Influence of perfluorinated carboxylic acids on ion-pair reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatographic separation of betacyanins and 17-decarboxy-betacyanins

The ability of trifluoroacetic acid, pentafluoropropionic acid and heptafluorobutyric acid to act as ion-pairing agents for betacyanins and 17-decarboxy-betacyanins during HPLC analysis on a Luna C18(2) reversed-phase column is reported. While the perfluorinated carboxylic acids affect the retention of both groups of compounds by changing the pH of the mobile phase, the possibility of ion-pair chromatography for 17-decarboxy-betacyanins was noticed. In order to explain the accessibility of the positive charge for the counter-anion in decarboxy-betacyanins, the mesomeric structures of the polymethine system at low pH (around a value of 1.5), when the carboxylic group in the 2 position is protonated, should be taken into consideration.     

Spatiotemporal model for the progression of transgressive dunes

Transgressive dune fields, which are active sand areas surrounded by vegetation, exist on many coasts. In some regions like in Fraser Island in Australia, small dunes shrink while large ones grow, although both experience the same climatic conditions. We propose a general mathematical model for the spatiotemporal dynamics of vegetation cover on sand dunes and focus on the dynamics of transgressive dunes. Among other possibilities, the model predicts growth parallel to the wind with shrinkage perpendicular to the wind, where, depending on geometry and size, a transgressive dune can initially grow although eventually shrink. The larger is the initial area the slower its stabilization process. The model’s predictions are supported by field observations from Fraser Island in Australia.     

Baryogenesis from the Kobayashi-Maskawa phase

The smallness of quark masses suppresses the CP violation from the Kobayashi-Maskawa phase to a level that is many orders of magnitude below what is required to explain the observed baryon asymmetry. We point out that if, as a result of time variation in the Yukawa couplings, quark masses were large at the time of the electroweak phase transition, then the Kobayashi-Maskawa mechanism could be the source of the asymmetry. The Froggatt-Nielsen mechanism provides a plausible framework where the Yukawa couplings could all be of order 1 at that time, and settle to their present values before nucleo-synthesis. The problems related to a strong first order electroweak phase transition may also be alleviated in this framework. Our scenario reveals a loophole in the commonly held view that the Kobayashi-Maskawa mechanism cannot be the dominant source of CP violation to play a role in baryogenesis.     

Slicing and Dicing the Genome: A Statistical Physics Approach to Population Genetics

The inference of past demographic parameters from current genetic polymorphism is a fundamental problem in population genetics. The standard techniques utilize a reconstruction of the gene-genealogy, a cumbersome process that may be applied only to small numbers of sequences. We present a method that compares the total number of haplotypes (distinct sequences) with the model prediction. By chopping the DNA sequence into pieces we condense the immense information hidden in sequence space into a function for the number of haplotypes versus subsequence size. The details of this curve are robust to statistical fluctuations and are seen to reflect the process parameters. This procedure allows for a clear visualization of the quality of the fit and, crucially, the numerical complexity grows only linearly with the number of sequences. Our procedure is tested against both simulated data as well as empirical mtDNA data from China and provides excellent fits in both cases.