金属固化：从单晶体到微晶体

控制铸件的固化和冷却速度会大大影响合金的宏观结构与微观结构及其最终机械特性。根据期望要得到的结果,金属可以极其缓慢地也可几乎瞬时地予以冷却。要制造单晶体,金属得在模具中以每秒10~(-3)～10~(-1)度的冷却速度予以固化。制造出来的铸件与涡轮叶片的实际形状几乎相同。反之,以每秒10~6度的速度快速固化,则得到粉状或带状物。这些材料晶粒极细,并且合金元素和强化相位分布均匀。单晶体超合金作为航天飞机主发动机高压涡轮泵的涡轮叶片正在鉴定之中。虽然这些叶片将在比飞机涡轮低的稳态温度环境中工作,但是它们经受的疲劳状况势必要严重得多。国家航空航天局的刘易斯研究中心和马歇尔研究中心都在研究如何改善超合金的抗疲劳性以及如何更好地了解氢对超合金的有害影响。     

重油组成的分子系综表征法

采用Ｍｏｎｔｅ－Ｃａｒｌｏ模拟方法，建立了表征重组成的等效分子系统法，提出了重油分子构造规则和约束及关计算机算法。Ａｌｂｅｒｔａ重油的模拟结果和实验数据比较表明，其系统计结构基团浓度，密度、沸点、环、桥和侧链分布，饱和烃含量均与实测一致，从而为利用纯化合物物化性质研究复杂的重油建立起桥梁。     

正癸烷-水二元混合物在5A分子筛上吸附平衡的实用模型

本文提出了一个称为“有效吸附空间充填模型”的实用吸附模型。利用这个模型可以从纯组分平衡吸附容量算得二元吸附时的平衡吸附容量。将这模型与各种纯组分的吸附等温线公式结合,可以推导得出一系列二元吸附等温线公式。经与正癸烷-水二元混合物在5A分子筛上平衡吸附容量实验数据比较,发现下列公式的预测值与实验值的偏差最小,其均方根相对偏差为10%左右,能满足工程计算的需要。     

Rise and fall of political complexity in island South-East Asia and the Pacific

There is disagreement about whether human political evolution has proceeded through a sequence of incremental increases in complexity, or whether larger, non-sequential increases have occurred. The extent to which societies have decreased in complexity is also unclear. These debates have continued largely in the absence of rigorous, quantitative tests. We evaluated six competing models of political evolution in Austronesian-speaking societies using phylogenetic methods. Here we show that in the best-fitting model political complexity rises and falls in a sequence of small steps. This is closely followed by another model in which increases are sequential but decreases can be either sequential or in bigger drops. The results indicate that large, non-sequential jumps in political complexity have not occurred during the evolutionary history of these societies. This suggests that, despite the numerous contingent pathways of human history, there are regularities in cultural evolution that can be detected using computational phylogenetic methods.     

SLC2A9 is a newly identified urate transporter influencing serum urate concentration, urate excretion and gout

Uric acid is the end product of purine metabolism in humans and great apes, which have lost hepatic uricase activity, leading to uniquely high serum uric acid concentrations (200-500 microM) compared with other mammals (3-120 microM). About 70% of daily urate disposal occurs via the kidneys, and in 5-25% of the human population, impaired renal excretion leads to hyperuricemia. About 10% of people with hyperuricemia develop gout, an inflammatory arthritis that results from deposition of monosodium urate crystals in the joint. We have identified genetic variants within a transporter gene, SLC2A9, that explain 1.7-5.3% of the variance in serum uric acid concentrations, following a genome-wide association scan in a Croatian population sample. SLC2A9 variants were also associated with low fractional excretion of uric acid and/or gout in UK, Croatian and German population samples. SLC2A9 is a known fructose transporter, and we now show that it has strong uric acid transport activity in Xenopus laevis oocytes.     

Mutations of the BRAF gene in human cancer

Cancers arise owing to the accumulation of mutations in critical genes that alter normal programmes of cell proliferation, differentiation and death. As the first stage of a systematic genome-wide screen for these genes, we have prioritized for analysis signalling pathways in which at least one gene is mutated in human cancer. The RAS RAF MEK ERK MAP kinase pathway mediates cellular responses to growth signals. RAS is mutated to an oncogenic form in about 15% of human cancer. The three RAF genes code for cytoplasmic serine/threonine kinases that are regulated by binding RAS. Here we report BRAF somatic missense mutations in 66% of malignant melanomas and at lower frequency in a wide range of human cancers. All mutations are within the kinase domain, with a single substitution (V599E) accounting for 80%. Mutated BRAF proteins have elevated kinase activity and are transforming in NIH3T3 cells. Furthermore, RAS function is not required for the growth of cancer cell lines with the V599E mutation. As BRAF is a serine/threonine kinase that is commonly activated by somatic point mutation in human cancer, it may provide new therapeutic opportunities in malignant melanoma.     

The first cleavage of the mouse zygote predicts the blastocyst axis

One of the unanswered questions in mammalian development is how the embryonic-abembryonic axis of the blastocyst is first established. It is possible that the first cleavage division contributes to this process, because in most mouse embryos the progeny of one two-cell blastomere primarily populate the embryonic part of the blastocyst and the progeny of its sister populate the abembryonic part. However, it is not known whether the embryonic-abembryonic axis is set up by the first cleavage itself, by polarity in the oocyte that then sets the first cleavage plane with respect to the animal pole, or indeed whether it can be divorced entirely from the first cleavage and established in relation to the animal pole. Here we test the importance of the orientation of the first cleavage by imposing an elongated shape on the zygote so that the division no longer passes close to the animal pole, marked by the second polar body. Non-invasive lineage tracing shows that even when the first cleavage occurs along the short axis imposed by this experimental treatment, the progeny of the resulting two-cell blastomeres tend to populate the respective embryonic and abembryonic parts of the blastocyst. Thus, the first cleavage contributes to breaking the symmetry of the embryo, generating blastomeres with different developmental characteristics.     

Language-tree divergence times support the Anatolian theory of Indo-European origin

Languages, like genes, provide vital clues about human history. The origin of the Indo-European language family is "the most intensively studied, yet still most recalcitrant, problem of historical linguistics". Numerous genetic studies of Indo-European origins have also produced inconclusive results. Here we analyse linguistic data using computational methods derived from evolutionary biology. We test two theories of Indo-European origin: the 'Kurgan expansion' and the 'Anatolian farming' hypotheses. The Kurgan theory centres on possible archaeological evidence for an expansion into Europe and the Near East by Kurgan horsemen beginning in the sixth millennium BP. In contrast, the Anatolian theory claims that Indo-European languages expanded with the spread of agriculture from Anatolia around 8,000-9,500 years bp. In striking agreement with the Anatolian hypothesis, our analysis of a matrix of 87 languages with 2,449 lexical items produced an estimated age range for the initial Indo-European divergence of between 7,800 and 9,800 years bp. These results were robust to changes in coding procedures, calibration points, rooting of the trees and priors in the bayesian analysis.