Despite being of vital importance to the immune system, the mechanism by which cells engulf relatively large solid particles during phagocytosis is still poorly understood. From movies of neutrophil phagocytosis of polystyrene beads, we measure the f
ractional engulfment as a function of time and demonstrate that phagocytosis occurs in two distinct stages. During the first stage, engulfment is relatively slow and progressively slows down as phagocytosis proceeds. However, at approximately half-engulfment, the rate of engulfment increases dramatically, with complete engulfment attained soon afterwards. By studying simple mathematical models of phagocytosis, we suggest that the first stage is due to a passive mechanism, determined by receptor diffusion and capture, whereas the second stage is more actively controlled, perhaps with receptors being driven towards the site of engulfment. We then consider a more advanced model that includes signaling and captures both stages of engulfment. This model predicts that there is an optimum ligand density for quick engulfment. Further, we show how this model explains why non-spherical particles engulf quickest when presented tip-first. Our findings suggest that active regulation may be a later evolutionary innovation, allowing fast and robust engulfment even for large particles.
The calculation of the spectrum of QCD is key to an understanding of the strong interactions, and vital if we are to capitalize on the experimental study of the spectrum. In this paper, we describe progress towards understanding the spectrum of reson
ances of both mesons and baryons from lattice QCD, focusing in particular on the resonances of the $I=1/2$ nucleon states, and of charmonium mesons composed of the heavy charmed quarks.
We consider the one-loop B^2h^3 and B^4h amplitudes in type II string theory, where B is the NS-NS two-form and h the graviton, and expand to lowest order in alpha. After subtracting diagrams due to quartic terms in the effective action, we determine
the presence and structure of both an H^2R^3 and H^2(DH)^2R term. We show that both terms are multiplied by the usual (t_8t_8pm{1/8}epsilon_{10}epsilon_{10}) factor.
We consider the one-loop five-graviton amplitude in type II string theory calculated in the light-cone gauge. Although it is not possible to explicitly evaluate the integrals over the positions of the vertex operators, a low-energy expansion can be o
btained, which can then be used to infer terms in the low-energy effective action. After subtracting diagrams due to known D^{2n}R^4 terms, we show the absence of one-loop R^5 and D^2R^5 terms and determine the exact structure of the one-loop D^4R^5 terms where, interestingly, the coefficient in front of the D^4R^5 terms is identical to the coefficient in front of the D^6R^4 term. Finally, we show that, up to D^6R^4 ~ D^4R^5, the epsilon_{10} terms package together with the t_8 terms in the usual combination (t_8t_8pm{1/8}epsilon_{10}epsilon_{10}).
We present a fluid dynamics video showing the results of a 9-billion atom molecular dynamics simulation of complex fluid flow in molten copper and aluminum. Starting with an atomically flat interface, a shear is imposed along the copper-aluminum inte
rface and random atomic fluctuations seed the formation of vortices. These vortices grow due to the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability. The resulting vortical structures are beautifully intricate, decorated with secondary instabilities and complex mixing phenomena. This work performed under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under Contract DE-AC52-07NA27344.
Recent advances in lattice field theory, in computer technology and in chiral perturbation theory have enabled lattice QCD to emerge as a powerful quantitative tool in understanding hadron structure. I describe recent progress in the computation of t
he nucleon form factors and moments of parton distribution functions, before proceeding to describe lattice studies of the Generalized Parton Distributions (GPDs). In particular, I show how lattice studies of GPDs contribute to building a three-dimensional picture of the proton. I conclude by describing the prospects for studying the structure of resonances from lattice QCD.
