8,090 research outputs found
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Shock recovery experiments confirm the possibility of transferring viable microorganisms from Mars to Earth
Extract from introduction: With regard to the impact and ejection phase we tested the case for the transfer of microorganisms from Mars to Earth. Using a high explosive set-up thin layers of bacterial endospores of Bacillus subtilis, of the lichen Xanthoria elegans and of the cyanobacterium Chroococcidiopsis sp. embedded between two plates of gabbro were subjected to 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50 GPa which is the pressure range observed in Martian meteorites [1]
Combination of structure databases, In silico fragmentation, and MS/MS libraries for untargeted screening of non-volatile migrants from recycled high-density polyethylene milk bottles
Chemical contamination is one of the major obstacles for mechanical recycling of plastics. In this article, we built and open-sourced an in-house MS/MS library containing more than 500 plastic-related chemicals and developed mspcompiler, an R package, for the compilation of various libraries. We then proposed a workflow to process untargeted screening data acquired by liquid chromatography high-resolution mass spectrometry. These tools were subsequently employed to data originating from recycled high-density polyethylene (rHDPE) obtained from milk bottles. A total of 83 compounds were identified, with 66 easily annotated by making use of our in-house MS/MS libraries and the mspcompiler R package. In silico fragmentation combined with data obtained from gas chromatography–mass spectrometry and lists of chemicals related to plastics were used to identify those remaining unknown. A pseudo-multiple reaction monitoring method was also applied to sensitively target and screen the identified chemicals in the samples. Quantification results demonstrated that a good sorting of postconsumer materials and a better recycling technology may be necessary for food contact applications. Removal or reduction of non-volatile substances, such as octocrylene and 2-ethylhexyl-4-methoxycinnamate, is still challenging but vital for the safe use of rHDPE as food contact materials
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Life after shock: the mission from Mars to Earth
Extract from introduction: The minerals of the Martian meteorites collected so far indicate an exposure to shock waves in the pressure range of 5 to 55 GPa [1]. As terrestrial rocks are frequently inhabited by microbial communities, rocks ejected from a planet by impact processes may carry with them endolithic microorganisms, if microbial life existed/exists on this planet
Comparison of the Interactions of Transferrin Receptor and Transferrin Receptor 2 with Transferrin and the Hereditary Hemochromatosis Protein HFE
The transferrin receptor (TfR) interacts with two proteins important for iron metabolism, transferrin (Tf) and HFE, the protein mutated in hereditary hemochromatosis. A second receptor for Tf, TfR2, was recently identified and found to be functional for iron uptake in transfected cells (Kawabata, H., Germain, R. S., Vuong, P. T., Nakamaki, T., Said, J. W., and Koeffler, H. P. (2000) J. Biol. Chem. 275, 16618-16625). TfR2 has a pattern of expression and regulation that is distinct from TfR, and mutations in TfR2 have been recognized as the cause of a non-HFE linked form of hemochromatosis (Camaschella, C., Roetto, A., Cali, A., De Gobbi, M., Garozzo, G., Carella, M., Majorano, N., Totaro, A., and Gasparini, P. (2000) Nat. Genet. 25, 14-15). To investigate the relationship between TfR, TfR2, Tf, and HFE, we performed a series of binding experiments using soluble forms of these proteins. We find no detectable binding between TfR2 and HFE by co-immunoprecipitation or using a surface plasmon resonance-based assay. The affinity of TfR2 for iron-loaded Tf was determined to be 27 nM, 25-fold lower than the affinity of TfR for Tf. These results imply that HFE regulates Tf-mediated iron uptake only from the classical TfR and that TfR2 does not compete for HFE binding in cells expressing both forms of TfR
Two-point Padé-type approximation to the Cauchy transform of certain strong distributions
AbstractIn this paper we are mainly concerned with the Cauchy transform of certain strong distributions satisfying a type of symmetric property introduced by A.S. Ranga. Algebraic properties of the corresponding two-point Padé-type approximants are given along with results about convergence for sequences of such approximant
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Impact experiments in support of “Lithopanspermia”: The route from Mars to Earth
Shock recovery experiments on a Martian analogue rock (gabbro) loaded with three types of microorganisms reveal that these organisms survive the impact and ejection phase on Mars at shock pressures up to about 50 GPa with exponentially decreasing survival rates
Quantum simulation of the Anderson Hamiltonian with an array of coupled nanoresonators: delocalization and thermalization effects
The possibility of using nanoelectromechanical systems as a simulation tool
for quantum many-body effects is explored. It is demonstrated that an array of
electrostatically coupled nanoresonators can effectively simulate the
Bose-Hubbard model without interactions, corresponding in the single-phonon
regime to the Anderson tight-binding model. Employing a density matrix
formalism for the system coupled to a bosonic thermal bath, we study the
interplay between disorder and thermalization, focusing on the delocalization
process. It is found that the phonon population remains localized for a long
time at low enough temperatures; with increasing temperatures the localization
is rapidly lost due to thermal pumping of excitations into the array, producing
in the equilibrium a fully thermalized system. Finally, we consider a possible
experimental design to measure the phonon population in the array by means of a
superconducting transmon qubit coupled to individual nanoresonators. We also
consider the possibility of using the proposed quantum simulator for realizing
continuous-time quantum walks.Comment: Replaced with new improved version. To appear in EPJ Q
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The influence of shock pressure, pre-shock temperature, and host rock composition on the survival rate of endolithic microorganisms during impact ejection from Mars
Petrographic and biological analysis of shock recovery experiments confirms the possible life transport due to an impact from Mars to Earth
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