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Combining an optical tweezer technology called C-trap that manipulates a single molecule of DNA and a novel approach, researchers were able to receive a detailed view into how cells find and repair damaged DNA.

Their findings are described in an article titled, “Single-molecule analysis of DNA-binding proteins from nuclear extracts (SMADNE),” published in Nucleic Acids Research.

In the new study, the researchers used the C-trap to investigate how different DNA repair proteins identify and bind to their respective forms of damage.

Nickelates are a material class that has excited scientists because of its recently discovered superconducting ability, and now a new study led by Cornell has changed where scientists thought this ability might originate, providing a blueprint for how more functional versions might be engineered in the future.

Superconductivity was predicted in nickel-based oxide compounds, or nickelates, more than 20 years ago, yet only realized experimentally for the first time in 2019, and only in samples that are grown as very thin, crystalline films—less than 20 nanometers thick—layered on a supporting substrate material.

Researchers worldwide have been working to better understand the microscopic details and origins of superconductivity in nickelates in an effort to create samples that successfully superconduct in macroscopic “bulk” , but have yet to be successful. This limitation led some researchers to speculate that superconductivity was not being hosted in the nickelate film, but rather at the atomic interface where the film and substrate meet.

Assessing how energy-generating synthetic organelles could sustain artificial cells.

Researchers have assessed the progress and challenges in creating artificial mitochondria and chloroplasts for energy production in synthetic cells. These artificial organelles could potentially enable the development of new organisms or biomaterials. The researchers identified proteins as the most crucial components for molecular rotary machinery, proton transport, and ATP production, which serves as the cell’s primary energy currency.

Energy production in nature is the responsibility of chloroplasts and mitochondria and is crucial for fabricating sustainable, synthetic cells in the lab. Mitochondria are not only “the powerhouses of the cell,” as the middle school biology adage goes, but also one of the most complex intracellular components to replicate artificially.

Echopraxia is a book set in one of the most interesting sci-fi universes that I have covered on this channel. It is technically a sequel to Blindsight, but it is not necessary that you read Blindsight to understand Echopraxia is set in the late 21 century. About 14 years after man’s first contact with alien life.

This book brings up one of the most interesting concepts I’ve ever encountered in any sci-fi book ever. And that is the concept of the “Digital Universe” and God as a Virus. Now this is a concept that comes from the field of digital physics, which keep in mind is all theoretical. It is based on the premise that the universe is pure mathematics at its base, every event that occurs can be thought of as a kind of computation. This could mean that the universe is a simulation, but that is not necessary for the idea to work.

The universe could itself be a giant computer, physics would be its software and matter, its hardware. Every movement of an electron would be a calculation in that vast supercomputer. In some models of the Digital Universe, matter itself is merely an instantiation of numbers.

Get Echopraxia: https://www.amazon.com/Echopraxia-Firefall-Book-Peter-Watts-…sr=8-1

Cambridge researchers have discovered a new topological phase in a two-dimensional system, which could be used as a new platform for exploring topological physics in nanoscale devices.

Two-dimensional materials such as graphene have served as a playground for the experimental discovery and theoretical understanding of a wide range of phenomena in physics and . Beyond graphene, there are a large number 2D materials, all with different physical properties. This is promising for potential applications in nanotechnology, where a wide range of functionality can be achieved in devices by using different 2D materials or stacking combinations of different layers.

It was recently discovered that in materials such as (hBN), which are less symmetric than graphene, ferroelectricity occurs when one layer slides over the other and breaks a symmetry. Ferroelectricity is the switching of a material’s with an , which is a useful property for information processing and memory storage.

The Big Bang may have not been alone. The appearance of all the particles and radiation in the universe may have been joined by another Big Bang that flooded our universe with dark matter particles. And we may be able to detect it.

In the standard cosmological picture the early universe was a very exotic place. Perhaps the most momentous thing to happen in our cosmos was the event of inflation, which at very early times after the Big Bang sent our universe into a period of extremely rapid expansion.

When inflation ended, the exotic quantum fields that drove that event decayed, transforming themselves into the flood of particles and radiation that remain today.