The epiphyllous habit in the hepatic genus Frullania

We report for the first time 11 species of Frullania growing as epiphylls in New Zealand, New Caledonia, and Colombia . Also listed are 29 Frullania species that have previously been recorded growing as epiphylls in other regions of the world. The highest diversity of Frullania epiphyllous species are in the floristic regions of New Zealand, New Caledonia, Macraonesia, and Madagascar. Frullania epiphylls range in altitude from sea-level to 2500m and can be categorised into facultative or accidental epiphylls. The number of Frullania species currently recorded growing as epiphylls will no doubt increase as more revisions of the genus in different floristic regions take place. This number may also increase if botanists were to explore leaf surfaces as a potential substrate for Frullania species, in addition to bark and rock habitats that have traditionally been described as microhabitats for the genus

Mice with cleavage-resistant N-cadherin exhibit synapse anomaly in the hippocampus and outperformance in spatial learning tasks

N-cadherin is a homophilic cell adhesion molecule that stabilizes excitatory synapses, by connecting pre- and post-synaptic termini. Upon NMDA receptor (NMDAR) activation by glutamate, membrane-proximal domains of N-cadherin are cleaved serially by a-disintegrin-and-metalloprotease 10 (ADAM10) and then presenilin 1(PS1, catalytic subunit of the γ-secretase complex). To assess the physiological significance of the initial N-cadherin cleavage, we engineer the mouse genome to create a knock-in allele with tandem missense mutations in the mouse N-cadherin/Cadherin-2 gene (Cdh2 R714G, I715D, or GD) that confers resistance on proteolysis by ADAM10 (GD mice). GD mice showed a better performance in the radial maze test, with significantly less revisiting errors after intervals of 30 and 300 s than WT, and a tendency for enhanced freezing in fear conditioning. Interestingly, GD mice reveal higher complexity in the tufts of thorny excrescence in the CA3 region of the hippocampus. Fine morphometry with serial section transmission electron microscopy (ssTEM) and three-dimensional (3D) reconstruction reveals significantly higher synaptic density, significantly smaller PSD area, and normal dendritic spine volume in GD mice. This knock-in mouse has provided in vivo evidence that ADAM10-mediated cleavage is a critical step in N-cadherin shedding and degradation and involved in the structure and function of glutamatergic synapses, which affect the memory function

Transition density of diffusion on Sierpinski gasket and extension of Flory's formula

Some problems related to the transition density u(t,x) of the diffusion on the Sierpinski gasket are considerd, based on recent rigorous results and detailed numerical calculations. The main contents are an extension of Flory's formula for the end-to-end distance exponent of self-avoiding walks on the fractal spaces, and an evidence of the oscillatory behavior of u(t,x) on the Sierpinski gasket.Comment: 11 pages, REVTEX, 2 postscript figure

Origin of the New Caledonian bryophytes

The origin of a flora is one of the most interesting and challenging topics in bryology. However, it is a very difficult problem, and considerable effort is needed to accumulate more detailed information on the distribution and taxonomy of bryophytes than is available today

Studies on Hong Kong Cheilolejeunea with two species new to China

Five species of the genus Cheilolejeunea are reported from Hong Kong. Among them, Cheilolejeunea osumiensis (Hatt.) Mizut. and Cheilolejeunea ryukyuensis Mizut. are new to China. Cheilolejeunea intertexta (Lindenb.) Steph. is newly reported for China except Taiwan, and Cheilolejeunea trifaria (Reinw. et al.) Mizut. is documented for the first time for mainland China except Hainan and Taiwan. The detailed description and illustration of Cheilolejeunea osumiensis as well as the key to the five Cheilolejeunea species of Hong Kong are also presented

Hadronic Paschen-Back effect

We find a novel phenomenon induced by the interplay between a strong magnetic field and finite orbital angular momenta in hadronic systems, which is analogous to the Paschen-Back effect observed in the field of atomic physics. This effect allows the wave functions to drastically deform. We discuss anisotropic decay from the deformation as a possibility to measure the strength of the magnetic field in heavy-ion collision at LHC, RHIC and SPS, which has not experimentally been measured. As an example we investigate charmonia with a finite orbital angular momentum in a strong magnetic field. We calculate the mass spectra and mixing rates. To obtain anisotropic wave functions, we apply the cylindrical Gaussian expansion method, where the Gaussian bases to expand the wave functions have different widths along transverse and longitudinal directions in the cylindrical coordinate.Comment: 8 pages, 8 figures, v3: updated to the published style on PL