Lifeboat Foundation

Water is the most abundant yet least understood liquid in nature. It exhibits many strange behaviors that scientists still struggle to explain. While most liquids get denser as they get colder, water is most dense at 39 degrees Fahrenheit, just above its freezing point. This is why ice floats to the top of a drinking glass and lakes freeze from the surface down, allowing marine life to survive cold winters. Water also has an unusually high surface tension, allowing insects to walk on its surface, and a large capacity to store heat, keeping ocean temperatures stable.

Now, a team that includes researchers from the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Stanford University and Stockholm University in Sweden have made the first direct observation of how hydrogen atoms in water molecules tug and push neighboring water molecules when they are excited with laser light. Their results, published in Nature today, reveal effects that could underpin key aspects of the microscopic origin of water’s strange properties and could lead to a better understanding of how water helps proteins function in living organisms.

“Although this so-called nuclear quantum effect has been hypothesized to be at the heart of many of water’s strange properties, this experiment marks the first time it was ever observed directly,” said study collaborator Anders Nilsson, a professor of chemical physics at Stockholm University. “The question is if this quantum effect could be the missing link in theoretical models describing the anomalous properties of water.”

Pico technology is hypothetical future level of technology which will revolutionized the scientist world. This technology is combination of pico and meter with scale of trillionths of a meter (10⁻¹²). This atomic and subatomic range particles reveals extraordinary properties and pave the way for tremendous applications [1].

The way lengths and angles attach together is the main determine of the materials properties. Alterable or reversible bonds distortions at pico-meter scale which changes the electronic conformation causes multiple properties for materials.

On the other hand, pico-scale particles changes the material properties by converting energy state of electrons within an atom. Physical and chemical properties of systems such as melting point, fluorescence, electrical conductivity, magnetic permeability, and chemical reactivity changes basically at pico-scale due to quantum effects of materials [2]. Moreover, surface energy of atoms increases by alternation of electron distribution and therefore, enhances protein and molecules adsorption on to materials. This privileges will resulting in tracing proteins, DNA and molecules and labeling them for various purpose.

Lipids are abundant in the brain, where they are found not just in the cell membranes of neurons, whose properties they modulate, but also in the so-called myelin sheaths insulating axons — the brain’s ‘wiring.’ The brain is therefore a surprisingly ‘fat’ organ — in fact, it is nearly 60% fat, the study’s first author, Anna Tkachev from Skoltech, said.

Summary: Prozac reduced polyunsaturated fatty acid lipid concentrations in the brains of juvenile macaque monkeys.

Source: Skoltech

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#Biology #biochemistry #Biochemist #biotech #bio

This video explains introduction to biochemistry.

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Circa 2014

Scientists in a lab used a powerful laser to re-create what might have been the original spark of life on Earth.

The researchers zapped clay and a chemical soup with the laser to simulate the energy of a speeding asteroid smashing into the planet. They ended up creating what can be considered crucial pieces of the building blocks of life.

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If you think at all about liquid crystals, you probably think of display technology. However, researchers have worked out a way to use an ink-jet-like process to 3D print iridescent colors using a liquid crystal elastomer. The process can mimic iridescent coloring found in nature and may have applications in things as diverse as antitheft tags, art objects, or materials with very special optical properties.

For example, one item created by the team is an arrow that only appears totally green when viewed from a certain angle. The optical properties depend on the thickness of the material which, being crystalline, self-organizes. Controlling the speed of deposition changes the thickness of the material which allows the printer to tune its optical properties.

The ink doesn’t sound too exotic to create, although the chemicals in it are an alphabet soup of unpronounceable organic compounds. At least they appeared available if you know where to shop for exotic chemicals.

Advancing the well-being of animals, people and the planet — aaron schacht — executive vice president, innovation, regulatory & business development, elanco.

Aaron Schacht is Executive Vice President: Innovation, Regulatory + Business Development at Elanco (https://www.elanco.com/), an American pharmaceutical company which produces medicines and vaccinations for pets and livestock, and which until 2,019 was a subsidiary of Eli Lilly and Company.

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Deploying two unrelated CRISPR nucleases in tandem, with multiplexed CRISPR RNAs and a chemically stabilized activator, creates a simple, one-step assay that can rapidly detect attomolar concentrations of RNA without needing target amplification.

Since the early days of the COVID pandemic, scientists have aggressively pursued the secrets of the mechanisms that allow severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) to enter and infect healthy human cells.

Early in the pandemic, University of California San Diego’s Rommie Amaro, a computational biophysical chemist, helped develop a detailed visualization of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein that efficiently latches onto our cell receptors.

Now, Amaro and her research colleagues from UC San Diego, University of Pittsburgh, University of Texas at Austin, Columbia University and University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee have discovered how glycans–molecules that make up a sugary residue around the edges of the spike protein–act as infection gateways.

Continue reading “Researchers discover hidden SARS-CoV-2 ‘gate’ that opens to allow COVID infection” »