Archives, Room Use Only - HE8374.G74 1868

Archives, Room Use Only - HE7669.P55 1945

Archives, Room Use Only - PS3539.A14 C52 1915

Archives, Room Use Only - UG590.S54 1838

Archives, Room Use Only - HE7673.W47 1913

Underwater Photographer of the Year celebrates photography beneath the surface of the ocean, lakes and rivers.More than 5,500 underwater pictures were entered in 13 categories by underwater photographers from 70 countries around the world.Scroll down to see the winning images.

Takehiro Kishimoto, 39, has amassed more than 280,000 followers on Instagram for his ability to transform everyday foods into art.

Are you using MySQL’s utf8 charset in your databases? In this write-up I’ll explain why you should switch to utf8mb4 instead, and how to do it.

This seems to be a very common misconception that just won’t die. I keep running into it in blog posts, Twitter discussions, and even books.

Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar on Saturday asked state’s chief secretary Deepak Kumar to take necessary steps to create employment opportunities for returning migrant workers as per the outcome of their skill survey.

UPLC/FTICR MS provides detailed metabolic signatures of Chilean red wines, which can be distinguished by vintage, vineyard of origin, production year, and quality.

Govt extends early bird scheme to commercial establishments | Hyderabad News - Times of India

Communication gap hindering their bail application process

567 foreigners to be handed over to police

The district magistrates will explore the possibility of sending those Tablighi members, who belong to other states, in buses to their designated places in accordance with social distancing norms and other protocols, Delhi Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) Special CEO K S Meena said in a letter to deputy commissioners (administration).

Compact X-ray sources based on inverse Compton scattering provide brilliant and partially coherent X-rays in a laboratory environment. The cross section for inverse Compton scattering is very small, requiring high-power laser systems as well as small laser and electron beam sizes at the interaction point to generate sufficient flux. Therefore, these systems are very sensitive to distortions which change the overlap between the two beams. In order to monitor X-ray source position, size and flux in parallel to experiments, the beam-position monitor proposed here comprises a small knife edge whose image is acquired with an X-ray camera specifically designed to intercept only a very small fraction of the X-ray beam. Based on the source position drift recorded with the monitor, a closed-loop feedback stabilizes the X-ray source position by adjusting the laser beam trajectory. A decrease of long-term source position drifts by more than one order of magnitude is demonstrated with this device. Consequently, such a closed-loop feedback system which enables stabilization of source position drifts and flux of inverse Compton sources in parallel to experiments has a significant impact on the performance of these sources.

A portable IR fiber laser-heating system, optimized for X-ray emission spectroscopy (XES) and nuclear inelastic scattering (NIS) spectroscopy with signal collection through the radial opening of diamond anvil cells near 90°with respect to the incident X-ray beam, is presented. The system offers double-sided on-axis heating by a single laser source and zero attenuation of incoming X-rays other than by the high-pressure environment. A description of the system, which has been tested for pressures above 100 GPa and temperatures up to 3000 K, is given. The XES spectra of laser-heated Mg0.67Fe0.33O demonstrate the potential to map the iron spin state in the pressure–temperature range of the Earth's lower mantle, and the NIS spectra of laser-heated FeSi give access to the sound velocity of this candidate of a phase inside the Earth's core. This portable system represents one of the few bridges across the gap between laser heating and high-resolution X-ray spectroscopies with signal collection near 90°.

PLEASE REDUCE TO 1-2 SENTENCES. The capability of X-ray diffraction for the microstructure investigations of metastable systems is illustrated on the example of thin films of titanium aluminium nitrides with high aluminium content, which are supersaturated and partially decomposed. In addition to the chemical composition, the surface mobility of the deposited species was employed as a factor influencing the microstructure of the thin films. It is shown how the micromechanical properties of the partially decomposed (Ti,Al)N thin films, which were deduced from the synchrotron diffraction experiments, are related to the thin film microstructure and to the decomposition mechanism. The prominent role of the crystallographic anisotropy of the macroscopic and microscopic lattice deformations in the understanding of the micromechanical properties is addressed.

Earth scientists plan to meld massive databases into a 'geological Google'  Science Magazine

UK sees notable reduction in seismic noise caused by human activity – experts  Aberdeen Evening Express

Six reaction products of ZnII and NiII with pyridine-2,6-di­carb­oxy­lic acid (H2Lig1), 4-chloro­pyridine-2,6-di­carb­oxy­lic acid (H2Lig2) and 4-hy­droxy­pyridine-2,6-di­carb­oxy­lic acid (H2Lig3) are used to pinpoint the structural consequences of crystal field stabilization by an incomplete d shell. The pseudo-octa­hedral ZnII coordination sphere in bis­(6-carb­oxy­picolinato)zinc(II) trihydrate, [Zn(C7H4NO4)2]·3H2O or [Zn(HLig1)2]·3H2O, (1), is significantly less regular than that about NiII in the isostructural compound bis­(6-carb­oxy­picolinato)nickel(II) trihydrate, [Ni(C7H4NO4)2]·3H2O or [Ni(HLig1)2]·3H2O, (2). The ZnII complexes poly[(4-chloro­pyridine-2,6-di­carboxyl­ato)zinc(II)], [Zn(C7H2ClNO4)]n or [Zn(Lig2)]n, (3), and poly[[(4-hy­droxy­pyridine-2,6-di­carboxyl­ato)zinc(II)] monohydrate], {[Zn(C7H3NO5)]·H2O}n or {[Zn(Lig3)]·H2O}n, (4), represent two-dimensional coordination polymers with chelating and bridging pyridine-2,6-di­carboxyl­ate ligands in which the coordination polyhedra about the central cations cannot be associated with any regular shape; their coordination environments range between trigonal–bipyramidal and square-pyramidal geometries. In contrast, the corresponding adducts of the diprotonated ligands to NiII, namely tri­aqua­(4-chloro­pyridine-2,6-di­carboxyl­ato)nickel(II), [Ni(C7H2ClNO4)(H2O)3] or [NiLig2(OH2)3)], (5), and tri­aqua­(4-hy­droxy­pyridine-2,6-di­carboxyl­ato)nickel(II) 1.7-hydrate, [Ni(C7H3NO5)(H2O)3]·1.7H2O or [NiLig3(OH2)3)]·1.7H2O, (6), feature rather regular octa­hedral coordination spheres about the transition-metal cations, thus precluding the formation of analogous extended structures.

Highly Brønsted-acidic boron trifluoride monohydrate, a widely used `super acid-catalyst', is a colourless fuming liquid that releases BF3 at room temperature. Com­pared to the liquid com­ponents, i.e. boron trifluoride monohydrate and 1,4-dioxane, their 1:1 adduct, BF3H2O·C4H8O2, is a solid with pronounced thermal stability (m.p. 401–403 K). The crystal structure of the long-time-stable easy-to-handle and weighable com­pound is reported along with new preparative aspects and the results of 1H, 11B, 13C and 19F spectroscopic investigations, particularly documenting its high Brønsted acidity in aceto­nitrile solution. The remarkable stability of solid BF3H2O·C4H8O2 is attributed to the chain structure established by O—H⋯O hydrogen bonds of exceptional strength {O2⋯H1—O1 [O⋯O = 2.534 (3) Å] and O1—H1⋯O3i [2.539 (3) Å] in the concatenating unit >O2⋯H1—O1—H2⋯O3i<}, taking into account the mol­ecular (non-ionic) character of the structural moieties. Indirectly, this structural feature documents the outstanding acidification of the H2O mol­ecule bound to BF3 and reflects the super acid nature of BF3H2O. In detail, the C22(7) zigzag chain system of hydrogen bonding in the title structure is characterized by the double hydrogen-bond donor and double (κO,κO') hydrogen-bond acceptor functionality of the aqua ligand and dioxane molecule, respectively, the almost equal strength of both hydrogen bonds, the approximatety linear arrangement of the dioxane O atoms and the two neighbouring water O atoms. Furthermore, the approximately planar arrangement of B, F and O atoms in sheets perpendicular to the c axis of the ortho­rhom­bic unit cell is a characteristic structural feature.

CsCl-type materials have many outstanding characteristics, i.e. simple in structure, ease of synthesis and good stability at room temperature, thus are an excellent choice for designing functional materials. Using high-throughput first-principles calculations, a large number of topological semimetals/metals (TMs) were designed from CsCl-type materials found in crystallographic databases and their crystal and electronic structures have been studied. The CsCl-type TMs in this work show rich topological character, ranging from triple nodal points, type-I nodal lines and critical-type nodal lines, to hybrid nodal lines. The TMs identified show clean topological band structures near the Fermi level, which are suitable for experimental investigations and future applications. This work provides a rich data set of TMs with a CsCl-type structure.

Protein-engineering methods have been exploited to produce a surrogate system for the extracellular neurotransmitter-binding site of a heteromeric human ligand-gated ion channel, the glycine receptor. This approach circumvents two major issues: the inherent experimental difficulties in working with a membrane-bound ion channel and the complication that a heteromeric assembly is necessary to create a key, physiologically relevant binding site. Residues that form the orthosteric site in a highly stable ortholog, acetylcholine-binding protein, were selected for substitution. Recombinant proteins were prepared and characterized in stepwise fashion exploiting a range of biophysical techniques, including X-ray crystallography, married to the use of selected chemical probes. The decision making and development of the surrogate, which is termed a glycine-binding protein, are described, and comparisons are provided with wild-type and homomeric systems that establish features of molecular recognition in the binding site and the confidence that the system is suited for use in early-stage drug discovery targeting a heteromeric α/β glycine receptor.

Molecular replacement (MR) is the predominant route to solution of the phase problem in macromolecular crystallography. Where the lack of a suitable homologue precludes conventional MR, one option is to predict the target structure using bioinformatics. Such modelling, in the absence of homologous templates, is called ab initio or de novo modelling. Recently, the accuracy of such models has improved significantly as a result of the availability, in many cases, of residue-contact predictions derived from evolutionary covariance analysis. Covariance-assisted ab initio models representing structurally uncharacterized Pfam families are now available on a large scale in databases, potentially representing a valuable and easily accessible supplement to the PDB as a source of search models. Here, the unconventional MR pipeline AMPLE is employed to explore the value of structure predictions in the GREMLIN and PconsFam databases. It was tested whether these deposited predictions, processed in various ways, could solve the structures of PDB entries that were subsequently deposited. The results were encouraging: nine of 27 GREMLIN cases were solved, covering target lengths of 109–355 residues and a resolution range of 1.4–2.9 Å, and with target–model shared sequence identity as low as 20%. The cluster-and-truncate approach in AMPLE proved to be essential for most successes. For the overall lower quality structure predictions in the PconsFam database, remodelling with Rosetta within the AMPLE pipeline proved to be the best approach, generating ensemble search models from single-structure deposits. Finally, it is shown that the AMPLE-obtained search models deriving from GREMLIN deposits are of sufficiently high quality to be selected by the sequence-independent MR pipeline SIMBAD. Overall, the results help to point the way towards the optimal use of the expanding databases of ab initio structure predictions.

The laser annealing process for AuNi nanoparticles has been visualized using coherent X-ray diffraction imaging (CXDI). AuNi bimetallic alloy nanoparticles, originally phase separated due to the miscibility gap, transform to metastable mixed alloy particles with rounded surface as they are irradiated by laser pulses. A three-dimensional CXDI shows that the internal part of the AuNi particles is in the mixed phase with preferred compositions at ∼29 at% of Au and ∼90 at% of Au.

The Inorganic Crystal Structure Database (ICSD) is the world's largest database of fully evaluated and published crystal structure data, mostly obtained from experimental results. However, the purely experimental approach is no longer the only route to discover new compounds and structures. In the past few decades, numerous computational methods for simulating and predicting structures of inorganic solids have emerged, creating large numbers of theoretical crystal data. In order to take account of these new developments the scope of the ICSD was extended in 2017 to include theoretical structures which are published in peer-reviewed journals. Each theoretical structure has been carefully evaluated, and the resulting CIF has been extended and standardized. Furthermore, a first classification of theoretical data in the ICSD is presented, including additional categories used for comparison of experimental and theoretical information.

An online knowledge base on the alternate conformations adopted by main-chain and side-chain atoms in protein structures solved by X-ray crystallography is described.

A detailed study on chiral compound structures found in the Cambridge Structural Database (CSD) is presented. Solvates, salts and co-crystals have intentionally been excluded, in order to focus on the most basic structures of single enantiomers, scalemates and racemates. Similarity between the latter and structures of achiral monomolecular compounds has been established and utilized to arrive at important conclusions about crystallization of chiral compounds. For example, the fundamental phenomenon of conglomerate formation and, in particular, their frequency of occurrence is addressed. In addition, rarely occurring kryptoracemates and scalemic compounds (anomalous racemates) are discussed. Finally, an extended search of enantiomer solid solutions in the CSD is performed to show that there are up to 1800 instances most probably hiding among the deposited crystal structures, while only a couple of dozen have been previously known and studied.

A study on chiral monomolecular compound structures found in the Cambridge Structural Database is presented.

Unless action is taken now, coral reefs and many of the animals that depend on them may cease to exist within the next 40 years, causing the first global extinction of a worldwide ecosystem during current history.

The post Scientists establish first frozen repository of Hawaiian coral appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

The turkey has become synonymous with Thanksgiving in the United States. But when exactly where turkeys first domesticated? And where? Bruce Smith, senior archeologist at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History has the answers.

The post Turkey’s trip to table: Domesticating North America’s largest fowl appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Tiny Anolis lizards preserved since the Miocene in amber are giving scientists a true appreciation of the meaning of community stability. Dating back some 15 […]

The post Trapped in Amber: Ancient fossils reveal remarkable stability of Caribbean lizard communities appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Smothered in tartar sauce and cheese it’s difficult to know just what species of fish lurks beneath the breaded surface of a fast-food fish sandwich. […]

The post Smithsonian scientist creating DNA database to track Caribbean conch and lobster appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.