Extracellular superoxide production by key microbes in the global ocean

© The Author(s), 2019. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Sutherland, K. M., Coe, A., Gast, R. J., Plummer, S., Suffridge, C. P., Diaz, J. M., Bowman, J. S., Wankel, S. D., & Hansel, C. M. Extracellular superoxide production by key microbes in the global ocean. Limnology and Oceanography, (2019), doi:10.1002/lno.11247.Bacteria and eukaryotes produce the reactive oxygen species superoxide both within and outside the cell. Although superoxide is typically associated with the detrimental and sometimes fatal effects of oxidative stress, it has also been shown to be involved in a range of essential biochemical processes, including cell signaling, growth, differentiation, and defense. Light‐independent extracellular superoxide production has been shown to be widespread among many marine heterotrophs and phytoplankton, but the extent to which this trait is relevant to marine microbial physiology and ecology throughout the global ocean is unknown. Here, we investigate the dark extracellular superoxide production of five groups of organisms that are geographically widespread and represent some of the most abundant organisms in the global ocean. These include Prochlorococcus, Synechococcus, Pelagibacter, Phaeocystis, and Geminigera. Cell‐normalized net extracellular superoxide production rates ranged seven orders of magnitude, from undetectable to 14,830 amol cell−1 h−1, with the cyanobacterium Prochlorococcus being the lowest producer and the cryptophyte Geminigera being the most prolific producer. Extracellular superoxide production exhibited a strong inverse relationship with cell number, pointing to a potential role in cell signaling. We demonstrate that rapid, cell‐number–dependent changes in the net superoxide production rate by Synechococcus and Pelagibacter arose primarily from changes in gross production of extracellular superoxide, not decay. These results expand the relevance of dark extracellular superoxide production to key marine microbes of the global ocean, suggesting that superoxide production in marine waters is regulated by a diverse suite of marine organisms in both dark and sunlit waters.The authors would like to acknowledge their funding sources including NASA NESSF NNX15AR62H (K.M.S.), NASA Exobiology grant NNX15AM04G to S.D.W. and C.M.H., NSF‐OCE grant 1355720 to C.M.H., NSF‐OPP 1641019 (J.S.B), and Simons Foundation SCOPE Award ID 329108 (Sallie W. Chisholm). The authors would also like to thank the Harvey lab (Skidaway Institute of Oceanography) for use of their flow cytometer in this study. We thank Stephen Giovannoni and Sallie Chisholm for providing bacteria strains and laboratory facilities. Additional thanks to Marianne Acker, Rogier Braakman, and Aldo Arellano for assistance in lab and helpful conversations

Особенности конфликтогенных зон у больных невротическими расстройствами женщин

Представлены данные о различии конфликтогенных зон у женщин и мужчин, страдающих невротическими расстройствами. Показано, что выявленные особенности необходимо учитывать в диагностике и психотерапии невротических расстройств.The authors report the data about the differences in conflectogenic zones among women and men with neurotic disorders. It was shown that the revealed peculiarities should be taken into consideration in diagnosis and psychotherapy of neurotic disorders

Highlights from the Pierre Auger Observatory

The Pierre Auger Observatory is the world's largest cosmic ray observatory. Our current exposure reaches nearly 40,000 km$^2$ str and provides us with an unprecedented quality data set. The performance and stability of the detectors and their enhancements are described. Data analyses have led to a number of major breakthroughs. Among these we discuss the energy spectrum and the searches for large-scale anisotropies. We present analyses of our X$_{max}$ data and show how it can be interpreted in terms of mass composition. We also describe some new analyses that extract mass sensitive parameters from the 100% duty cycle SD data. A coherent interpretation of all these recent results opens new directions. The consequences regarding the cosmic ray composition and the properties of UHECR sources are briefly discussed.Comment: 9 pages, 12 figures, talk given at the 33rd International Cosmic Ray Conference, Rio de Janeiro 201

The Pierre Auger Observatory III: Other Astrophysical Observations

Astrophysical observations of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays with the Pierre Auger ObservatoryComment: Contributions to the 32nd International Cosmic Ray Conference, Beijing, China, August 201

Azimuthal asymmetry in the risetime of the surface detector signals of the Pierre Auger Observatory

The azimuthal asymmetry in the risetime of signals in Auger surface detector stations is a source of information on shower development. The azimuthal asymmetry is due to a combination of the longitudinal evolution of the shower and geometrical effects related to the angles of incidence of the particles into the detectors. The magnitude of the effect depends upon the zenith angle and state of development of the shower and thus provides a novel observable, $(\sec \theta)_\mathrm{max}$, sensitive to the mass composition of cosmic rays above $3 \times 10^{18}$ eV. By comparing measurements with predictions from shower simulations, we find for both of our adopted models of hadronic physics (QGSJETII-04 and EPOS-LHC) an indication that the mean cosmic-ray mass increases slowly with energy, as has been inferred from other studies. However, the mass estimates are dependent on the shower model and on the range of distance from the shower core selected. Thus the method has uncovered further deficiencies in our understanding of shower modelling that must be resolved before the mass composition can be inferred from $(\sec \theta)_\mathrm{max}$.Comment: Replaced with published version. Added journal reference and DO

A search for point sources of EeV photons

Measurements of air showers made using the hybrid technique developed with the fluorescence and surface detectors of the Pierre Auger Observatory allow a sensitive search for point sources of EeV photons anywhere in the exposed sky. A multivariate analysis reduces the background of hadronic cosmic rays. The search is sensitive to a declination band from -85{\deg} to +20{\deg}, in an energy range from 10^17.3 eV to 10^18.5 eV. No photon point source has been detected. An upper limit on the photon flux has been derived for every direction. The mean value of the energy flux limit that results from this, assuming a photon spectral index of -2, is 0.06 eV cm^-2 s^-1, and no celestial direction exceeds 0.25 eV cm^-2 s^-1. These upper limits constrain scenarios in which EeV cosmic ray protons are emitted by non-transient sources in the Galaxy.Comment: 28 pages, 10 figures, accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journa

Reconstruction of inclined air showers detected with the Pierre Auger Observatory

We describe the method devised to reconstruct inclined cosmic-ray air showers with zenith angles greater than $60^\circ$ detected with the surface array of the Pierre Auger Observatory. The measured signals at the ground level are fitted to muon density distributions predicted with atmospheric cascade models to obtain the relative shower size as an overall normalization parameter. The method is evaluated using simulated showers to test its performance. The energy of the cosmic rays is calibrated using a sub-sample of events reconstructed with both the fluorescence and surface array techniques. The reconstruction method described here provides the basis of complementary analyses including an independent measurement of the energy spectrum of ultra-high energy cosmic rays using very inclined events collected by the Pierre Auger Observatory.Comment: 27 pages, 19 figures, accepted for publication in Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics (JCAP

Anisotropy and chemical composition of ultra-high energy cosmic rays using arrival directions measured by the Pierre Auger Observatory

The Pierre Auger Collaboration has reported evidence for anisotropy in the distribution of arrival directions of the cosmic rays with energies $E>E_{th}=5.5\times 10^{19}$ eV. These show a correlation with the distribution of nearby extragalactic objects, including an apparent excess around the direction of Centaurus A. If the particles responsible for these excesses at $E>E_{th}$ are heavy nuclei with charge $Z$, the proton component of the sources should lead to excesses in the same regions at energies $E/Z$. We here report the lack of anisotropies in these directions at energies above $E_{th}/Z$ (for illustrative values of $Z=6,\ 13,\ 26$). If the anisotropies above $E_{th}$ are due to nuclei with charge $Z$, and under reasonable assumptions about the acceleration process, these observations imply stringent constraints on the allowed proton fraction at the lower energies

The Pierre Auger Observatory: Contributions to the 34th International Cosmic Ray Conference (ICRC 2015)

Contributions of the Pierre Auger Collaboration to the 34th International Cosmic Ray Conference, 30 July - 6 August 2015, The Hague, The NetherlandsComment: 24 proceedings, the 34th International Cosmic Ray Conference, 30 July - 6 August 2015, The Hague, The Netherlands; will appear in PoS(ICRC2015