Physics of Neutron Star Crusts

The physics of neutron star crusts is vast, involving many different research fields, from nuclear and condensed matter physics to general relativity. This review summarizes the progress, which has been achieved over the last few years, in modeling neutron star crusts, both at the microscopic and macroscopic levels. The confrontation of these theoretical models with observations is also briefly discussed.Comment: 182 pages, published version available at <http://www.livingreviews.org/lrr-2008-10

Pan-cancer analysis of whole genomes

Cancer is driven by genetic change, and the advent of massively parallel sequencing has enabled systematic documentation of this variation at the whole-genome scale(1-3). Here we report the integrative analysis of 2,658 whole-cancer genomes and their matching normal tissues across 38 tumour types from the Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) Consortium of the International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC) and The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). We describe the generation of the PCAWG resource, facilitated by international data sharing using compute clouds. On average, cancer genomes contained 4-5 driver mutations when combining coding and non-coding genomic elements; however, in around 5% of cases no drivers were identified, suggesting that cancer driver discovery is not yet complete. Chromothripsis, in which many clustered structural variants arise in a single catastrophic event, is frequently an early event in tumour evolution; in acral melanoma, for example, these events precede most somatic point mutations and affect several cancer-associated genes simultaneously. Cancers with abnormal telomere maintenance often originate from tissues with low replicative activity and show several mechanisms of preventing telomere attrition to critical levels. Common and rare germline variants affect patterns of somatic mutation, including point mutations, structural variants and somatic retrotransposition. A collection of papers from the PCAWG Consortium describes non-coding mutations that drive cancer beyond those in the TERT promoter(4); identifies new signatures of mutational processes that cause base substitutions, small insertions and deletions and structural variation(5,6); analyses timings and patterns of tumour evolution(7); describes the diverse transcriptional consequences of somatic mutation on splicing, expression levels, fusion genes and promoter activity(8,9); and evaluates a range of more-specialized features of cancer genomes(8,10-18).Peer reviewe

Review of Underwater and In-Air Sounds Emitted by Australian and Antarctic Marine Mammals

The study of marine soundscapes is a growing field of research. Recording hardware is becoming more accessible; there are a number of off-the-shelf autonomous recorders that can be deployed for months at a time; software analysis tools exist as shareware; rawor preprocessed recordings are freely and publicly available. However, what is missing are catalogues of commonly recorded sounds. Sounds related to geophysical events (e.g. earthquakes) and weather (e.g. wind and precipitation), to human activities (e.g. ships) and to marine animals (e.g. crustaceans, fish and marine mammals) commonly occur. Marine mammals are distributed throughout Australia's oceans and significantly contribute to the underwater soundscape. However, due to a lack of concurrent visual and passive acoustic observations, it is often not known which species produces which sounds. To aid in the analysis of Australian and Antarctic marine soundscape recordings, a literature review of the sounds made by marine mammals was undertaken. Frequency, duration and source level measurements are summarised and tabulated. In addition to the literature review, new marine mammal data are presented and include recordings from Australia of Omura's whales (Balaenoptera omurai), dwarf sperm whales (Kogia sima), common dolphins (Delphinus delphis), short-finned pilot whales (Globicephala macrorhynchus), long-finned pilot whales (G. melas), Fraser's dolphins (Lagenodelphis hosei), false killer whales (Pseudorca crassidens), striped dolphins (Stenella coeruleoalba) and spinner dolphins (S. longirostris), as well as the whistles and burst-pulse sounds of Australian pygmy killer whales (Feresa attenuata). To date, this is the most comprehensive acoustic summary for marine mammal species in Australian waters