Sceloporus magister

Number of Pages: 4Integrative BiologyGeological Science

Phrynosoma solare

Number of Pages: 2Integrative BiologyGeological Science

Pituophis melanoleucus

Number of Pages: 8Integrative BiologyGeological Science

RESURRECTED RECORDS: “NEW” REPTILE OCCURRENCE RECORDS FOR MONTGOMERY COUNTY, INDIANA

Current and historic records of species occurrences in particular localities enable researchers to monitor changes in species distribution and abundance. While current fauna can be documented with sufficient effort, missing historical records represent data that can never again be obtained. It is with this importance in mind that we report for the first time records of eight reptile species in Montgomery County, Indiana, USA, that were documented in 1964, though no vouchered specimens persist. These species include: Sternotherus odoratus, Terrapene carolina carolina, Chrysemys picta marginata, Apalone spinifera spinifera, Thamnophis sauritus sauritus, Storeria dekayi wrightorum, Lampropeltis calligaster, Lampropeltis triangulum. We also provide a list of the 23 currently documented reptile species that occur (or have occurred recently) in Montgomery County

Ethical Allocation of Remdesivir

As the federal government distributed remdesivir to some of the states COVID-19 hit hardest, policymakers scrambled to develop criteria to allocate the drug to their hospitals. Our state, Michigan, was among those states to receive an initial quantity of the drug from the U.S. government. The disparities in burden of disease in Michigan are striking. Detroit has a death rate more than three times the state average. Our recommendation to the state was that it should prioritize the communities that bear a disproportionate burden of suffering in the allocation of the new potential treatment. This recommendation is justified not only for new drugs with uncertain effects, but also for drugs of certain benefit or vaccines. For states with significant health disparities, such as Michigan, this allocation priority may help to repair them. In fact, any other allocation strategy may make them wors

Gravity-induced vacuum dominance

It has been widely believed that, except in very extreme situations, the influence of gravity on quantum fields should amount to just small, sub-dominant contributions. This view seemed to be endorsed by the seminal results obtained over the last decades in the context of renormalization of quantum fields in curved spacetimes. Here, however, we argue that this belief is false by showing that there exist well-behaved spacetime evolutions where the vacuum energy density of free quantum fields is forced, by the very same background spacetime, to become dominant over any classical energy-density component. This semiclassical gravity effect finds its roots in the infrared behavior of fields on curved spacetimes. By estimating the time scale for the vacuum energy density to become dominant, and therefore for backreaction on the background spacetime to become important, we argue that this vacuum dominance may bear unexpected astrophysical and cosmological implications.Comment: To appear in Phys. Rev. Lett

Awaking the vacuum in relativistic stars

Void of any inherent structure in classical physics, the vacuum has revealed to be incredibly crowded with all sorts of processes in relativistic quantum physics. Yet, its direct effects are usually so subtle that its structure remains almost as evasive as in classical physics. Here, in contrast, we report on the discovery of a novel effect according to which the vacuum is compelled to play an unexpected central role in an astrophysical context. We show that the formation of relativistic stars may lead the vacuum energy density of a quantum field to an exponential growth. The vacuum-driven evolution which would then follow may lead to unexpected implications for astrophysics, while the observation of stable neutron-star configurations may teach us much on the field content of our Universe.Comment: To appear in Phys. Rev. Let

Cosmology with a long range repulsive force

We consider a class of cosmological models in which the universe is filled with a (non-electric) charge density that repels itself by means of a force carried by a vector boson with a tiny mass. When the vector's mass depends upon other fields, the repulsive interaction gives rise to an electromagnetic barrier which prevents these fields from driving the mass to zero. This can modify the cosmology dramatically. We present a very simple realization of this idea in which the vector's mass arises from a scalar field. The electromagnetic barrier prevents this field from rolling down its potential and thereby leads to accelerated expansion.Comment: 15 pages, 8 figures, LaTeX (version accepted for publication in PRD). 3 new figures, extended discussion of observational consequence