Testing Loop Quantum Gravity from Observational Consequences of Nonsingular Rotating Black Holes.

The lack of rotating black hole models, which are typically found in nature, in loop quantum gravity (LQG) substantially hinders the progress of testing LQG from observations. Starting with a nonrotating LQG black hole as a seed metric, we construct a rotating spacetime using the revised Newman-Janis algorithm. The rotating solution is nonsingular everywhere and it reduces to the Kerr black hole asymptotically.

Effects of grain alignment efficiency on synthetic dust polarization observations of molecular clouds.

It is well known that the polarized continuum emission from magnetically aligned dust grains is determined to a large extent by local magnetic field structure. However, the observed significant anticorrelation between polarization fraction and column density may be strongly affected, perhaps even dominated by variations in grain alignment efficiency with local conditions, in contrast to standard assumptions of a spatially homogeneous grain alignment efficiency. Here we introduce a generic way to incorporate heterogeneous grain alignment into synthetic polarization observations of molecular clouds (MCs), through a simple model where the grain alignment efficiency depends on the local gas density as a power law.

A new scenario of lead contamination in potable water distribution systems: Galvanic corrosion between lead and stainless steel.

Lead pipe has been banned for distributing drinking water in the 1980s and partial replacement of lead pipes with stainless steel pipes has been practiced in many Asian countries. Due to the different potentials of lead and stainless steel, galvanic corrosion may take place. The extent of lead release and effects of water chemistry on this process, however, are largely unknown.

Black hole solutions in mimetic Born-Infeld gravity.

The vacuum, static, and spherically symmetric solutions in the mimetic Born-Infeld gravity are studied. The mimetic Born-Infeld gravity is a reformulation of the Eddington-inspired-Born-Infeld (EiBI) model under the mimetic approach. Due to the mimetic field, the theory contains non-trivial vacuum solutions different from those in Einstein gravity.

Paenibacillusliaoningensis sp. nov., isolated from soil.

A novel bacterial strain, designated as LNUB461T, was isolated from soil sample taken from the countryside of Shenyang, Liaoning Province, China. The isolate was a Gram-stain-positive, aerobiotic, motile, endospore-forming and rod-shaped bacterium. The organism grew optimally at 30-33 °C, pH 6.

A microfabricated coil for implantable applications of magnetic spinal cord stimulation.

In this paper, a microfabricated inductive coil comprising of 125-turn coil windings and a MnZn-based magnetic core in a volume of 200 mm(3) is presented for the magnetic neural stimulation in a spinal cord. The coil winding with the parallel-linkage design instead of the typical serial-linkage one is proposed not only to provide better design flexibility to the current mode driving circuit but also to simplify the fabrication process of the 3-D inductive coil, which can further advance the coil miniaturization. Experimental results show the microcoil with a 1.