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Category: particle physics – Page 716

Nano-lipid Particles From Edible Ginger Could Improve Drug Delivery for Colon Cancer, Study Finds

A new tool to battle colon cancer.

Edible ginger-derived nano-lipids created from a specific population of ginger nanoparticles show promise for effectively targeting and delivering chemotherapeutic drugs used to treat colon cancer, according to a study by researchers at the Institute for Biomedical Sciences at Georgia State University, the Atlanta Veterans Affairs Medical Center and Wenzhou Medical University and Southwest University in China.

Colorectal cancer is the third most common cancer among men and women in the United States, and the second-leading cause of cancer-related deaths among men and women worldwide. The incidence of colorectal cancer has increased over the last few years, with about one million new cases diagnosed annually. Non-targeted chemotherapy is the most common therapeutic strategy available for colon cancer patients, but this treatment method is unable to distinguish between cancerous and healthy cells, leading to poor therapeutic effects on tumor cells and severe toxic side effects on healthy cells. Enabling chemotherapeutic drugs to target cancer cells would be a major development in the treatment of colon cancer.

In this study, the researchers isolated a specific nanoparticle population from edible ginger (GDNP 2) and reassembled their lipids, naturally occurring molecules that include fats, to form ginger-derived nano-lipids, also known as nanovectors. To achieve accurate targeting of tumor tissues, the researchers modified the nanovectors with folic acid to create FA-modified nanovectors (FA nanovectors). Folic acid shows high-affinity binding to the folate receptors that are highly expressed on many tumors and almost undetectable on non–tumor cells.

New CERN LHC Experiments –“Predict a Boson Beyond the Higgs That Could Unlock Clues to Existence of Dark Matter”

Two separate experiments at the Large Hadron Collider at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research, on the French-Swiss border, appear to confirm the existence of a subatomic particle, the Madala boson, that for the first time could shed light on one of the great mysteries of the universe — dark matter.

For first time, carbon nanotube transistors outperform silicon

For decades, scientists have tried to harness the unique properties of carbon nanotubes to create high-performance electronics that are faster or consume less power — resulting in longer battery life, faster wireless communication and faster processing speeds for devices like smartphones and laptops.

But a number of challenges have impeded the development of high-performance transistors made of carbon nanotubes, tiny cylinders made of carbon just one atom thick. Consequently, their performance has lagged far behind semiconductors such as silicon and gallium arsenide used in computer chips and personal electronics.

Now, for the first time, University of Wisconsin–Madison materials engineers have created carbon nanotube transistors that outperform state-of-the-art silicon transistors.

Colors from darkness: Researchers develop alternative approach to quantum computing

Another approach to QC; the title of the article is misleading because you still are using quantum properties in the approach.

Researchers at Aalto University have demonstrated the suitability of microwave signals in the coding of information for quantum computing. Previous development of the field has been focusing on optical systems. Researchers used a microwave resonator based on extremely sensitive measurement devices known as superconductive quantum interference devices (SQUIDs). In their studies, the resonator was cooled down and kept near absolute zero, where any thermal motion freezes. This state corresponds to perfect darkness where no photon — a real particle of electromagnetic radiation such as visible light or microwaves — is present.

However, in this state (called quantum vacuum) there exist fluctuations that bring photons in and out of existence for a very short time. The researchers have now managed to convert these fluctuations into real photons of microwave radiation with different frequencies, showing that, in a sense, darkness is more than just absence of light.

They also found out that these photons are correlated with each other, as if a magic connection exists between them.

In a very high magnetic field a ‘massless’ electron can acquire a mass

An international team of researchers have for the first time, discovered that in a very high magnetic field an electron with no mass can acquire a mass. Understanding why elementary particles e.g. electrons, photons, neutrinos have a mass is a fundamental question in Physics and an area of intense debate. This discovery by Prof Stefano Sanvito, Trinity College Dublin and collaborators in Shanghai was published in the prestigious journal Nature Communications this month.

Physicist finds entanglement instantly gives rise to a wormhole

Quantum entanglement is one of the more bizarre theories to come out of the study of quantum mechanics — so strange, in fact, that Albert Einstein famously referred to it as “spooky action at a distance.”

Essentially, entanglement involves two particles, each occupying multiple states at once — a condition referred to as superposition. For example, both particles may simultaneously spin clockwise and counterclockwise. But neither has a definite state until one is measured, causing the other particle to instantly assume a corresponding state.

The resulting correlations between the particles are preserved, even if they reside on opposite ends of the universe.

Liquid Metals to “Soft-Wire” Elastic Electronics

“Liquid Metals to “Soft-Wire” Elastic Electronics”

A few years ago, some friends shared with me an amazing experiment of theirs involving liquid/ fluid base circuitry. Definitely is amazing; and is going to be amazing in where we are taking this type of technology along with synthetic biology.

The shape-shifting metals behind the T-1000 android assassin in the sci-fi movie Terminator 2 may not remain science fiction for long with the development of self-propelling liquid metals that could lead to the replacement of solid state circuits by elastic electronics.

Modern electronics are mainly based on circuits that use solid state components with fixed metallic tracks. However, researchers are trying to create soft circuits that act more like live cells, moving around autonomously and communicating with each other to form new circuits rather than being stuck in a predefined configuration.

Liquid metal droplets have offered the most promising path for achieving this as they are malleable, contain a highly-conductive core and an atom-thin semiconducting oxide skin, all of which are needed to make electronic circuits.

Research pair create two-atom molecules that are more than a thousand times bigger than typical diatomic molecules

Perfecting the macro-molecule.

(Phys.org)—A pair of physicists with the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Switzerland has found a way to create very large diatomic molecules, and in so doing, have proved some of the theories about such molecules to be correct. In their paper published in Physical Review Letters, Johannes Deiglmayr and Heiner Saßmannshausen describe their experiments and results and why they believe such molecules may have a future in quantum computing.

Physicists have been interested in the properties of macromolecules for many years because they believe studying them will illuminate the fundamental properties of in general. Prior research has shown that large, two-atom molecules should be possible if they were put into a Rydberg state—in which the outer electron exists in a high quantum state, allowing it to orbit farther than normal from the nucleus—and thus allowing for the creation of molecules thousands of times larger than conventional diatomic molecules such as H2.

In this new effort, the researchers sought to test assumptions made about such molecules by actually building some. They did so by firing a laser at a pair of chilled cesium atoms to excite them and then by firing another laser with a smaller amount of energy to bring them into a Rydberg state. To make sure they had succeeded in making the large molecule, they used a device to detect that the ions that had been created during the process decayed to the lower Rydberg state, releasing the energy that had ionized the other atom. By actually creating the molecules, the pair were able to test many of the theories and assumptions about them made by others in the field.

Mind-controlled nanobots could be used to treat depression or epilepsy

It echoes the nanite and nanobot technology seen in science fiction TV series like Star Trek and Red Dwarf, where swarms of microscopic robots can be used to repair damaged tissue.

Researchers at Bar Ilan University in Ramat Gan, Israel, and the Interdisciplinary Centre in Herzliya, built their nanobots using a form to DNA origami to create hollow shell-like structures.

Drugs could then be placed inside these before they were chemically locked shut with particles of iron oxide.

New Condensed Matter State Paves the Way for Scalable Quantum Computers

Rice physicists are closing in on a method that will create a new condensed matter state in which all electrons in a material act as one by manipulating them with light and a magnetic field. This research advance technologies such as quantum computers.

For particle physicists, studying the interactions between photons and electrons has long been an area of interest. After all, observing such phenomena could eventually lead us to the creation of a viable quantum computer.

Physicist Junichiro Kono and his colleagues at Rice University are making headway on a method to create a new condensed matter state, where electrons in a material “couple” after they are manipulated with light and a magnetic field.

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