Distribution of interstitial stem cells in Hydra

The distribution of interstitial stem cells along the Hydra body column was determined using a simplified cloning assay. The assay measures stem cells as clone-forming units (CFU) in aggregates of nitrogen mustard inactivated Hydra tissue. The concentration of stem cells in the gastric region was uniform at about 0.02 CFU/epithelial cell. In both the hypostome and basal disk the concentration was 20-fold lower. A decrease in the ratio of stem cells to committed nerve and nematocyte precursors was correlated with the decrease in stem cell concentration in both hypostome and basal disk. The ratio of stem cells to committed precursors is a sensitive indicator of the rate of self-renewal in the stem cell population. From the ratio it can be estimated that <10% of stem cells self-renew in the hypostome and basal disk compared to 60% in the gastric region. Thus, the results provide an explanation for the observed depletion of stem cells in these regions. The results also suggest that differentiation and self-renewal compete for the same stem cell population

Tilting Jupiter (a bit) and Saturn (a lot) During Planetary Migration

We study the effects of planetary late migration on the gas giants obliquities. We consider the planetary instability models from Nesvorny & Morbidelli (2012), in which the obliquities of Jupiter and Saturn can be excited when the spin-orbit resonances occur. The most notable resonances occur when the $s_7$ and $s_8$ frequencies, changing as a result of planetary migration, become commensurate with the precession frequencies of Jupiter's and Saturn's spin vectors. We show that Jupiter may have obtained its present obliquity by crossing of the $s_8$ resonance. This would set strict constrains on the character of migration during the early stage. Additional effects on Jupiter's obliquity are expected during the last gasp of migration when the $s_7$ resonance was approached. The magnitude of these effects depends on the precise value of the Jupiter's precession constant. Saturn's large obliquity was likely excited by capture into the $s_8$ resonance. This probably happened during the late stage of planetary migration when the evolution of the $s_8$ frequency was very slow, and the conditions for capture into the spin-orbit resonance with $s_8$ were satisfied. However, whether or not Saturn is in the spin-orbit resonance with $s_8$ at the present time is not clear, because the existing observations of Saturn's spin precession and internal structure models have significant uncertainties.Comment: 29 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journa

Upper and lower bounds on resonances for manifolds hyperbolic near infinity

For a conformally compact manifold that is hyperbolic near infinity and of dimension $n+1$, we complete the proof of the optimal $O(r^{n+1})$ upper bound on the resonance counting function, correcting a mistake in the existing literature. In the case of a compactly supported perturbation of a hyperbolic manifold, we establish a Poisson formula expressing the regularized wave trace as a sum over scattering resonances. This leads to an $r^{n+1}$ lower bound on the counting function for scattering poles.Comment: 29 pages, minor corrections, added one figur

Bibliography of Life: comprehensive services for biodiversity bibliographic references

The underlying principle of the Bibliography of Life is to provide taxonomists and others with a freely accessible bibliography covering the whole of life. Such a bibliography has been achieved for specific study areas within taxonomy, but not for “life” as a whole. Now the ViBRANT project has produced the two components needed to realize the concept of a Bibliography of Life: RefBank and ReFinder. RefBank is a network of servers that store, identify duplicates, and parse the components of bibliographic references. ReFinder is designed to discover and download references from a wide range of open access online bibliographies, such as CrossRef, PubMed, Mendeley, Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL), RefBank, BioStor, BioNames and others