The 2016 red tide crisis in southern Chile: Possible influence of the mass oceanic dumping of dead salmons.

In 2016, a massive harmful algal bloom (HAB) of Alexandrium catenella around Chiloé island caused one of the major socio-ecological crisis in Chilean history. This red tide occurred in two distinct pulses, the second, most anomalous, bursting with extreme toxicity on the Pacific coast, weeks after the highly controversial dumping off Chiloé of 4,700 t of rotting salmons, killed by a previous HAB of Pseudochattonella verruculosa. We study the transport of this pollution, analyzing the physical oceanographic conditions during and after the dumping. We find that a cyclonic gyre was present between the dumping site and the coast, visible in satellite altimetry and sea surface temperature data. Using Lagrangian simulations, we confirm that near-surface currents could have brought part of the pollution to the coast, and fueled the bloom. This scenario explains also the anomalous later finding of ammonium near Chiloé. Finally we discuss the mismanagement of risk throughout the events.

Functionalization of stable fluorescent nanodiamonds towards reliable detection of biomarkers for Alzheimer's disease.

BACKGROUND: Stable and non-toxic fluorescent markers are gaining attention in molecular diagnostics as powerful tools for enabling long and reliable biological studies. Such markers should not only have a long half-life under several assay conditions showing no photo bleaching or blinking but also, they must allow for their conjugation or functionalization as a crucial step for numerous applications such as cellular tracking, biomarker detection and drug delivery. RESULTS: We report the functionalization of stable fluorescent markers based on nanodiamonds (NDs) with a bifunctional peptide. This peptide is made of a cell penetrating peptide and a six amino acids long ß-sheet breaker peptide that is able to recognize amyloid ß (Aß) aggregates, a biomarker for the Alzheimer disease. Our results indicate that functionalized NDs (fNDs) are not cytotoxic and can be internalized by the cells. The fNDs allow ultrasensitive detection (at picomolar concentrations of NDs) of in vitro amyloid fibrils and amyloid aggregates in AD mice brains. CONCLUSIONS: The fluorescence of functionalized NDs is more stable than that of fluorescent markers commonly used to stain Aß aggregates such as Thioflavin T. These results pave the way for performing ultrasensitive and reliable detection of Aß aggregates involved in the pathogenesis of the Alzheimer disease.

Absolute calibration of the refractive index in photo-induced photonic lattices.

We demonstrate a method to experimentally calibrate the refractive index modulation in photorefractive lattices, a task rarely addressed that is crucial for quantitative comparisons of theories with experiments. We consider the linear propagation of a normally incident plane wave through simple lattices and its modulation amplitude at crystal output face. Finding no evidence of longitudinal (Talbot-like) oscillations, we discard an ideal propagation theory and construct a simple effective model that includes longitudinal relaxation. We obtain calibrations of 1D and 2D lattices consistent with standard theory in a high saturation regime. For 2D lattices, we find anisotropies χ = 1.5 - 2.5, stronger for smaller lattice period, and refractive indexes larger than for 1D lattices, also with more noise.

Analysis of transverse Anderson localization in refractive index structures with customized random potential.

We present a method to demonstrate Anderson localization in an optically induced randomized potential. By usage of computer controlled spatial light modulators, we are able to implement fully randomized nondiffracting beams of variable structural size in order to control the modulation length (photonic grain size) as well as the depth (disorder strength) of a random potential induced in a photorefractive crystal. In particular, we quantitatively analyze the localization length of light depending on these two parameters and find that they are crucial influencing factors on the propagation behavior leading to variably strong localization. Thus, we corroborate that transverse light localization in a random refractive index landscape strongly depends on the character of the potential, allowing for a flexible regulation of the localization strength by adapting the optical induction configuration.

Direct observation of quantum phonon fluctuations in a one-dimensional Bose gas.

We report the first direct observation of collective quantum fluctuations in a continuous field. Shot-to-shot atom number fluctuations in small subvolumes of a weakly interacting, ultracold atomic 1D cloud are studied using in situ absorption imaging and statistical analysis of the density profiles. In the cloud centers, well in the quantum quasicondensate regime, the ratio of chemical potential to thermal energy is µ/k(B)T≃4, and, owing to high resolution, up to 20% of the microscopically observed fluctuations are quantum phonons. Within a nonlocal analysis at variable observation length, we observe a clear deviation from a classical field prediction, which reveals the emergence of dominant quantum fluctuations at short length scales, as the thermodynamic limit breaks down.

Sub-Poissonian fluctuations in a 1D Bose gas: from the quantum quasicondensate to the strongly interacting regime.

We report on local, in situ measurements of atom number fluctuations in slices of a one-dimensional Bose gas on an atom chip setup. By using current modulation techniques to prevent cloud fragmentation, we are able to probe the crossover from weak to strong interactions. For weak interactions, fluctuations go continuously from super- to sub-Poissonian as the density is increased, which is a signature of the transition between the subregimes where the two-body correlation function is dominated, respectively, by thermal and quantum contributions. At stronger interactions, the super-Poissonian region disappears, and the fluctuations go directly from Poissonian to sub-Poissonian, as expected for a "fermionized" gas.