effects of peptide concentration in the fluid domains, the line tension at the domain boundaries, and the distributional entropy of the domains

Polar sediment accumulation: Role of surface winds at the two poles

The accumulation of the large deposits of volatile and nonvolatile sediments at both Martian poles has occurred through periods of likely climate change. Most data on wind directions near the Martian poles and seasonal activity relate to a very short period of time, at one point in climate cycles. It is still uncertain what the net budgets to the poles are and how this budget (if known) would fit into longer climate/sediment cycles. Pending further data we examined the full suite of Viking high-resolution, high-latitude images for wind markers of all sizes and types. These probably represent timescales of formation from days to several tens of thousands of years. The goal is to estimate the effectiveness, and possible drivers, of wind systems that bring materials near the surface to the regions of polar sediments and that also remove materials from the polar areas