Body size of diverse ectotherms is inversely related to developmental temperature in the laboratory. We monitored seasonal variation in wing length of two populations (Oregon, Washington) of D. subobscura, which was introduced in the Pacific Northwest in the late 1970s. Wing length varied seasonally and was shortest in summer. In Washington, however, wing length was longest in spring, not winte...

Mechanical unfolding trajectories, generated by applying constant force in optical-tweezer experiments, show that RNA hairpins and the P5abc subdomain of the group I intron unfold reversibly. We use coarse-grained Go-like models for RNA hairpins to explore forced unfolding over a broad range of temperatures. A number of predictions that are amenable to experimental tests are made. At the critic...

We use computer simulations to investigate the static properties of a simple glass-forming fluid in which the positions of a finite fraction of the particles have been frozen. By probing the equilibrium statistics of the overlap between independent configurations of the liquid, we find strong evidence that this random pinning induces a glass transition. At low temperatures, our numerical findin...

Cold dark matter (CDM) models predict small-scale structure in excess of observations of the cores and abundance of dwarf galaxies. These problems might be solved, and the virtues of CDM models retained, even without postulating ad hoc dark matter particle or field interactions, if the dark matter is composed of ultralight scalar particles (m approximately 10(-22) eV), initially in a (cold) Bos...

A new strategy of synthesizing hexagonal upconversion NaYF(4) at low temperature (down to 130 °C) based on Ti(4+) doping-induced cubic-to-hexagonal phase transition in a liquid-solid-solution reaction system is offered.

We study the doping and temperature dependence of the single-particle coherent weight, z(A), for high- T(c) superconductors Bi(2)Sr(2)CaCu(2)O(8+x) using angle-resolved photoemission. We find that at low temperatures the coherent weight z(A) at (pi,0) is proportional to the carrier concentration x and that the temperature dependence of z(A) is similar to that of the c-axis superfluid density. W...

By extending our recently proposed magnon-density waves to low dimensions, we investigate, using a microscopic many-body approach, the longitudinal excitations of the quasi-one-dimensional (quasi-1d) and quasi-2d Heisenberg antiferromagnetic systems on a bipartite lattice with a general spin quantum number. We obtain the full energy spectrum of the longitudinal mode as a function of the couplin...

We study the thermal transport in two-dimensional systems with a nontrivial Berry curvature texture. The physical realizations are many; for the sake of definiteness, we consider undoped graphene gapped by the presence of an aligned hexagonal-boron-nitride substrate. The same phenomenology applies, i.e., to surface states of 3D topological insulators in the presence of a uniform magnetization. ...

We propose a two-stage spin-quenching scenario for the unusual heavy fermion state realized in the mixed valent metal LiV2O4. In this theory, local valence fluctuations are responsible for the formation of partially quenched, spin-1 / 2 moments below room temperature. Frustration of the intersite spin couplings then drives the system to produce the heavy Fermi liquid seen at low temperatures. T...