Functional organic gels. Enantioselective elution using chiral gels from amino acid-derived lipids

The L-glutamic acid-derived lipids form organic gels in benzene, which show enantioselective elution of N-dansyl L-phenylalanine from organic gels to aqueous phases. Differential scanning calorimetry and circular dichroism measurements demonstrate that this enantioselectivity occurred through highly-oriented structures of aggregated lipids like those of aqueous lipid membrane systems.     

Explosive fragmentation of a thin ceramic tube using pulsed power

This study experimentally examined the explosive fragmentation of thin ceramic tubes using pulsed power. A thin ceramic tube was threaded on a thin copper wire, and high voltage was applied to the wire using a pulsed power generator. This melted the wire and the resulting vapor put pressure on the ceramic tube, causing it to fragment. We examined the statistical properties of the fragment mass distribution. The cumulative fragment mass distribution obeyed the double exponential or power law with exponential decay. Both distributions agreed well with the experimental data. Finally, we obtained universal scaling for fragmentation, which is applicable to both impact and explosive fragmentation.     

Stabilization of enhanced chirality from pyrene-containing l-glutamide lipid in methyl methacrylate by photo-induced polymerization

Enhanced CD spectra based on chirally-oriented structures of pyrene-containing L-glutamic acid-derived lipid were observed in polymerizable monomers and CD strength was maintained after photo-induced polymerization of the monomer solvents.     

Photochemical ligation of DNA conjugates through anthracene cyclodimer formation and its fidelity to the template sequences

Anthracene readily forms photoadducts, anthracene dimers, and this photodimerization reaction has been well characterized. In general, however, the reaction requires close proximity and certain spatial alignment of both reaction partners. DNA could provide an ideal scaffold for accelerating the photocyclic addition. We synthesized a number of anthracene-DNA conjugates. The sequences of the conjugates, 5'AntODNn and 3'AntODNn (the length of methylene linkers: n = 3 or 6), were designed to bind adjacent sequences of the template with the anthracene units directed such that they stacked with each other. The conjugates were only dimerized in the presence of the template by light irradiation. The efficiency was affected by one-base displacement in the template sequence.     

Gamow-teller strengths of the inverse beta transition 176Yb-->176Lu for spectroscopy of proton-proton and other sub-MeV solar neutrinos

Discrete Gamow-Teller (GT) transitions 176Yb-->176Lu at low excitation energies have been measured via the ( 3He,t) reaction at 450 MeV and at 0 degrees. For 176Yb, two low-lying states are observed, setting low thresholds Q(nu) = 301 and 445 keV for neutrino ( nu) capture. Capture rates estimated from the measured GT strengths, the simple two-state excitation structure, and the low Q(nu) in Yb-Lu indicate that Yb-based nu detectors are well suited for a direct measurement of the sub-MeV solar electron-neutrino ( nu(e)) spectrum including pp neutrinos.