Fragmentation of a suspension of micron-sized plastic microparticles and their contraction into dense globules was experimentally obtained in a gas discharge plasma, when the plasma density was deliberately and abruptly increased. The globules took up spherical shapes 0.14-1.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe propose a low-density discharge plasma model that takes into account the impact of oxygen admixture in typical conditions of complex (dusty) plasmas. Numerical simulations based on this model show that the concentration of negative ions turns out to be very high, and they play an important role in the overall kinetics in this particular range of plasma conditions. The ambipolar diffusion electric field drags these negative ions into the center of the plasma.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMicroparticle suspensions in a polarity-switched discharge plasma of the Plasmakristall-4 facility on board the International Space Station exhibit string-like order. As pointed out in [Phys. Rev.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFProper brain development and function requires finely controlled mechanisms for protein turnover, and disruption of genes involved in proteostasis is a common cause of neurodevelopmental disorders. Kelch-like 15 (KLHL15) is a substrate adaptor for cullin3-containing E3 ubiquitin ligases, and KLHL15 gene mutations were recently described as a cause of severe X-linked intellectual disability. Here, we used a bioinformatics approach to identify a family of neuronal microtubule-associated proteins as KLHL15 substrates, which are themselves critical for early brain development.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNew complex-plasma facility, Plasmakristall-4 (PK-4), has been recently commissioned on board the International Space Station. In complex plasmas, the subsystem of μm-sized microparticles immersed in low-pressure weakly ionized gas-discharge plasmas becomes strongly coupled due to the high (10-10 e) electric charge on the microparticle surface. The microparticle subsystem of complex plasmas is available for the observation at the kinetic level, which makes complex plasmas appropriate for particle-resolved modeling of classical condensed matter phenomena.
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