As proteins perform complicated tasks inside a cell, they rarely act alone.
Now, researchers have added structural information for almost 2 million protein complexes to the AlphaFold Database.
In an ambitious collaboration, researchers added 1.8 million high-confidence protein complex structure predictions to the AlphaFold Database, accelerating molecular biology research.
Toward the right side of the periodic table below oxygen, are the chalcogens, or “ore-forming” elements. The chalcogens that occur naturally, including sulfur, selenium and tellurium, are all somehow involved in biological processes. Molecules containing sulfur, like the antioxidant glutathione, play a central role in redox regulation, the balance between oxidation and reduction that is essential for maintaining cellular health.
Recent studies have suggested that the heavier selenium and tellurium are active in biological redox systems as well, but the instability of molecules containing chains of different chalcogen atoms has made structural analysis difficult.
Traditional methods have largely relied on mass spectrometry, which cannot be used to directly observe molecular bonds. This limitation motivated a team of researchers at Kyoto University to develop a method that would allow them to more clearly observe chains of chalcogens. The paper is published in the journal ACS Measurement Science Au.
A tiny crystal chip which uses terahertz radiation to see clearly through a wide range of materials could find applications in health care, biological research, and security screening. Researchers from Scotland and Japan have developed a lightweight superconducting chip, which they say could unlock the full potential of terahertz imaging technologies and lead to the development of more powerful and portable devices.
The team’s paper, titled “Terahertz Imaging System with On-Chip Superconducting Josephson Plasma Emitters for Nondestructive Testing,” is published in IEEE Transactions on Applied Superconductivity.
Terahertz radiation lies between the microwave and infrared frequencies of the electromagnetic spectrum. It passes easily and harmlessly through a wide range of materials, and can be used to identify the characteristic “fingerprint” of molecules and biological materials as it does so, allowing them to be detected and analyzed.
It would be tempting to assume there’s nothing much of note happening on Mars, but that dusty rusty planet has a lot of interesting stuff going on.
Most of it has to do with rocks. Mars has a lot of rocks. In fact, Mars has so many rocks that have undergone all sorts of weathering over the eons that, occasionally, it manages to produce something that looks a bit like an artificial or biological structure, if you squint.
It’s a bit like monkeys and typewriters. We may not get Shakespeare, but every once in a while, we might see some rocks that look enough like bugs to fool an entomologist.
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Project Hail Mary opened in theaters last week, introducing the world to Rocky, the alien creature whose friendship with the main character, Ryland Grace, forms the heart of the story. Rocky quickly became a fan favorite of readers of the book, partly because of the extensive research and imagination put into the creature by the author, Andy Weir. In today’s video, I have Andy Weir join me to break down everything you could possibly want to know about Rocky, from his (not so) fictional planet to his crazy anatomy. It’s a masterclass in speculative biology that will amaze amaze amaze you.
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/ answerswithjoe TIMESTAMPS 0:00 — Intro 3:15 — About The Eridani System 7:10 — Morphology 18:04 — Crystal Brain 20:44 — Digestion 24:19 — Circulation/Musculature/Dormancy 28:37 — Communication 35:00 — How They Brought Rocky to Life 38:16 — Sponsor — Incogni.
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Roger Penrose, Sabrina Gonzalez Pasterski, and Max Tegmark discuss consciousness, quantum physics, and the possibility of a sentient superintelligent A.I.
Could ChatGPT be conscious?
With a free trial, you can watch the full debate NOW at https://iai.tv/video/cracking-the-code-for-thought?utm_sourc…ed-comment.
The idea that the brain is computational has, from the outset, been central to neuroscience. Like a computer, the brain is a problem-solving machine that stores memories and processes information. But despite the advances in AI, many challenge whether this analogy captures the essence of the mind. Computers use transistors to build elementary logic gates, enabling them to store files exactly, in 0s and 1s. They are precise and repeatable. Human brains, in contrast, are biological—the neurons do not operate as simple logic gates, but have thousands of inputs, and their output is dependent on past activity and their current internal state. Remove a computer’s processor, and it breaks. But humans can survive with only one brain hemisphere. Fundamentally, brains think, they have perception, and are conscious.
Is it a mistake to see the mind as computational? Are computers, at root, limited machines with little in common with the sophistication of living things? Or have computers and mathematics uncovered the essential character of thought—and perhaps even the cosmos itself?
#consciousness #quantum #neuroscience #quantumphysics #ai #artificialintelligence.
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Time is the one thing every human being experiences identically, or so we assume.
Physicist Jim Al-Khalili dismantles that assumption, explaining how velocity and gravity don’t just affect clocks but actually alter the rate at which time passes for the person experiencing it.
Preorder Jim Al-Khalili’s forthcoming book, On Time: The Physics That Makes the Universe, here: https://www.amazon.com/Time-Physics-T?tag=lifeboatfound-20…
About Jim Al-Khalili: Jim is a multiple award-winning science communicator renowned for his public engagement around the world through writing and broadcasting and a leading academic making fundamental contributions to theoretical physics, particularly in nuclear reaction theory, quantum effects in biology, open quantum systems and the foundations of quantum mechanics. Jim is a theoretical physicist at the University of Surrey where he holds a Distinguished Chair in physics as well as a university chair in the public engagement in science. He received his PhD in nuclear reaction theory in 1989 and has published widely in the field. His current interest is in open quantum systems and the application of quantum mechanics in biology.
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Project Hail Mary, a story by Andy Weir (author of The Martian), features some of the most creative speculative evolution scenarios in modern science fiction. With the release of the film adaptation starring Ryan Gosling, now seemed like a great time to explore the speculative biology of the aliens in this story: the Astrophage and the Eridians (Rocky’s species).
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It’s now time to dig into quantum field theories with considerably more rigor than earlier in the series. First up is quantum electrodynamics, or QED. This was the first successful QFT, combining quantum mechanics and special relativity. Let’s learn what this model is all about, and how to do math with Feynman diagrams.
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