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Aug 25, 2024

Scientists Have Discovered Strange DNA in Our Brains — and It Could Be Shortening Our Lives

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, health, neuroscience

Mitochondria in brain cells frequently insert their DNA into the nucleus, potentially impacting lifespan, as those with more insertions were found to die earlier. Stress appears to accelerate this process, suggesting a new way mitochondria influence health beyond energy production.

As direct descendants of ancient bacteria, mitochondria have always been a little alien. Now a study shows that mitochondria are possibly even stranger than we thought.

Mitochondria in our brain cells frequently fling their DNA into the nucleus, the study found, where the DNA becomes integrated into the cells’ chromosomes. And these insertions may be causing harm: Among the study’s nearly 1,200 participants, those with more mitochondrial DNA insertions in their brain cells were more likely to die earlier than those with fewer insertions.

Aug 25, 2024

Dark Matter Explained | Cosmology 101 Episode 7

Posted by in categories: cosmology, evolution, physics

Dark matter remains one of the most enigmatic components of our universe. In this episode of Cosmology 101, we explore the evidence for dark matter and its critical role in shaping the cosmos. From galaxy rotations to cosmic web structures, discover how dark matter’s invisible hand influences the universe’s evolution and our understanding of fundamental physics.

Join Katie Mack, Perimeter Institute’s Hawking Chair in Cosmology and Science Communication, on an incredible journey through the cosmos in our new series, Cosmology 101.

Continue reading “Dark Matter Explained | Cosmology 101 Episode 7” »

Aug 25, 2024

Gravity Without Mass Could Explain Dark Matter

Posted by in category: cosmology

Special Offer! Use our link https://joinnautilus.com/SABINE to get 15% off your membership!I recently read that you can have gravity without mass. Ha, no way…

Aug 25, 2024

All-2D CVD-grown semiconductor field-effect transistors with van der Waals graphene contacts

Posted by in categories: computing, materials

Hoque, M.A., George, A., Ramachandra, V. et al. All-2D CVD-grown semiconductor field-effect transistors with van der Waals graphene contacts. npj 2D Mater Appl 8, 55 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41699-024-00489-2

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Aug 25, 2024

Ethics and benefits of gene editing

Posted by in categories: bioengineering, biotech/medical, ethics

There are different types of biotechnology protocols for genome/gene editing (GE), but the preferred one is the Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palynodromic Repeat (CRISPR) Cas9 system. Advantages include precision, the ability to design variants tailored to needs, and optimal operational cost and time.

Aug 25, 2024

The Universe is on the Move

Posted by in categories: mathematics, space

Our universe is defined by the way it moves, and one way to describe the history of science is through our increasing awareness of the restlessness of the cosmos.

For millennia the brightest scientific minds in Europe and the Middle East believed that the Earth was perfectly still and that the heavens revolved around it, with a series of nested crystal spheres carrying each of the heavenly objects. Those early astronomers busied themselves with attempts to explain and predict the motion of those objects – the Sun, the Moon, each of the known planets, and the stars. Those predictions were excellent, and their systems able to explain the data well into the 16th century.

Continue reading “The Universe is on the Move” »

Aug 25, 2024

US achieves superconductor breakthrough, can benefit quantum computing

Posted by in categories: computing, quantum physics

A team of scientists in the United States has achieved a notable milestone in the domain of superconductors. This progress may have considerable consequences for the future of quantum computing.

The research details the development of a novel superconductor material that has the potential to transform quantum computing and potentially function as a “topological superconductor.”

A topological superconductor is a special kind of material that exhibits superconductivity (zero electrical resistance) and also has unique properties related to its shape or topology.

Aug 25, 2024

Bolometric detection of Josephson radiation

Posted by in categories: computing, nanotechnology

An on-chip nano-bolometer integrated with a Josephson junction quantitatively measures the Josephson radiation up to about 100 GHz frequency. This wide-band, thermal detection scheme of microwave photons provides a sensitive detector of Josephson dynamics beyond the standard conductance measurements.

Aug 25, 2024

How we built AlphaFold 3 to predict the structure and interaction of all of life’s molecules

Posted by in category: futurism

Here’s how this model came to be.

Aug 25, 2024

AlphaFold 3: Stepping into the future of structure prediction

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, robotics/AI

We’ve all heard about the potential of artificial intelligence in the life sciences field. In 2020, the launch of AlphaFold 2, pioneered by Google DeepMind, took the world by storm and marked a new age in protein structure prediction. But now, AlphaFold 3 is transforming the landscape again. In this news highlight, we explore the new tech, compare it to its predecessor and take a look to the future.

Before the AI revolution, protein structure prediction heavily relied on experimental methods, such as X-ray crystallography, NMR spectroscopy and, later, some complex computational methods like homology modelling. These methods were time consuming and costly, and were a major limiting step in drug discovery and development processes in particular. For years, scientists have been attempting to integrate the latest and greatest AI models into the field, in order to speed up the process and improve accuracy.

Enter AlphaFold, an artificial intelligence tool developed by Google’s DeepMind. The first version of the technology was released in 2018, but it was 2020’s AlphaFold 2 that made headlines – winning the prestigious Critical Assessment of Structure Prediction (CASP) 14 competition. Having gone through multiple major iterations, the most recent release, AlphaFold 3, is set to further transform the protein space. But what does it do, and how may it outperform its predecessor?

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