Dark/Visible Parallel Universes and Big Bang Nucleosynthesis

We develop a model for visible matter-dark matter interaction based on the exchange of a massive gray boson called herein the Mulato. Our model hinges on the assumption that all known particles in the visible matter have their counterparts in the dark matter. We postulate six families of particles five of which are dark. This leads to the unavoidable postulation of six parallel worlds, the visible one and five invisible worlds. A close study of big bang nucleosynthesis (BBN), baryon asymmetries, cosmic microwave background (CMB) bounds, galaxy dynamics, together with the Standard Model assumptions, help us to set a limit on the mass and width of the new gauge boson. Modification of the statistics underlying the kinetic energy distribution of particles during the BBN is also discussed. The changes in reaction rates during the BBN due to a departure from the Debye-Hueckel electron screening model is also investigated.Comment: Invited talk at the Workshops "CompStar: the physics and astrophysics of compact stars", Tahiti, June 4-8, 2012, "New Directions in Nuclear Astrophysics", Castiglion Fiorentino, Italy, June 18-22, 2012, and "Carpathian Summer School of Physics", Sinaia, Romania, June 24 - July 7, 2012. To be published in AIP Proceeding

Bicalutamide as an Androgen Blocker With Secondary Effect of Promoting Feminization in Male-to-Female Transgender Adolescents

PURPOSE: The purpose of the study was to describe the novel use of bicalutamide in transgender youth. METHODS: This is a retrospective review of patients with gender dysphoria followed in the pediatric endocrine clinic at Riley Hospital for Children. RESULTS: Of 104 patients with gender dysphoria, 23 male-to-female adolescents received bicalutamide 50 mg daily as a second-line puberty blocker after insurance company denial of a gonadotropin-releasing hormone analog. Six patients received estrogen concurrently. Of 13 patients treated exclusively with bicalutamide seen in follow-up, 84.6% had breast development within 6 months, the majority being ≥ Tanner stage III. CONCLUSIONS: Bicalutamide may be an alternative to gonadotropin-releasing hormone analogs in transgender male-to-female youth who are also ready to undergo physical transition

The Importance of Nightside Magnetometer Observations for Electromagnetic Sounding of the Moon

Understanding the structure and composition of the lunar interior is a fundamental goal in furthering our knowledge of the formation and subsequent evolution of the Earth-Moon system. Among various methods, electromagnetic sounding is a valuable approach to constraining lunar interior structure. Recent analyses of plasma and field observations provide a wealth of understanding about the dynamics of the lunar plasma environment. To perform Time Domain EM (TDEM) Sounding at the Moon, the first step is to characterize the dynamic plasma environment, and to be able to isolate geophysically induced currents from concurrently present plasma currents. The TDEM Sounding transfer function method focuses on analysis of the nightside observations when the Moon is immersed in the solar wind. This method requires two simultaneous observations: an upstream reference measuring the pristine solar wind, and one downstream at or near the lunar surface. This method was last performed during Apollo and assumed the induced fields on the nightside of the Moon expand as in an undisturbed vacuum within the wake cavity. Our results indicate that EM sounding of airless bodies in the solar wind must be interpreted via self-consistent plasma models in order to untangle plasma and induced field contributions, with implications not only at the Moon but at all airless bodies exposed to the solar wind. Nightside TDEM sounding has the capability to advance the state of knowledge of the field of lunar science. This requires magnetometer operations to withstand the harsh conditions of the lunar night

Association of INT2/HST1 coamplification in primary breast cancer with hormone-dependent phenotype and poor prognosis.

The human proto-oncogene INT2 (homologous to the mouse INT2 gene, implicated in proviral induced mammary carcinoma) has been mapped to chromosome 11q13 and found to share band localisation with, among others, the HST1 proto-oncogene. Both genes are members of the fibroblast growth factor family. In the present study, coamplification (2-15 copies) of the INT2/HST1 genes was found in 27 (9%) of 311 invasive human breast carcinomas using slot blot and Southern blot analyses. Amplification was not correlated to tumour size, axillary lymph node status or stage of disease, neither to patient age nor menopausal status. However, 26 (96%) of the 27 amplified tumours were, often strongly, Oestrogen receptor positive compared to 65% of the unamplified cases (P = 0.001). These findings are in sharp contrast to the strong correlations of HER-2/neu proto-oncogene amplification with advanced stage and steroid receptor negativity, previously observed in the same series of tumours. Patients with INT2/HST1 amplified breast cancer had a significantly shorter disease-free survival compared to those with unamplified genes (P = 0.015, median follow up 45 months). This correlation was confined to node-negative patients and persisted in multivariate analysis. No significant correlation to survival from breast cancer was found. It is concluded that amplification of the 11q13 region in breast cancer occurs in a particular subset of aggressive tumours, quite different from that identified by HER-2/neu amplification. It still remains to be shown that the selection for amplified genes at 11q13 is due to the activity of INT2, HST1 or yet another, still unidentified, neighbouring gene. However, the results are potentially of clinical value in separating a group of node-negative breast cancer for more intense treatment

Translocal imagination of Hong Kong connections: the shifting of Chow Yun-Fat's star image since 1997

Anyone who is interested in Hong Kong cinema must be familiar with one name: Chow Yun-fat (b. 1955). He rose to film stardom in the 1980s when Hong Kong cinema started to attract global attention beyond East Asia. During his early screen career, Chow established a star image as an urban citizen of modern Hong Kong through films such as A Better Tomorrow/Yingxiong bense (John Woo, 1986), City on Fire/Longhu fengyun (Ringo Lam, 1987), All About Ah-Long/A Lang de gushi (Johnnie To, 1989), God of Gamblers/Du shen (Wong Jing, 1989), and Hard Boiled/Lashou shentan (John Woo, 1992)

Germline Maintenance Through the Multifaceted Activities of GLH/Vasa in

Vasa homologs are ATP-dependent DEAD-box helicases, multipotency factors, and critical components that specify and protect the germline. They regulate translation, amplify piwi-interacting RNAs (piRNAs), and act as RNA solvents; however, the limited availability of mutagenesis-derived alleles and their wide range of phenotypes have complicated their analysis. Now, with clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR/Cas9), these limitations can be mitigated to determine why protein domains have been lost or retained throughout evolution. Here, we define the functional motifs of GLH-1/Vasa i

Regulatory function of the P295-T311 motif of the estrogen receptor α - does proteasomal degradation of the receptor induce emergence of peptides implicated in estrogenic responses?

The way in which estrogen receptor α (ERα) mediates gene transcription and hormone-dependent cancer cell proliferation is now being largely reconsidered in view of several recent discoveries. ERα-mediated transcription appears to be a cyclic and transient process where the proteasome - and thus receptor degradation - plays a pivotal role. In view of our recent investigations, which demonstrate the estrogenic activity of a synthetic peptide corresponding to a regulatory motif of the receptor (ERα17p), we propose that ERα proteasomal degradation could induce the emergence of regulatory peptide(s). The latter would function as a signal and contribute to the ERα activation process, amplifying the initial hormonal stimulation and giving rise to sustained estrogenic response