Nonaffine displacements below jamming under athermal quasistatic compression.

Critical properties of frictionless spherical particles below jamming are studied using extensive numerical simulations, paying particular attention to the nonaffine part of the displacements during the athermal quasistatic compression. It is shown that the squared norm of the nonaffine displacement exhibits a power-law divergence toward the jamming transition point. A possible connection between this critical exponent and that of the shear viscosity is discussed.

Multiple glass transitions and higher-order replica symmetry breaking of binary mixtures.

We extend the replica liquid theory in order to describe the multiple glass transitions of binary mixtures with large size disparities, by taking into account the two-step replica symmetry breaking (2RSB). We determine the glass phase diagram of the mixture of large and small particles in the large-dimension limit where the mean-field theory becomes exact. When the size ratio of particles is beyond a critical value, the theory predicts three distinct glass phases; (i) the one-step replica symmetery breaking (1RSB) double glass where both components vitrify simultaneously, (ii) the 1RSB single glass where only large particles are frozen while small particles remain mobile, and (iii) a glass phase called the 2RSB double glass where both components vitrify simultaneously but with an energy landscape topography distinct from the 1RSB double glass.

Environmental Factors Affecting Pupation Decision in the Horned Flour Beetle Gnatocerus cornutus.

Social environments often affect the development of organisms. In Tenebrionidae beetles, larval development can be arrested at the final instar stage in the presence of conspecific larvae. This developmental plasticity is considered to be an anti-cannibalistic strategy but the critical environmental determinants and actual effects remain to be elucidated.

Distant N- and C-terminal domains are required for intrinsic kinase activity of SMG-1, a critical component of nonsense-mediated mRNA decay.

Phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase-related kinases (PIKKs) consisting of SMG-1, ATM, ATR, DNA-PKcs, and mTOR are a family of proteins involved in the surveillance of gene expression in eukaryotic cells. They are involved in mechanisms responsible for genome stability, mRNA quality, and translation. They share a large N-terminal domain and a C-terminal FATC domain in addition to the unique serine/threonine protein kinase (PIKK) domain that is different from classical protein kinases.