Extreme Fermi Surface Smearing in a Maximally Disordered Concentrated Solid Solution.

We show that the Fermi surface can survive the presence of extreme compositional disorder in the equiatomic alloy Ni_{0.25}Fe_{0.25}Co_{0.25}Cr_{0.25}. Our high-resolution Compton scattering experiments reveal a Fermi surface which is smeared across a significant fraction of the Brillouin zone (up to 40% of 2π/a). The extent of this smearing and its variation on and between different sheets of the Fermi surface have been determined, and estimates of the electron mean free path and residual resistivity have been made by connecting this smearing with the coherence length of the quasiparticle states.

The isothermal Boltzmann-Gibbs entropy reduction affects survival of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster.

To the best of our knowledge, this is the first experimental evidence of the effect of isothermal changes in entropy on a living organism. In greater detail, the effect of the reduction of the total Boltzmann-Gibbs entropy (S) of the aquatic environment on the survival rate and body mass of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster was investigated. The tests were carried out in standard thermodynamic states at room temperature of 296.15 K and ambient atmospheric pressure of 1 bar. Two variants of entropy reduction (ΔS) were tested for ΔS = 28.49 and 51.14 J K-1 mol-1 compared to the blind and control samples. The entropy level was experimentally changed, using the quantum system for isothermal entropy reduction. This system is based on quantum bound entanglement of phonons and the phenomenon of phonon resonance (interference of phonon modes) in condensed matter (Silicon dioxide (SiO2) and single crystals of Silicon (Si0), Aluminum (Al0) plates ("chips"), glass, and water). All studied organisms were of the same age (1 day). Mortality was observed daily until the natural death of the organisms. The investigations showed that changes in the Boltzmann-Gibbs entropy affected the survival and body mass of the fruit flies. On the one hand, the reduction in entropy under isothermal conditions in the aquatic environment for ΔS = 28.49 J K-1 mol-1 resulted in an extension of the lifespan and an increase in the body mass of female fruit flies. On the other hand, the almost twofold reduction in this entropy for ΔS = 51.14 J K-1 mol-1 shortened the lives of the males. Thus, the lifespan and body mass of flies turned out to be a specific reaction of metabolism related to changes in the entropy of the aquatic environment.

Influence of Water Polarization Caused by Phonon Resonance on Catalytic Activity of Enolase.

Enolase is a conservative protein. Its cellular enzymatic activity catalyzes the conversion of 2-phospho-d-glycerate (2-PGA) to a phosphoenolpyruvate (PEP) product in the glycolysis pathway. This enzyme also has a multifunctional nature participating in several biological processes. This work aims to determine the effect of water polarization on the catalytic activity of enolase. The experiments have been set based on the concept that water, a polar dielectric, may undergo the phenomenon of electric polarization, decreasing its configurational and vibrational entropy. Prior to the reaction, the 2-PGA substrate was incubated for 5 h in the glass cuvette with an attached chip-inductor. The latter device was designed to transfer quantum information about a given quantum state from the quantum state generator to water by a phonon resonance. Then, such substrate samples preincubated with the chip-inductor were removed every hour in a separate quartz cuvette with the enzyme to determine its catalytic activity. The influence of the chip-inductor on the preincubated substrate resulted in an increase in the catalytic activity of enolase by 30% compared to the control substrate, not preincubated with the chip-inductor. This suggests that the catalytic activity of the enzyme is augmented when the substrate was primed by chip-inductors. In another kind of experiment, wherein enolase was exposed to methylglyoxal modification, the catalytic activity of the enzyme dropped to 71.7%, while the same enzyme glycated with methylglyoxal primed by chip-inductors restored its activity by 8.4%. This shows the protective effect of chip-inductors on enolase activity despite the harmful effect of methylglyoxal on the protein.

Antiferromagnetic Ordering and Transport Anomalies in Single-Crystalline CeAgAs2.

Single crystals of the ternary cerium arsenide CeAgAs2 were grown by chemical vapor transport. They were studied by means of x-ray diffraction, magnetization, heat capacity and electrical transport measurements. The experimental research was supplemented with electronic band structure calculations. The compound was confirmed to order antiferromagnetically at the Néel temperature of 4.9 K and to undergo metamagnetic transition in a field of 0.5 T at 1.72 K. The electrical resistivity shows distinct increase at low temperatures, which origin is discussed in terms of pseudo-gap formation in the density of states at the Fermi level and quantum corrections to the resistivity in the presence of atom disorder due to crystal structure imperfections.