Publications of the planetary biology program for 1975: A special bibliography

The Planetary Biology Program of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the first and only integrated program to methodically investigate the planetary events which may have been responsible for, or related to, the origin, evolution, and distribution of life in the universe. Research supported by this program is divided into the seven areas listed below: (1) chemical evolution, (2) organic geochemistry, (3) life detection, (4) biological adaptation, (5) bioinstrumentation, (6) planetary environments, and (7) origin of life. The arrangement of references in this bibliography follows the division of research described above. Articles are listed alphabetically by author under the research area with which they are most closely related. Only those publications which resulted from research supported by the Planetary Biology Program and which bear a 1975 publication date have been included. Abstracts and theses are not included because of the preliminary and abbreviated nature of the former and the frequent difficulty of obtaining the latter

NASA Developmental Biology Workshop: A summary

The Life Sciences Division of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of its continuing assessment of its research program, convened a workshop on Developmental Biology to determine whether there are important scientific studies in this area which warrant continued or expanded NASA support. The workshop consisted of six panels, each of which focused on a single major phylogenetic group. The objectives of each panel were to determine whether gravity plays a role in the ontogeny of their subject group, to determine whether the microgravity of spaceflight can be used to help understand fundamental problems in developmental biology, to develop the rationale and hypotheses for conducting NASA-relevant research in development biology both on the ground and in space, and to identify any unique equipment and facilities that would be required to support both ground-based and spaceflight experiments

A Compound model for the origin of Earth's water

One of the most important subjects of debate in the formation of the solar system is the origin of Earth's water. Comets have long been considered as the most likely source of the delivery of water to Earth. However, elemental and isotopic arguments suggest a very small contribution from these objects. Other sources have also been proposed, among which, local adsorption of water vapor onto dust grains in the primordial nebula and delivery through planetesimals and planetary embryos have become more prominent. However, no sole source of water provides a satisfactory explanation for Earth's water as a whole. In view of that, using numerical simulations, we have developed a compound model incorporating both the principal endogenous and exogenous theories, and investigating their implications for terrestrial planet formation and water-delivery. Comets are also considered in the final analysis, as it is likely that at least some of Earth's water has cometary origin. We analyze our results comparing two different water distribution models, and complement our study using D/H ratio, finding possible relative contributions from each source, focusing on planets formed in the habitable zone. We find that the compound model play an important role by showing more advantage in the amount and time of water-delivery in Earth-like planets.Comment: Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journa

Three path interference using nuclear magnetic resonance: a test of the consistency of Born's rule

The Born rule is at the foundation of quantum mechanics and transforms our classical way of understanding probabilities by predicting that interference occurs between pairs of independent paths of a single object. One consequence of the Born rule is that three way (or three paths) quantum interference does not exist. In order to test the consistency of the Born rule, we examine detection probabilities in three path intereference using an ensemble of spin-1/2 quantum registers in liquid state nuclear magnetic resonance (LSNMR). As a measure of the consistency, we evaluate the ratio of three way interference to two way interference. Our experiment bounded the ratio to the order of $10^{-3} \pm 10^{-3}$, and hence it is consistent with Born's rule.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figures; Improved presentation of figures 1 and 4, changes made in section 2 to better describe the experiment, minor changes throughout, and added several reference

On possible violation of the CHSH Bell inequality in a classical context

It has been shown that there is a small possibility to experimentally violate the CHSH Bell inequality in a 'classical' context. The probability of such a violation has been estimated in the framework of a classical probabilistic model in the language of a random-walk representation.Comment: 9 pages, 1 figur

A importância da assessoria de imprensa para a Embrapa Florestas.

Resumo

Utilização da multiplicação rápida na propagação da mandioca (Manihot esculenta Crantz).

A mandioca (Manihot esculenta Crantz) é uma espécie rústica, que possui a capacidade de produzir em regiões de solos pobres e com escassez de água.Entretanto, ela possui certas características que dificultam a sua propagação em larga escala num curto intervalo de tempo. Uma dessas características é a sua baixa taxa de multiplicação. Cada planta de mandioca pode produzir de 5 a 10 manivas de 20 cm, num período de 12 meses, ou seja, a sua taxa de propagação é de 1:5 a 1:10. A multiplicação rápida, desenvolvida pelo Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical (CIAT), na Colômbia, é um método simples e barato de multiplicação da mandioca. O aumento da taxa de multiplicação deve-se, em primeiro lugar, ao fato de que, as manivas para a multiplicação rápida são cortadas com duas a três gemas (2 a 5 cm, a depender da distância entre as gemas), enquanto as manivas para plantio têm cerca de sete gemas (em torno de 20 cm). E em segundo lugar, na multiplicação rápida, a maniva ao brotar, tem o broto cortado ao atingir o tamanho de 10 a 15 cm, e rebrota novamente, induzida pelas condições de umidade e temperatura elevadas do interior da câmara de propagação, enquanto na multiplicação convencional, a maniva de 20 cm é plantada no campo, e gerará no máximo quatro hastes.PDF. 055