Low-loss microwave photonics links using hollow core fibres.

There are a host of applications in communications, sensing, and science, in which analogue signal transmission is preferred over today's dominant digital transmission. In some of these applications, the advantage is in lower cost, while in others, it lies in superior performance. However, especially for longer analogue photonics links (up to 10 s of km), the performance is strongly limited by the impairments arising from using standard single-mode fibres (SSMF).

A bet-hedging strategy for denitrifying bacteria curtails their release of NO.

When oxygen becomes limiting, denitrifying bacteria must prepare for anaerobic respiration by synthesizing the reductases NAR (NO → NO), NIR (NO → NO), NOR (2NO → NO), and NOS (NO → N), either or sequentially, to avoid entrapment in anoxia without energy. Minimizing the metabolic burden of this precaution is a plausible fitness trait, and we show that the model denitrifier achieves this by synthesizing NOS in all cells, while only a minority synthesize NIR. Phenotypic diversification with regards to NIR is ascribed to stochastic initiation of gene transcription, which becomes autocatalytic via NO production.