Necklace Radio Transmitter Attachment For Pheasants

We tested a pre-assembled, necklace-radio-transmitter-attachment design on female ring-necked pheasants (Phasianus colchicus) in northern Iowa. Birds were captured by nightlighting and bait trapping between September 1989 and March 1990. Radio transmitters were attached to 128 using a wire necklace. Two birds had problems adapting to the necklace, and 3 birds removed them. Twenty-three birds were still alive and wearing necklaces at the end of the study, for an average of 318 (SD= ± 52) days. Ease of attachment, long durability, light weight, and minimal bulk make the necklace an effective alternative to harness and poncho mounts

Luminescent hyperbolic metasurfaces.

When engineered on scales much smaller than the operating wavelength, metal-semiconductor nanostructures exhibit properties unobtainable in nature. Namely, a uniaxial optical metamaterial described by a hyperbolic dispersion relation can simultaneously behave as a reflective metal and an absorptive or emissive semiconductor for electromagnetic waves with orthogonal linear polarization states. Using an unconventional multilayer architecture, we demonstrate luminescent hyperbolic metasurfaces, wherein distributed semiconducting quantum wells display extreme absorption and emission polarization anisotropy. Through normally incident micro-photoluminescence measurements, we observe absorption anisotropies greater than a factor of 10 and degree-of-linear polarization of emission >0.9. We observe the modification of emission spectra and, by incorporating wavelength-scale gratings, show a controlled reduction of polarization anisotropy. We verify hyperbolic dispersion with numerical simulations that model the metasurface as a composite nanoscale structure and according to the effective medium approximation. Finally, we experimentally demonstrate >350% emission intensity enhancement relative to the bare semiconducting quantum wells

A novel metric for coronal MHD models

[1] In the interest of quantitatively assessing the capabilities of coronal MHD models, we have developed a metric that compares the structures of the white light corona observed with SOHO LASCO C2 to model predictions. The MAS model is compared to C2 observations from two Carrington rotations during solar cycle 23, CR1913 and CR1984, which were near the minimum and maximum of solar activity, respectively, for three radial heights, 2.5 R⊙, 3.0 R⊙, and 4.5 R⊙. In addition to simulated polarization brightness images, we create a synthetic image based on the field topology along the line of sight in the model. This open-closed brightness is also compared to LASCO C2 after renormalization. In general, the model\u27s magnetic structure is a closer match to observed coronal structures than the model\u27s density structure. This is expected from the simplified energy equations used in current global corona MHD models

The SMC Condensin Complex Is Required for Origin Segregation in Bacillus subtilis

SummarySMC condensin complexes play a central role in organizing and compacting chromosomes in all domains of life [1, 2]. In the bacterium Bacillus subtilis, cells lacking SMC are viable only during slow growth and display decondensed chromosomes, suggesting that SMC complexes function throughout the genome [3, 4]. Here, we show that rapid inactivation of SMC or its partner protein ScpB during fast growth leads to a failure to resolve newly replicated origins and a complete block to chromosome segregation. Importantly, the loss of origin segregation is not due to an inability to unlink precatenated sister chromosomes by Topoisomerase IV. In support of the idea that ParB-mediated recruitment of SMC complexes to the origin is important for their segregation, cells with reduced levels of SMC that lack ParB are severely impaired in origin resolution. Finally, we demonstrate that origin segregation is a task shared by the condensin complex and the parABS partitioning system. We propose that origin-localized SMC constrains adjacent DNA segments along their lengths, drawing replicated origins in on themselves and away from each other. This SMC-mediated lengthwise condensation, bolstered by the parABS system, drives origin segregation

Improving Representation of Deforestation Effects on Evapotranspiration in the E3SM Land Model

Evapotranspiration (ET) plays an important role in land-atmosphere coupling of energy, water, and carbon cycles. Following deforestation, ET is typically observed to decrease substantially as a consequence of decreases in leaf area and roots and increases in runoff. Changes in ET (latent heat flux) revise the surface energy and water budgets, which further affects large-scale atmospheric dynamics and feeds back positively or negatively to long-term forest sustainability. In this study, we used observations from a recent synthesis of 29 pairs of adjacent intact and deforested FLUXNET sites to improve model parameterization of stomatal characteristics, photosynthesis, and soil water dynamics in version 1 of the Energy Exascale Earth System Model (E3SM) Land Model (ELMv1). We found that default ELMv1 predicts an increase in ET after deforestation, likely leading to incorrect estimates of the effects of deforestation on land-atmosphere coupling. The calibrated model accurately represented the FLUXNET observed deforestation effects on ET. Importantly, the search for global optimal parameters converged at values consistent with recent observational syntheses, confirming the reliability of the calibrated physical parameters. Applying this improved model parameterization to the globe scale reduced the bias of annual ET simulation by up to ~600 mm/year. Analysis on the roles of parameters suggested that future model development to improve ET simulation should focus on stomatal resistance and soil water-related parameterizations. Finally, our predicted differences in seasonal ET changes from deforestation are large enough to substantially affect land-atmosphere coupling and should be considered in such studies

Neutrino-induced deuteron disintegration experiment

Cross sections for the disintegration of the deuteron via neutral-current (NCD) and charged-current (CCD) interactions with reactor antineutrinos are measured to be 6.08 +/- 0.77 x 10^(-45) cm-sq and 9.83 +/- 2.04 x 10^(-45) cm-sq per neutrino, respectively, in excellent agreement with current calculations. Since the experimental NCD value depends upon the CCD value, if we use the theoretical value for the CCD reaction, we obtain the improved value of 5.98 +/- 0.54 x 10^(-45) for the NCD cross section. The neutral-current reaction allows a unique measurement of the isovector-axial vector coupling constant in the hadronic weak interaction (beta). In the standard model, this constant is predicted to be exactly 1, independent of the Weinberg angle. We measure a value of beta^2 = 1.01 +/- 0.16. Using the above improved value for the NCD cross section, beta^2 becomes 0.99 +/- 0.10.Comment: 22pages, 9 figure

Early development of rostrum saw-teeth in a fossil ray tests classical theories of the evolution of vertebrate dentitions

In classical theory, teeth of vertebrate dentitions evolved from co-option of external skin denticles into the oral cavity. This hypothesis predicts that ordered tooth arrangement and regulated replacement in the oral dentition were also derived from skin denticles. The fossil batoid ray Schizorhiza stromeri (Chondrichthyes; Cretaceous) provides a test of this theory. Schizorhiza preserves an extended cartilaginous rostrum with closely spaced, alternating saw-teeth, different from sawfish and sawsharks today. Multiple replacement teeth reveal unique new data from micro-CT scanning, showing how the 'cone-in-cone' series of ordered saw-teeth sets arrange themselves developmentally, to become enclosed by the roots of pre-existing saw-teeth. At the rostrum tip, newly developing saw-teeth are present, as mineralized crown tips within a vascular, cartilaginous furrow; these reorient via two 90° rotations then relocate laterally between previously formed roots. Saw-tooth replacement slows mid-rostrum where fewer saw-teeth are regenerated. These exceptional developmental data reveal regulated order for serial self-renewal, maintaining the saw edge with ever-increasing saw-tooth size. This mimics tooth replacement in chondrichthyans, but differs in the crown reorientation and their enclosure directly between roots of predecessor saw-teeth. Schizorhiza saw-tooth development is decoupled from the jaw teeth and their replacement, dependent on a dental lamina. This highly specialized rostral saw, derived from diversification of skin denticles, is distinct from the dentition and demonstrates the potential developmental plasticity of skin denticles