801 research outputs found
The Height of a Giraffe
A minor modification of the arguments of Press and Lightman leads to an
estimate of the height of the tallest running, breathing organism on a
habitable planet as the Bohr radius multiplied by the three-tenths power of the
ratio of the electrical to gravitational forces between two protons (rather
than the one-quarter power that Press got for the largest animal that would not
break in falling over, after making an assumption of unreasonable brittleness).
My new estimate gives a height of about 3.6 meters rather than Press's original
estimate of about 2.6 cm. It also implies that the number of atoms in the
tallest runner is very roughly of the order of the nine-tenths power of the
ratio of the electrical to gravitational forces between two protons, which is
about 3 x 10^32.Comment: 12 pages, LaTe
Pneumatic Sample Slicer
EACH year many man-hours are spent cutting samples
of agricultural crops for chemical analyses
and quality determinations. There are many ways to
do this cutting, but they all consume considerable time
both in the cutting and the cleaning of the apparatus.
The machine described here was developed to cut
sugar beet roots, potato tubers, and similar crops into
either cubes or French fry shapes, with a minimum
amount of time and to be as nearly self-cleaning as
possible. This machine, as described, can he built for
approximately $285.00 including all materials and
labo
Production, Collection and Utilization of Very Long-Lived Heavy Charged Leptons
If a fourth generation of leptons exists, both the neutrino and its charged
partner must be heavier than 45 GeV. We suppose that the neutrino is the
heavier of the two, and that a global or discrete symmetry prohibits
intergenerational mixing. In that case, non-renormalizable Planck scale
interactions will induce a very small mixing; dimension five interactions will
lead to a lifetime for the heavy charged lepton of years. Production
of such particles is discussed, and it is shown that a few thousands can be
produced and collected at a linear collider. The possible uses of these heavy
leptons is also briefly discussed.Comment: 9 pages Late
Selenium Content of Forage and Hay Crops in the Pacific Northwest
A map illustrating the Se content of forage and hay
crops in different sections of the Pacific Northwest was
prepared, based on analyses of crop samples. The primary
criterion used in mapping was to delineate areas
where forage and hay crops generally contain insufficient
Se to meet requirements of lambs and calves, and thus
prevent white muscle disease (WMD) and other Se-responsive
diseases. The minimal requirement may vary
from 0.03 to 0.10 ppm Se in the diet, depending upon the
diet level of vitamin E and possibly other substances.
Under normal livestock management practices, WMD
is common when forages and hay contain less than 0.10
ppm Se and the incidence is greater at lower Se levels.
The western half of Washington and Oregon and part
of northern California comprise an extremely low Se
area. The eastern half of Washington, northern Idaho,
extreme western Montana, and the northeast corner of
Oregon comprise a low Se area. Most of the remaining
portion of the Northwest may be considered as variable
in Se, with farm-to-farm variations common, but some
small areas of adequate Se were found and mapped
Dynamical evolution and leading order gravitational wave emission of Riemann-S binaries
An approximate strategy for studying the evolution of binary systems of
extended objects is introduced. The stars are assumed to be polytropic
ellipsoids. The surfaces of constant density maintain their ellipsoidal shape
during the time evolution. The equations of hydrodynamics then reduce to a
system of ordinary differential equations for the internal velocities, the
principal axes of the stars and the orbital parameters. The equations of motion
are given within Lagrangian and Hamiltonian formalism. The special case when
both stars are axially symmetric fluid configurations is considered. Leading
order gravitational radiation reaction is incorporated, where the quasi-static
approximation is applied to the internal degrees of freedom of the stars. The
influence of the stellar parameters, in particular the influence of the
polytropic index , on the leading order gravitational waveforms is studied.Comment: 31 pages, 7 figures, typos correcte
Ancient expansion of the Hox cluster in Lepidoptera generated four homeobox genes implicated in extra-embryonic tissue formation
Gene duplications within the conserved Hox cluster are rare in animal evolution, but in Lepidoptera an array of divergent Hox-related genes (Shx genes) has been reported between pb and zen. Here, we use genome sequencing of five lepidopteran species (Polygonia c-album, Pararge aegeria, Callimorpha dominula, Cameraria ohridella, Hepialus sylvina) plus a caddisfly outgroup (Glyphotaelius pellucidus) to trace the evolution of the lepidopteran Shx genes. We demonstrate that Shx genes originated by tandem duplication of zen early in the evolution of large clade Ditrysia; Shx are not found in a caddisfly and a member of the basally diverging Hepialidae (swift moths). Four distinct Shx genes were generated early in ditrysian evolution, and were stably retained in all descendent Lepidoptera except the silkmoth which has additional duplications. Despite extensive sequence divergence, molecular modelling indicates that all four Shx genes have the potential to encode stable homeodomains. The four Shx genes have distinct spatiotemporal expression patterns in early development of the Speckled Wood butterfly (Pararge aegeria), with ShxC demarcating the future sites of extraembryonic tissue formation via strikingly localised maternal RNA in the oocyte. All four genes are also expressed in presumptive serosal cells, prior to the onset of zen expression. Lepidopteran Shx genes represent an unusual example of Hox cluster expansion and integration of novel genes into ancient developmental regulatory networks
Effects of Pair Creation on Charged Gravitational Collapse
We investigate the effects of pair creation on the internal geometry of a
black hole, which forms during the gravitational collapse of a charged massless
scalar field. Classically, strong central Schwarzschild-like singularity forms,
and a null, weak, mass-inflation singularity arises along the Cauchy horizon,
in such a collapse. We consider here the discharge, due to pair creation, below
the event horizon and its influence on the {\it dynamical formation} of the
Cauchy horizon. Within the framework of a simple model we are able to trace
numerically the collapse. We find that a part of the Cauchy horizon is replaced
by the strong space-like central singularity. This fraction depends on the
value of the critical electric field, , for the pair creation.Comment: LaTex, 27 pages, including 14 figures. Some points are clarified,
typos corrected. Version accepted for publication in Phys.Rev.
Climate Change in Queensland's Grazing Lands: II. An Assessment of the Impact on Animal Production From Native Pastures
The 160 million ha of grazing land in Queensland support approximately 10 million beef equivalents (9.8 million cattle and 10.7 million sheep) with treed and cleared native pastures as the major forage source. The complexity of these biophysical systems and their interaction with pasture and stock management, economic and social forces limits our ability to easily calculate the impact of climate change scenarios. We report the application of a systems approach in simulating the flow of plant dry matter and utilisation of forage by animals. Our review of available models highlighted the lack of suitable mechanistic models and the potential role of simple empirical relationships of utilisation and animal production derived from climatic and soil indices. Plausible climate change scenarios were evaluated by using a factorial of rainfall (f 10%) * 3260C temperature increase * doubling CO, in sensitivity studies at property, regional and State scales. Simulation of beef cattle liveweight gain at three locations in the Queensland black speargrass zone showed that a *lo% change in rainfall was magnified to be a f 15% change in animal production (liveweight gain per ha) depending on location, temperature and CO, change. Models of 'safe' carrying capacity were developed from property data and expert opinion. Climate change impacts on 'safe' carrying capacity varied considerably across the State depending on whether moisture, temperature or nutrients were the limiting factors. Without the effect of doubling CO,, warmer temperatures and +lo% changes in rainfall resulted in -35 to +70% changes in 'safe' carrying capacity depending on location. With the effect of doubling CO, included, the changes in 'safe' carrying capacity ranged from -12 to +115% across scenarios and locations. When aggregated to a whole-of-State carrying capacity, the combined effects of warmer temperature, doubling CO, and +lo% changes in rainfall resulted in 'safe' carrying capacity changes of +3 to +45% depending on rainfall scenario and location. A major finding of the sensitivity study was the potential importance of doubling CO, in mitigating or amplifying the effects of warmer temperatures and changes in rainfall. Field studies on the impact of CO, are therefore a high research priority. Keywords: climate change, Queensland, simulation, rangelands, beef production, cattle, carrying capacity, CO,, utilisatio
Selenium in Crops in the United States in Relation to Selenium-Responsive Diseases of Animals
Selenium-responsive diseases of livestock occur frequently
in the United States and have been responsible
for serious economic losses. White muscle disease
(WMD) of lambs and calves is perhaps the most common
of these disorders. The occurrence of WMD is
related to the geologic nature of the soil parent material
(19). There is also evidence that regional patterns of
occurrence of WMD are related to regional differences in
the Se concentration of feed crops (3).
In the U. S., there are also areas where Se toxicity
has been evident in livestock. These areas have been
studied extensively, and the distribution of geologic
formations that form soils capable of producing high-Se
plants has been established (14, 17, 21).
This report presents a map of the U. S. showing
areas where the Se content of plants is adequate to
protect animals from WMD, and areas where low levels
of Se in plants may lead to Se-responsive diseases in
animals, and describes how it was prepared. A similar
survey of plant Se levels has been reported from western
Australia (9)
Non-vanishing Magnetic Flux through the Slightly-charged Kerr Black Hole
In association with the Blanford-Znajek mechanism for rotational energy
extraction from Kerr black holes, it is of some interest to explore how much of
magnetic flux can actually penetrate the horizon at least in idealized
situations. For completely uncharged Kerr hole case, it has been known for some
time that the magnetic flux gets entirely expelled when the hole is
maximally-rotating. In the mean time, it is known that when the rotating hole
is immersed in an originally uniform magnetic field surrounded by an ionized
interstellar medium (plasma), which is a more realistic situation, the hole
accretes certain amount of electric charge. In the present work, it is
demonstrated that as a result of this accretion charge small enough not to
disturb the geometry, the magnetic flux through this slightly charged Kerr hole
depends not only on the hole's angular momentum but on the hole's charge as
well such that it never vanishes for any value of the hole's angular momentum.Comment: 33pages, 1 figure, Revtex, some comments added, typos correcte
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