In this paper I aim to show that a certain law of nature, namely that common salt (sodium chloride) dissolves in water, is metaphysically necessary. The importance of this result is that it conflicts with a widely shared intuition that the laws of nature (most if not all) are contingent. There have been debates over whether some laws, such as Newton’s second law, might be definitional of their ...

Deformed cross-dissolves are methods for inconspicuous interpolation between images. We describe algorithms for deformation based on scattered data interpolation methods and an improved cross-dissolve algorithm ooering better performance than a normal bidirectional cross-dissolve. Results for interpolation in the eld of medical visualization are presented.

Abstract Microbialites accrete where environmental conditions and microbial metabolisms promote lithification, commonly through carbonate cementation. On Little Ambergris Cay, Turks Caicos Islands, mats occur widely in peritidal environments above ooid sand but do not become lithified or preserved. Sediment cores porewater geochemistry indicated that aerobic respiration sulfide oxidation inhibi...

The 20 known transforming onc genes of retroviruses are defined by sequences which are transduced from cellular genes, termed proto-onc genes. Based on these sequences, viral onc genes have been postulated to be transduced cellular cancer genes and proto-onc genes have been postulated to be latent cancer genes that can be activated from within the cell, to cause virus-negative tumours. The hypo...

We build on the observation by Hawking, Perry and Strominger that a global black hole space-time supports large number of soft hair degrees freedom to shed new light firewall argument Almheiri, Marolf, Polchinski, Sully. propose Goldstone mode is encoded in classical transition function connects asymptotic near horizon region. The entropy carried part outside geometry. argue infalling observer ...

The prediction that higher biodiversity leads to denser niche packing and thus community resistance invasion has long been studied, with species richness as the predominant measure of diversity. However, few studies have explored how phylogenetic functional diversity, which should represent space more faithfully than taxonomic influence invasibility, especially across longer time frames over la...