Reticulate Evolution of Parthenospecies of the Lacertidae Rock Lizards: Inheritance of CLsat Tandem Repeats and Anonymous RAPD Markers

Abstract -The genetic relatedness of several bisexual and of four unisexual " Lacerta saxicola complex" lizards was studied, using monomer sequences of the complex-specific CLsat tandem repeats and anonymous RAPD markers. Genomes of parthenospecies were shown to include different satellite monomers. The structure of each such monomer is specific for a certain pair of bisexual species. This fact might be interpreted in favor of co-dominant inheritance of these markers in bisexual species hybridogenesis. This idea is supported by the results obtained with RAPD markers; i.e., unisexual species genomes include only the loci characteristic of certain bisexual species. At the same time, in neither case parthenospecies possess specific, autoapomorphic loci that were not present in this or that bisexual species

Reticulate Evolution of Parthenospecies of the Lacertidae Rock Lizards: Inheritance of CLsat Tandem Repeats and Anonymous RAPD Markers

Abstract -The genetic relatedness of several bisexual and of four unisexual " Lacerta saxicola complex" lizards was studied, using monomer sequences of the complex-specific CLsat tandem repeats and anonymous RAPD markers. Genomes of parthenospecies were shown to include different satellite monomers. The structure of each such monomer is specific for a certain pair of bisexual species. This fact might be interpreted in favor of co-dominant inheritance of these markers in bisexual species hybridogenesis. This idea is supported by the results obtained with RAPD markers; i.e., unisexual species genomes include only the loci characteristic of certain bisexual species. At the same time, in neither case parthenospecies possess specific, autoapomorphic loci that were not present in this or that bisexual species

Environmental impact assessment of the designed Petrikov potash mining and processing complex, Belarus: approaches and results

Petrikov deposit of potash salt is situated in Gomel oblast of Belarus in the south-east of Pripyat Trough, and consists of Northern and Southern prospects. Underground mining of potash salt will start at the Northern prospect with the area of 166 km2. It is expected that mining will last for about 50-80 years. Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) was carried out at the stage of designing of Petrikov mining and processing plant. Standard EIA procedure included a set of investigations, including assessment of surface subsidence, assessment of changes in groundwater level, assessment of changes in productivity of forest phytocenoses and crops, and assessment of groundwater pollution due to production of potash fertilizers. Maximum values of possible surface subsidence (up to 2.3 m) will occur within the area, where the surface will be effected by mining of potash layers 1, 2, and 3 of the productive horizon IV-p, using long-pillar mining system. Surface subsidence will influence surface topography, surface and groundwater, landscape structure and land resources. The result of surface subsidence will lead to inundation and swamping of land, as well as to increase in the areas affected by annual floods in the valleys of Pripyat and Bobrik rivers. Surface subsidence will affect the whole area of the prospect within the limits of planned mining fields, except the areas above safety pillars. In the result of raise in groundwater level the area with groundwater depth of more than 2 m will decrease from 69.1% to 17.8%, and the areas with groundwater depth from 3 to 5 m will disappear. The area with groundwater depth less than 1 m will increase from 0.1 % to 34.0 %. Within 19.5% of the area the groundwater level will raise above the surface level (the area of inundation). Surface subsidence and change in groundwater level will cause certain decrease in yields of timber and crops, besides this 25.64 km2 of forest, 0.68 km2 of arable land and 3.24 km2 of meadows will be inundated. In order to prevent inundation within certain areas the protective engineering facilities have been designed, and arrangement of groundwater monitoring wells has been proposed. The protective facilities at solid and liquid sludge dumps are designed to prevent the environment from pollution. Nevertheless, the patterns of possible migration of pollutants in groundwater were assessed in case of accidental discharge of waste

MolBio5_07GrechkoLO

Abstract -To characterize the molecular genetic diversity of the genus Darevskia , several populations were examined by the inter-SINE-PCR method, reporting the number and sizes of the spacers between individual copies of SINE-like interspersed repeats. Examination of 17 D. raddei geographical populations and several reference species revealed unequal genetic differences, measured as Nei and Li's genetic distances (D NL ), for different groups of samples. The highest homogeneity was observed for the apparently panmictic D. raddei nairensis population from the basin of the Hrazdan River: genetic differences within each of the five samples and between them were similarly low (less than 0.1). The difference between ten samples of D. raddei raddei from Armenia and Karabakh (0.2-0.3) was somewhat higher than the interindividual difference within each sample (0.1-0.2), indicating that the samples belonged to different populations. The assumption was supported by the phylogenetic tree topology and multidimensional scaling

Direct observation of mode-specific phonon-band gap coupling in methylammonium lead halide perovskites

Methylammonium lead iodide perovskite, a promising material for efficient photovoltaics, shows a unique temperature dependence of its optical properties. Kim et al. quantify the coupling between the optical gap and a lattice phonon at 1 THz, which favorably contributes to the thermal variation of the gap

Expansion of the Fast Linac Protection System for High Duty Cycle Operation at the TESLA Test Facility

To perform a proof of principle experiment of a SASE based Free Electron Laser operating a permanent magnet undulator has been installed in the TESLA Test Facility (TTF) linac. The type of permanent magnets (NdFeB) used is known to be sensitive to irradiation. Already losses of the order of 10−6 at nominal TTF beam current can cause a degradation of the undulator magnets after a few month of operation. To protect the undulator against radiation a collimation system in front of the undulator removes the electrons with large betatron motion. To detect beam haloor dark current escaping the collimators a beam loss monitor (BLM) system based on photomultiplier has been developed. During the past two years the BLM system has been improved in its electronic components and detectors. It has become a standard tool for linac operation and is nowintegrated part of the linac protect system. In this paper the design, the operation experiences and the performance limits of the system are presented

Photoexcitation Dynamics of Coupled Semiconducting Carbon Nanotube Thin Films

Carbon nanotubes are a promising means of capturing photons for use in solar cell devices. We time-resolved the photoexcitation dynamics of coupled, bandgap-selected, semiconducting carbon nanotubes in thin films tailored for photovoltaics. Using transient absorption spectroscopy and anisotropy measurements, we found that the photoexcitation evolves by two mechanisms with a fast and long-range component followed by a slow and short-range component. Within 300 fs of optical excitation, 20% of nanotubes transfer their photoexcitation over 5–10 nm into nearby nanotube fibers. After 3 ps, 70% of the photoexcitation resides on the smallest bandgap nanotubes. After this ultrafast process, the photoexcitation continues to transfer on a ∼10 ps time scale but to predominantly aligned tubes. Ultimately the photoexcitation hops twice on average between fibers. These results are important for understanding the flow of energy and charge in coupled nanotube materials and light-harvesting devices