Novel Non-equilibrium Phase Transition Caused by Non-linear Hadronic-quark Phase Structure

We consider how the occurrence of first-order phase transitions in non-constant pressure differs from those at constant pressure. The former has shown the non-linear phase structure of mixed matter, which implies a particle number dependence of the binding energies of the two species. If the mixed matter is mixed hadron-quark phase, nucleon outgoing from hadronic phase and ingoing to quark phase probably reduces the system to a non-equilibrium state, in other words, there exists the imbalance of the two phases when deconfinement takes place. This novel non-equilibrium process is very analogous to the nuclear reactions that nuclei emit neutrons and absorb them under appropriate conditions. We present self-consistent thermodynamics in description for the processes and identify the microphysics responsible for the processes. The microphysics is an inevitable consequence of non-linear phase structure instead of the effect of an additional dissipation force. When applying our findings to the neutron star containing mixed hadron-quark matter, it is found that the newly discovered energy release might strongly change the thermal evolution behavior of the star.Comment: 18pages,3figures;to be accepted for publication in Physics Letters

Gene editing: A new step and a new direction toward finding a cure for Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD)

AbstractDuchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is a progressive muscle degenerative disease affecting one out of 3500 male births. Patients usually succumb to the disease by age 25. It has been shown that skipping exons of the DMD gene that contain disease-causing mutations from the pre-mRNA can result in a shortened, but functional, dystrophin protein that could bring clinical benefits to patients. A recent breakthrough has been reported in Science by three groups who demonstrated that genetically deleting exon 23 by gene editing can restore the expression of dystrophin (albeit a shortened version) and improve the muscle function in a mouse model of DMD