628 research outputs found
Direct Detection of Galactic Halo Dark Matter
The Milky Way Galaxy contains a large, spherical component which is believed
to harbor a substantial amount of unseen matter. Recent observations indirectly
suggest that as much as half of this ``dark matter'' may be in the form of old,
very cool white dwarfs, the remnants of an ancient population of stars as old
as the Galaxy itself. We conducted a survey to find faint, cool white dwarfs
with large space velocities, indicative of their membership in the Galaxy's
spherical halo component. The survey reveals a substantial, directly observed
population of old white dwarfs, too faint to be seen in previous surveys. This
newly discovered population accounts for at least 2% of the halo dark matter.
It provides a natural explanation for the indirect observations, and represents
a direct detection of Galactic halo dark matter.Comment: 13 pages, 4 figures, 1 table. Note added after Science Express online
publication: This text reflects the correction of a few typographical errors
in the online version of the table. It also includes the new constraint on
the calculation of d_max which accounts for the fact that the survey could
not have detected stars with proper motions below 0.33 arcseconds per year.
Published online at ScienceExpress www.sciencemag.org 22 March 2001;
10.1126/science.1059954; To appear in Science 27 April 200
Why Effective Medium Theory Fails in Granular Materials
Experimentally it is known that the bulk modulus, K, and shear modulus, \mu,
of a granular assembly of elastic spheres increase with pressure, p, faster
than the p^1/3 law predicted by effective medium theory (EMT) based on
Hertz-Mindlin contact forces. To understand the origin of these discrepancies,
we perform numerical simulations of granular aggregates under compression. We
show that EMT can describe the moduli pressure dependence if one includes the
increasing number of grain-grain contacts with p. Most important, the affine
assumption (which underlies EMT), is found to be valid for K(p) but breakdown
seriously for \mu(p). This explains why the experimental and numerical values
of \mu(p) are much smaller than the EMT predictions.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures, http://polymer.bu.edu/~hmaks
Granular Packings: Nonlinear elasticity, sound propagation and collective relaxation dynamics
Experiments on isotropic compression of a granular assembly of spheres show
that the shear and bulk moduli vary with the confining pressure faster than the
1/3 power law predicted by Hertz-Mindlin effective medium theories (EMT) of
contact elasticity. Moreover, the ratio between the moduli is found to be
larger than the prediction of the elastic theory by a constant value. The
understanding of these discrepancies has been a longstanding question in the
field of granular matter. Here we perform a test of the applicability of
elasticity theory to granular materials. We perform sound propagation
experiments, numerical simulations and theoretical studies to understand the
elastic response of a deforming granular assembly of soft spheres under
isotropic loading. Our results for the behavior of the elastic moduli of the
system agree very well with experiments. We show that the elasticity partially
describes the experimental and numerical results for a system under
compressional loads. However, it drastically fails for systems under shear
perturbations, particularly for packings without tangential forces and
friction. Our work indicates that a correct treatment should include not only
the purely elastic response but also collective relaxation mechanisms related
to structural disorder and nonaffine motion of grains.Comment: 21 pages, 13 figure
Pressure dependence of the sound velocity in a 2D lattice of Hertz-Mindlin balls: a mean field description
We study the dependence on the external pressure of the velocities
of long wavelength sound waves in a confined 2D h.c.p. lattice of 3D
elastic frictional balls interacting via one-sided Hertz-Mindlin contact
forces, whose diameters exhibit mild dispersion. The presence of an underlying
long range order enables us to build an effective medium description which
incorporates the radial fluctuations of the contact forces acting on a single
site. Due to the non linearity of Hertz elasticity, self-consistency results in
a highly non-linear differential equation for the "equation of state" linking
the effective stiffness of the array with the applied pressure, from which
sound velocities are then obtained. The results are in excellent agreement with
existing experimental results and simulations in the high and intermediate
pressure regimes. It emerges from the analysis that the departure of
from the ideal Hertz behavior must be attributed primarily to the
fluctuations of the stress field, rather than to the pressure dependence of the
number of contacts
Reproductive failure, possible maternal infanticide, and cannibalism in wild moustached tamarins, Saguinus mystax
Maternal infanticide in wild non-human primates has only been reported twice. In this paper, we report a possible new case of infanticide and cannibalism within a series of four successive reproductive failures in wild moustached tamarins, Saguinus mystax. Necropsy and genetic analyses of the corpses enabled us to rule out any pathology, and to determine paternity. The mother was seen biting and then eating the head of its own infant during a period when another female was pregnant and gave birth just 1 month later. Before that, the perpetrator had given birth to twins three times successfully when four to five adult and subadult males were present in the group. Although we do not know for certain that the infant was alive when the mother started biting it, our field observations preceding the event suggest it probably was. The possible infanticide case and the two cases of births and early death of the infants occurred while only two to three adult males were present in the group. This could be the second case of maternal infanticide reported in the genus Saguinus and the similar circumstances suggest a common pattern. We discuss these events in the light of the different functional explanations of infanticide and conclude that parental manipulation was the most likely: the mother could have terminated the investment in offspring that had low chances of survival in a group with low availability of helpers
The Influence of HIV on the Evolution of Mycobacterium tuberculosis.
HIV significantly affects the immunological environment during tuberculosis coinfection, and therefore may influence the selective landscape upon which M. tuberculosis evolves. To test this hypothesis whole genome sequences were determined for 169 South African M. tuberculosis strains from HIV-1 coinfected and uninfected individuals and analyzed using two Bayesian codon-model based selection analysis approaches: FUBAR which was used to detect persistent positive and negative selection (selection respectively favoring and disfavoring nonsynonymous substitutions); and MEDS which was used to detect episodic directional selection specifically favoring nonsynonymous substitutions within HIV-1 infected individuals. Among the 25,251 polymorphic codon sites analyzed, FUBAR revealed that 189-fold more were detectably evolving under persistent negative selection than were evolving under persistent positive selection. Three specific codon sites within the genes celA2b, katG, and cyp138 were identified by MEDS as displaying significant evidence of evolving under directional selection influenced by HIV-1 coinfection. All three genes encode proteins that may indirectly interact with human proteins that, in turn, interact functionally with HIV proteins. Unexpectedly, epitope encoding regions were enriched for sites displaying weak evidence of directional selection influenced by HIV-1. Although the low degree of genetic diversity observed in our M. tuberculosis data set means that these results should be interpreted carefully, the effects of HIV-1 on epitope evolution in M. tuberculosis may have implications for the design of M. tuberculosis vaccines that are intended for use in populations with high HIV-1 infection rates
PPARgamma activity in subcutaneous abdominal fat tissue and fat mass gain during short-term overfeeding
Objective: As the peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor (PPAR) plays a central role in fat mass regulation, we investigated whether initial subcutaneous PPAR activity is related to fat mass generation during overfeeding. Subjects: Fourteen healthy female subjects (age 254 years, BMI 22.12.3 kg/m2). Design and measurements: Subjects were overfed with a diet supplying 50% more energy than baseline energy requirements for 14 days. Fasting blood samples were analyzed for leptin, insulin and glucose. Fasting subcutaneous abdominal fat biopsies were obtained for analysis of PPAR1, PPAR2, aP2 and UCP2 mRNAs. Results: Initial PPAR1 and 2, aP2 and UCP2 mRNAs were not related to fat gain (P>0.12). However, PPAR1, PPAR2 and aP2 mRNA changes were positively related to changes in plasma leptin (
- …