Ribonucleic acid (RNA) is a vital biological molecule that plays a significant role in the genetics of organisms and is essential to the origin and evolution of life. Structurally similar to DNA, RNA carries out various biological functions, largely determined by its spatial conformation, i.e. the way the molecule folds in on itself.

Now, a paper published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) describes for the first time how the process of RNA folding at low temperatures may open up a novel perspective on primordial biochemistry and the evolution of life on the planet.

The study is led by Professor Fèlix Ritort, from the Faculty of Physics and the Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (IN2UB) of the University of Barcelona, and is also signed by UB experts Paolo Rissone, Aurélien Severino, and Isabel Pastor.

Nobel Laureate Roger Penrose joins Brian Greene to explore some of his most iconic insights into the nature of time, black holes, and cosmological evolution.

Moderator: Brian Greene.
Participant: Sir Roger Penrose.

00:00 — Introduction.
00:49 — Participant Introduction.
02:02 — A Working Definition of Time.
07:25 — Applying Entropy and The Second Law to the Directionality of Time.
16:37 — What The Early Universe May Have Looked Like.
20:27 — Solving the Puzzle of The Past Hypothesis.
31:46 — Investigating Exponential Expansion.
38:50 — New Discoveries and Discourse Since 2004
55:41 — A Peek Into Sir Roger Penrose’s Continuing Research.
01:08:17 — Credits.

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In a new study, scientists from Arizona State University and their collaborators studied genetic changes in a naturally isolated population of Daphnia pulex, a species of water flea. This tiny crustacean, nearly invisible to the naked eye, plays a vital role in freshwater ecosystems and provides a valuable insight into natural selection and evolution.

Their findings, recently published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), rely on a decade of research. Using advanced genomic techniques, the research team analyzed DNA samples from nearly 1,000 Daphnia.

They discovered that the strength of natural selection on individual genes varies significantly from year to year, maintaining variation and potentially enhancing the ability to adapt to future changing environmental conditions by providing raw material for natural selection to act on.

There are a number of reasons why dreaming has been, and remains, an important area to philosophy. Dreams are ‘pure’ experiential phenomena not (seemingly) requiring input from the outside world via the special senses. As Aristotle puts it, “If all creatures, when the eyes are closed in sleep, are unable to see, and the analogous statement is true of the other senses, so that manifestly we perceive nothing when asleep; we may conclude that it is not by sense-perception we perceive a dream”. A major part of this dissertation is concerned with issues raised in Owen Flanagan’s (1995) article, Deconstructing Dreams: The Spandrels of Sleep. The Primal Eye/MVT account of consciousness gives p-dreaming a more central explanatory role, and I argue that p-dreams are not epiphenomena in the way Flanagan claims. An important omission from Flanagan’s account is any discussion of important dreaming-related phenomena. I look at lucid dreaming, hypnosis and other mental phenomena in relation to the evolutionary loss of the primal/ median/ parietal eye, and postulate that REM rapid eye movements are ‘phasic transients’ considering the E1 brain which includes the lateral eyes, as a consciousness-producing circuit. A brief account of Primal Eye/ Median Vision Theory is that capacity for abstract/ centrally evoked mentation is a direct result of the evolutionary loss of the primal eye. E2 (earlier hardwired brains with both primal and lateral eyes) have evolved over millions of years into E1 brain circuits analog(ous to infinite-state) types of self-regulating plastic circuits, with no primal/pineal eye, but retaining lateral eyes and the pineal gland. Loss of this ‘lockstep mechanism’ median/primal/ parietal/pineal eye not only allowed new sleeping mental phenomena such as dreaming; but also heralded in new types of waking mental abstraction freed from E2 involuntary primal eye direct (electro-chemical) responses to changes in the physical environment. These include daydreams, visualisation with both lateral eyes closed, self-volition or self-determined choices, and so on.

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This Review summarizes key events in the emergence of cellular complexity via eukaryogenesis in the light of developments in environmental and comparative genomics during the past decade.

“The circumgalactic medium plays a huge role in that cycling of that gas,” said Dr. Nikole Nielsen.

What are the exact sizes of galaxies, and are they bigger than they appear in deep space images? This is what a recent study published in Nature Astronomy hopes to address as an international team of researchers investigated the dust cloud that has long been hypothesized to orbit galaxies, indicating that galaxies are bigger than they appear. This study holds the potential to help scientists better understand the formation and evolution of galaxies, along with where the galaxy ends, and open space begins.

For the study, the researchers examined what’s known as the circumgalactic medium (CGM), which is a gas reservoir that extends far beyond a galaxy’s observable boundary, within a star-forming galaxy located 270 million light-years from Earth. Using novel imaging methods with ASTRO 3D, the researchers were able to observe this galaxy’s CGM extends as far out as 100,000 light-years beyond the galaxy’s observable boundary. Additionally, the team reports the physical aspects of the gas cloud, which is comprised of oxygen and hydrogen, changed as the gas cloud extended farther out.

The MXene class of materials has many talents. An international team led by HZB chemist Michelle Browne has now demonstrated that MXenes, properly functionalised, are excellent catalysts for the oxygen evolution reaction in electrolytic water splitting. They are more stable and efficient than the best metal oxide catalysts currently available. The team is now extensively characterising these MXene catalysts for water splitting at the Berlin X-ray source BESSY II and Soleil Synchrotron in France.

The findings have been published in Journal of Materials Chemistry A (“Enhancing the Oxygen Evolution Reaction activity of CuCo based Hydroxides with V 2 CTx MXene”).

The surface of a vanadium carbide MXene has been examined by Scanning Electron Microscopy. The beautiful structures are built by cobalt copper hydroxide molecules. (Image: B. Schmiedecke, HZB)

“In recent years scientists have found that Mars has an annual cycle that is much more dynamic than people expected 10 or 15 years ago,” said Dr. John Clarke.

What happened to all the liquid water on Mars and what can this teach us about Earth-like exoplanets? This is what a recent study published in Science Advances hopes to address as an international team of researchers investigated the atmospheric and atomic processes responsible for Mars losing its water over time. This study holds the potential to help researchers better understand the evolution of Mars, specifically regarding the loss of water, and what implications this holds for Earth-like exoplanets.

For the study, the researchers used a combination of data from NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) and Hubble Space Telescope (HST) spacecraft to measure the ratio of hydrogen and deuterium that escapes from Mars over three Martian years, with each Martian year comprising 687 Earth days. Deuterium is also called “heavy hydrogen” since it is a hydrogen atom with a neutron in its nucleus, making its mass greater than hydrogen.

Since deuterium is heavier, this means hydrogen is lost to space faster, and measuring this present-day loss can help scientists determine how much was lost in Mars’s ancient past. Additionally, Mars’ orbit is more elliptical than Earth, meaning it orbits farther away from the Sun at certain times of the year, and this could also contribute to hydrogen loss, as well. In the end, the team found that this ratio changes as Mars is closer to the Sun and farther away, which challenges longstanding hypotheses regarding Mars’s atmospheric evolution.

We revise the dynamics of interacting vector-like dark energy, a theoretical framework proposed to explain the accelerated expansion of the universe. By investigating the interaction between vector-like dark energy and dark matter, we analyze its effects on the cosmic expansion history and the thermodynamics of the accelerating universe. Our results demonstrate that the presence of interaction significantly influences the evolution of vector-like dark energy, leading to distinct features in its equation of state and energy density. We compare our findings with observational data and highlight the importance of considering interactions in future cosmological studies.

In the case of NiPS₃, the researchers observed an intermediate symmetry breaking which leads to a vestigial order. Just as the term “vestigial” refers to the retention of certain traits during the process of evolution, the vestigial order here can also be viewed as the retention during the process of symmetry breaking.

This happens when the primary magnetic long-range order state melts or breaks down into a simpler form, in the NiPS₃ case, a 2D vestigial order state (known as Z₃ Potts-nematicity), as the material is thinned. Unlike conventional symmetry breaking, which involves the breaking of all symmetries, vestigial order only involves the breaking of some symmetries.

While there are numerous examples from a theoretical standpoint, experimental realizations of vestigial order have remained challenging. However, the investigation of this 2D magnetic material has shed the first light on this issue, demonstrating that such a phenomenon can be observed through dimension crossover.