867 research outputs found
Self-medication by orang-utans (Pongo pygmaeus) using bioactive properties of Dracaena cantleyi
This is the final version of the article. Available from Springer Nature via the DOI in this record.Animals self-medicate using a variety of plant and arthropod secondary metabolites by either ingesting them or anointing them to their fur or skin apparently to repel ectoparasites and treat skin diseases. In this respect, much attention has been focused on primates. Direct evidence for self-medication among the great apes has been limited to Africa. Here we document self-medication in the only Asian great ape, orang-utans (Pongo pygmaeus), and for the first time, to our knowledge, the external application of an anti-inflammatory agent in animals. The use of leaf extracts from Dracaena cantleyi by orang-utan has been observed on several occasions; rubbing a foamy mixture of saliva and leaf onto specific parts of the body. Interestingly, the local indigenous human population also use a poultice of these leaves for the relief of body pains. We present pharmacological analyses of the leaf extracts from this species, showing that they inhibit TNFα-induced inflammatory cytokine production (E-selectin, ICAM-1, VCAM-1 and IL-6). This validates the topical anti-inflammatory properties of this plant and provides a possible function for its use by orang-utans. This is the first evidence for the deliberate external application of substances with demonstrated bioactive potential for self-medication in great apes.We thank our financial supporters: the Wildlife Conservation Society, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Great Apes Conservation Fund, Primate Conservation Inc., Foundation UMI – Saving of Pongidae, the L.S.B. Leakey Foundation, NERC (Natural Environmental Research Council) and the University of Exeter. L.R. and K.D. were supported by the Ministry of Education Youth and Sports, Czech Republic (grant LO1204 from the National Program of Sustainability and Agricultural Research). We are also very grateful to grant No. P505/11/1163 from The Grant Agency of The Czech Republic and to Prof. Jitka Ulrichová for the kind gift of HUVEC cells
Observation of B+ -> Dbar*0 tau+ nu_tau and Evidence for B+ -> Dbar^0 tau+ nu_tau at Belle
We present measurements of B+ -> Dbar*0 tau+ nu_tau and B+ -> Dbar^0 tau+
nu_tau decays in a data sample of 657 x 10^6 BBbar pairs collected with the
Belle detector at the KEKB asymmetric-energy e+e- collider. We find
446^{+58}_{-56} events of the decay B+ -> Dbar*0 tau+ nu_tau with a
significance of 8.1 standard deviations, and 146^{+42}_{-41} events of the
decay B+ -> Dbar0 tau+ nu_tau with a significance of 3.5 standard deviations.
The latter signal provides the first evidence for this decay mode. The measured
branching fractions are B(B+ -> Dbar*0 tau+ nu_tau)=(2.12^{+0.28}_{-0.27}
(stat) +- 0.29 (syst)) % and B(B+ -> Dbar0 tau+ nu_tau)=(0.77 +- 0.22 (stat) +-
0.12 (syst)) %.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev. Let
Performance studies of the Belle II Silicon Vertex Detector with data taken at the DESY test beam in April 2016
Belle II is a multipurpose detector currently under construction which will be operated at the next generation B-factory SuberKEKB in Japan. Its main devices for the vertex reconstruction are the Silicon Vertex Detector (SVD) and the Pixel Detector (PXD). In April 2016 a sector of the Belle II SVD and PXD have been tested in a beam of high energetic electrons at the test beam facility at DESY Hamburg (Germany). We report here the results for the hit efficiency estimation and the measurement of the resolution for the Belle II silicon vertex etector. We find that the hit efficiencies are on average above 99.5% and that the measured resolution is within the expectations
Performance studies of the Belle II Silicon Vertex Detector with data taken at the DESY test beam in April 2016
Belle II is a multipurpose detector currently under construction which will be operated at the next generation B-factory SuberKEKB in Japan. Its main devices for the vertex reconstruction are the Silicon Vertex Detector (SVD) and the Pixel Detector (PXD). In April 2016 a sector of the Belle II SVD and PXD have been tested in a beam of high energetic electrons at the test beam facility at DESY Hamburg (Germany). We report here the results for the hit efficiency estimation and the measurement of the resolution for the Belle II silicon vertex etector. We find that the hit efficiencies are on average above 99.5% and that the measured resolution is within the expectations
Search for CP violation in the decays and
We have searched for CP violation in the charmed meson decays and using 673 fb of data
collected with the Belle detector at the KEKB asymmetric-energy
collider. No evidence for CP violation is observed. We report the most
sensitive CP asymmetry measurements to date for these decays: , , , and , where the first uncertainties are statistical and
the second are systematic
The Belle II SVD detector
The Silicon Vertex Detector (SVD) is one of the main detectors in the Belle II experiment at KEK, Japan. In combination with a pixel detector, the SVD determines precise decay vertex and low-momentum track reconstruction. The SVD ladders are being developed at several institutes. For the development of the tracking algorithm as well as the performance estimation of the ladders, beam tests for the ladders were performed. We report an overview of the SVD development, its performance measured in the beam test, and the prospect of its assembly and commissioning until installation
Measurement of via initial state radiation at Belle
The process (=1, 2) is studied via initial
state radiation using 980 fb of data at and around the
(=1, 2, 3, 4, 5) resonances collected with the Belle detector at the KEKB
asymmetric-energy collider. No significant signal is observed except
from decays. Upper limits on the cross sections between
and are determined at the 90% credibility
level, which range from few pb to a few tens of pb. We also set upper limits on
the decay rate of the vector charmonium [), , and
] and charmoniumlike [, , and ] states
to .Comment: Accepted by PR
Invariant-mass and fractional-energy dependence of inclusive production of di-hadrons in annihilation at 10.58 GeV
The inclusive cross sections for di-hadrons of charged pions and kaons
() in electron-positron annihilation are reported. They
are obtained as a function of the total fractional energy and invariant mass
for any di-hadron combination in the same hemisphere as defined by the thrust
event-shape variable and its axis. Since same-hemisphere di-hadrons can be
assumed to originate predominantly from the same initial parton, di-hadron
fragmentation functions are probed. These di-hadron fragmentation functions are
needed as an unpolarized baseline in order to quantitatively understand related
spin-dependent measurements in other processes and to apply them to the
extraction of quark transversity distribution functions in the nucleon. The
di-hadron cross sections are obtained from a data sample
collected at or near the resonance with the Belle detector at
the KEKB asymmetric-energy collider.Comment: 21 pages, 18 figures plus 25 figures in supplemental material,
submitted to PR
Observation of Bs->Ds(*)+Ds(*)- using e+e- collisions and a determination of the Bs-Bsbar width difference \Delta\Gamma_s
We have made the first observation of Bs->Ds(*)+Ds(*)- decays using 23.6 fb-1
of data recorded by the Belle experiment running on the Upsilon(5S) resonance.
The branching fractions are measured to be B(B^0_s\ra D^+_s D^-_s) =
(1.0\,^{+0.4}_{-0.3}\,^{+0.3}_{-0.2})%, B(B^0_s\ra D^{*\pm}_s D^{\mp}_s) =
(2.8\,^{+0.8}_{-0.7}\,\pm 0.7)%, and B(B^0_s\ra D^{*+}_s D^{*-}_s) =
(3.1\,^{+1.2}_{-1.0}\,\pm 0.8)%; the sum is B(B^0_s\ra D^{(*)+}_s D^{(*)-}_s) =
(6.9\,^{+1.5}_{-1.3}\,\pm 1.9)%. Assuming Bs->Ds(*)+Ds(*)- saturates decays to
CP-even final states, the branching fraction determines the ratio
\Delta\Gamma_s/cos(\phi), where \Delta\Gamma_s is the difference in widths
between the two Bs-Bsbar mass eigenstates, and \phi is a CP-violating weak
phase. Taking CP violation to be negligibly small, we obtain
\Delta\Gamma_s/\Gamma_s =
0.147^{+0.036}_{-0.030}(stat.)^{+0.044}_{-0.042}(syst.), where \Gamma_s is the
mean decay width.Comment: 13 pages, 2 figures, 2 tables. v2: text added for clarification,
version published in Phys. Rev. Letter
- …