Protrepticus

A new translation and edition of Aristotle's Protrepticus (with critical comments on the fragments) Welcome The Protrepticus was an early work of Aristotle, written while he was still a member of Plato's Academy, but it soon became one of the most famous works in the whole history of philosophy. Unfortunately it was not directly copied in the middle ages and so did not survive in its own manuscript tradition. But substantial fragments of it have been preserved in several works by Iamblichus of Chalcis, a third century A.D. neo-Pythagorean philosopher and educator. On the basis of a close study of Iamblichus' extensive use and excerption of Aristotle's Protrepticus, it is possible to reconstruct the backbone of the lost work, and then to flesh it out with the other surviving reports about the work from antiquity (for example in Alexander of Aphrodisias and other ancient commentators on Aristotle). It is also possible to identify several papyrus fragments of the work, and many references and literary allusions in later authors, especially Cicero, whose own lost dialogue Hortensius was a defense of philosophy modeleld on Aristotle's

Latent functional diversity may accelerate microbial community responses to temperature fluctuations

How complex microbial communities respond to climatic fluctuations remains an open question. Due to their relatively short generation times and high functional diversity, microbial populations harbor great potential to respond as a community through a combination of strain-level phenotypic plasticity, adaptation, and species sorting. However, the relative importance of these mechanisms remains unclear. We conducted a laboratory experiment to investigate the degree to which bacterial communities can respond to changes in environmental temperature through a combination of phenotypic plasticity and species sorting alone. We grew replicate soil communities from a single location at six temperatures between 4°C and 50°C. We found that phylogenetically and functionally distinct communities emerge at each of these temperatures, with K-strategist taxa favored under cooler conditions and r-strategist taxa under warmer conditions. We show that this dynamic emergence of distinct communities across a wide range of temperatures (in essence, community-level adaptation) is driven by the resuscitation of latent functional diversity: the parent community harbors multiple strains pre-adapted to different temperatures that are able to ‘switch on’ at their preferred temperature without immigration or adaptation. Our findings suggest that microbial community function in nature is likely to respond rapidly to climatic temperature fluctuations through shifts in species composition by resuscitation of latent functional diversity

Winter activity of a population of greater horseshoe bats (Rhinolophus ferrumequinum)

Activity patterns of a greater horseshoe bats Rhinolophus ferrumequinum were investigated at caves in Cheddar (south-west England) during the hibernation season. An ultrasound detector and datalogger were used to monitor and record the number of echolocation calls in a single cave. Activity of R. ferrumequinum remained largely nocturnal throughout winter, and the mean time of activity over 24 hours was 88 to 369 minutes (1.47 to 6.15 hours) after sunset. There was an increase in diurnal activity from late May to early June, probably because bats remained active after foraging at dawn towards the end of the hibernation season. Visits to the cave did not increase bat activity. Cave air temperature reflected external climatic temperature, although there was variation in cave temperature and its range within and across caves. Individual R. ferrumequinum are usually dispersed in caves in regions where temperature fluctuations correlate with climatic variations in temperature. There was a positive correlation between the number of daily bat passes monitored by the bat detector and datalogger (= daily activity) and cave temperature. Nocturnal activity may sometimes be associated with winter feeding. Neither date nor barometric pressure had a significant effect on daily activity. Activity patterns largely reflected the findings from individual R. ferrumequinum studied by telemetry (Park, 1998), in that bat activity increased with cave and climatic temperatures, and the temporal pattern of activity remained consistently nocturnal throughout winter, starting at dusk

Testing bats in rehabilitation for SARS-CoV-2 before release into the wild

Several studies have suggested SARS-CoV-2 originated from a viral ancestor in bats, but whether transmission occurred directly or via an intermediary host to humans remains unknown. Concerns of spillover of SARS-CoV-2 into wild bat populations are hindering bat rehabilitation and conservation efforts in the United Kingdom and elsewhere. Current protocols state that animals cared for by individuals who have tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 cannot be released into the wild and must be isolated to reduce the risk of transmission to wild populations. Here, we propose a reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR)-based protocol for detection of SARS-CoV-2 in bats, using fecal sampling. Bats from the United Kingdom were tested following suspected exposure to SARS-CoV-2 and tested negative for the virus. With current UK and international legislation, the identification of SARS-CoV-2 infection in wild animals is becoming increasingly important, and protocols such as the one developed here will help improve understanding and mitigation of SARS-CoV-2 in the future

Polarization transfer in the 4^{4}He(e⃗,e′p⃗3(\vec{e},e' \vec{p}^{3}H reaction

Polarization transfer in the 4He(e,e'p)3H reaction at a Q^2 of 0.4 (GeV/c)^2 was measured at the Mainz Microtron MAMI. The ratio of the transverse to the longitudinal polarization components of the ejected protons was compared with the same ratio for elastic ep scattering. The results are consistent with a recent fully relativistic calculation which includes a predicted medium modification of the proton form factor based on a quark-meson coupling model.Comment: 5 pages, Latex, 2 postscript figures, submitted to Physics Letters

An Hα survey of the host environments of 77 type IIn supernovae within z < 0.02

Type IIn supernovae (SNe\,IIn) are an uncommon and highly heterogeneous class of SN where the SN ejecta interact with pre-existing circumstellar media (CSM). Previous studies have found a mass ladder in terms of the association of the SN location with H$\alpha$ emission and the progenitor masses of SN classes. In this paper, we present the largest environmental study of SNe\,IIn. We analyse the H$\alpha$ environments of 77 type IIn supernovae using continuum subtracted H$\alpha$ images. We use the pixel statistics technique, normalised cumulative ranking (NCR), to associate SN pixels with H$\alpha$ emission. We find that our 77 SNe\,IIn do not follow the H$\alpha$ emission. This is not consistent with the proposed progenitors of SNe\,IIn, luminous blue variables (LBVs) as LBVs are high mass stars that undergo dramatic episodic mass loss. However, a subset of the NCR values follow the H$\alpha$ emission, suggesting a population of high mass progenitors. This suggests there may be multiple progenitor paths with $\sim$60\% having non-zero NCR values with a distribution consistent with high mass progenitors such as LBVs and $\sim$40\% of these SNe not being associated with H$\alpha$ emission. We discuss the possible progenitor routes of SNe\,IIn, especially for the zero NCR value population. We also investigate the radial distribution of the SNe in their hosts in terms of H$\alpha$ and $r'$-band flux

Phenomenology of the Deuteron Electromagnetic Form Factors

A rigorous extraction of the deuteron charge form factors from tensor polarization data in elastic electron-deuteron scattering, at given values of the 4-momentum transfer, is presented. Then the world data for elastic electron-deuteron scattering is used to parameterize, in three different ways, the three electromagnetic form factors of the deuteron in the 4-momentum transfer range 0-7 fm^-1. This procedure is made possible with the advent of recent polarization measurements. The parameterizations allow a phenomenological characterization of the deuteron electromagnetic structure. They can be used to remove ambiguities in the form factors extraction from future polarization data.Comment: 18 pages (LaTeX), 2 figures Feb. 25: minor changes of content and in Table

Λc+\Lambda^+_c- and Λb\Lambda_b-hypernuclei

$\Lambda^+_c$- and $\Lambda_b$-hypernuclei are studied in the quark-meson coupling (QMC) model. Comparisons are made with the results for $\Lambda$-hypernuclei studied in the same model previously. Although the scalar and vector potentials felt by the $\Lambda$, $\Lambda_c^+$ and $\Lambda_b$ in the corresponding hypernuclei multiplet which has the same baryon numbers are quite similar, the wave functions obtained, e.g., for $1s_{1/2}$ state, are very different. The $\Lambda^+_c$ baryon density distribution in $^{209}_{\Lambda^+_c}$Pb is much more pushed away from the center than that for the $\Lambda$ in $^{209}_\Lambda$Pb due to the Coulomb force. On the contrary, the $\Lambda_b$ baryon density distributions in $\Lambda_b$-hypernuclei are much larger near the origin than those for the $\Lambda$ in the corresponding $\Lambda$-hypernuclei due to its heavy mass. It is also found that level spacing for the $\Lambda_b$ single-particle energies is much smaller than that for the $\Lambda$ and $\Lambda^+_c$.Comment: Latex, 14 pages, 4 figures, text was extended, version to appear in Phys. Rev.

A precise measurement of the deuteron elastic structure function A(Q^2)

The A(Q^2) structure function in elastic electron-deuteron scattering was measured at six momentum transfers Q^2 between 0.66 and 1.80 (GeV/c)^2 in Hall C at Jefferson Laboratory. The scattered electrons and recoil deuterons were detected in coincidence, at a fixed deuteron angle of 60.5 degrees. These new precise measurements resolve discrepancies between older sets of data. They put significant constraints on existing models of the deuteron electromagnetic structure, and on the strength of isoscalar meson exchange currents.Comment: 3 LaTeX pages plus 2 PS figure