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We report the effect of neutral macromolecular crowders poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) (8 kDa) and Ficoll (70 kDa) on liquid–liquid phase separation in a polyuridylic acid (polyU)/spermine complex coacervate system. The addition of PEG decreased both the amount of spermine required for phase separation and the coacervation temperature ( T C ). We interpret these effects on phase behavior as arising due to excluded volume and preferential interactions on both the secondary structure/condensation of spermine-associated polyU molecules and on the association of soluble polyU/spermine polyelectrolyte complexes to form coacervate droplets. Examination of coacervates formed in the presence of fluorescently-labeled PEG ormore »Ficoll crowders indicated that Ficoll is accumulated while PEG is excluded from the coacervate phase, which provides further insight into the differences in phase behavior. Crowding agents impact distribution of a biomolecular solute: partitioning of a fluorescently-labeled U15 RNA oligomer into the polyU/spermine coacervates was increased approximately two-fold by 20 wt% Ficoll 70 kDa and by more than two orders of magnitude by 20 wt% PEG 8 kDa. The volume of the coacervate phase decreased in the presence of crowder relative to a dilute buffer solution. These findings indicate that potential impacts of macromolecular crowding on phase behavior and solute partitioning should be considered in model systems for intracellular membraneless organelles.« less

Antarctic animals share many traits that are attributed to evolution in a stable, extremely cold climate. Among invertebrates, development is exceptionally slow, making observational studies of development logistically challenging, particularly when conducted under natural conditions in the field. Using multiple deployments to McMurdo Station, Antarctica, we characterized the development, in the field, of an unidentified buccinoidean gastropod species with encapsulated development. Thirteen egg capsules collected at Granite Harbor, McMurdo Sound, Ross Sea, were attached to natural rock and outplanted at a depth of ~25 m at the base of the McMurdo Intake Jetty on 2 December 2007, photographed on 5more »October 2011 and 6 September 2012 and then returned to the laboratory on 27 November 2015. In 2015, four capsules were open and empty, five were open and contained a single large hatchling and the remaining four capsules were intact but not open, each containing a single large juvenile snail. To identify the developing embryos, we sequenced mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) from two hatchlings and compared those sequences with those from adults collected near the egg mass, as well as with sequences of other buccinoideans from GenBank. Based on the close match between hatchling and adult COI sequences (hatchling sequences differed from those of an adult at only 2 of 658 nucleotide positions), we identified the embryos as Antarctodomus thielei (Powell, 1958)). The egg mass morphology and development of this species have not been previously described. Our study shows that A. thielei has a development time of more than 8 years, which is the longest measured for any gastropod.

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Abstract Isolated neutron stars that are asymmetric with respect to their spin axis are possible sources of detectable continuous gravitational waves. This paper presents a fully coherent search for such signals from eighteen pulsars in data from LIGO and Virgo’s third observing run (O3). For known pulsars, efficient and sensitive matched-filter searches can be carried out if one assumes the gravitational radiation is phase-locked to the electromagnetic emission. In the search presented here, we relax this assumption and allow both the frequency and the time derivative of the frequency of the gravitational waves to vary in a small range aroundmore »those inferred from electromagnetic observations. We find no evidence for continuous gravitational waves, and set upper limits on the strain amplitude for each target. These limits are more constraining for seven of the targets than the spin-down limit defined by ascribing all rotational energy loss to gravitational radiation. In an additional search, we look in O3 data for long-duration (hours–months) transient gravitational waves in the aftermath of pulsar glitches for six targets with a total of nine glitches. We report two marginal outliers from this search, but find no clear evidence for such emission either. The resulting duration-dependent strain upper limits do not surpass indirect energy constraints for any of these targets.« less

Abstract We report the results of the first joint observation of the KAGRA detector with GEO 600. KAGRA is a cryogenic and underground gravitational-wave detector consisting of a laser interferometer with 3 km arms, located in Kamioka, Gifu, Japan. GEO 600 is a British–German laser interferometer with 600 m arms, located near Hannover, Germany. GEO 600 and KAGRA performed a joint observing run from April 7 to 20, 2020. We present the results of the joint analysis of the GEO–KAGRA data for transient gravitational-wave signals, including the coalescence of neutron-star binaries and generic unmodeled transients. We also perform dedicated searches for binary coalescence signals and generic transientsmore »associated with gamma-ray burst events observed during the joint run. No gravitational-wave events were identified. We evaluate the minimum detectable amplitude for various types of transient signals and the spacetime volume for which the network is sensitive to binary neutron-star coalescences. We also place lower limits on the distances to the gamma-ray bursts analyzed based on the non-detection of an associated gravitational-wave signal for several signal models, including binary coalescences. These analyses demonstrate the feasibility and utility of KAGRA as a member of the global gravitational-wave detector network.« less