In humans, when plasma sodium concentration rises slightly beyond 140 mM, vascular endothelium sharply stiffens and nitric oxide release declines. In search of a vascular sodium sensor, the endothelial glycocalyx was identified as being a negatively charged biopolymer capable of selectively buffering sodium ions. Sodium excess damages the glycocalyx and renders vascular endothelium increasingly...

We have studied experimentally transport properties in a slowly driven granular system which recently was shown to display self-organized criticality [Frette et al., Nature (London) 379, 49 (1996)]. Tracer particles were added to a pile and their transit times measured. The distribution of transit times is a constant with a crossover to a decaying power law. The average transport velocity decre...

Connexins have been implicated in the regulation of precursor cell migration and proliferation during embryonic development of the mammalian brain. However, their function in postnatal neurogenesis is unclear. Here we demonstrate that connexin (Cx) 45 is expressed in transit-amplifying cells and neuroblasts in the postnatal subventricular zone (SVZ) and modulated the proliferation of SVZ-derive...

For extrasolar planets with orbital periods, P>10 days, radial velocity surveys find non-circular orbital eccentricities are common, 〈e〉 ∼ 0.3. Future surveys for extrasolar planets using the transit technique will also have sensitivity to detect these longer period planets. Orbital eccentricity affects the detection of extrasolar planets using the transit technique in two opposing ways: an enh...

We examine Kepler light-curve variability on habitable zone transit timescales for a large uniform sample of spectroscopically studied Kepler exoplanet host stars. The stars, taken from Everett et al., are solar-like in their properties and each harbors at least one exoplanet (or candidate) of radius „2.5 Re. The variability timescale examined is typical for habitable zone planets orbiting sola...

The Gram-negative organism Campylobacter jejuni is the major cause of food poisoning. Unlike Escherichia coli, which has two major porins, OmpC and OmpF, C. jejuni has one, termed major outer membrane protein (MOMP) through which nutrients and antibiotics transit. We report the 2.1-Å crystal structure of C. jejuni MOMP expressed in E. coli and a lower resolution but otherwise identical structur...

Photon-limited transit surveys in V band are in principle about 20 times more sensitive to planets of fixed size in the habitable zone around M stars than G stars. In I band the ratio is about 400. The advantages that the habitable zone lies closer and that the stars are smaller (together with the numerical superiority of M stars) more than compensate for the reduced signal due to the lower lum...

Majority of the million plus cities in India are facing serious problems of traffic congestion and pollution due to the unprecedented and rapid pace of urbanization in last decade. City planners are providing solution to these twin problems by developing Mass Rapid Transit System including Metro and BRT in many Indian Metropolitan cities. The availability of transit network and pedestrian acces...