We report high steady-state nuclear polarization of 1torr 3He gas nuclei via metastability exchange optical pumping at magnetic fields above 2T. The introduction of highly polarized 3He gas into ...Brookhaven’s Electron Beam Ion Source would enable a new, polarized 3He ion source for use at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider and a future Electron–Ion Collider facility. By adapting recent developments in high field metastability exchange optical pumping for higher pressure gas, we have successfully polarized 1torr 3He sealed cells in the EBIS solenoid. Through careful manipulation of the RF discharge parameters, polarizations above 80% were attained at 2, 3 and 4T, with 89% being reached at 3T with a 664s relaxation time.
Plant roots are known to orient growth through the soil by gravitropism, hydrotropism, and thigmotropism. Recent observations of plant roots that developed in a microgravity environment in space ...suggested that plant roots may also orient their growth toward oxygen (oxytropism). Using garden pea (Pisum sativum L. cv. Weibul's Apollo) and an agravitropic mutant (cv. Ageotropum) root oxytropism was studied in the controlled environment of a microrhizotron. A series of channels in the microrhizotron allowed establishment of an oxygen gradient of 0.8 mmol (.) mol(-1) (.) mm(-1). Curvature of seedling roots was determined prior to freezing the roots for subsequent spectrophotometric determinations of alcohol dehydrogenase activity. Oxytropic curvature was observed all along the gradient in both cultivars of pea. The normal gravitropic cultivar showed a maximal curvature of 45 degrees after 48 h, while the agravitropic mutant curved to 90 degrees. In each cultivar, the amount of curvature declined as the oxygen concentration decreased, and was linearly related to the root elongation rate. Since oxytropic curvature occurred in roots exposed to oxygen concentrations that were not low enough to induce the hypoxically responsive protein alcohol dehydrogenase, we suspect that the oxygen sensor associated with oxytropism does not control the induction of hypoxic metabolism. Our results indicate that oxygen can play a critical role in determining root orientation as well as impacting root metabolic status. Oxytropism allows roots to avoid oxygen-deprived soil strata and may also be the basis of an auto-avoidance mechanism, decreasing the competition between roots for water and nutrients as well as oxygen.
Although plants are envisioned to play a central role in life support systems for future long-duration space travel, plant growth in space has been problematic due to horticultural problems of ...nutrient delivery and gas resupply posed by the weightless environment. Iterative improvement in hardware designed for growth of plants on orbital platforms now provides confidence that plants can perform well in microgravity, enabling investigation of their nutritional characteristics. Plants of B. rapa (cv. Astroplants) were grown in the Biomass Production System on the International Space Station. Flowers were hand-pollinated and seeds were produced prior to harvest at 39 days after planting. The material was frozen or fixed while on orbit and subsequently analyzed in our laboratories. Gross measures of growth, leaf chlorophyll, starch and soluble carbohydrates confirmed comparable performance by the plants in spaceflight and ground control treatments. Analysis of glucosinolate production in the plant stems indicated that 3-butenylglucosinolate concentration was on average 75% greater in flight samples than in ground control samples. Similarly, the biochemical make-up of immature seeds produced during spaceflight and fixed or frozen while in orbit was significantly different from the ground controls. The immature seeds from the spaceflight treatment had higher concentrations of chlorophyll, starch, and soluble carbohydrates than the ground controls. Seed protein was significantly lower in the spaceflight material. Microscopy of immature seeds fixed in flight showed embryos to be at a range of developmental stages, while the ground control embryos had all reached the premature stage of development. Storage reserve deposition was more advanced in the ground control seeds. The spaceflight environment thus influences B. rapa metabolite production in ways that may affect flavor and nutritional quality of potential space produce.
The best strategy for supporting long-duration space missions is believed to be bioregenerative life support systems (BLSS). An integral part of a BLSS is a chamber supporting the growth of higher ...plants that would provide food, water, and atmosphere regeneration for the human crew. Such a chamber will have to be a complete plant growth system, capable of providing lighting, water, and nutrients to plants in microgravity. Other capabilities include temperature, humidity, and atmospheric gas composition controls. Many spaceflight experiments to date have utilized incomplete growth systems (typically having a hydration system but lacking lighting) to study tropic and metabolic changes in germinating seedlings and young plants. American, European, and Russian scientists have also developed a number of small complete plant growth systems for use in spaceflight research. Currently we are entering a new era of experimentation and hardware development as a result of long-term spaceflight opportunities available on the International Space Station. This is already impacting development of plant growth hardware. To take full advantage of these new opportunities and construct innovative systems, we must understand the results of past spaceflight experiments and the basic capabilities of the diverse plant growth systems that were used to conduct these experiments. The objective of this paper is to describe the most influential pieces of plant growth hardware that have been used for the purpose of conducting scientific experiments during the first 40 years of research.
In this work we present the results of the comparative cytoembryological research on embryos of an identified age that were produced in microgravity and in the ground laboratory control. A ...considerable similarity was found between the rate of embryo development and degree of their differentiation in both variants. Abnormalities in the process of embryo formation and acceleration in development of the endosperm were revealed at the early stages of embryogenesis in microgravity.
The NPDGamma experiment measures the parity-violating asymmetry in gamma-ray emission in the capture of polarized neutrons on liquid parahydrogen. The sensitivity to the asymmetry for each detector ...in the array is used as a parameter in the extraction of the physics asymmetry from the measured data. The detector array is approximately cylindrically symmetric around the target and a step-wise sinusoidal function has been used for the sensitivity in the previous iteration of the NPDGamma experiment, but deviations from cylindrical symmetry necessitate the use of a Monte Carlo model to determine corrections to the geometrical factors. For the calculations, source code modifications to MCNPX were done in order to calculate the sensitivity of each cesium iodide detector to the physics asymmetry. We describe the MCNPX model and results from calculations and how the results are validated through measurement of the parity violating asymmetry of gamma-rays from neutron capture on chlorine.
The NPDGamma experiment measures the parity-violating asymmetry in γ-ray emission in the capture of polarized neutrons on liquid parahydrogen. The sensitivity to the asymmetry for each detector in ...the array is used as a parameter in the extraction of the physics asymmetry from the measured data. The detector array is approximately cylindrically symmetric around the target and a step-wise sinusoidal function has been used for the sensitivity in the previous iteration of the NPDGamma experiment, but deviations from cylindrical symmetry necessitate the use of a Monte Carlo model to determine corrections to the geometrical factors. For the calculations, source code modifications to MCNPX were done in order to calculate the sensitivity of each cesium iodide detector to the physics asymmetry. We describe the MCNPX model and results from calculations and how the results are validated through measurement of the parity violating asymmetry of γ-rays from neutron capture on chlorine.
Here, we report high steady-state nuclear polarization of 1 torr 3He gas nuclei via metastability exchange optical pumping at magnetic fields above 2 T. The introduction of highly polarized 3He gas ...into Brookhaven’s Electron Beam Ion Source would enable a new, polarized 3He ion source for use at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider and a future Electron–Ion Collider facility. By adapting recent developments in high field metastability exchange optical pumping for higher pressure gas, we have successfully polarized 1 torr 3He sealed cells in the EBIS solenoid. Through careful manipulation of the RF discharge parameters, polarizations above 80% were attained at 2, 3 and 4 T, with 89% being reached at 3 T with a 664 s relaxation time.
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