液相放电处理海水中卤虫的研究

运用液相高压脉冲技术,采用自行设计的板-孔-板反应器,处理压载水中典型的浮游动物——卤虫.对卤虫的虫卵、幼虫和成虫3个成长期进行研究,通过改变峰值电压、脉冲频率和处理时间这些参数来考查其对卤虫处理效果的影响.结果表明:随着峰值电压、脉冲频率和处理时间的增加,卤虫幼虫和成虫的杀灭率增加,虫卵的孵化率降低;在适当的放电参数下,卤虫成虫和幼虫的杀灭率均可以达到100%;较低电压对卤虫卵的孵化率没有影响,在电压高于34 kV时,虫卵的孵化率才会降低,然而,经过放电处理后虫卵的孵化时间会缩短.     

Molecular basis of the copulatory plug polymorphism in Caenorhabditis elegans

Heritable variation is the raw material for evolutionary change, and understanding its genetic basis is one of the central problems in modern biology. We investigated the genetic basis of a classic phenotypic dimorphism in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans. Males from many natural isolates deposit a copulatory plug after mating, whereas males from other natural isolates?including the standard wild-type strain (N2 Bristol) that is used in most research laboratories?do not deposit plugs. The copulatory plug is a gelatinous mass that covers the hermaphrodite vulva, and its deposition decreases the mating success of subsequent males. We show that the plugging polymorphism results from the insertion of a retrotransposon into an exon of a novel mucin-like gene, plg-1, whose product is a major structural component of the copulatory plug. The gene is expressed in a subset of secretory cells of the male somatic gonad, and its loss has no evident effects beyond the loss of male mate-guarding. Although C. elegans descends from an obligate-outcrossing, male?female ancestor, it occurs primarily as self-fertilizing hermaphrodites. The reduced selection on male?male competition associated with the origin of hermaphroditism may have permitted the global spread of a loss-of-function mutation with restricted pleiotropy.     

High-energy particle acceleration in the shell of a supernova remnant

A significant fraction of the energy density of the interstellar medium is in the form of high-energy charged particles (cosmic rays). The origin of these particles remains uncertain. Although it is generally accepted that the only sources capable of supplying the energy required to accelerate the bulk of Galactic cosmic rays are supernova explosions, and even though the mechanism of particle acceleration in expanding supernova remnant (SNR) shocks is thought to be well understood theoretically, unequivocal evidence for the production of high-energy particles in supernova shells has proven remarkably hard to find. Here we report on observations of the SNR RX J1713.7 - 3946 (G347.3 - 0.5), which was discovered by ROSAT in the X-ray spectrum and later claimed as a source of high-energy gamma-rays of TeV energies (1 TeV = 10(12) eV). We present a TeV gamma-ray image of the SNR: the spatially resolved remnant has a shell morphology similar to that seen in X-rays, which demonstrates that very-high-energy particles are accelerated there. The energy spectrum indicates efficient acceleration of charged particles to energies beyond 100 TeV, consistent with current ideas of particle acceleration in young SNR shocks.