How might dark matter interact with ordinary matter?

An international team of scientists that includes University of California, Riverside, physicist Hai-Bo Yu
has imposed conditions on how dark matter may interact with ordinary matter -- constraints that can
help identify the elusive dark matter particle and detect it on Earth.

Dark matter -- nonluminous material in space -- is understood to constitute 85 percent of the matter in
the universe. Unlike normal matter, it does not absorb, reflect, or emit light, making it difficult to detect.

Physicists are certain dark matter exists, having inferred this existence from the gravitational effect dark
matter has on visible matter. What they are less certain of is how dark matter interacts with ordinary
matter -- or even if it does.

In the search for direct detection of dark matter, the experimental focus has been on WIMPs, or weakly
interacting massive particles, the hypothetical particles thought to make up dark matter.

But Yu's international research team invokes a different theory to challenge the WIMP paradigm: the
self-interacting dark matter model, or SIDM, a well-motivated framework that can explain the full range
of diversity observed in the galactic rotation curves. First proposed in 2000 by a pair of eminent
astrophysicists, SIDM has regained popularity in both the particle physics and the astrophysics
communities since around 2009, aided, in part, by work Yu and his collaborators did.

Yu, a theorist in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at UCR, and Yong Yang, an experimentalist at
Shanghai Jiaotong University in China, co-led the team analyzing and interpreting the latest data
collected in 2016 and 2017 at PandaX-II, a xenon-based dark matter direct detection experiment in China
(PandaX refers to Particle and Astrophysical Xenon Detector; PandaX-II refers to the experiment). Should
a dark matter particle collide with PandaX-II's liquefied xenon, the result would be two simultaneous
signals: one of photons and the other of electrons.

Yu explained that PandaX-II assumes dark matter "talks to" normal matter -- that is, interacts with
protons and neutrons -- by means other than gravitational interaction (just gravitational interaction is
not enough). The researchers then search for a signal that identifies this interaction. In addition, the
PandaX-II collaboration assumes the "mediator particle," mediating interactions between dark matter
and normal matter, has far less mass than the mediator particle in the WIMP paradigm.

"The WIMP paradigm assumes this mediator particle is very heavy -- 100 to 1000 times the mass of a
proton -- or about the mass of the dark matter particle," Yu said. "This paradigm has dominated the field
for more than 30 years. In astrophysical observations, we don't, however, see all its predictions. The
SIDM model, on the other hand, assumes the mediator particle is about 0.001 times the mass of the
dark matter particle, inferred from astrophysical observations from dwarf galaxies to galaxy clusters. The
presence of such a light mediator could lead to smoking-gun signatures of SIDM in dark matter direct
detection, as we suggested in an earlier theory paper. Now, we believe PandaX-II, one of the world's
most sensitive direct detection experiments, is poised to validate the SIDM model when a dark matter
particle is detected."
The international team of researchers reports July 12 in Physical Review Letters the strongest limit on the
interaction strength between dark matter and visible matter with a light mediator. The journal has
selected the research paper as a highlight, a significant honor.

"This is a particle physics constraint on a theory that has been used to understand astrophysical
properties of dark matter," said Flip Tanedo, a dark matter expert at UCR, who was not involved in the
research. "The study highlights the complementary ways in which very different experiments are needed
to search for dark matter. It also shows why theoretical physics plays a critical role to translate between
these different kinds of searches. The study by Hai-Bo Yu and his colleagues interprets new experimental
data in terms of a framework that makes it easy to connect to other types of experiments, especially
astrophysical observations, and a much broader range of theories."

PandaX-II is located at the China Jinping Underground Laboratory, Sichuan Province, where pandas are
abundant. The laboratory is the deepest underground laboratory in the world. PandaX-II had generated
the largest dataset for dark matter detection when the analysis was performed. One of only three xenon-
based dark matter direct detection experiments in the world, PandaX-II is one of the frontier facilities to
search for extremely rare events where scientists hope to observe a dark matter particle interacting with
ordinary matter and thus better understand the fundamental particle properties of dark matter.

Particle physicists' attempts to understand dark matter have yet to yield definitive evidence for dark
matter in the lab.

"The discovery of a dark matter particle interacting with ordinary matter is one of the holy grails of
modern physics and represents the best hope to understand the fundamental, particle properties of dark
matter," Tanedo said.

For the past decade, Yu, a world expert on SIDM, has led an effort to bridge particle physics and
cosmology by looking for ways to understand dark matter's particle properties from astrophysical data.
He and his collaborators have discovered a class of dark matter theories with a new dark force that may
explain unexpected features seen in the systems across a wide range, from dwarf galaxies to galaxy
clusters. More importantly, this new SIDM framework serves as a crutch for particle physicists to convert
astronomical data into particle physics parameters of dark matter models. In this way, the SIDM
framework is a translator for two different scientific communities to understand each other's results.

Now with the PandaX-II experimental collaboration, Yu has shown how self-interacting dark matter
theories may be distinguished at the PandaX-II experiment.

"Prior to this line of work, these types of laboratory-based dark matter experiments primarily focused on
dark matter candidates that did not have self-interactions," Tanedo said. "This work has shown how dark
forces affect the laboratory signals of dark matter."

Yu noted that this is the first direct detection result for SIDM reported by an experimental collaboration.

"With more data, we will continue to probe the dark matter interactions with a light mediator and the
self-interacting nature of dark matter," he said.
Parental chromosomes kept apart during embryo's first division

It was long thought that during an embryo's first cell division, one spindle is responsible for segregating
the embryo's chromosomes into two cells. EMBL scientists now show that there are actually two
spindles, one for each set of parental chromosomes, meaning that the genetic information from each
parent is kept apart throughout the first division. Science publishes the results -- bound to change
biology textbooks -- on 12 July 2018.

This dual spindle formation might explain the high error rate in the early developmental stages of
mammals, spanning the first few cell divisions. "The aim of this project was to find out why so many
mistakes happen in those first divisions," says Jan Ellenberg, the group leader at EMBL who led the
project. "We already knew about dual spindle formation in simpler organisms like insects, but we never
thought this would be the case in mammals like mice. This finding was a big surprise, showing that you
should always be prepared for the unexpected."

Solving a 20-year-old mystery

Scientists have always seen parental chromosomes occupying two half-moon-shaped parts in the
nucleus of two-cell embryos, but it wasn't clear how this could be explained. "First, we were looking at
the motion of parental chromosomes only, and we couldn't make sense of the cause of the separation,"
says Judith Reichmann, scientist in EMBL's Ellenberg group and first author of the paper. "Only when
focusing on the microtubules -- the dynamic structures that spindles are made of -- could we see the
dual spindles for the first time. This allowed us to provide an explanation for this 20-year-old mystery."

What is mitosis?

Mitosis is the process of cell division, when one cell splits into two daughter cells. It occurs throughout
the lifespan of multi-cellular organisms but is particularly important when the organism grows and
develops. The key step of mitosis is to pass an identical copy of the genome to the next cell generation.
For this to happen, DNA is duplicated and organised into dense thread-like structures known as
chromosomes. The chromosomes are then attached to long protein fibres -- organised into a spindle --
which pulls the chromosomes apart and triggers the formation of two new cells.

What is the spindle?

The spindle is made of thin, tube-like protein assemblies known as microtubules. During mitosis of
animal cells, groups of such tubes grow dynamically and self-organise into a bi-polar spindle that
surrounds the chromosomes. The microtubule fibres grow towards the chromosomes and connect with
them, in preparation for chromosome separation to the daughter cells. Normally there is only one bi-
polar spindle per cell, however, this research suggests that during the first cell division there are two:
one each for the maternal and paternal chromosomes.
New molecular targets

"The dual spindles provide a previously unknown mechanism -- and thus a possible explanation -- for the
common mistakes we see in the first divisions of mammalian embryos," Ellenberg explains. Such
mistakes can result in cells with multiple nuclei, terminating development. "Now, we have a new
mechanism to go after and identify new molecular targets. It will be important to find out if it works the
same in humans, because that could provide valuable information for research on how to improve
human infertility treatment, for example."

The beginning of life

Furthermore, the knowledge from this paper might impact legislation. In some countries, the law states
that human life begins -- and is thus protected -- when the maternal and paternal nuclei fuse after
fertilisation. If it turns out that the dual spindle process works the same in humans, this definition is not
fully accurate, as the union in one nucleus happens slightly later, after the first cell division.

Impossible until now

This discovery would have been impossible without the light-sheet microscopy technology developed in
Ellenberg's and Lars Hufnagel's group at EMBL,which is now available through the EMBL spin-off
company Luxendo. This allows for real-time and 3D imaging of the early stages of development, when
embryos are very sensitive to light and would be damaged by conventional light microscopy methods.
The high speed and spatial precision of light-sheet microscopy drastically reduce the amount of light that
the embryo is exposed to, making a detailed analysis of these formerly hidden processes possible.

84 highly endangered amur leopards remain in China and Russia

Scientists estimate there are only 84 remaining highly endangered Amur leopards (Panthera pardus
orientalis) remaining in the wild across its current range along the southernmost border of Primorskii
Province in Russia and Jilin Province of China.

This new estimate of the Amur leopard population was recently reported in the scientific journal,
Conservation Letters by scientists from China, Russia, and the United States. The scientists combined
forces to collate information from camera traps on both sides of the border of China and Russia to derive
the estimate. Because there are no records of leopards in other parts of its former range, this estimate
represents the total global population of this subspecies in the wild.

Although numbers are small, previous estimates in Russia were even less, ranging from 25 to 50
individuals. However, those surveys, based on tracks left in the snow, were extremely difficult to
interpret due to the unclear relationship between numbers of tracks and number of individuals. With
camera traps, each individual can be identified by its unique spot pattern, providing a much more precise
estimate.

Combining data from both countries increased precision of the estimate, and provided greater accuracy.
Surprisingly, about one-third of the leopards were photographed on both sides of the Sino-Russian
border.

Anya Vitkalova, a biologist at Land of the Leopard National Park in Russia, and one of the two lead
authors of the publication said: "We knew that leopards moved across the border, but only by combining
data were we able to understand how much movement there really is."

Despite the movement, there were differences in population dynamics in Russia versus China. Leopards
are currently recolonizing habitat in China by dispersing from the Russian side, where leopard numbers
appear to be close to the maximum that can be supported.

Because of these transboundary movements of leopards, simply adding results from both sides would
have greatly exaggerated the estimate.

Dale Miquelle, a co-author and Tiger Program Coordinator for the Wildlife Conservation Society noted:
"This first rigorous estimate of the global population of the Amur leopard represents an excellent
example of the value of international collaboration. The trust and goodwill generated by this joint effort
lays the foundation for future transboundary conservation actions."

Sunk cost fallacy in mice, rats and humans

The behavior of people who remain committed to a choice, even when it is clear that an alternate choice
would be a better option, has been a perplexing phenomenon to psychologists and economists. For
example, people will continue to wait in the slow line at a grocery store, stick out an unhealthy
relationship, or refuse to abandon an expensive, wasteful project -- all because such individuals have
already invested time, effort, or money. This well-known cognitive phenomenon termed the "sunk cost
fallacy" has long been considered a problem unique to humans. New research has discovered that
humans are not the only species that share these economically irrational flaws.

New research from the University of Minnesota published in the journal Science discovered that mice,
rats, and humans all commit the sunk cost fallacy.

"The key to this research was that all three species learned to play the same economic game," says Brian
Sweis, the paper's lead author, an MD/PhD student at the University of Minnesota. Mice and rats spent
time from a limited budget foraging for flavored food pieces while humans similarly spent a limited time
budget foraging for what humans these days seek -- entertaining videos on the web.

Rats and mice ran around a maze that contained four food-delivery-locations ("restaurants"). On entry
into each restaurant, the animal was informed of how long it would be before food would be delivered
by an auditory tone. They had one hour to gather food and thus each entry meant they had to answer a
question like, "Am I willing to spend 20 seconds from my time budget waiting for my cherry-flavored
food pellet?" with a delay lasting anywhere from 1 to 30 seconds.

Similarly, humans saw a series of web galleries and were informed of the delay by a download bar. This
meant humans had to answer an equivalent question: "Am I willing to spend 20 seconds from my time
budget waiting for my kitten video?" In this way, each subject from each species revealed their own
subjective preferences for individual food flavors or video galleries.

In this task, every entry required two decisions, a first decision when the delay was revealed, but did not
count down, and then a second decision if the offer was accepted when subjects could quit and change
their minds during the countdown. Remarkably, the authors found that all three species become more
reluctant to quit the longer they waited -- demonstrating the sunk cost fallacy.

Strikingly, subjects hesitated before accepting or rejecting offers during the initial decision before the
countdown. "It's as if they knew they didn't want to get in line until they were sure," says Sweis. Even
more surprising, neither mice, rats, nor humans took into account the sunk costs spent while
deliberating. This suggests that the process of deliberation and the process of changing one's mind after
an initial commitment depend on different economic factors, and that these factors are conserved across
species.

"This project depended on the collaborative nature of science today," says senior author David Redish, a
professor in the University of Minnesota Medical School's Neuroscience Department. "This was a
collaboration between three laboratories and required working back and forth to ensure that we could
ask similar questions across different species on these parallel tasks."

As such, this project builds on a number of breakthrough discoveries recently published by these
laboratories, which find that mice, rats, and humans use similar neural systems to make these different
types of decisions, that mice and rats also show regret after making mistakes, and that even mice can
learn to avoid those mistakes by deliberating first, as revealed in a recent paper by these authors in PLOS
Biology.

"These tasks reveal complex decision processes underlying the conflict between really wanting
something on the one hand versus knowing better on the other," says Sweis.

"This is a conflict between different neural decision systems, and that means we can separately
manipulate those systems," says Redish.

In other publications recently appearing in Nature Communications and the Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences, these authors have found that both the effect of different drugs (cocaine,
morphine) and different changes to neural circuits affect these two systems differently, which suggests
that different forms of addiction would likely benefit from individualized treatments tailored to
dysfunctions in distinct brain circuits.

"Decisions depend on neural circuits, which means that manipulating those circuits changes the decision
process," says Mark Thomas, another of the study's senior authors and a professor in the Medical
School's Neuroscience Department.

"There was a day when we asked ourselves, 'Rats forage for food, what do undergrads forage for?'"
remembers author Samantha Abram, now a postdoctoral psychology fellow at the San Francisco VA
Medical Center, who led the human component as a graduate student in the University of Minnesota
Clinical Science and Psychopathology Research Program with her advisor Angus MacDonald, a professor
in the Psychology Department of the University of Minnesota College of Liberal Arts.

By having all three species play the same economic game, these authors have revealed a new insight into
how different parts of the brain make different types of decisions and that there is an evolutionary
history to the flaws that make us human.

Changes in Hudson River may offer insight into how glaciers grew

Think of it like a geological mystery story: For decades, scientists have known that some 25,000 years
ago, a massive ice sheet stretched to cover most of Canada and a large section of the northeastern
United States, but what's been trickier to pin down is how -- and especially how quickly -- did it reach its
ultimate size.

One clue to finding the answer to that mystery, Tamara Pico said, may be the Hudson River.

A graduate student working in the group of Jerry Mitrovica, the Frank B. Baird, Jr. Professor of Science,
Pico is the lead author of a study that estimates how glaciers moved by examining how the weight of the
ice sheet altered topography and led to changes in the course of the river. The study is described in a July
2018 paper published in Geology.

"The Hudson River has changed course multiple times over the last million years," Pico said. "The last
time was about 30,000 years ago, just before the last glacial maximum, when it moved to the east.

"That ancestral channel has been dated and mapped...and the way the ice sheet connects to this is, as it
is growing, it's loading the crust it's sitting on. The Earth is like bread dough on these time scales, so as it
gets depressed under the ice sheet, the region around it bulges upward -- in fact, we call it the peripheral
bulge. The Hudson is sitting on this bulge, and as it's lifted up and tilted, the river can be forced to
change directions"

To develop a system that could connect the growth of the ice sheet with changes in the Hudson's
direction, Pico began with a model for how the Earth deforms in response to various loads.

"So we can say, if there's an ice sheet over Canada, I can predict the land in New York City to be uplifted
by X many meters," she said. "What we did was create a number of different ice histories that show how
the ice sheet might have grown, each of which predicts a certain pattern of uplift and then we can model
how the river might have evolved in response to that upwelling."

The end result, Pico said, is a model that -- for the first time -- may be able use the changes in natural
features in the landscape to measure the growth of ice sheets.

"This is the first time a study has used the change in a river's direction to understand which ice history is
most likely," she said. "There's very little data about how the ice sheet grew, because as it grows it acts
like a bulldozer and scrapes everything away to the edges. We have plenty of information about how the
ice retreats, because it deposits debris as it melts back, but we don't get that type of record as the ice is
advancing."

What little data scientists do have about how the ice sheet grew, Pico said, comes from data about sea
level during the period, and suggests that the ice sheet over Canada, particularly in the eastern part of
the country, remained relatively small for a long period of time, then suddenly began to grow quickly.

"In a way, this study is motivated by that, because it's asking can we use evidence for a change in river
direction ...to test whether the ice sheet grew quickly or slowly," she said. "We can only ask that
question because these areas were never covered by ice, so this record is preserved. We can use
evidence in the landscape and the rivers to say something about the ice sheet, even though this area
was never covered by ice."

While the study offers strong suggestive evidence that the technique works, Pico said there is still a great
deal of work to be done to confirm that the findings are solid.

"This is the first time this has been done, so we need to do more work to explore how the river responds
to this type of uplift and understand what we should be looking for in the landscape," she said. "But I
think it's extremely exciting because we are so limited in what we know about ice sheets before the last
glacial maximum. We don't know how fast they grew. If we don't know that, we don't know how stable
they are.

Going forward, Pico said she is working to apply the technique to several other rivers along the eastern
seaboard, including the Delaware, Potomac and Susquehanna rivers, all of which show signs of rapid
change during the same period.
"There is some evidence that rivers experienced very unusual changes that are no doubt related to this
process," she said. "The Delaware may have actually reversed slope, and the Potomac and Susquehanna
both show a large increase in erosion in some areas, suggesting the water was moving much faster."

In the long run, Pico said, the study may help researchers rewrite their understanding of how quickly the
landscape can change and how rivers and other natural features respond.

"For me, this work is about trying to connect the evidence on land to the history of glaciation to show
the community that this process -- what we call glacial isostatic adjustment -- can really impact rivers,"
Pico said. "People most often think of rivers as stable features of the landscape that remain fixed over
very long, million-year, time scales, but we can show that these ice age effects can alter the landscape on
millennial time scales -- the ice sheet grows, the Earth deforms, and rivers respond."

This research was supported with funding from the National Science Foundation, Harvard University and
the American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Fund.