Precipitation and Aridity Constraints on Early Mars from Globally-Distributed Paleolakes

The widespread occurrence of fluvio-lacustrine features on Mars support long-lived flow and accumulation of water in a warmer, wetter past. However, martian climate models have been unable to recreate the necessary conditions required to support a persistent wet climate. Orbital and in-situ data sets have revealed the existence of > 400 paleolakes on Mars, which can be subdivided into open- and closed-basin lakes. Open-basin lakes require that sufficient water accumulated to fill and overtop the basin-confining topography, providing a minimum constraint on required water volumes. Conversely, closed-basin lakes provide maximum water volumes since the absence of an outlet breach generally implies they did not overflow. Importantly, a subset of both open- and closed-basin lakes are fed by valley networks inferred to have been sourced by precipitation during the era of valley network formation > 3.7 Ga and may be used to quantitatively constrain precipitation and aridity during early Mars

EXAFS study of nickel exchanged into zeolite Y

EXAFS and near edge spectroscopy were used to monitor changes i n Ni coordination as a function of treatment conditions after aqueous exchange into zeolite Y. Our results suggest that after calcination and dehydration under the conditions of this study, major site occupancy for Ni appears to be in the tri-coordinate exchange sites , and not i n the hexagonal prisms as suggested by previous x-ray diffraction results

Geodynamic generation of a Paleocene-Eocene landscape buried beneath North Bressay, North Sea

Histories of vertical lithospheric motions provide important clues about geodynamic processes. We present evidence of an ancient (∼58–55 Ma) landscape that likely uplifted and subsided rapidly during incipience of the Icelandic plume. Now buried beneath ∼0.4–0.8 km of rock in the North Bressay region in the North Sea, this landscape is located within a sedimentary basin on the margin of the North Atlantic Ocean. We use high-resolution 3D seismic reflection data to map this ancient surface. Correlation of stratigraphy with a survey in the Bressay region constrains age and depositional environment. The landscape contains excellent evidence of meandering fluvial channels, some of which record avulsions, and terminate against a coastline to the east where deltaic landforms are identified. The landscape was depth-converted and decompacted to generate a digital elevation model from which river profiles were extracted. Their geometries indicate that the landscape was generated by three phases of uplift. This history of uplift and subsidence is analogous to similar-aged landscapes in the Judd area ∼400 km to the west and Bressay ∼30 km to the south, and appears to be another manifestation of lithospheric motions generated by the passage of warm thermal anomalies away from the Icelandic plume

EXAFS study of nickel tetracarbonyl and nickel clusters in zeolite Y

Adsorption and thermal decomposition of Ni(CO)4 in the cage system of zeolite Y have been studied with EXAFS, electron microscopy and IR spectroscopy , Ni(CO)4 is adsorbed as an intact molecule in both cation - free zeolite Y and NaY. Symmetry changes of the molecule in NaY are assigned to the formation of Na—OC-IMi bridges. Thermal treatment of the Ni(CO)4/NaY adduct leads to loss of CO concomitant with the formation of a binodal Ni phase. A major part of the forms clusters with diameter between 0.5 and about 1.5 nm, in addition to larger crystallites (5-30 nm), sticking at the outer surface of the zeolite matrix., The Ni-Ni scattering amplitude indicates increasing average particle size with increasing temperature

Spin dynamics in electrochemically charged CdSe quantum dots

We use time-resolved Faraday rotation to measure coherent spin dynamics in colloidal CdSe quantum dots charged in an electrochemical cell at room temperature. Filling of the 1Se electron level is demonstrated by the bleaching of the 1Se-1S3/2 absorption peak. One of the two Lande g-factors observed in uncharged quantum dots disappears upon filling of the 1Se electron state. The transverse spin coherence time, which is over 1 ns and is limited by inhomogeneous dephasing, also appears to increase with charging voltage. The amplitude of the spin precession signal peaks near the half-filling potential. Its evolution at charging potentials without any observable bleaching of the 1Se-1S3/2 transition suggests that the spin dynamics are influenced by low-energy surface states.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Gas Turbine Engine Inlet Wall Design

A gas turbine engine has an inlet duct formed to have a shape with a first ellipse in one half and a second ellipse in a second half. The second half has an upstream most end which is smaller than the first ellipse. The inlet duct has a surface defining the second ellipse which curves away from the first ellipse, such that the second ellipse is larger at an intermediate location. The second ellipse is even larger at a downstream end of the inlet duct leading into a fan

Not ‘Islands, Entire of Themselves’: Exploring the Spatial Context of City-level Robbery Rates

The current study examines spatial dependence in robbery rates for a sample of 1,056 cities with 25,000 or more residents over the 2000–2003 period. Although commonly considered in some macro-level research, spatial processes have not been examined in relation to city-level variation in robbery. The results of our regression analyses suggest that city robbery rates are not spatially independent. We find that spatial dependence is better accounted for by spatial error models than by spatial lag models. Further exploration of various spatial weights matrices indicates that robbery rates of cities within the same state are related to robbery rates of other cities within the same state, regardless of their proximity. Our analyses illustrate how systematic inquiry into spatial processes can alert researchers to important omitted variable biases and identify intriguing problems for future research

Single-cell transcriptomes reveal the mechanism for a breast cancer prognostic gene panel.

The clinical benefits of the MammaPrint® signature for breast cancer is well documented; however, how these genes are related to cell cycle perturbation have not been well determined. Our single-cell transcriptome mapping (algorithm) provides details into the fine perturbation of all individual genes during a cell cycle, providing a view of the cell-cycle-phase specific landscape of any given human genes. Specifically, we identified that 38 out of the 70 (54%) MammaPrint® signature genes are perturbated to a specific phase of the cell cycle. The MammaPrint® signature panel derived its clinical prognosis power from measuring the cell cycle activity of specific breast cancer samples. Such cell cycle phase index of the MammaPrint® signature suggested that measurement of the cell cycle index from tumors could be developed into a prognosis tool for various types of cancer beyond breast cancer, potentially improving therapy through targeting a specific phase of the cell cycle of cancer cells

Molecular mechanistic origin of the toughness of natural adhesives, fibres and composites

Natural materials are renowned for their strength and toughness(1-5). Spider dragline silk has a breakage energy per unit weight two orders of magnitude greater than high tensile steel(1,6), and is representative of many other strong natural fibres(3,7,8). The abalone shell, a composite of calcium carbonate plates sandwiched between organic material, is 3,000 times more fracture resistant than a single crystal of the pure mineral(4,5). The organic component, comprising just a few per cent of the composite by weight(9), is thought to hold the key to nacre's fracture toughness(10,11). Ceramics laminated with organic material are more fracture resistant than non-laminated ceramics(11,12), but synthetic materials made of interlocking ceramic tablets bound by a few weight per cent of ordinary adhesives do not have a toughness comparable to nacre(13). We believe that the key to nacre's fracture resistance resides in the polymer adhesive, and here we reveal the properties of this adhesive by using the atomic force microscope(14) to stretch the organic molecules exposed on the surface of freshly cleaved nacre. The adhesive fibres elongate in a stepwise manner as folded domains or loops are pulled open. The elongation events occur for forces of a few hundred piconewtons, which are smaller than the forces of over a nanonewton required to break the polymer backbone in the threads. We suggest that this 'modular' elongation mechanism might prove to be quite general for conveying toughness to natural fibres and adhesives, and we predict that it might be found also in dragline silk