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Archive for the ‘chemistry’ category

Mar 19, 2024

How Fear Unfolds inside Our Brains

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

The stress-induced mechanisms that cause our brain to produce feelings of fear in the absence of threats have been mostly a mystery. Now, neurobiologists at the University of California San Diego have identified the changes in brain biochemistry and mapped the neural circuitry that cause such a generalized fear experience. Their research, published in the journal Science on March 15, 2024, provides new insights into how fear responses could be prevented.

In their report, former UC San Diego Assistant Project Scientist Hui-quan Li, (now a senior scientist at Neurocrine Biosciences), Atkinson Family Distinguished Professor Nick Spitzer of the School of Biological Sciences and their colleagues describe the research behind their discovery of the neurotransmitters — the chemical messengers that allow the brain’s neurons to communicate with one another — at the root of stress-induced generalized fear.

Studying the brains of mice in an area known as the dorsal raphe (located in the brainstem), the researchers found that acute stress induced a switch in the chemical signals in the neurons, flipping from excitatory “glutamate” to inhibitory “GABA” neurotransmitters, which led to generalized fear responses.

Mar 18, 2024

Mimicking exercise with a pill

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

NEW ORLEANS, March 18, 2024 — Doctors have long prescribed exercise to improve and protect health. In the future, a pill may offer some of the same benefits as exercise. Now, researchers report on new compounds that appear capable of mimicking the physical boost of working out — at least within rodent cells. This discovery could lead to a new way to treat muscle atrophy and other medical conditions in people, including heart failure and neurodegenerative disease.

The researchers will present their results today at the spring meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS). ACS Spring 2024 is a hybrid meeting being held virtually and in person March 17–21; it features nearly 12,000 presentations on a range of science topics.

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Mar 18, 2024

MIT Unveils the Dance of Protons: Pioneering Energy’s New Era

Posted by in categories: chemistry, energy

New insights into how proton-coupled electron transfers occur at an electrode could help researchers design more efficient fuel cells and electrolyzers.

A key chemical reaction — in which the movement of protons between the surface of an electrode and an electrolyte drives an electric current — is a critical step in many energy technologies, including fuel cells and the electrolyzers used to produce hydrogen gas.

For the first time, MIT chemists have mapped out in detail how these proton-coupled electron transfers happen at an electrode surface. Their results could help researchers design more efficient fuel cells, batteries, or other energy technologies.

Mar 17, 2024

Measurement of non-monotonic Casimir forces between silicon nanostructures

Posted by in categories: chemistry, energy, nanotechnology, physics

Like Brian Greer has said the casimir technologies can power anything and create a free society a free utopia without the need for using any chemicals and it has been known since the 1950s in the physics community.


Previous demonstrations of the elusive Casimir force between interfaces exhibit monotonic dependence on surface displacement. Now a non-monotonic dependence of the force has been shown experimentally by exploting nanostructured surfaces.

Mar 17, 2024

Quantum Leap in Material Science: Researchers Unveil AI-Powered Atomic Fabrication Technique

Posted by in categories: chemistry, particle physics, quantum physics, robotics/AI, science

Researchers at the National University of Singapore (NUS) have developed an innovative method for creating carbon-based quantum materials atom by atom. This method combines the use of scanning probe microscopy with advanced deep neural networks. The achievement underlines the capabilities of artificial intelligence (AI) in manipulating materials at the sub-angstrom level, offering significant advantages for basic science and potential future uses.

Open-shell magnetic nanographenes represent a technologically appealing class of new carbon-based quantum materials, which host robust π-spin centers and non-trivial collective quantum magnetism. These properties are crucial for developing high-speed electronic devices at the molecular level and creating quantum bits, the building blocks of quantum computers.

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Mar 17, 2024

Extreme treatment for alcoholism slashes drinking by 90% in monkeys

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

According to the CDC, more than 140,000 Americans are dying each year from alcohol-related causes, and the rate of deaths has been rising for years, especially during the pandemic.

The idea: For occasional drinkers, alcohol causes the brain to release more dopamine, a chemical that makes you feel good. Chronic alcohol use, however, causes the brain to produce, and process, less dopamine, and this persistent dopamine deficit has been linked to alcohol relapse.

There is currently no way to reverse the changes in the brain brought about by AUD, but a team of US researchers suspected that an in-development gene therapy for Parkinson’s disease might work as a dopamine-replenishing treatment for alcoholism, too.

Mar 16, 2024

This unconventional superconductor is the first grown naturally

Posted by in categories: chemistry, sustainability

Scientists at Ames National Laboratory have revealed the first unconventional superconductor with a chemical composition naturally found in the Earth’s crust. Named “miassite,” this mineral joins a rare league of only four natural substances capable of exhibiting superconductivity under laboratory conditions.

According to the research team’s study published in the journal Communication Materials, the discovery holds promise for future advancements in sustainable and cost-effective technologies.

Mar 15, 2024

Novel Lensless Light Diffraction Method Detects Viral Infection

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, chemistry

“Viruses, infections, and pandemics have become recurrent features in our lives, profoundly impacting human existence and even extending their reach to animals. Despite this, accessible, rapid, and affordable virus detection methods have been lacking,” said Xingcai Zhang, PhD, researcher, Harvard University, told GEN. “Our study aims to visualize viral infection states, predict infection duration, unravel the infection process, explore inhibition methods, and contribute to understanding viral disease transmission and pathogenesis.”

Viral infection of cells causes stress resulting in cell morphology differences over time. This study leveraged those known morphological changes to discern between infected and non-infected cells in culture. The standard practice for identifying infected cells, the methyl thiazolyl tetrazolium (MTT) assay, requires the use of reagent treatments and chemical reactions which can take upwards of 40 hours per sample, which is destroyed in the process.

The method proposed in this paper uses a lensless light diffraction platform to detect diffraction patterns, which can be used to extract information such as contrast and inverse differential moment which are used to create diffraction fingerprints. The fingerprints can be monitored continuously in the same samples as there is no inherent damage to cells.

Mar 14, 2024

WholeGraph Storage: Optimizing Memory and Retrieval for Graph Neural Networks

Posted by in categories: chemistry, robotics/AI

🧠 New Graph Neural Network Technique 🔥

NVIDIA researchers developed WholeGraphStor, a novel #GNN memory optimization.

Storing entire graphs in a compressed format reduces memory footprint,…

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Mar 14, 2024

Dr. William Kapp, MD — CEO, Fountain Life — Preventative, Predictive, Personalized Healthcare

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, chemistry, military

Preventative, predictive and personalized healthcare and longevity — dr. william kapp, MD — CEO, fountain life.


Dr. William Kapp, MD is Chief Executive Officer of Fountain Life (https://fountainlife.com/about/), a company focused on transforming the current healthcare system into one that is both proactive and data-driven, enabling enhanced longevity and catching and treating illnesses earlier than ever before, focusing on the detection and reversal of asymptomatic diseases and advancing an entirely new healthcare paradigm.

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