Lifeboat Foundation

The mysterious Lycurgus Cup is convincing evidence that ancient Romans used nanotechnology, or at least knew how to get the desired effects, long before the availability of modern technology.

The cup is made of a special type of glass known as dichroic, meaning “two-colored” in Greek, which changes hue when held up to the light. It is opaque green but turns to glowing translucent red when light shines through it.

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Chemical analysis of rocks found in South Africa shows that ancient microorganisms sustained themselves in a variety of ways, adding to evidence for an early origin of life on Earth.

By Michael Marshall

Quantum computing is one of the most transformational technological breakthroughs of our lives, and it’s likely to supercharge the AI Boom.

Using various ground-based telescopes, astronomers have performed photometric and spectroscopic observations of a nearby Type Ia supernova known as SN 2020nlb. Results of the observations campaign, presented January 16 on the pre-print server arXiv, deliver important insights regarding the evolution of this stellar explosion.

Type Ia supernovae (SN Ia) are found in binary systems in which one of the stars is a white dwarf. Stellar explosions of this type are important for the scientific community, as they offer essential clues into the evolution of stars and galaxies.

SN 2020nlb was detected on June 25, 2020 with the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS), shortly after its explosion in the lenticular galaxy Messier 85 (or M85 for short), located some 60 million light years away. Spectroscopic observations of SN 2020nlb, commenced shortly after its detection, confirmed that it is a Type Ia supernova.

The humble membranes that enclose our cells have a surprising superpower: They can push away nano-sized molecules that happen to approach them. A team including scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has figured out why, by using artificial membranes that mimic the behavior of natural ones. Their discovery could make a difference in how we design the many drug treatments that target our cells.

The team’s findings, which appear in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, confirm that the powerful electrical fields that cell membranes generate are largely responsible for repelling nanoscale particles from the surface of the cell.

This repulsion notably affects neutral, uncharged nanoparticles, in part because the smaller, charged molecules the electric field attracts crowd the membrane and push away the larger particles. Since many drug treatments are built around proteins and other nanoscale particles that target the membrane, the repulsion could play a role in the treatments’ effectiveness.

Many people are wired to seek and respond to rewards. Your brain interprets food as rewarding when you are hungry and water as rewarding when you are thirsty.

But addictive substances like alcohol and drugs of abuse can overwhelm the natural reward pathways in your brain, resulting in intolerable cravings and reduced impulse control.

A popular misconception is that addiction is a result of low willpower. But an explosion of knowledge and technology in the field of molecular genetics has changed our basic understanding of addiction drastically over the past decade. The general consensus among scientists and health care professionals is that there is a strong neurobiological and genetic basis for addiction.

The power of gravity is writ large across our visible universe. It can be seen in the lock step of moons as they circle planets; in wandering comets pulled off-course by massive stars; and in the swirl of gigantic galaxies. These awesome displays showcase gravity’s influence at the largest scales of matter. Now, nuclear physicists are discovering that gravity also has much to offer at matter’s smallest scales.

New research conducted by nuclear physicists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility is using a method that connects theories of gravitation to interactions among the smallest particles of matter to reveal new details at this smaller scale. The research has now revealed, for the first time, a snapshot of the distribution of the strong force inside the proton. This snapshot details the shear stress the force may exert on the quark particles that make up the proton. The result was recently published in Reviews of Modern Physics.

According to the lead author on the study, Jefferson Lab Principal Staff Scientist Volker Burkert, the measurement reveals insight into the environment experienced by the proton’s building blocks. Protons are built of three quarks that are bound together by the strong force.

Researchers from university in southern China say their porous material has high mechanical strength and thermal insulation properties.

This self-assembling ‘metallaknot’ of gold emerged when gold acetylide was combined with a carbon structure known as a diphosphine ligand.

Since 1989, chemists have been exploring ways to tie molecular knots using metal ions to guide helical chains into specific configurations. These knots are typically secured by the presence of metal atoms, which are removed at the end of the process to prevent untying.

However, the self-assembly of the new gold knot suggests a different mechanism at play, one that even the researchers, including chemist Richard Puddephatt from the University of Western Ontario, find mysterious.