Characteristics of ChgH–GFP transgenic medaka lines, an in vivo estrogenic compound detection system

We previously reported the characteristics of a ChgH–GFP transgenic medaka line that indicates estrogenic compound pollution in environmental water by the green fluorescence of their liver. Recently, we established four more lines. In this study, the characteristics of the five transgenic medaka lines were investigated. The intensity of reporter gene expression varied among transgenic lines and generally correlated well with the amount of integrated transgene in each line. Line-specific ectopic expression was also observed. However, the sensitivity to 17-β estradiol did not differ among transgenic lines. Three transgenic lines are considered to be suitable as bio-indicators of estrogenic activity, due to the ease of observing green fluorescence in their livers. The transgenic lines can also detect the estrogenic activity of testosterone and 17-β trenbolone at the nominal concentration of 30 and 100 μg/l, respectively.     

Laboratory Electrical Conductivity Measurement of Mantle Minerals

Electrical conductivity structures of the Earth’s mantle estimated from the magnetotelluric and geomagnetic deep sounding methods generally show increase of conductivity from 10⁻⁴–10⁻² to 10⁰ S/m with increasing depth to the top of the lower mantle. Although conductivity does not vary significantly in the lower mantle, the possible existence of a highly conductive layer has been proposed at the base of the lower mantle from geophysical modeling. The electrical properties of mantle rocks are controlled by thermodynamic parameters such as pressure, temperature and chemistry of the main constituent minerals. Laboratory electrical conductivity measurements of mantle minerals have been conducted under high pressure and high temperature conditions using solid medium high-pressure apparatus. To distinguish several charge transport mechanisms in mantle minerals, it is necessary to measure the electrical conductivity in a wider temperature range. Although the correspondence of data has not been yet established between each laboratory, an outline tendency of electrical conductivity of the mantle minerals is almost the same. Most of mineral phases forming the Earth’s mantle exhibit semiconductive behavior. Dominant conduction mechanism is small polaron conduction (electron hole hopping between ferrous and ferric iron), if these minerals contain iron. The phase transition olivine to high-pressure phases enhances the conductivity due to structural changes. As a result, electrical conductivity increases in order of olivine, wadsleyite and ringwoodite along the adiabat geotherm. The phase transition to post-spinel at the 660 km discontinuity further can enhance the conductivity. In the lower mantle, the conductivity once might decrease in the middle of the lower mantle due to the iron spin transition and then abruptly increase at the condition of the D″ layer. The impurities in the mantle minerals strongly control the formation, number and mobility of charge carriers. Hydrogen in nominally anhydrous minerals such as olivine and high-pressure polymorphs can enhance the conductivity by the proton conduction. However, proton conduction has lower activation enthalpy compared with small polaron conduction, a contribution of proton conduction becomes smaller at high temperatures, corresponding to the mantle condition. Rather high iron content in mantle minerals largely enhances the conductivity of the mantle. This review focuses on a compilation of fairly new advances in experimental laboratory work together with their explanation.     

Depositional Age of a Fossil Whale Bone from São Paulo Ridge,South Atlantic Ocean,Based on Os Isotope Stratigraphy of a Ferromanganese Crust

Whale carcasses (whale falls) deposited on the deep seafloor are associated with a distinctive biotic community. A fossil whale bone recovered from São Paulo Ridge, South Atlantic Ocean, during cruise YK13–04 Leg 1 of R/V Yokosuka was covered by a ferromanganese (Fe–Mn) crust approximately 9 mm thick. Here, we report an age constraint for this fossil bone on the basis of Os isotopic stratigraphy (¹⁸⁷Os/¹⁸⁸Os ratio) of the Fe–Mn crust. Major‐ and trace‐element compositions of the crust are similar to those of Fe–Mn crusts of predominantly hydrogenous origin. Rare earth element concentrations in samples of the crust, normalized with respect to Post‐Archean average Australian Shale, exhibit flat patterns with positive Ce and negative Y anomalies. These results indicate that the Fe–Mn crust consists predominantly of hydrogenous components and that it preserves the Os isotope composition of seawater at the time of its deposition. ¹⁸⁷Os/¹⁸⁸Os ratios of three Fe–Mn crust samples increased from 0.904 to 1.068 in ascending stratigraphic order. The value of 1.068 from the surface slice (0–3 mm depth in the crust) was identical to that of present‐day seawater within error (~1.06). The value of 0.904 from the basal slice (6–9 mm) equaled seawater values from ca. 4–5 Ma. Because it is unknown how long the bone lay on the seafloor before the Fe–Mn crust was deposited, the Os stratigraphic age of ca. 5 Ma is a minimum age of the fossil. This is the first application, to our knowledge, of marine Os isotope stratigraphy for determining the age of a fossil whale bone. Such data may offer valuable insights into the evolution of the whale‐fall biotic community.     

Oscillations in the Coronal Green-Line Intensity Observed at Lominický Štít and Norikura Nearly Simultaneously.

We studied intensity oscillations of the coronal green line ([Fexiv] 530.3 nm) observed with two coronagraphs at Lomnický tít and Norikura nearly simultaneously. In the spectroscopic data obtained at Norikura, we have detected and confirmed the earlier detection of 5-minute oscillations in photoelectric photometer observations made at Lomnický tít. Quasi-periodic structures in the green-line intensity with a tangential speed up to 400 km s^–1 have been detected for the first time. We briefly discuss the implications of these oscillations on the coronal heating mechanisms.     

Chemical speciation of arsenic in the livers of higher trophic marine animals

Concentrations of total arsenic and individual arsenic compounds were determined in livers of cetaceans (Dall's porpoise and short-finned pilot whale), pinnipeds (harp and ringed seals), sirenian (dugong), and sea turtles (green and loggerhead turtles) to characterize arsenic accumulation profiles in higher trophic marine animals. Hepatic arsenic concentrations in sea turtles were highest among the species examined. Chemical speciation of arsenic revealed that arsenobetaine was the major arsenic compound in almost all the species. In contrast, arsenobetaine was a minor constituent in dugong. Dimethylarsinic acid, methylarsonic acid, arsenocholine, tetramethylarsonium ion, arsenite, and an unidentified arsenic compound were also detected as minor constituents. However, the composition of arsenic compounds was different among these species. These results might reflect the differences in the metabolism of arsenic and/or the compositions of arsenic compounds in their preys. To our knowledge, this is the first report on the large variation in the composition of arsenic species in liver of marine mammals and sea turtles.     

Topology of Magnetic Field and Coronal Heating in Solar Active Regions

Force-free magnetic fields can be computed by making use of a new numerical technique, in which the fields are represented by a boundary integral equation based on a specific Green's function. Vector magnetic fields observed on the photospheric surface can be taken as the boundary conditions of this equation. In this numerical computation, the following two points are emphasized: (1) A new method for data reduction is proposed, for removing uncertainties in boundary data and determining the parameter in this Green's function, which is important for solving the boundary integral equation. In this method, the transverse components of the observed boundary field are calibrated with a linear force-free field model without changing their azimuth. (2) The computed 3-D fields satisfy the divergence-free and force-free conditions with high precision. The alignment of these field lines is mostly in agreement with structures in Hα and Yohkoh soft X-ray images. Since the boundary data are calibrated with a linear force-free field model, the computed 3-D magnetic field can be regarded as a quasi-linear force-free field approximation. The reconstruction of 3-D magnetic field in active region NOAA 7321 was taken as an example to quantitatively exhibit the capability of our new numerical technique.     

Tail emission of prompt gamma-ray burst jets

Tail emission of the prompt gamma-ray burst (GRB) is discussed using a multiple emitting sub-shell (inhomogeneous jet, sub-jets or mini-jets) model, where the whole GRB jet consists of many emitting sub-shells. One may expect that such a jet with angular inhomogeneity should produce spiky tail emission. However, we found that the tail is not spiky but is decaying roughly monotonically. The global decay slope of the tail is not so much affected by the local angular inhomogeneity but affected by the global sub-shell energy distribution. The fact that steepening GRB tail breaks appeared in some events prefers the structured jets. If the angular size of the emitting sub-shell is around 0.01–0.02 rad, some bumps or fluctuations appear in the tail emission observed frequently in long GRBs. If the parameter differences of sub-shell properties are large, the tail has frequent changes of the temporal slope observed in a few bursts. Therefore, the multiple emitting sub-shell model has the advantage of explaining the small-scale structure in the observed rapid decay phase.     

Gravitational wave background from neutrino-driven gamma-ray bursts

We study cosmic microwave background (CMB) secondary anisotropies produced by inhomogeneous reionization by means of cosmological simulations coupled with the radiative transfer code crash . The reionization history is consistent with the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe Thomson optical depth determination. We find that the signal arising from this process dominates over the primary CMB component for   l ≳ 4000  and reaches a maximum amplitude of   l ( l + 1) C_l /2π≃ 1.6 × 10⁻¹³  on arcmin scales (i.e. l as large as several thousands). We then cross-correlate secondary CMB anisotropy maps with neutral hydrogen 21-cm line emission fluctuations obtained from the same simulations. The two signals are highly anticorrelated on angular scales corresponding to the typical size of H  ii regions (including overlapping) at the 21-cm map redshift. We show how the CMB/21-cm cross-correlation can be used: (i) to study the nature of the reionization sources; (ii) to reconstruct the cosmic reionization history; (iii) to infer the mean cosmic ionization level at any redshift. We discuss the feasibility of the proposed experiment with forthcoming facilities.     

Trace element accumulation in fishes collected from coastal waters of the Caspian Sea

Concentrations of 13 trace elements (V, Mn, Cr, Co, Cu, Zn, Se, Mo, Ag, Cd, Hg, Tl and Pb) were determined in muscle of bony fishes collected from coastal areas of the Caspian Sea (Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Iran). In all the fishes, Zn concentration was highest, followed by Cu, Se, Mn and Co, while levels of toxic elements (Ag, Cd, Cd, Tl and Pb) were relatively low. Concentrations of several elements were significantly varied between the species in each sampling area. For most of the trace elements examined, the concentrations decreased significantly with body weight of fishes. In contrast, a positive correlation with body weight was found for Co, Se and Pb concentrations in one fish species, and Hg in 2 fish species. Geographical difference in the concentrations of trace elements was examined using the Caspian roach collected from five stations of Iranian coastal waters. The concentrations of Co, Mo, Ag, Cd and Tl were higher in fishes from western stations than those from eastern stations, whereas the opposite trend was observed for Hg, indicating that local sources of trace metal pollution may be present in the Iranian coastal areas of the Caspian Sea. Levels of trace elements in Caspian fishes were relatively low in comparison to those of other regions, but Zn and Hg levels in some specimens exceeded the guideline values for food.