XMM-Newton observation of PSRB2224+65 and its jet

We have investigated the pulsar PSRB2224+65 and its X-ray jet with XMM-Newton. Apart from the long X-ray jet which is almost perpendicular to the direction of proper motion, a putative extended feature at the pulsar position, which is oriented in the opposite direction to the proper motion, is also suggested by this deep X-ray imaging. Non-detection of any coherent X-ray pulsation disfavors the magnetospheric origin of the X-rays observed from the position of PSRB2224+65 and hence suggests that the interpretation of pulsar wind nebula is more viable. We have also probed the origin of PSRB2224+65 and identified a runaway star, which possibly originated from the Cygnus OB9 association, as a candidate for the former binary companion of the neutron star's progenitor. © 2012. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.postprin

Profiling of Active Microorganisms by Stable Isotope Probing-Metagenomics.

Stable isotope probing (SIP) provides researchers a culture-independent method to retrieve nucleic acids from active microbial populations performing a specific metabolic activity in complex ecosystems. In recent years, the use of the SIP method in microbial ecology studies has been accelerated. This is partly due to the advances in sequencing and bioinformatics tools, which enable fast and reliable analysis of DNA and RNA from the SIP experiments. One of these sequencing tools, metagenomics, has contributed significantly to the body of knowledge by providing data not only on taxonomy but also on the key functional genes in specific metabolic pathways and their relative abundances. In this chapter, we provide a general background on the application of the SIP-metagenomics approach in microbial ecology and a workflow for the analysis of metagenomic datasets using the most up-to-date bioinformatics tools