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Spin Secrets Exposed: Scientists Unravel a Decades-Old Proton Mystery

A novel approach that re-examines observational data without relying on prior assumptions, using the framework of lattice QCD, provides strong evidence for a positive gluon spin, ∆g. For decades, researchers have sought to unravel the complex structure of the subatomic world. One particularly cha

Sleep’s dual role: How it consolidates memories while preparing the brain for new learning

Memory formation, storage, and retrieval are fundamental processes that define who we are and how we interact with the world. At the cellular level, these processes rely on specialized neurons called engram cells—neuronal populations that physically encode our experiences and allow us to recall them later. Over the past few decades, scientists have made significant progress in identifying these neuronal ensembles and understanding some aspects of memory allocation.

Although sleep is widely known to be essential for memory processing and consolidation, many of its underlying mechanisms and functions are unclear. Traditional views have largely focused on sleep as a backward-looking process that serves to strengthen past experiences, but could it simultaneously help prepare the brain for new learning?

In a recent effort to tackle this question, a research team from Japan, led by Distinguished Professor Kaoru Inokuchi from the University of Toyama, uncovered a dual role for sleep in memory processing. Their paper, which will be published in Nature Communications on April 28, 2025, explores how the brain simultaneously preserves past memories while preparing for future ones during sleep periods.

Compact catenane with tunable mechanical chirality created from achiral rings

Catenanes are organic compounds with ring-like molecules that are mechanically interlocked. The mechanical locking system in such molecules is so robust that they can only be disentangled via covalent bond cleavage. A recent study has presented a new strategy for controlling the chirality—the property where a molecule has non-superimposable mirror images—of mechanically interlocked molecules (MIMs) like catenanes, without changing its overall shape via non-covalent means.

The researchers successfully demonstrated the synthesis of a compact catenane, BPHC4+ with tunable mechanical chirality, as reported in Nature Synthesis.

Unlike traditional chirality that originates from covalent bonds forming asymmetric centers, in MIMs the chirality can arise from the way parts of the molecule are mechanically linked and not the chirality of the individual rings that are interlocked together. This is known as mechanical chirality.