An excellent overview/primer of the current state of de novo computational protein design with AI. The review was written by a panel of illustrious experts including Nobel Laureate David Baker, who is perhaps the most prolific and impactful protein engineer in history.
A Review of de novo protein design highlights key methodological advances and achievements, current challenges and future applications.
This new compound can lead to better treatment of depression using essentially a non hallucinogenic version of lsd. This lead to essentially many discoveries including the 5-HT2A receptor in the human brain which can help make the new compounds more accurate for the new compound. This would help with more effective treatment of treatment resistant depression.
New agonists of the serotonin 5-HT2A receptor (5-HT2AR) confer high brain permeability and antidepressant activity and—in contrast to classic 5-HT2AR agonists—lack psychedelic activity.
Aging is the price paid for the ability of experiencing existence, one might philosophize.
Natural cellular aging begins with differentiation. Once a stem cell becomes a specific cell type, it’s locked in forever: fat cells can never become muscle cells, no matter how hard one wishes, or pokes and prods at them in front of the mirror.
Or so it goes in nature, but scientists can definitely transform cells, as if biologically compensating for all the failed alchemical attempts of the past.
An experiment resolves the tiny momentum transferred from an individual gas molecule to a levitated nanoparticle.
For two centuries, collisions between atoms or molecules and small suspended objects have been understood only statistically. In 1827, Robert Brown first described the random motion of pollen in water. Eight decades later, Albert Einstein and Marian Smoluchowski independently explained the jitter as the accumulated effect of countless unseen molecular impacts—convincingly demonstrating the physical reality of atoms and molecules. However, individual kicks were never resolved. Only their collective consequence, Brownian motion, was ever visible. Modern trapped-ion experiments succeeded in watching individual atom–ion collisions perturb a single confined ion’s motion [1]. But there, the “projectile” and the “sensor” were both individual atomic-scale particles of comparable mass. Now David Moore at Yale University and his colleagues have extended single-collision detection to a very different regime [2].
Qubits, the quantum equivalent of digital bits, are fragile and prone to errors. That makes building reliable quantum computers extremely difficult. One fix has been to use traditional magic state distillation, which filters out flaws, but it is extremely resource-intensive.
Another potential solution is magic state cultivation, which cleans up a noisy magic state (a specially prepared quantum state that is needed for advanced calculations) directly inside a protected qubit. But this approach has never been tested successfully on real hardware.
However, in a first for quantum computing, Google Quantum AI researchers have demonstrated magic state cultivation on Willow, a superconducting processor, and it has cut errors dramatically.
A technology developed at The University of Queensland allowing scientists to observe how disease-related proteins behave inside living neurons will be used to advance early drug discovery for neurodegenerative diseases. The NASTIC (Nanoscale Spatiotemporal Indexing Clustering) platform, spun out into Brisbane-based startup Accretion Bio, enables researchers to study real-time biological processes in living cells across space and time at the single-molecule level for the first time.
The platform is the result of more than two decades of research at UQ’s Queensland Brain Institute (QBI), led by professor Frederic Meunier.
If you’ve ever created a snowflake by folding, cutting and unfolding a piece of paper, you’ve practiced the art of kirigami. Like origami, kirigami has inspired innovations far beyond the elementary school classroom, with applications ranging from deployable structures for spacecraft to semiconductors.
Researchers at the University of Illinois Chicago’s College of Engineering have employed kirigami strategies to generate complex shapes that mimic tissue forms found in the human body. Their work has implications for tissue engineering and wound healing.
The paper, “A 4D Bio-Kirigami Strategy for Engineering Complex Tissue Curvatures,” was published in Cell Biomaterials. The authors included Kaelyn L. Gasvoda, Aixiang Ding, Zhangli Peng, Alexandria Sterenberg, Oju Jeon and Eben Alsberg.
When Earth formed billions of years ago, its metallic core was wrapped in a global ocean of molten rock, which eventually cooled and crystallized to form the mantle. Today, when deep-rooted mantle plumes rise toward the surface and produce volcanic eruptions, the resulting lava can contain hydrogen from deep inside the planet.
Hydrogen comes in two stable forms, standard light hydrogen and a heavier version called deuterium. While most volcanic rocks have relatively normal hydrogen isotope ratios, some lavas associated with deep mantle plumes contain an unusually low proportion of deuterium.
That rare mix has provoked a major debate: Did this low-deuterium signature form long ago as the early magma ocean froze, or does it come from hydrogen leaking out of Earth’s metallic core?
As governments prepare to gather in Yerevan, Armenia, this week for the U.N. Biodiversity Conference (COP17), new research identifies 13% of Earth’s land area as hotspots for biodiversity conservation, highlighting where conservation efforts are most urgently needed.
In their study published in the journal One Earth, an international team of researchers introduces a transparent and reproducible framework for mapping vertebrate conservation hotspots across Earth’s terrestrial surface. By analyzing data for 33,604 species of terrestrial vertebrates from the IUCN Red List, the authors combine information on where threatened and range-restricted species concentrate with key human-driven threats such as logging, agriculture, urbanization and invasive species.
Approximately 13% of the global land area is identified as a vertebrate hotspot, with many of these areas concentrated in tropical regions and broadleaf forests. Furthermore, these critical areas are home to over a third of the global human population, emphasizing the need for conservation approaches tailored to local conditions that protect biodiversity while also supporting people’s well-being.