Washington State University

About: Washington State University is a education organization based out in Pullman, Washington, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Gene. The organization has 26947 authors who have published 57736 publications receiving 2341509 citations. The organization is also known as: WSU & Wazzu.

Nine exceptional radiations plus high turnover explain species diversity in jawed vertebrates

Abstract: The uneven distribution of species richness is a fundamental and unexplained pattern of vertebrate biodiversity. Although species richness in groups like mammals, birds, or teleost fishes is often attributed to accelerated cladogenesis, we lack a quantitative conceptual framework for identifying and comparing the exceptional changes of tempo in vertebrate evolutionary history. We develop MEDUSA, a stepwise approach based upon the Akaike information criterion for detecting multiple shifts in birth and death rates on an incompletely resolved phylogeny. We apply MEDUSA incompletely to a diversity tree summarizing both evolutionary relationships and species richness of 44 major clades of jawed vertebrates. We identify 9 major changes in the tempo of gnathostome diversification; the most significant of these lies at the base of a clade that includes most of the coral-reef associated fishes as well as cichlids and perches. Rate increases also underlie several well recognized tetrapod radiations, including most modern birds, lizards and snakes, ostariophysan fishes, and most eutherian mammals. In addition, we find that large sections of the vertebrate tree exhibit nearly equal rates of origination and extinction, providing some of the first evidence from molecular data for the importance of faunal turnover in shaping biodiversity. Together, these results reveal living vertebrate biodiversity to be the product of volatile turnover punctuated by 6 accelerations responsible for >85% of all species as well as 3 slowdowns that have produced “living fossils.” In addition, by revealing the timing of the exceptional pulses of vertebrate diversification as well as the clades that experience them, our diversity tree provides a framework for evaluating particular causal hypotheses of vertebrate radiations.

Myalgic encephalomyelitis: International Consensus Criteria

Abstract: 12 FatigueConsultationClinic,SaltLake RegionalMedicalCenter; 13 InternalMedicine,FamilyPractice,UniversityofUtah,SaltLakeCity,UT,USA; 14 ME ⁄CFSCenter,OsloUniversity HospitalHF,Norway; 15 DepartmentofPaediatrics,StateUniversityofNewYork,Buffalo,NY,USA; 16 Independent,Pavia,Italy; 17 Harbor-UCLA MedicalCenter,UniversityofCalifornia,LosAngeles,CA; 18 EVMedResearch,Lomita,CA,USA; 19 UniversityofLimerick,Limerick,Ireland; 20 Pain Clinic,KonyangUniversityHospital,Daejeon,Korea; 21 DonvaleSpecialistMedicalCentre,Donvale,Victoria,Australia; 22 Departmentsof Anesthesiology,NeurobiologyandAnatomy,UniversityofUtah,SaltLakeCity,UT,USA; 23 DepartmentofMedicinaNuclear,ClinicaLasCondes, Santiago,Chile; 24 WhittemorePetersonInstitute,UniversityofNevada,Reno,NV,USA; 25 MiwaNaikaClinic,Toyama,Japan; 26 A.Kirchenstein InstituteofMicrobiologyandVirology,RigaStradinsUniversity,Riga,Latvia; 27 DepartmentofBiochemistryBand 28 DepartmentofSportsSciences,UniversityofthePacific,Stockton,CAUSA

Protein Conformational Dynamics Probed by Single-Molecule Electron Transfer

Abstract: Electron transfer is used as a probe for angstrom-scale structural changes in single protein molecules. In a flavin reductase, the fluorescence of flavin is quenched by a nearby tyrosine residue by means of photo-induced electron transfer. By probing the fluorescence lifetime of the single flavin on a photon-by-photon basis, we were able to observe the variation of flavin-tyrosine distance over time. We could then determine the potential of mean force between the flavin and the tyrosine, and a correlation analysis revealed conformational fluctuation at multiple time scales spanning from hundreds of microseconds to seconds. This phenomenon suggests the existence of multiple interconverting conformers related to the fluctuating catalytic reactivity.

A gravitational wave observatory operating beyond the quantum shot-noise limit

Abstract: Around the globe several observatories are seeking the first direct detection of gravitational waves (GWs). These waves are predicted by Einstein’s general theory of relativity1 and are generated, for example, by black-hole binary systems2. Present GW detectors are Michelson-type kilometre-scale laser interferometers measuring the distance changes between mirrors suspended in vacuum. The sensitivity of these detectors at frequencies above several hundred hertz is limited by the vacuum (zero-point) fluctuations of the electromagnetic field. A quantum technology—the injection of squeezed light3—offers a solution to this problem. Here we demonstrate the squeezed-light enhancement of GEO 600, which will be the GW observatory operated by the LIGO Scientific Collaboration in its search for GWs for the next 3–4 years. GEO 600 now operates with its best ever sensitivity, which proves the usefulness of quantum entanglement and the qualification of squeezed light as a key technology for future GW astronomy4.