Information processing without brains--the power of intercellular regulators in plants.

Plants exhibit different developmental strategies than animals; these are characterized by a tight linkage between environmental conditions and development. As plants have neither specialized sensory organs nor a nervous system, intercellular regulators are essential for their development. Recently, major advances have been made in understanding how intercellular regulation is achieved in plants on a molecular level. Plants use a variety of molecules for intercellular regulation: hormones are used as systemic signals that are interpreted at the individual-cell level; receptor peptide-ligand systems regulate local homeostasis; moving transcriptional regulators act in a switch-like manner over small and large distances. Together, these mechanisms coherently coordinate developmental decisions with resource allocation and growth.

The Power of Plankton

This animation is aimed at all age groups of the general public. The animation promotes the importance of plankton and the long term Continuous Plankton Recorder (CPR) survey.

The power of shell rapping influences rates of eviction in hermit crabs

Hermit crabs fight for ownership of shells, and shell exchange may occur after a period of shell rapping, involving the initiating or attacking crab bringing its shell rapidly and repeatedly into contact with the shell of the noninitiator or defender, in a series of bouts. The temporal pattern of rapping contains information about the motivation and/or relative resource holding potential (RHP) of the initiator and acts as a repeated signal of stamina. Here we investigated the role of the force with which the rapping is performed and how this is related to the temporal pattern of rapping by rubberizing the external surface of shells. Initiators that are prevented from rapping with their usual level of force persist with the activity for longer over the whole encounter but use fewer raps per bout and are less likely to effect an exchange than those supplied with control shells. The fact that the force of rapping affects the likelihood of a crab being victorious suggests that either the force of rapping contains information about motivation or RHP or that force directly affects noninitiators, reducing their ability to maintain an adequate grip on their shells. The data suggest that shell rapping is an agonistic signal rather than one that provides information useful to the noninitiator, as has been suggested by the negotiation model of shell exchange.

Electronic stopping power of H and He in Al and LiF from first principles

Non-linearities in the electronic stopping power of light projectiles in bulk Al and LiF are addressed from first principles using time-evolving time-dependent density functional theory. In the case of Al, the agreement of the calculations with experiments for H and He projectiles is fair, but a recently observed transition for He from one value of the electronic friction coefficient to a higher value at v ~ 0.3 a.u. is not reproduced by the calculations. For LiF, better accuracy is obtained as compared with previously published simulations, albeit the threshold remains overestimated. © 2013 Elsevier B.V.

The (Soft) Power of Commitment:The EU and Conflict Resolution in Northern Ireland

This paper examines the potential of international actors to contribute to conflict resolution by analysing the evolving role of the European Union (EU) in embedding Northern Ireland's peace process. Scrutiny of the EU's approach to conflict resolution in Northern Ireland offers useful insights into the scope and potential of soft power for facilitating behavioural change from governmental to grass-roots levels. This paper traces the development of the EU's approach to conflict resolution in Northern Ireland from one concentrated on encouraging state-level agreement, to nurturing peace through multilevel funding, through now to consolidating the peace by facilitating regional-level empowerment. The core argument is that, in sum, the most critical element of the EU's contribution to peace in Northern Ireland has been, quite simply, that of enduring commitment.