1,283 research outputs found
Fin whales of the Great Bear Rainforest : Balaenoptera physalus velifera in a Canadian Pacific fjord system
Funding: This research was supported by a Mitacs Accelerate Internship (IT21479); the Save Our Seas Foundation; Willow Grove Foundation; Donner Canadian Foundation; Tides Canada; LUSH Charity Pot; private donations to North Coast Cetacean Society; Fisheries and Oceans Canada; and the Canada Nature Fund for Aquatic Species at Risk (CANAFSAR 2019-2021).Fin whales (Balaenoptera physalus) are widely considered an offshore and oceanic species, but certain populations also use coastal areas and semi-enclosed seas. Based upon fifteen years of study, we report that Canadian Pacific fin whales (B. p. velifera) have returned to the Kitimat Fjord System (KFS) in the Great Bear Rainforest, and have established a seasonally resident population in its intracoastal waters. This is the only fjord system along this coast or elsewhere in which fin whales are known to occur regularly with strong site fidelity. The KFS was also the only Canadian Pacific fjord system in which fin whales were commonly found and killed during commercial whaling, pointing to its long-term importance. Traditional knowledge, whaling records, and citizen science databases suggest that fin whales were extirpated from this area prior to their return in 2005-2006. Visual surveys and mark-recapture analysis documented their repopulation of the area, with 100-120 whales using the fjord system in recent years, as well as the establishment of a seasonally resident population with annual return rates higher than 70%. Line transect surveys identified the central and outer channels of the KFS as the primary fin whale habitat, with the greatest densities occurring in Squally Channel and Caamano Sound. Fin whales were observed in the KFS in most months of the year. Vessel- and shore-based surveys (27,311 km and 6,572 hours of effort, respectively) indicated regular fin whale presence (2,542 detections), including mother-calf pairs, from June to October and peak abundance in late August-early September. Seasonal patterns were variable year-to-year, and several lines of evidence indicated that fin whales arrived and departed from the KFS repeatedly throughout the summer and fall. Additionally, we report on the population's social network and morphometrics. These findings offer insights into the dynamics of population recovery in an area where several marine shipping projects are proposed. The fin whales of the Great Bear Rainforest represent a rare exception to general patterns in this species' natural history, and we highlight the importance of their conservation.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe
Localizing Sagittarius A* and M87 on Microarcsecond Scales with Millimeter VLBI
With the advent of the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), a
millimeter/sub-millimeter very-long baseline interferometer (VLBI), it has
become possible to image a handful of black holes with sub-horizon resolutions.
However, these images do not translate into microarcsecond absolute positions
due to the lack of absolute phase information when an external phase reference
is not used. Due to the short atmospheric coherence time at these wavelengths,
nodding between the source and phase reference is impractical. However, here we
suggest an alternative scheme which makes use of the fact that many of the VLBI
stations within the EHT are arrays in their own right. With this we show that
it should be possible to absolutely position the supermassive black holes at
the centers of the Milky Way (Sgr A*) and M87 relative to nearby objects with
precisions of roughly 1 microarcsecond. This is sufficient to detect the
perturbations to Sgr A*'s position resulting from interactions with the stars
and stellar-mass black holes in the Galactic cusp on year timescales, and
severely constrain the astrophysically relevant parameter space for an orbiting
intermediate mass black hole, implicated in some mechanisms for producing the
young massive stars in the Galactic center. For M87, it allows the registering
of millimeter images, in which the black hole may be identified by its
silhouette against nearby emission, and existing larger scale radio images,
eliminating present ambiguities in the nature of the radio core and
inclination, opening angle, and source of the radio jet.Comment: 18 pages, 4 figures, Accepted for publication in Ap
Proteomic-based identification of haptoglobin-1 precursor as a novel circulating biomarker of ovarian cancer
Screening for specific biomarkers of early-stage detection of ovarian cancer is a major health priority due to the asymptomatic nature and poor survival characteristic of the disease. We utilised two-dimensional gel electrophoresis (2DE) to identify differentially expressed proteins in the serum of ovarian cancer patients that may be useful as biomarkers of this disease. In this study, 38 ovarian cancer patients at different pathological grades (grade 1 (n=6), grade 2 (n=8) and grade 3 (n=24)) were compared to a control group of eight healthy women. Serum samples were treated with a mixture of Affigel-Blue and protein A (5 : 1) for 1 h to remove high abundance protein (e.g. immunoglobulin and albumin) and were displayed using 11 cm, pH 4-7 isoelectric focusing strips for the first dimension and 10% acrylamide gel electrophoresis for the second dimension. Protein spots were visualised by SYPRO-Ruby staining, imaged by FX-imager and compared and analysed by PDQuest software. A total of 24 serum proteins were differentially expressed in grade 1 (P<0.05), 31 in grade 2 (P<0.05) and 25 in grade 3 (P<0.05) ovarian cancer patients. Six of the protein spots that were significantly upregulated in all groups of ovarian cancer patients were identified by nano-electrospray quadrupole quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (n-ESIQ(q)TOFMS) and matrix-assisted laser desorption ionisation time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOFMS) as isoforms of haptoglobin-1 precursor (HAP1), a liver glycoprotein present in human serum. Further identification of the spots at different pathological grades was confirmed by Western blotting using monoclonal antibody against a haptoglobin epitope contained within HAP1. Immunohistochemical localisation of HAP1-like activity was present in malignant ovarian epithelium and stroma but strong immunostaining was present in blood vessels, areas with myxomatous stroma and vascular spaces. No tissue localisation of HAP1-like immunoreactivity was observed in normal ovarian surface epithelium. These data highlight the need to assess circulating concentration of HAP1 in the serum of ovarian cancer patients and evaluate its potential as a biomarker in the early diagnosis of ovarian cancer.N Ahmed, G Barker, KT Oliva, P Hoffmann, C Riley, S Reeve, AI Smith, BE Kemp, MA Quinn and GE Ric
Tropospheric ozone over the North Pacific from ozonesonde observations
2003-2004 > Academic research: refereed > Publication in refereed journalVersion of RecordPublishe
Observation of Nuclear Scaling in the Reaction at 1
The ratios of inclusive electron scattering cross sections of He,
C, and Fe to He have been measured for the first time. It is
shown that these ratios are independent of at Q1.4 (GeV/c) for
1.5 where the inclusive cross section depends primarily on the
high-momentum components of the nuclear wave function. The observed scaling
shows that the momentum distributions at high-momenta have the same shape for
all nuclei and differ only by a scale factor. The observed onset of the scaling
at Q1.4 and 1.5 is consistent with the kinematical expectation that
two nucleon short range correlations (SRC) are dominate the nuclear wave
function at 300 MeV/c. The values of these ratios in the scaling
region can be related to the relative probabilities of SRC in nuclei with
A3. Our data demonstrate that for nuclei with A12 these
probabilities are 5-5.5 times larger than in deuterium, while for He it is
larger by a factor of about 3.5.Comment: 11 pages, 10 figure
Single pi+ Electroproduction on the Proton in the First and Second Resonance Regions at 0.25GeV^2 < Q^2 < 0.65GeV^2 Using CLAS
The ep -> e'pi^+n reaction was studied in the first and second nucleon
resonance regions in the 0.25 GeV^2 < Q^2 < 0.65 GeV^2 range using the CLAS
detector at Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility. For the first time
the absolute cross sections were measured covering nearly the full angular
range in the hadronic center-of-mass frame. The structure functions sigma_TL,
sigma_TT and the linear combination sigma_T+epsilon*sigma_L were extracted by
fitting the phi-dependence of the measured cross sections, and were compared to
the MAID and Sato-Lee models.Comment: Accepted for publication in PR
Observation of an Exotic Baryon in Exclusive Photoproduction from the Deuteron
In an exclusive measurement of the reaction , a
narrow peak that can be attributed to an exotic baryon with strangeness
is seen in the invariant mass spectrum. The peak is at
GeV/c with a measured width of 0.021 GeV/c FWHM, which is largely
determined by experimental mass resolution. The statistical significance of the
peak is . The mass and width of the observed peak are
consistent with recent reports of a narrow baryon by other experimental
groups.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure
Measurement of the Polarized Structure Function for in the Resonance Region
The polarized longitudinal-transverse structure function
has been measured in the resonance region at and 0.65
GeV. Data for the reaction were taken at Jefferson Lab
with the CEBAF Large Acceptance Spectrometer (CLAS) using longitudinally
polarized electrons at an energy of 1.515 GeV. For the first time a complete
angular distribution was measured, permitting the separation of different
non-resonant amplitudes using a partial wave analysis. Comparison with previous
beam asymmetry measurements at MAMI indicate a deviation from the predicted
dependence of using recent phenomenological
models.Comment: 5 pages, LaTex, 4 eps figures: to be published in PRC/Rapid
Communications. Version 2 has revised Q^2 analysi
First Measurement of Transferred Polarization in the Exclusive e p --> e' K+ Lambda Reaction
The first measurements of the transferred polarization for the exclusive ep
--> e'K+ Lambda reaction have been performed in Hall B at the Thomas Jefferson
National Accelerator Facility using the CLAS spectrometer. A 2.567 GeV electron
beam was used to measure the hyperon polarization over a range of Q2 from 0.3
to 1.5 (GeV/c)2, W from 1.6 to 2.15 GeV, and over the full center-of-mass
angular range of the K+ meson. Comparison with predictions of hadrodynamic
models indicates strong sensitivity to the underlying resonance contributions.
A non-relativistic quark model interpretation of our data suggests that the
s-sbar quark pair is produced with spins predominantly anti-aligned.
Implications for the validity of the widely used 3P0 quark-pair creation
operator are discussed.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure
Perturbations of MicroRNA Function in Mouse Dicer Mutants Produce Retinal Defects and Lead to Aberrant Axon Pathfinding at the Optic Chiasm
During development axons encounter a variety of choice points where they have to make appropriate pathfinding decisions. The optic chiasm is a major decision point for retinal ganglion cell (RGC) axons en route to their target in order to ensure the correct wiring of the visual system. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) belong to the class of small non-coding RNA molecules and have been identified as important regulators of a variety of processes during embryonic development. However, their involvement in axon guidance decisions is less clear.We report here that the early loss of Dicer, an essential protein for the maturation of miRNAs, in all cells of the forming retina and optic chiasm leads to severe phenotypes of RGC axon pathfinding at the midline. Using a conditional deletion approach in mice, we find in homozygous Dicer mutants a marked increase of ipsilateral projections, RGC axons extending outside the optic chiasm, the formation of a secondary optic tract and a substantial number of RGC axons projecting aberrantly into the contralateral eye. In addition, the mutant mice display a microphthalmia phenotype.Our work demonstrates an important role of Dicer controlling the extension of RGC axons to the brain proper. It indicates that miRNAs are essential regulatory elements for mechanisms that ensure correct axon guidance decisions at the midline and thus have a central function in the establishment of circuitry during the development of the nervous system
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