Polarization control of isolated high-harmonic pulses

High-harmonic generation driven by femtosecond lasers makes it possible to capture the fastest dynamics in molecules and materials. However, thus far, the shortest isolated attosecond pulses have only been produced with linear polarization, which limits the range of physics that can be explored. Here, we demonstrate robust polarization control of isolated extreme-ultraviolet pulses by exploiting non-collinear high-harmonic generation driven by two counter-rotating few-cycle laser beams. The circularly polarized supercontinuum is produced at a central photon energy of 33 eV with a transform limit of 190 as and a predicted linear chirp of 330 as. By adjusting the ellipticity of the two counter-rotating driving pulses simultaneously, we control the polarization state of isolated extreme-ultraviolet pulses—from circular through elliptical to linear polarization—without sacrificing conversion efficiency. Access to the purely circularly polarized supercontinuum, combined with full helicity and ellipticity control, paves the way towards attosecond metrology of circular dichroism.The experimental work was carried out at National Tsing Hua University, Institute of Photonics Technologies, supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan (grants 105-2112-M-007-030-MY3, 105-2112-M-001-030 and 104-2112-M-007-012-MY3). The concept of isolated circularly polarized attosecond pulses was developed by C.H.-G., D.D.H., M.M.M., C.G.D., H.C.K., A.B. and A.J.-B.. C.H.-G. acknowledges support from the Marie Curie International Outgoing Fellowship within the EU Seventh Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development (2007–2013), under Research Executive Agency grant agreement no. 328334. C.H.-G. and L.P. acknowledge support from Junta de Castilla y León (SA046U16) and the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (FIS2013-44174-P, FIS2016-75652-P). C.H.-G. acknowledges support from a 2017 Leonardo Grant for Researchers and Cultural Creators (BBVA Foundation). M.M.M. and H.C.K. acknowledge support from the Department of Energy Basic Energy Sciences (award no. DE-FG02-99ER14982) for the concepts and experimental set-up. For part of the theory, A.B., A.J.-B., C.G.D., M.M.M. and H.C.K. acknowledge support from a Multidisciplinary University Research Initiatives grant from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (award no. FA9550-16-1-0121). A.J.-B. also acknowledges support from the US National Science Foundation (grant no. PHY-1734006). This work utilized the Janus supercomputer, which is supported by the US National Science Foundation (grant no. CNS-0821794) and the University of Colorado, Boulder. This research made use of the high-performance computing resources of the Castilla y León Supercomputing Center (SCAYLE, www.scayle.es), financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). J.L.E. acknowledges support from the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship (DGE-1144083). L.R. acknowledges support from the Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte (FPU16/02591)

Marked seasonality and high spatial variation in estuarine ciliates are driven by exchanges between the ‘abundant’ and ‘intermediate’ biospheres

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The file attached is the Published/publisher’s pdf version of the article

The Lifelines Cohort Study: A rich data source for demographers

Population-based cohort studies are important for causal analyses between demographic events and healthrelated outcomes. The University of Groningen has been building the Lifelines Cohort Study, which offers rich possibilities for cross-fertilization between demographers and biomedical researchers. A primer for theuninitiated

Low glucose metabolism during brain stimulation in older Down's syndrome subjects at risk for Alzheimer's disease prior to dementia

OBJECTIVE: Down's syndrome is characterized by the genetically programmed accumulation of substantial Alzheimer's disease neuropathology after age 40 and the development of early dementia years later, providing a unique human model to investigate the preclinical phases of Alzheimer's disease. Older nondemented adults with Down's syndrome show normal rates of regional cerebral glucose metabolism at rest before the onset of dementia, indicating that their neurons maintain function at rest. The authors hypothesized that an audiovisual stimulation paradigm, acting as a stress test, would reveal abnormalities in cerebral glucose metabolism before dementia in the neocortical parietal and temporal areas most vulnerable to Alzheimer's disease. METHOD: Regional cerebral glucose metabolism was assessed by means of positron emission tomography (PET) with [18F]fluorodeoxyglucose in eight younger (mean age = 35 years, SD = 2) and eight older (mean age = 50, SD = 7) healthy, nondemented adults with trisomy 21 Down's syndrome. PET scans were performed at rest and during audiovisual stimulation in the same scanning session. Levels of general intellectual functioning and compliance were similar in the two groups. RESULTS: At rest the two groups showed no difference in glucose metabolism in any cerebral region. In contrast, during audiovisual stimulation the older subjects with Down's syndrome had significantly lower glucose metabolic rates in the parietal and temporal cortical areas. CONCLUSIONS: Abnormalities in cerebral metabolism during stimulation appeared in the first cortical regions typically affected in Alzheimer's disease. These results indicate that a stress test paradigm can detect metabolic abnormalities in the preclinical stages of Alzheimer's disease despite normal cerebral metabolism at rest

Vertical structure of small eukaryotes in three lakes that differ by their trophic status : a quantitative approach

In lakes, the diversity of eukaryotic picoplankton has been recently studied by the analysis of 18S ribosomal RNA gene sequences; however, quantitative data are rare. In this study, the vertical structure and abundance of the small eukaryotic size fraction (0.2-5 mu m) were investigated in three lakes by tyramide signal amplification-fluorescent in situ hybridization targeting six phylogenetic groups: Chlorophyta, Haptophyta, Cercozoa, LKM11, Perkinsozoa and fungi. The groups targeted in this study are found in all lakes; however, both the abundance and structure of small eukaryotes are dependent on the system's productivity and depth. These data highlighted the presence of Chlorophyta contributing on an average to 19.3%, 14.7% and 41.2% of total small eukaryotes in lakes Bourget, Aydat and Pavin, respectively. This study also revealed the unexpected importance of Haptophyta, reaching 62.8% of eukaryotes in the euphotic zone of Lake Bourget. The high proportions of these pigmented cells highlight the underestimation of these groups by PCR-based methods. The presence of pigmented Chlorophyta in the deepest zones of the lakes suggests a mixotrophic behaviour of these taxa. We also confirmed the presence of putative parasites such as Perkinsozoa (5.1% of small eukaryotes in Lake Pavin and Bourget) and, with lower abundances, fungi (targeted by the MY1574 probe). Cells targeted by LKM11 probes represented the second group of abundance within heterotrophs. Open questions regarding the functional roles of the targeted groups arise from this study, especially regarding parasitism and mixotrophy, which are interactions poorly taken into account in planktonic food web models. The ISME Journal (2010) 4, 1509-1519; doi:10.1038/ismej.2010.83; published online 24 June 201