Three-Dimensional Structure of the Magnetic Field in the Disk of the Milky Way

We present Rotation Measures (RM) of the diffuse Galactic synchrotron emission from the Canadian Galactic Plane Survey (CGPS) and compare them to RMs of extragalactic sources in order to study the large-scale reversal in the Galactic magnetic field (GMF). Using Stokes Q, U and I measurements of the Galactic disk collected with the Synthesis Telescope at the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Observatory, we calculate RMs over an extended region of the sky, focusing on the low longitude range of the CGPS (l=52deg to l=72deg). We note the similarity in the structures traced by the compact sources and the extended emission and highlight the presence of a gradient in the RM map across an approximately diagonal line, which we identify with the well-known field reversal of the Sagittarius-Carina arm. We suggest that the orientation of this reversal is a geometric effect resulting from our location within a GMF structure arising from current sheets that are not perpendicular to the Galactic plane, as is required for a strictly radial field reversal, but that have at least some component parallel to the disk. Examples of models that fit this description are the three-dimensional dynamo-based model of Gressel et al. (2013) and a Galactic scale Parker spiral (Akasofu & Hakamada 1982), although the latter may be problematic in terms of Galactic dynamics. We emphasize the importance of constructing three-dimensional models of the GMF to account for structures like the diagonal RM gradient observed in this dataset.Comment: Published in Astronomy and Astrophysics, Accepted 23 April, 201

Effects of herbicides on Selenastrum capricornutum and Daphnia magna

The toxicity of five herbicides, Propanil, Machete, Rilof-H, Saturn, and Ronestar, commonly used in Iranian rice fields, were investigated in acute toxicity bioassays on two organisms belonging to different in aquatic food chain. Compared with Daphnia magna, green algae Selenastrum capricornutum, showed more sensitivly to the herbicides. Machete and Saturn were the most toxic herbicides for algae. Three other herbicides, having more effect on the toxicity rate were Ronestar, Rilof-H, and Propanil. The toxic herbicides for Daphnia magna were Rilof-H and Saturn, and the others showed less toxicity. Comparing the amount of 6 to 23 mg/1 field concentrations of the herbicides with 0.01 to 12.46 mg/1 MAV-values for Selenastrum capticomutum and 0.446 to 9.5 mg/1, MAC-values for Daphnia magna in laboratory experiments revealed that the herbicides would certainly kill all useful organisms in aquatic food chain such as algae and zooplanktons in rice fields, and would damage other neighboring ecosystems in rivers, reservoirs, lagoon and the Caspian Sea which are connected with the fields. Ministry of Agriculture should be asked to introduce other less toxic herbicides

Effects of diazinon, malathion, machete and saturn on mortality of fingerling of Rutilus frisii kutum

The toxicity of the pesticides, malathion and diazinon, and the herbicides, Machete and Saturn, on mortality of fingerling of Rutilus frisii kutum were examined. Lc10 values for diazinon, Malathion, Machete and Saturn were 0.14 - 0.24, 0.10 - 0.35, 0.14 - 0.55, and 1.45 - 2.50 mg/L respectively. The result showed that diazinon, malathion and machete have a highly toxic effect on fingerling of R. frisii kutum and the herbicide, saturn, in comparison with other poisons was less toxic

DECOMP: A PDB decomposition tool on the web

The protein databank (PDB) contains high quality structural data for computational structural biology investigations. We have earlier described a fast tool (the decomp_pdb tool) for identifying and marking missing atoms and residues in PDB files. The tool also automatically decomposes PDB entries into separate files describing ligands and polypeptide chains. Here, we describe a web interface named DECOMP for the tool. Our program correctly identifies multi­monomer ligands, and the server also offers the preprocessed ligand­protein decomposition of the complete PDB for downloading (up to size: 5GB