Climatic controls on hurricane patterns: a 1200-y near-annual record from Lighthouse Reef, Belize.

Tropical cyclones (TCs) are powerful agents of destruction, and understanding climatic controls on TC patterns is of great importance. Over timescales of seasons to several decades, relationships among TC track, frequency, intensity and basin-scale climate changes are well documented by instrumental records. Over centuries to millennia, climate-shift influence on TC regimes remains poorly constrained. To better understand these relationships, records from multiple locations of TC strikes spanning millennia with high temporal resolution are required, but such records are rare. Here we report on a highly detailed sedimentary proxy record of paleo-TC strikes from the Blue Hole of Lighthouse Reef, Belize. Our findings provide an important addition to other high-resolution records, which collectively demonstrate that shifts between active and inactive TC regimes have occurred contemporaneously with shifts hemispheric-scale oceanic and atmospheric circulation patterns such as MDR SSTs and NAO mode, rather than with changes in local climate phenomena as has previously been suggested.

An orbital period of 0.94 days for the hot-Jupiter planet WASP-18b.

The 'hot Jupiters' that abound in lists of known extrasolar planets are thought to have formed far from their host stars, but migrate inwards through interactions with the proto-planetary disk from which they were born, or by an alternative mechanism such as planet-planet scattering. The hot Jupiters closest to their parent stars, at orbital distances of only approximately 0.02 astronomical units, have strong tidal interactions, and systems such as OGLE-TR-56 have been suggested as tests of tidal dissipation theory. Here we report the discovery of planet WASP-18b with an orbital period of 0.94 days and a mass of ten Jupiter masses (10 M(Jup)), resulting in a tidal interaction an order of magnitude stronger than that of planet OGLE-TR-56b. Under the assumption that the tidal-dissipation parameter Q of the host star is of the order of 10(6), as measured for Solar System bodies and binary stars and as often applied to extrasolar planets, WASP-18b will be spiralling inwards on a timescale less than a thousandth that of the lifetime of its host star. Therefore either WASP-18 is in a rare, exceptionally short-lived state, or the tidal dissipation in this system (and possibly other hot-Jupiter systems) must be much weaker than in the Solar System.

Spatial patterns induced in a laser beam by thermal nonlinearities.

Stable spatial laser patterns were observed in a high-finesse Fabry-Perot cavity containing up to 2 atm of CO(2) and O(2). The gases displayed the same sequence of patterns that obey a scaling law of the form P(beta)p(2), where P is the power stored in the cavity, p is the pressure of the gas, and beta is a material-dependent parameter.

Measurement of the thermal contribution to the nonlinear refractive index of air at 1064nm.

The thermal contribution to the nonlinear refractive index of air at 1.064mum was measured with a high-finesse Fabry-Perot cavity and a 500-mW cw laser beam. At room temperature and pressure, the nonlinear refractive-index coefficient of air was found to be n(2)((th))=(-1.9+/-0.2)x10 (-14) cm(2)/W for a beam waist radius of 0.23 mm and was found to be independent of the relative humidity. The thermal nonlinearities of N(2) , O(2) , and CO(2) were also measured, and it was found that the dominant contribution to air is its O(2) content.

A psychiatric study of patients with supposed food allergy.

Twenty-three patients who believed they suffered from food allergy were studied at the time of their presentation to an allergy clinic. The presence of organic food hypersensitivity could not be confirmed in 19 who attributed common neurotic symptoms to allergy; this group was almost identical, in terms of psychiatric symptomatology and general characteristics, with a group of new psychiatric out-patient referrals. There was no evidence of psychiatric disorder of food-related psychological symptoms in four patients with proven food-related atopic symptoms. The study failed to find evidence that psychological symptoms might be the result of organic reactions to foods.

Food hypersensitivity in irritable bowel syndrome.

Food hypersensitivity as a cause of abdominal symptoms was investigated by means of exclusion diets and double-blind food provocation in patients with irritable bowel syndrome. Twenty-seven patients entered the study; nineteen complied with dietary manipulation. Food hypersensitivity as a cause of their presenting symptoms was confirmed by double-blind food provocation in only three patients, who also had evidence of associated atopic disease and positive skin tests to common inhalant allergens. Evidence of minor psychiatric disorder was found in twelve of fourteen patients examined by an independent psychiatrist.

Food allergy: how much in the mind? A clinical and psychiatric study of suspected food hypersensitivity.

Objective evidence of food hypersensitivity was sought by the use of exclusion diets and provocation tests in 23 patients who attributed a wide variety of symptoms to food allergy. Hypersensitivity to ingested substances was confirmed in 4, each of whom presented with typical atopic symptoms. None of these had psychological symptoms, but a high incidence of psychiatric disorder was found in patients whose belief that they had a food allergy could not be confirmed.

Staphylococcal pericarditis with pyopericardium.

Seven previously well patients with acute staphylococcal pericarditis and purulent pericardial effusion are described. All had a septicaemic illness in which worsening heart failure with signs of cardiac tamponade became the major problems of management. Tropical pyomyositis was probably the predisposing illness in four patients. This number of proven cases within an 18-month period suggests that staphylococcal pyopericardium is in a tropical environment probably commoner than realised.

Neurofibrosarcoma following radiotherapy for ankylosing spondylitis.

Twenty-six years after radiotherapy to the spine for ankylosing spondylitis a patient developed a neurofibrosarcoma initially around the left sacroiliac joint. It is likely that this was a long-term complication of the radiotherapy.

Familial syringomyelia.

Four cases of syringomyelia in two separate families are reported.