Panspermia, Past and Present: Astrophysical and Biophysical Conditions for the Dissemination of Life in Space

Astronomically, there are viable mechanisms for distributing organic material throughout the Milky Way. Biologically, the destructive effects of ultraviolet light and cosmic rays means that the majority of organisms arrive broken and dead on a new world. The likelihood of conventional forms of panspermia must therefore be considered low. However, the information content of dam-aged biological molecules might serve to seed new life (necropanspermia).Comment: Accepted for publication in Space Science Review

Status of the GAMMA-400 Project

The preliminary design of the new space gamma-ray telescope GAMMA-400 for the energy range 100 MeV - 3 TeV is presented. The angular resolution of the instrument, 1-2{\deg} at E{\gamma} ~100 MeV and ~0.01^{\circ} at E{\gamma} > 100 GeV, its energy resolution ~1% at E{\gamma} > 100 GeV, and the proton rejection factor ~10E6 are optimized to address a broad range of science topics, such as search for signatures of dark matter, studies of Galactic and extragalactic gamma-ray sources, Galactic and extragalactic diffuse emission, gamma-ray bursts, as well as high-precision measurements of spectra of cosmic-ray electrons, positrons, and nuclei.Comment: 6 pages, 1 figure, 1 table, submitted to Advances in Space Researc

High-energy cosmic ray fluxes in the Earth atmosphere: calculations vs experiments

A new calculation of the atmospheric fluxes of cosmic-ray hadrons and muons in the energy range 10-10^5 GeV has been performed for the set of hadron production models, EPOS 1.6, QGSJET II-03, SIBYLL 2.1, and others that are of interest to cosmic ray physicists. The fluxes of secondary cosmic rays at several levels in the atmosphere are computed using directly data of the ATIC-2, GAMMA experiments, and the model proposed recently by Zatsepin and Sokolskaya as well as the parameterization of the primary cosmic ray spectrum by Gaisser and Honda. The calculated energy spectra of the hadrons and muon flux as a function of zenith angle are compared with measurements as well as other calculations. The effect of uncertainties both in the primary cosmic ray flux and hadronic model predictions on the spectra of atmospheric hadrons and muons is considered.Comment: 30 pages elsart, 18 figures; discussion extended, tables and references added, figures improved, typos corrected; final version accepted for publication in Astroparticle Physic

Global maps of soil temperature.

Research in global change ecology relies heavily on global climatic grids derived from estimates of air temperature in open areas at around 2 m above the ground. These climatic grids do not reflect conditions below vegetation canopies and near the ground surface, where critical ecosystem functions occur and most terrestrial species reside. Here, we provide global maps of soil temperature and bioclimatic variables at a 1-km <sup>2</sup> resolution for 0-5 and 5-15 cm soil depth. These maps were created by calculating the difference (i.e. offset) between in situ soil temperature measurements, based on time series from over 1200 1-km <sup>2</sup> pixels (summarized from 8519 unique temperature sensors) across all the world's major terrestrial biomes, and coarse-grained air temperature estimates from ERA5-Land (an atmospheric reanalysis by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts). We show that mean annual soil temperature differs markedly from the corresponding gridded air temperature, by up to 10°C (mean = 3.0 ± 2.1°C), with substantial variation across biomes and seasons. Over the year, soils in cold and/or dry biomes are substantially warmer (+3.6 ± 2.3°C) than gridded air temperature, whereas soils in warm and humid environments are on average slightly cooler (-0.7 ± 2.3°C). The observed substantial and biome-specific offsets emphasize that the projected impacts of climate and climate change on near-surface biodiversity and ecosystem functioning are inaccurately assessed when air rather than soil temperature is used, especially in cold environments. The global soil-related bioclimatic variables provided here are an important step forward for any application in ecology and related disciplines. Nevertheless, we highlight the need to fill remaining geographic gaps by collecting more in situ measurements of microclimate conditions to further enhance the spatiotemporal resolution of global soil temperature products for ecological applications

Transverse-momentum and pseudorapidity distributions of charged hadrons in pp collisions at √s=0.9 and 2.36 TeV

Measurements of inclusive charged-hadron transverse-momentum and pseudorapidity distributions are presented for proton-proton collisions at root s = 0.9 and 2.36 TeV. The data were collected with the CMS detector during the LHC commissioning in December 2009. For non-single-diffractive interactions, the average charged-hadron transverse momentum is measured to be 0.46 +/- 0.01 (stat.) +/- 0.01 (syst.) GeV/c at 0.9 TeV and 0.50 +/- 0.01 (stat.) +/- 0.01 (syst.) GeV/c at 2.36 TeV, for pseudorapidities between -2.4 and +2.4. At these energies, the measured pseudorapidity densities in the central region, dN(ch)/d eta vertical bar(vertical bar eta vertical bar and pp collisions. The results at 2.36 TeV represent the highest-energy measurements at a particle collider to date

Side effects of psychotropic drugs on eye

A.A. Petukhova1, A.A. Panov1, Ya.V. Malygin2, M.A. Kazanfarova3 1Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russian Federation 2A.I. Evdokimov Moscow University of Medicine and Dentistry, Moscow, Russian Federation 3Skolkovo Innovation Center, Moscow Region, Russian Federation Any antipsychotics provoke more or less ocular complications. Some of them are relatively harmless (i.e., dark eyelids, conjunctival and corneal pigmentation, mydriasis, nystagmus, dry eye etc.). These adverse effects are resolved spontaneously after treatment discontinuation, drug switching, or prescribing additional therapy. However, the intake of both typical and atypical neuroleptics, lithium salts, some anticonvulsants (e.g., topiramate) is associated with high risks of vision loss. Moreover, in some patients these medications may result in blindness. The use of psychotropic drugs (e.g., tricyclic antidepressants or serotonin reuptake inhibitors) in patients with higher risk of acute angle closure is of particular concern. The association between phenothiazines and anticonvulsants and retinopathy, chlorpromazine and cataract, anticonvulsants and poor color vision and reduced contrast sensitivity is also important. Psychiatrists and ophthalmologists should consider potenti al ocular side effects in patients receiving psychotropic drugs. Knowing management algorithm for these conditions is also important. The number of recent publications on this issue is limited. Therefore, articles older than 10 years are sometimes used. Keywords: eye, visual organ, adverse effects, psychotropic drugs, neuroleptics, tricyclic antidepressants, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, glaucoma, retinopathy, cataract. For citation: Petukhova A.A., Panov A.A., Malygin Ya.V., Kazanfarova M.A. Side effects of psychotropic drugs on eye. Russian Journal of&nbsp;Clinical Ophthalmology. 2021;21(1):29–33. DOI: 10.32364/2311-7729-2021-21-1-29-33. <br