592 research outputs found
MitoNeoD:a mitochondria-targeted superoxide probe
Mitochondrial superoxide (O2â
â) underlies much oxidative damage and redox signaling. Fluorescent probes can detect O2â
â, but are of limited applicability in vivo, while in cells their usefulness is constrained by side reactions and DNA intercalation. To overcome these limitations, we developed a dual-purpose mitochondrial O2â
â probe, MitoNeoD, which can assess O2â
â changes in vivo by mass spectrometry and in vitro by fluorescence. MitoNeoD comprises a O2â
â-sensitive reduced phenanthridinium moiety modified to prevent DNA intercalation, as well as a carbon-deuterium bond to enhance its selectivity for O2â
â over non-specific oxidation, and a triphenylphosphonium lipophilic cation moiety leading to the rapid accumulation within mitochondria. We demonstrated that MitoNeoD was a versatile and robust probe to assess changes in mitochondrial O2â
â from isolated mitochondria to animal models, thus offering a way to examine the many roles of mitochondrial O2â
âproduction in health and disease
The Imprint of Gravitational Waves in Models Dominated by a Dynamical Cosmic Scalar Field
An alternative to the standard cold dark matter model has been recently
proposed in which a significant fraction of the energy density of the universe
is due to a dynamical scalar field () whose effective equation-of-state
differs from that of matter, radiation or cosmological constant (). In
this paper, we determine how the Q-component modifies the primordial inflation
gravitational wave (tensor metric) contribution to the cosmic microwave
background anisotropy and, thereby, one of the key tests of inflation.Comment: 15 pages, 14 figures, revtex, submitted to Phys. Rev.
Optically-passive spirals: The missing link in gradual star formation suppression upon cluster infall
Galaxies migrate from the blue cloud to the red sequence when their star
formation is quenched. Here, we report on galaxies quenched by environmental
effects and not by mergers or strong AGN as often invoked: They form stars at a
reduced rate which is optically even less conspicuous, and manifest a
transition population of blue spirals evolving into S0 galaxies. These
'optically passive' or 'red spirals' are found in large numbers in the STAGES
project (and by Galaxy Zoo) in the infall region of clusters and groups.Comment: Proceedings of "The Starburst-AGN connection" conference held in
Shanghai, Oct 27-31, 200
Obscured star formation in intermediate-density environments:A Spitzer study of the Abell 901/902 supercluster
We explore the amount of obscured star formation as a function of environment in the Abell 901/902 (A901/902) supercluster at z = 0.165 in conjunction with a field sample drawn from the A901 and CDFS fields, imaged with the Hubble Space Telescope as part of the Space Telescope A901/902 Galaxy Evolution Survey and Galaxy Evolution from Morphology and Spectral Energy Distributions (SEDs) Survey. We combine the combo-17 near-UV/optical SED with Spitzer 24 mu m photometry to estimate both the unobscured and obscured star formation in galaxies with M-* > 10(10) M-circle dot. We find that the star formation activity in massive galaxies is suppressed in dense environments, in agreement with previous studies. Yet, nearly 40% of the star-forming (SF) galaxies have red optical colors at intermediate and high densities. These red systems are not starbursting; they have star formation rates (SFRs) per unit stellar mass similar to or lower than blue SF galaxies. More than half of the red SF galaxies have low infrared-to-ultraviolet (IR-to-UV) luminosity ratios, relatively high Sersicindices, and they are equally abundant at all densities. They might be gradually quenching their star formation, possibly but not necessarily under the influence of gas-removing environmental processes. The other greater than or similar to 40% of the red SF galaxies have high IR-to-UV luminosity ratios, indicative of high dust obscuration. They have relatively high specific SFRs and are more abundant at intermediate densities. Our results indicate that while there is an overall suppression in the SF galaxy fraction with density, the small amount of star formation surviving the cluster environment is to a large extent obscured, suggesting that environmental interactions trigger a phase of obscured star formation, before complete quenching
Hectospec, the MMT's 300 Optical Fiber-Fed Spectrograph
The Hectospec is a 300 optical fiber fed spectrograph commissioned at the MMT
in the spring of 2004. A pair of high-speed six-axis robots move the 300 fiber
buttons between observing configurations within ~300 s and to an accuracy ~25
microns. The optical fibers run for 26 m between the MMT's focal surface and
the bench spectrograph operating at R~1000-2000. Another high dispersion bench
spectrograph offering R~5,000, Hectochelle, is also available. The system
throughput, including all losses in the telescope optics, fibers, and
spectrograph peaks at ~10% at the grating blaze in 1" FWHM seeing. Correcting
for aperture losses at the 1.5" diameter fiber entrance aperture, the system
throughput peaks at 17%. Hectospec has proven to be a workhorse
instrument at the MMT. Hectospec and Hectochelle together were scheduled for
1/3 of the available nights since its commissioning. Hectospec has returned
\~60,000 reduced spectra for 16 scientific programs during its first year of
operation.Comment: 68 pages, 28 figures, to appear in December 2005 PAS
Terrestrial Planet Occurrence Rates for the Kepler GK Dwarf Sample
We measure planet occurrence rates using the planet candidates discovered by
the Q1-Q16 Kepler pipeline search. This study examines planet occurrence rates
for the Kepler GK dwarf target sample for planet radii, 0.75<Rp<2.5 Rearth, and
orbital periods, 50<Porb<300 days, with an emphasis on a thorough exploration
and identification of the most important sources of systematic uncertainties.
Integrating over this parameter space, we measure an occurrence rate of F=0.77
planets per star, with an allowed range of 0.3<F<1.9. The allowed range takes
into account both statistical and systematic uncertainties, and values of F
beyond the allowed range are significantly in disagreement with our analysis.
We generally find higher planet occurrence rates and a steeper increase in
planet occurrence rates towards small planets than previous studies of the
Kepler GK dwarf sample. Through extrapolation, we find that the one year
orbital period terrestrial planet occurrence rate, zeta_1=0.1, with an allowed
range of 0.01<zeta_1<2, where zeta_1 is defined as the number of planets per
star within 20% of the Rp and Porb of Earth. For G dwarf hosts, the zeta_1
parameter space is a subset of the larger eta_earth parameter space, thus
zeta_1 places a lower limit on eta_earth for G dwarf hosts. From our analysis,
we identify the leading sources of systematics impacting Kepler occurrence rate
determinations as: reliability of the planet candidate sample, planet radii,
pipeline completeness, and stellar parameters.Comment: 19 Pages, 17 Figures, Submitted ApJ. Python source to support Kepler
pipeline completeness estimates available at
http://github.com/christopherburke/KeplerPORTs
The dark matter environment of the Abell 901/902 supercluster: a weak lensing analysis of the HST STAGES survey
We present a high resolution dark matter reconstruction of the z=0.165 Abell
901/902 supercluster from a weak lensing analysis of the HST STAGES survey. We
detect the four main structures of the supercluster at high significance,
resolving substructure within and between the clusters. We find that the
distribution of dark matter is well traced by the cluster galaxies, with the
brightest cluster galaxies marking out the strongest peaks in the dark matter
distribution. We also find a significant extension of the dark matter
distribution of Abell 901a in the direction of an infalling X-ray group Abell
901alpha. We present mass, mass-to-light and mass-to-stellar mass ratio
measurements of the structures and substructures that we detect. We find no
evidence for variation of the mass-to-light and mass-to-stellar mass ratio
between the different clusters. We compare our space-based lensing analysis
with an earlier ground-based lensing analysis of the supercluster to
demonstrate the importance of space-based imaging for future weak lensing dark
matter 'observations'.Comment: 13 pages, 6 figures and 4 tables. Accepted for publication in MNRA
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