Intrasexual competition and sexual selection in cooperative mammals

In most animals, the sex that invests least in its offspring competes more intensely for access to the opposite sex and shows greater development of secondary sexual characters than the sex that invests most. However, in some mammals where females are the primary care-givers, females compete more frequently or intensely with each other than males. A possible explanation is that, in these species, the resources necessary for successful female reproduction are heavily concentrated and intrasexual competition for breeding opportunities is more intense among females than among males. Intrasexual competition between females is likely to be particularly intense in cooperative breeders where a single female monopolizes reproduction in each group. Here, we use data from a twelve-year study of wild meerkats (Suricata suricatta), where females show high levels of reproductive skew, to show that females gain greater benefits from acquiring dominant status than males and traits that increase competitive ability exert a stronger influence on their breeding success. Females that acquire dominant status also develop a suite of morphological, physiological and behavioural characteristics that help them to control other group members. Our results show that sex differences in parental investment are not the only mechanism capable of generating sex differences in reproductive competition and emphasize the extent to which competition for breeding opportunities between females can affect the evolution of sex differences and the operation of sexual selection.     

A new gamma-ray burst classification scheme from GRB 060614

Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are known to come in two duration classes, separated at approximately 2 s. Long-duration bursts originate from star-forming regions in galaxies, have accompanying supernovae when these are near enough to observe and are probably caused by massive-star collapsars. Recent observations show that short-duration bursts originate in regions within their host galaxies that have lower star-formation rates, consistent with binary neutron star or neutron star-black hole mergers. Moreover, although their hosts are predominantly nearby galaxies, no supernovae have been so far associated with short-duration GRBs. Here we report that the bright, nearby GRB 060614 does not fit into either class. Its approximately 102-s duration groups it with long-duration GRBs, while its temporal lag and peak luminosity fall entirely within the short-duration GRB subclass. Moreover, very deep optical observations exclude an accompanying supernova, similar to short-duration GRBs. This combination of a long-duration event without an accompanying supernova poses a challenge to both the collapsar and the merging-neutron-star interpretations and opens the door to a new GRB classification scheme that straddles both long- and short-duration bursts.     

Climate-driven trends in contemporary ocean productivity

Contributing roughly half of the biosphere's net primary production (NPP), photosynthesis by oceanic phytoplankton is a vital link in the cycling of carbon between living and inorganic stocks. Each day, more than a hundred million tons of carbon in the form of CO2 are fixed into organic material by these ubiquitous, microscopic plants of the upper ocean, and each day a similar amount of organic carbon is transferred into marine ecosystems by sinking and grazing. The distribution of phytoplankton biomass and NPP is defined by the availability of light and nutrients (nitrogen, phosphate, iron). These growth-limiting factors are in turn regulated by physical processes of ocean circulation, mixed-layer dynamics, upwelling, atmospheric dust deposition, and the solar cycle. Satellite measurements of ocean colour provide a means of quantifying ocean productivity on a global scale and linking its variability to environmental factors. Here we describe global ocean NPP changes detected from space over the past decade. The period is dominated by an initial increase in NPP of 1,930 teragrams of carbon a year (Tg C yr(-1)), followed by a prolonged decrease averaging 190 Tg C yr(-1). These trends are driven by changes occurring in the expansive stratified low-latitude oceans and are tightly coupled to coincident climate variability. This link between the physical environment and ocean biology functions through changes in upper-ocean temperature and stratification, which influence the availability of nutrients for phytoplankton growth. The observed reductions in ocean productivity during the recent post-1999 warming period provide insight on how future climate change can alter marine food webs.     

Active terahertz metamaterial devices

The development of artificially structured electromagnetic materials, termed metamaterials, has led to the realization of phenomena that cannot be obtained with natural materials. This is especially important for the technologically relevant terahertz (1 THz = 10(12) Hz) frequency regime; many materials inherently do not respond to THz radiation, and the tools that are necessary to construct devices operating within this range-sources, lenses, switches, modulators and detectors-largely do not exist. Considerable efforts are underway to fill this 'THz gap' in view of the useful potential applications of THz radiation. Moderate progress has been made in THz generation and detection; THz quantum cascade lasers are a recent example. However, techniques to control and manipulate THz waves are lagging behind. Here we demonstrate an active metamaterial device capable of efficient real-time control and manipulation of THz radiation. The device consists of an array of gold electric resonator elements (the metamaterial) fabricated on a semiconductor substrate. The metamaterial array and substrate together effectively form a Schottky diode, which enables modulation of THz transmission by 50 per cent, an order of magnitude improvement over existing devices.     

Southern Ocean sea-ice extent, productivity and iron flux over the past eight glacial cycles

Sea ice and dust flux increased greatly in the Southern Ocean during the last glacial period. Palaeorecords provide contradictory evidence about marine productivity in this region, but beyond one glacial cycle, data were sparse. Here we present continuous chemical proxy data spanning the last eight glacial cycles (740,000 years) from the Dome C Antarctic ice core. These data constrain winter sea-ice extent in the Indian Ocean, Southern Ocean biogenic productivity and Patagonian climatic conditions. We found that maximum sea-ice extent is closely tied to Antarctic temperature on multi-millennial timescales, but less so on shorter timescales. Biological dimethylsulphide emissions south of the polar front seem to have changed little with climate, suggesting that sulphur compounds were not active in climate regulation. We observe large glacial-interglacial contrasts in iron deposition, which we infer reflects strongly changing Patagonian conditions. During glacial terminations, changes in Patagonia apparently preceded sea-ice reduction, indicating that multiple mechanisms may be responsible for different phases of CO2 increase during glacial terminations. We observe no changes in internal climatic feedbacks that could have caused the change in amplitude of Antarctic temperature variations observed 440,000 years ago.     

A photometric redshift of z = 6.39 +/- 0.12 for GRB 050904

Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) and their afterglows are the most brilliant transient events in the Universe. Both the bursts themselves and their afterglows have been predicted to be visible out to redshifts of z approximately 20, and therefore to be powerful probes of the early Universe. The burst GRB 000131, at z = 4.50, was hitherto the most distant such event identified. Here we report the discovery of the bright near-infrared afterglow of GRB 050904 (ref. 4). From our measurements of the near-infrared afterglow, and our failure to detect the optical afterglow, we determine the photometric redshift of the burst to be z = 6.39 - 0.12 + 0.11 (refs 5-7). Subsequently, it was measured spectroscopically to be z = 6.29 +/- 0.01, in agreement with our photometric estimate. These results demonstrate that GRBs can be used to trace the star formation, metallicity, and reionization histories of the early Universe.     

A magnetically collimated jet from an evolved star

Planetary nebulae often have asymmetric shapes, even though their progenitor stars were symmetric; this structure could be the result of collimated jets from the evolved stars before they enter the planetary nebula phase. Theoretical models have shown that magnetic fields could be the dominant source of jet-collimation in evolved stars, just as these fields are thought to collimate outflows in other astrophysical sources, such as active galactic nuclei and proto-stars. But hitherto there have been no direct observations of both the magnetic field direction and strength in any collimated jet. Here we report measurements of the polarization of water vapour masers that trace the precessing jet emanating from the asymptotic giant branch star W43A (at a distance of 2.6 kpc from the Sun), which is undergoing rapid evolution into a planetary nebula. The masers occur in two clusters at opposing tips of the jets, approximately 1,000 au from the star. We conclude from the data that the magnetic field is indeed collimating the jet.     

Detection of a direct carbon dioxide effect in continental river runoff records

Continental runoff has increased through the twentieth century despite more intensive human water consumption. Possible reasons for the increase include: climate change and variability, deforestation, solar dimming, and direct atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) effects on plant transpiration. All of these mechanisms have the potential to affect precipitation and/or evaporation and thereby modify runoff. Here we use a mechanistic land-surface model and optimal fingerprinting statistical techniques to attribute observational runoff changes into contributions due to these factors. The model successfully captures the climate-driven inter-annual runoff variability, but twentieth-century climate alone is insufficient to explain the runoff trends. Instead we find that the trends are consistent with a suppression of plant transpiration due to CO2-induced stomatal closure. This result will affect projections of freshwater availability, and also represents the detection of a direct CO2 effect on the functioning of the terrestrial biosphere.     

Gene network shaping of inherent noise spectra

Recent work demonstrates that stochastic fluctuations in molecular populations have consequences for gene regulation. Previous experiments focused on noise sources or noise propagation through gene networks by measuring noise magnitudes. However, in theoretical analysis, we showed that noise frequency content is determined by the underlying gene circuits, leading to a mapping between gene circuit structure and the noise frequency range. An intriguing prediction from our previous studies was that negative autoregulation shifts noise to higher frequencies where it is more easily filtered out by gene networks--a property that may contribute to the prevalence of autoregulation motifs (for example, found in the regulation of approximately 40% of Escherichia coli genes). Here we measure noise frequency content in growing cultures of E. coli, and verify the link between gene circuit structure and noise spectra by demonstrating the negative autoregulation-mediated spectral shift. We further demonstrate that noise spectral measurements provide mechanistic insights into gene regulation, as perturbations of gene circuit parameters are discernible in the measured noise frequency ranges. These results suggest that noise spectral measurements could facilitate the discovery of novel regulatory relationships.     

多段折线逼近法在智能气压传感器设计中的应用

提出了在智能气压传感器算法设计中,利用多段折线逼近法实现非线性校正的一种应用技巧,并以计算出的结果与实验标定数据相比较,验证了该方法的可行性.