365 research outputs found
A new population of terrestrial gamma-ray flashes in the RHESSI data
Terrestrial gamma-ray flashes (TGFs) are the most energetic photon phenomenon
occurring naturally on Earth. An outstanding question is as follows: Are these
flashes just a rare exotic phenomenon or are they an intrinsic part of
lightning discharges and therefore occurring more frequently than previously
thought? All measurements of TGFs so far have been limited by the dynamic range
and sensitivity of spaceborne instruments. In this paper we show that there is
a new population of weak TGFs that has not been identified by search
algorithms. We use the World Wide Lightning Location Network (WWLLN) to
identify lightning that occurred in 2006 and 2012 within the 800 km field of
view of Reuven Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager (RHESSI). By
superposing 740,210 100 ms RHESSI data intervals, centered at the time of the
WWLLN detected lightning, we identify at least 141 and probably as many as 191
weak TGFs that were not part of the second RHESSI data catalogue. This supports
the suggestion that the global TGF production rate is larger than previously
reported
FoxK1 and FoxK2 in insulin regulation of cellular and mitochondrial metabolism
A major target of insulin signaling is the FoxO family of Forkhead transcription factors, which translocate from the nucleus to the cytoplasm following insulin-stimulated phosphorylation. Here we show that the Forkhead transcription factors FoxK1 and FoxK2 are also downstream targets of insulin action, but that following insulin stimulation, they translocate from the cytoplasm to nucleus, reciprocal to the translocation of FoxO1. FoxK1/FoxK2 translocation to the nucleus is dependent on the Akt-mTOR pathway, while its localization to the cytoplasm in the basal state is dependent on GSK3. Knockdown of FoxK1 and FoxK2 in liver cells results in upregulation of genes related to apoptosis and down-regulation of genes involved in cell cycle and lipid metabolism. This is associated with decreased cell proliferation and altered mitochondrial fatty acid metabolism. Thus, FoxK1/K2 are reciprocally regulated to FoxO1 following insulin stimulation and play a critical role in the control of apoptosis, metabolism and mitochondrial function
Enrichment and characterization of high- and low-affinity herbicide-degrading bacteria from a groundwater aquifer
Excited rotational states of molecules in a superfluid
We combine experimental and theoretical approaches to explore excited
rotational states of molecules embedded in helium nanodroplets using CS and
I as examples. Laser-induced nonadiabatic molecular alignment is employed
to measure spectral lines for rotational states extending beyond those
initially populated at the 0.37 K droplet temperature. We construct a simple
quantum mechanical model, based on a linear rotor coupled to a single-mode
bosonic bath, to determine the rotational energy structure in its entirety. The
calculated and measured spectral lines are in good agreement. We show that the
effect of the surrounding superfluid on molecular rotation can be rationalized
by a single quantity -- the angular momentum, transferred from the molecule to
the droplet.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures; 5 pages, 3 figure
The genetic history of Greenlandic-European contact.
The Inuit ancestors of the Greenlandic people arrived in Greenland close to 1,000 years ago.1 Since then, Europeans from many different countries have been present in Greenland. Consequently, the present-day Greenlandic population has âź25% of its genetic ancestry from Europe.2 In this study, we investigated to what extent different European countries have contributed to this genetic ancestry. We combined dense SNP chip data from 3,972 Greenlanders and 8,275 Europeans from 14 countries and inferred the ancestry contribution from each of these 14 countries using haplotype-based methods. Due to the rapid increase in population size in Greenland over the past âź100 years, we hypothesized that earlier European interactions, such as pre-colonial Dutch whalers and early German and Danish-Norwegian missionaries, as well as the later Danish colonists and post-colonial immigrants, all contributed European genetic ancestry. However, we found that the European ancestry is almost entirely Danish and that a substantial fraction is from admixture that took place within the last few generations
Association Testing of Novel Type 2 Diabetes Risk Alleles in the JAZF1, CDC123/CAMK1D, TSPAN8, THADA, ADAMTS9, and NOTCH2 Loci With Insulin Release, Insulin Sensitivity, and Obesity in a Population-Based Sample of 4,516 Glucose-Tolerant Middle-Aged Danes
OBJECTIVEâ We evaluated the impact on diabetes-related intermediary traits of common novel type 2 diabetesâassociated variants in the JAZF1 (rs864745), CDC123/CAMK1D (rs12779790), TSPAN8 (rs7961581), THADA (rs7578597), ADAMTS9 (rs4607103), and NOTCH2 (rs10923931) loci, which were recently identified by meta-analysis of genome-wide association data
Combined analysis of 19 common validated type 2 diabetes susceptibility gene variants shows moderate discriminative value and no evidence of gene-gene interaction
The geography of recent genetic ancestry across Europe
The recent genealogical history of human populations is a complex mosaic
formed by individual migration, large-scale population movements, and other
demographic events. Population genomics datasets can provide a window into this
recent history, as rare traces of recent shared genetic ancestry are detectable
due to long segments of shared genomic material. We make use of genomic data
for 2,257 Europeans (the POPRES dataset) to conduct one of the first surveys of
recent genealogical ancestry over the past three thousand years at a
continental scale. We detected 1.9 million shared genomic segments, and used
the lengths of these to infer the distribution of shared ancestors across time
and geography. We find that a pair of modern Europeans living in neighboring
populations share around 10-50 genetic common ancestors from the last 1500
years, and upwards of 500 genetic ancestors from the previous 1000 years. These
numbers drop off exponentially with geographic distance, but since genetic
ancestry is rare, individuals from opposite ends of Europe are still expected
to share millions of common genealogical ancestors over the last 1000 years.
There is substantial regional variation in the number of shared genetic
ancestors: especially high numbers of common ancestors between many eastern
populations likely date to the Slavic and/or Hunnic expansions, while much
lower levels of common ancestry in the Italian and Iberian peninsulas may
indicate weaker demographic effects of Germanic expansions into these areas
and/or more stably structured populations. Recent shared ancestry in modern
Europeans is ubiquitous, and clearly shows the impact of both small-scale
migration and large historical events. Population genomic datasets have
considerable power to uncover recent demographic history, and will allow a much
fuller picture of the close genealogical kinship of individuals across the
world.Comment: Full size figures available from
http://www.eve.ucdavis.edu/~plralph/research.html; or html version at
http://ralphlab.usc.edu/ibd/ibd-paper/ibd-writeup.xhtm
Circulating Glucagon 1-61 Regulates Blood Glucose by Increasing Insulin Secretion and Hepatic Glucose Production
Glucagon is secreted from pancreatic a cells, and hypersecretion (hyperglucagonemia) contributes to diabetic hyperglycemia. Molecular heterogeneity in hyperglucagonemia is poorly investigated. By screening human plasma using high-resolution-proteomics, we identified several glucagon variants, among which proglucagon 1-61 (PG 1-61) appears to be the most abundant form. PG 1-61 is secreted in subjects with obesity, both before and after gastric bypass surgery, with protein and fat as the main drivers for secretion before surgery, but glucose after. Studies in hepatocytes and in b cells demonstrated that PG 1-61 dose-dependently increases levels of cAMP, through the glucagon receptor, and increases insulin secretion and protein levels of enzymes regulating glycogenolysis and gluconeogenesis. In rats, PG 1-61 increases blood glucose and plasma insulin and decreases plasma levels of amino acids in vivo. We conclude that glucagon variants, such as PG 1-61, may contribute to glucose regulation by stimulating hepatic glucose production and insulin secretion
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