Introduction of Large-Fruited Strawberry Varieties on the Territory of the Novosibirsk Region in the Conditions of Western Siberia

Background: For the Novosibirsk region, the need for planting material suitable for growing varieties is very high. The relatively easy technology of growing strawberries allows obtaining high yields not only for those who grow them but also on an industrial scale. Strawberry fruits contain a huge number of useful elements, including vitamins, which are necessary for the human body. The study aimed to determine the influence of the maturity group on the yield of introduced varieties of large-fruited garden strawberries.Methods: Records and observations were carried out from May 2019 to September 2020 at the collection site of the biological polygon of the Federal State Budgetary Research Institution Siberian Physical and Technical Institute in the Novosibirsk Region.Results: During the years of the study, the weather conditions of the spring period developed successfully for the growth and development of strawberries. Thus, on average, over the years of the study, high yields were shown of different maturity groups.Conclusion: The obtained yield indicators obtained were not inferior to previously zoned and local varieties, which shows that planting can be carried out both in traditional soil and in soilless culture. Thus, the quality and quantity of fruits does not change with the physicochemical properties or methods of cultivation but depends on the age of the plant and the seasonal crop cycle

The Vicinity of the Galactic Supergiant B[e] Star CPD-57\deg2874 from Near- and Mid-IR Long Baseline Spectro-Interferometry with the VLTI (AMBER and MIDI)

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from ASP via the link in this record.We present the first spectro-interferometric observations of the circumstellar envelope (CSE) of a B[e] supergiant (CPD−57°2874), performed with the Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI) using the beam-combiner instruments AMBER (near-IR interferometry with three 8.3 m Unit Telescopes or UTs) and MIDI (mid-IR interferometry with two UTs). Our observations of the CSE are well fitted by an elliptical Gaussian model with FWHM diameters varying linearly with wavelength. Typical diameters measured are ≅ 1.8 × 3.4 mas or ≅ 4.5×8.5 AU (adopting a distance of 2.5 kpc) at 2.2 μm, and ≅ 12×15 mas or ≅ 30 × 38 AU at 12 μm. We show that a spherical dust model reproduces the SED but it underestimates the MIDI visibilities, suggesting that a dense equatorial disk is required to account for the compact dust-emitting region observed. Moreover, the derived major-axis position angle in the mid-IR (≅ 144°) agrees well with previous polarimetric data, hinting that the hot-dust emission originates in a disk-like structure. Our results support the non-spherical CSE paradigm for B[e] supergiants

Evidence for Efimov quantum states in an ultracold gas of cesium atoms

Systems of three interacting particles are notorious for their complex physical behavior. A landmark theoretical result in few-body quantum physics is Efimov's prediction of a universal set of bound trimer states appearing for three identical bosons with a resonant two-body interaction. Counterintuitively, these states even exist in the absence of a corresponding two-body bound state. Since the formulation of Efimov's problem in the context of nuclear physics 35 years ago, it has attracted great interest in many areas of physics. However, the observation of Efimov quantum states has remained an elusive goal. Here we report the observation of an Efimov resonance in an ultracold gas of cesium atoms. The resonance occurs in the range of large negative two-body scattering lengths, arising from the coupling of three free atoms to an Efimov trimer. Experimentally, we observe its signature as a giant three-body recombination loss when the strength of the two-body interaction is varied. We also detect a minimum in the recombination loss for positive scattering lengths, indicating destructive interference of decay pathways. Our results confirm central theoretical predictions of Efimov physics and represent a starting point with which to explore the universal properties of resonantly interacting few-body systems. While Feshbach resonances have provided the key to control quantum-mechanical interactions on the two-body level, Efimov resonances connect ultracold matter to the world of few-body quantum phenomena.Comment: 18 pages, 3 figure

A Strong Deletion Bias in Nonallelic Gene Conversion

Gene conversion is the unidirectional transfer of genetic information between orthologous (allelic) or paralogous (nonallelic) genomic segments. Though a number of studies have examined nucleotide replacements, little is known about length difference mutations produced by gene conversion. Here, we investigate insertions and deletions produced by nonallelic gene conversion in 338 Drosophila and 10,149 primate paralogs. Using a direct phylogenetic approach, we identify 179 insertions and 614 deletions in Drosophila paralogs, and 132 insertions and 455 deletions in primate paralogs. Thus, nonallelic gene conversion is strongly deletion-biased in both lineages, with almost 3.5 times as many conversion-induced deletions as insertions. In primates, the deletion bias is considerably stronger for long indels and, in both lineages, the per-site rate of gene conversion is orders of magnitudes higher than that of ordinary mutation. Due to this high rate, deletion-biased nonallelic gene conversion plays a key role in genome size evolution, leading to the cooperative shrinkage and eventual disappearance of selectively neutral paralogs

Quantum dynamics in strong fluctuating fields

A large number of multifaceted quantum transport processes in molecular systems and physical nanosystems can be treated in terms of quantum relaxation processes which couple to one or several fluctuating environments. A thermal equilibrium environment can conveniently be modelled by a thermal bath of harmonic oscillators. An archetype situation provides a two-state dissipative quantum dynamics, commonly known under the label of a spin-boson dynamics. An interesting and nontrivial physical situation emerges, however, when the quantum dynamics evolves far away from thermal equilibrium. This occurs, for example, when a charge transferring medium possesses nonequilibrium degrees of freedom, or when a strong time-dependent control field is applied externally. Accordingly, certain parameters of underlying quantum subsystem acquire stochastic character. Herein, we review the general theoretical framework which is based on the method of projector operators, yielding the quantum master equations for systems that are exposed to strong external fields. This allows one to investigate on a common basis the influence of nonequilibrium fluctuations and periodic electrical fields on quantum transport processes. Most importantly, such strong fluctuating fields induce a whole variety of nonlinear and nonequilibrium phenomena. A characteristic feature of such dynamics is the absence of thermal (quantum) detailed balance.Comment: review article, Advances in Physics (2005), in pres

Observation of an Efimov spectrum in an atomic system

In 1970 V. Efimov predicted a puzzling quantum-mechanical effect that is still of great interest today. He found that three particles subjected to a resonant pairwise interaction can join into an infinite number of loosely bound states even though each particle pair cannot bind. Interestingly, the properties of these aggregates, such as the peculiar geometric scaling of their energy spectrum, are universal, i.e. independent of the microscopic details of their components. Despite an extensive search in many different physical systems, including atoms, molecules and nuclei, the characteristic spectrum of Efimov trimer states still eludes observation. Here we report on the discovery of two bound trimer states of potassium atoms very close to the Efimov scenario, which we reveal by studying three-particle collisions in an ultracold gas. Our observation provides the first evidence of an Efimov spectrum and allows a direct test of its scaling behaviour, shedding new light onto the physics of few-body systems.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures, 1 tabl

Hybrid inorganic-organic capsules for efficient intracellular delivery of novel siRNAs against influenza A (H1N1) virus infection

This work was supported by ARUK project grant 21210 ‘Sustained and Controllable Local Delivery of Anti-inflammatory Therapeutics with Nanoengineered Microcapsules’. The work was also supported in part by Russian Foundation of Basic Research grants No. 16-33-50153 mol_nr, No. 16-33-00966 mol_a, Russian Science Foundation grant No. 15-15-00170 and Russian Governmental Program ‘‘Nauka’’, No. 1.1658.2016, 4002

Large introns in relation to alternative splicing and gene evolution: a case study of Drosophila bruno-3

Background: Alternative splicing (AS) of maturing mRNA can generate structurally and functionally distinct transcripts from the same gene. Recent bioinformatic analyses of available genome databases inferred a positive correlation between intron length and AS. To study the interplay between intron length and AS empirically and in more detail, we analyzed the diversity of alternatively spliced transcripts (ASTs) in the Drosophila RNA-binding Bruno-3 (Bru-3) gene. This gene was known to encode thirteen exons separated by introns of diverse sizes, ranging from 71 to 41,973 nucleotides in D. melanogaster. Although Bru-3's structure is expected to be conducive to AS, only two ASTs of this gene were previously described. Results: Cloning of RT-PCR products of the entire ORF from four species representing three diverged Drosophila lineages provided an evolutionary perspective, high sensitivity, and long-range contiguity of splice choices currently unattainable by high-throughput methods. Consequently, we identified three new exons, a new exon fragment and thirty-three previously unknown ASTs of Bru-3. All exon-skipping events in the gene were mapped to the exons surrounded by introns of at least 800 nucleotides, whereas exons split by introns of less than 250 nucleotides were always spliced contiguously in mRNA. Cases of exon loss and creation during Bru-3 evolution in Drosophila were also localized within large introns. Notably, we identified a true de novo exon gain: exon 8 was created along the lineage of the obscura group from intronic sequence between cryptic splice sites conserved among all Drosophila species surveyed. Exon 8 was included in mature mRNA by the species representing all the major branches of the obscura group. To our knowledge, the origin of exon 8 is the first documented case of exonization of intronic sequence outside vertebrates. Conclusion: We found that large introns can promote AS via exon-skipping and exon turnover during evolution likely due to frequent errors in their removal from maturing mRNA. Large introns could be a reservoir of genetic diversity, because they have a greater number of mutable sites than short introns. Taken together, gene structure can constrain and/or promote gene evolution

Removing orientation-induced localization biases in single-molecule microscopy using a broadband metasurface mask

Nanoscale localization of single molecules is a crucial function in several advanced microscopy techniques, including single-molecule tracking and wide-field super-resolution imaging. Until now, a central consideration of such techniques is how to optimize the precision of molecular localization. However, as these methods continue to push towards the nanometre size scale, an increasingly important concern is the localization accuracy. In particular, single fluorescent molecules emit with an anisotropic radiation pattern of an oscillating electric dipole, which can cause significant localization biases using common estimators. Here we present the theory and experimental demonstration of a solution to this problem based on azimuthal filtering in the Fourier plane of the microscope. We do so using a high-efficiency dielectric metasurface polarization/phase device composed of nanoposts with subwavelength spacing. The method is demonstrated both on fluorophores embedded in a polymer matrix and in dL5 protein complexes that bind malachite green

Sequencing of Pooled DNA Samples (Pool-Seq) Uncovers Complex Dynamics of Transposable Element Insertions in Drosophila melanogaster

Transposable elements (TEs) are mobile genetic elements that parasitize genomes by semi-autonomously increasing their own copy number within the host genome. While TEs are important for genome evolution, appropriate methods for performing unbiased genome-wide surveys of TE variation in natural populations have been lacking. Here, we describe a novel and cost-effective approach for estimating population frequencies of TE insertions using paired-end Illumina reads from a pooled population sample. Importantly, the method treats insertions present in and absent from the reference genome identically, allowing unbiased TE population frequency estimates. We apply this method to data from a natural Drosophila melanogaster population from Portugal. Consistent with previous reports, we show that low recombining genomic regions harbor more TE insertions and maintain insertions at higher frequencies than do high recombining regions. We conservatively estimate that there are almost twice as many “novel” TE insertion sites as sites known from the reference sequence in our population sample (6,824 novel versus 3,639 reference sites, with on average a 31-fold coverage per insertion site). Different families of transposable elements show large differences in their insertion densities and population frequencies. Our analyses suggest that the history of TE activity significantly contributes to this pattern, with recently active families segregating at lower frequencies than those active in the more distant past. Finally, using our high-resolution TE abundance measurements, we identified 13 candidate positively selected TE insertions based on their high population frequencies and on low Tajima's D values in their neighborhoods