The lower mass function of the young open cluster Blanco 1: from 30 Mjup to 3 Mo

We performed a deep wide field optical survey of the young (~100-150 Myr) open cluster Blanco1 to study its low mass population well down into the brown dwarf regime and estimate its mass function over the whole cluster mass range.The survey covers 2.3 square degrees in the I and z-bands down to I ~ z ~ 24 with the CFH12K camera. Considering two different cluster ages (100 and 150 Myr), we selected cluster member candidates on the basis of their location in the (I,I-z) CMD relative to the isochrones, and estimated the contamination by foreground late-type field dwarfs using statistical arguments, infrared photometry and low-resolution optical spectroscopy. We find that our survey should contain about 57% of the cluster members in the 0.03-0.6 Mo mass range, including 30-40 brown dwarfs. The candidate's radial distribution presents evidence that mass segregation has already occured in the cluster. We took it into account to estimate the cluster mass function across the stellar/substellar boundary. We find that, between 0.03Mo and 0.6Mo, the cluster mass distribution does not depend much on its exact age, and is well represented by a single power-law, with an index alpha=0.69 +/- 0.15. Over the whole mass domain, from 0.03Mo to 3Mo, the mass function is better fitted by a log-normal function with m0=0.36 +/- 0.07Mo and sigma=0.58 +/- 0.06. Comparison between the Blanco1 mass function, other young open clusters' MF, and the galactic disc MF suggests that the IMF, from the substellar domain to the higher mass part, does not depend much on initial conditions. We discuss the implications of this result on theories developed to date to explain the origin of the mass distribution.Comment: 18 pages, 15 figures and 5 tables accepted in A&

Very Cold Gas and Dark Matter

We have recently proposed a new candidate for baryonic dark matter: very cold molecular gas, in near-isothermal equilibrium with the cosmic background radiation at 2.73 K. The cold gas, of quasi-primordial abundances, is condensed in a fractal structure, resembling the hierarchical structure of the detected interstellar medium. We present some perspectives of detecting this very cold gas, either directly or indirectly. The H$_2$ molecule has an "ultrafine" structure, due to the interaction between the rotation-induced magnetic moment and the nuclear spins. But the lines fall in the km domain, and are very weak. The best opportunity might be the UV absorption of H$_2$ in front of quasars. The unexpected cold dust component, revealed by the COBE/FIRAS submillimetric results, could also be due to this very cold H$_2$ gas, through collision-induced radiation, or solid H$_2$ grains or snowflakes. The $\gamma$-ray distribution, much more radially extended than the supernovae at the origin of cosmic rays acceleration, also points towards and extended gas distribution.Comment: 16 pages, Latex pages, crckapb macro, 3 postscript figures, uuencoded compressed tar file. To be published in the proceeedings of the "Dust-Morphology" conference, Johannesburg, 22-26 January, 1996, D. Block (ed.), (Kluwer Dordrecht

"The thing is in itself enough" : Virginia Woolf's sacred everyday

In their introduction to a 2011 issue of the Virginia Woolf Miscellany dedicated to the topic of ‘Woolf and Spirituality’, Amy C. Smith and Isabel María Andrés-Cuevas observe how Woolf, like many of her fellow modernists, engaged with ‘religious forms in unorthodox ways’ and explored forms of spiritual experience ‘outside [of] organized religion’. Smith and Andrés-Cuevas contend that Woolf’s conception of the spiritual entailed an ‘impulse to surpass the material aspects of life and look towards an intangible dimension of the latter’. They propose that Woolf sought to ‘transcend the ordinary and look for something spiritual in the world’ (1). The view that the spiritual for Woolf is something that lies beyond the ordinary, material realm and that her work betrays a desire to move beyond (‘surpass’ or ‘transcend’) that realm—and that it is by implication somehow insufficient—is one I want to challenge here. As I will discuss, one of the hallmarks of conceptions of the spiritual and spiritual experience in modernism is what Pericles Lewis describes as a ‘blurring of the lines between the sacred and the profane’ (2010, 20). Many modernists sought what Lewis terms a ‘secular sacred’, by which he means a ‘form of transcendent or ultimate meaning to be discovered in this world, without reference to the supernatural’ (2010, 21). In exploring Woolf’s conception of a ‘secular sacred’, I will discuss the relationship between ordinary life and her idea of a numinous reality, as well as its revelation and apprehension. Woolf’s descriptions of an abstract reality, which she sometimes refers to as ‘it’ or ‘the thing’, relate to her conception of a unifying pattern underlying everyday life. This pattern or special sense of reality is made manifest to her during ‘moments of being’— experiences that are embedded in the everyday. During the course of this chapter, I will propose that in addition to being central to her descriptions and experience of the numinous, Woolf frequently affords the immanent realm—ordinary things, daily routines and activities—attributes that are traditionally associated with the divine: particularly ideas of plenitude, bliss and sacredness. Far from being something to disavow or move beyond, the ordinary and daily are, for Woolf, the home of the sacred, happiness and value. While like many of her contemporaries, Woolf grappled to articulate a personal philosophy and conception of the spiritual within a linguistic framework that was shaped by 2000 years of Judeo-Christian thought, repeatedly in her writing she puts forward the view that the sacred and numinous reside within, and cannot be situated outside of, the ‘immanent frame’ (Gordon 2011, 126). If the Romantics understood the supernatural to inhere in nature (‘natural supernaturalism’), Woolf along with other modernists such as James Joyce and Wallace Stevens, substantially amplified the Romantics’ regard for the commonplace and ordinary, elevating it to the status of the sacred.1 Thus, in novels such as Joyce’s Ulysses and Woolf’s To the Lighthouse, a ‘sacramental quality’ is conferred onto ‘mundane tasks’, experiences of social connection and intimacy, and ordinary things (Lewis 2010, 14)

Analysis of ketamine and norketamine in hair samples using molecularly imprinted solid-phase extraction (MISPE) and liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS)

An anti-ketamine molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) was synthesized and used as the sorbent in a solid-phase extn. protocol to isolate ketamine and norketamine from human hair exts. prior to LC-MS/MS anal. Under optimized conditions, the MIP was capable of selectively rebinding ketamine, a licensed anesthetic that is widely misused as a recreational drug, with an apparent binding capacity of 0.13 μg ketamine per mg polymer. The limit of detection (LOD) and lower limit of quantification (LLOQ) for both ketamine and norketamine were 0.1 ng/mg hair and 0.2 ng/mg hair, resp., when 10 mg hair were analyzed. The method was linear from 0.1 to 10 ng/mg hair, with correlation coeffs. (R2) of better than 0.99 for both ketamine and norketamine. Recoveries from hair samples spiked with ketamine and norketamine at a concn. of 50 ng/mg were 86% and 88%, resp. The method showed good intra- and interday precisions