9,875 research outputs found
The Drosophila mutation turnip has pleiotropic behavioral effects and does not specifically affect learning
The Drosophila mutant turnip (tur) was isolated on the basis of its poor performance in an olfactory learning task, and also has a reduction in protein kinase C (PKC) activity. PKC has been found in the nervous systems of a wide range of organisms and appears to have an important role in learning and memory-related processes. Unfortunately, previous reports documenting the learning defect of tur lacked the controls required to assess the origins of the poor performance of the mutant. We have analyzed the effects of the tur mutation on both associative and nonassociative learning as well as on PKC activity. Additionally, the effects of the mutation on the task-relevant sensorimotor abilities of the flies were assessed. Although we were able to replicate previous behavioral and biochemical results obtained with tur, we discovered that the tur mutation also affected response to electric shock and caused a drastic reduction in the locomotor ability of the flies. Because locomotion is an essential component of the learning assays, this result makes it impossible to conclude that tur specifically affects learning and demonstrates the crucial importance of sensorimotor controls in conditioning experiments
Ultralight Scalars and Spiral Galaxies
We study some possible astrophysical implications of a very weakly coupled
ultralight dilaton-type scalar field. Such a field may develop an
(approximately stable) network of domain walls. The domain wall thickness is
assumed to be comparable with the thickness of the luminous part of the spiral
galaxies. The walls provide trapping for galactic matter. This is used to
motivate the very existence of the spiral galaxies. A zero mode existing on the
domain wall is a massless scalar particle confined to 1+2 dimensions. At
distances much larger than the galaxy/wall thickness, the zero-mode exchange
generates a logarithmic potential, acting as an additional term with respect to
Newton's gravity. The logarithmic term naturally leads to constant rotational
velocities at the periphery. We estimate the scalar field coupling to the
matter energy-momentum tensor needed to fit the observable flat rotational
curves of the spiral galaxies. The value of this coupling turns out to be
reasonable -- we find no contradiction with the existing data.Comment: 19 pages, 2 eps figures; extra references and two important Comments
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Receptor-like tyrosine phosphatase PTP10D is required for long-term memory in Drosophila
Tyrosine phosphorylation mediates multiple signal transduction pathways that play key roles in developmental processes and behavioral plasticity. The level of tyrosine phosphorylation is regulated by protein tyrosine kinases and protein tyrosine phosphatases (PTPs). Extensive studies have investigated the roles of tyrosine kinases in memory formation. However, there were few studies on PTPs. To date, learning has been shown to be defective only for mouse knock-outs of PTPα, leukocyte common antigen-related, or PTPδ. A major limitation of these studies arises from their inability to distinguish an acute (biochemical) impairment ofmemoryformation from a more chronic abnormality in neurodevelopment. From a behavioral screen for defective long-term memory, we found chi mutants to disrupt expression of the PTP10D protein tyrosine phosphatase gene. We show that chi mutants are normal for learning, early memory, and anesthesia-resistant memory, whereas long-term memory specifically is abolished. Significantly, induction of a heat shock-PTP10D+ transgene before training fully rescues the memory defect of chi mutants, thereby demonstrating an acute role for PTP10D in behavioral plasticity. We show that PTP10D is widely expressed in the embryonic CNS and in the adult brain. Transgenic expression of upstream activating sequence-PTP10D+ in mushroom bodies is sufficient to rescue the memory defect of chi mutants. Our data clearly demonstrate that signaling through PTP10D in mushroom bodies is critical for the formation of long-term memory. Copyright © 2007 Society for Neuroscience
Binary Galaxies in the Local Supercluster and Its Neighborhood
We report a catalog of 509 pairs identified among 10403 nearby galaxies with
line-of-sight velocities V_LG < 3500 km/s.We selected binary systems in
accordance with two criteria (bounding and temporal), which require the
physical pair of galaxies to have negative total energy and its components to
be located inside the zero-velocity surface. We assume that individual galaxy
masses are proportional to their total K-band luminosities, M = L_K x 6M/L. The
catalog gives the magnitudes and morphological types of galaxies and also the
projected (orbital) masses and pair isolation indices. The component
line-of-sight velocity differences and projected distances of the binary
systems considered have power-law distributions with the median values of 35
km/s and 123 kpc, respectively. The median mass-to-K-band luminosity ratio is
equal to 11 M/L, and its uncertainty is mostly due to the errors of measured
velocities. Our sample of binary systems has a typical density contrast of d
ro/ro_c ~ 500 and a median crossing time of about 3.5 Gyr. We point out the
substantial fraction of binary systems consisting of late-type dwarf galaxies,
where the luminosities of both components are lower than that of the Small
Magellanic Cloud. The median projected distance for 41 such pairs is only 30
kpc, and the median difference of their line-of-sight velocities is equal to 14
km/s which is smaller than the typical error for radial-velocity (30 km/s).
This specific population of gas-rich dwarf binary galaxies such as I Zw 18 may
be at the stage immediately before merging of its components. Such objects,
which are usually lost in flux-limited (and not distance-limited) samples
deserve a thorough study in the HI radio line with high spatial and velocity
resolution.Comment: published in Astrophysical Bulletin, 2008, Vol. 63, No. 4, pp.
299-34
The Origin of the Intrinsic Scatter in the Relation Between Black Hole Mass and Bulge Luminosity for Nearby Active Galaxies
We investigate the origin of the intrinsic scatter in the correlation between
black hole mass (MBH) and bulge luminosity [L(bulge)] in a sample of 45
massive, local (z < 0.35) type~1 active galactic nuclei (AGNs). We derive MBH
from published optical spectra assuming a spherical broad-line region, and
L(bulge) from detailed two-dimensional decomposition of archival optical Hubble
Space Telescope images. AGNs follow the MBH-L(bulge) relation of inactive
galaxies, but the zero point is shifted by an average of \Delta log MBH ~ -0.3
dex. We show that the magnitude of the zero point offset, which is responsible
for the intrinsic scatter in the MBH-L(bulge) relation, is correlated with
several AGN and host galaxy properties, all of which are ultimately related to,
or directly impact, the BH mass accretion rate. At a given bulge luminosity,
sources with higher Eddington ratios have lower MBH. The zero point offset can
be explained by a change in the normalization of the virial product used to
estimate MBH, in conjunction with modest BH growth (~ 10%--40%) during the AGN
phase. Galaxy mergers and tidal interactions appear to play an important role
in regulating AGN fueling in low-redshift AGNs.Comment: To appear in ApJ; 67 pages, 56 figures, 4 tables, version with full
resolution figures at http://users.ociw.edu/mjkim/papers/scatter.pd
Properties of Active Galaxies Deduced from H I Observations
We completed a new survey for H I emission for a large, well-defined sample
of 154 nearby (z < 0.1) galaxies with type 1 AGNs. We make use of the extensive
database presented in a companion paper to perform a comprehensive appraisal of
the cold gas content in active galaxies and to seek new strategies to
investigate the global properties of the host galaxies and their relationship
to their central black holes (BHs). We show that the BH mass obeys a strong,
roughly linear relation with the host galaxy's dynamical mass. BH mass follows
a looser, though still highly significant, correlation with the maximum
rotation velocity of the galaxy, as expected from the known scaling between
rotation velocity and central velocity dispersion. Neither of these H I-based
correlations is as tight as the more familiar relations between BH mass and
bulge luminosity or velocity dispersion, but they offer the advantage of being
insensitive to the glare of the nucleus and therefore are promising new tools
for probing the host galaxies of both nearby and distant AGNs. We present
evidence for substantial ongoing BH growth in the most actively accreting AGNs.
In these nearby systems, BH growth appears to be delayed with respect to the
assembly of the host galaxy but otherwise has left no detectable perturbation
to its mass-to-light ratio or its global gas content. The host galaxies of type
1 AGNs, including those luminous enough to qualify as quasars, are generally
gas-rich systems, possessing a cold interstellar medium reservoir at least as
abundant as that in inactive galaxies of the same morphological type. This
calls into question current implementations of AGN feedback in models of galaxy
formation that predict strong cold gas depletion in unobscured AGNs. (Abridged)Comment: To appear in ApJ; 14 page
Temperature suppression of STM-induced desorption of hydrogen on Si(100) surfaces
The temperature dependence of hydrogen (H) desorption from Si(100)
H-terminated surfaces by a scanning tunneling microscope (STM) is reported for
negative sample bias. It is found that the STM induced H desorption rate ()
decreases several orders of magnitude when the substrate temperature is
increased from 300 K to 610 K. This is most noticeable at a bias voltage of -7
V where decreases by a factor of ~200 for a temperature change of 80 K,
whilst it only decreases by a factor of ~3 at -5 V upon the same temperature
change. The experimental data can be explained by desorption due to vibrational
heating by inelastic scattering via a hole resonance. This theory predicts a
weak suppression of desorption with increasing temperature due to a decreasing
vibrational lifetime, and a strong bias dependent suppression due to a
temperature dependent lifetime of the hole resonance.Comment: 5 pages, RevTeX, epsf files. Accepted for surface science letter
Neutrino masses through see-saw mechanism in 3-3-1 models
Some years ago it was shown by Ma that in the context of the electroweak
standard model there are, at the tree level, only three ways to generate small
neutrino masses by the see-saw mechanism via one effective dimension-five
operator. Here we extend this approach to 3-3-1 chiral models showing that in
this case there are several dimension-five operators and we also consider their
tree level realization.Comment: RevTex, 7 pages and 4 .eps figures. Version published in Phys. Rev.
D. with a change in the titl
A Test of Kangaroo Care on Preterm Infant Breastfeeding
To test the effects of kangaroo care (KC) on breastfeeding outcomes in preterm infants compared to two control groups and to explore whether maternal-infant characteristics and the mother’s choice to use KC were related to breastfeeding measures
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