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Archive for the ‘physics’ category: Page 293

Jun 9, 2016

Physicists confirm there’s a second layer of information hidden in our DNA

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, evolution, physics

Theoretical physicists have confirmed that it’s not just the information coded into our DNA that shapes who we are — it’s also the way DNA folds itself that controls which genes are expressed inside our bodies.

That’s something biologists have known for years, and they’ve even been able to figure out some of the proteins responsible for folding up DNA. But now a group of physicists have been able to demonstrate for the first time through simulations how this hidden information controls our evolution.

Let’s back up for a second here, because although it’s not necessarily news to many scientists, this second level of DNA information might not be something you’re familiar with.

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Jun 9, 2016

Fundamental Physics of Consciousness

Posted by in categories: neuroscience, physics

Edwin E Klingman, [email protected]

PO Box 3000, San Gregorio CA 94074

Abstract.

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Jun 7, 2016

Physicists Manage To Slow Down Light In A Vacuum

Posted by in categories: materials, physics

The fact that the speed of light in a vacuum is a constant is one of the cornerstones of physics, but scientists from the Philippines were able to add a twist to this tenet. And I mean it literally!

By changing how some light beams rotate, the researchers from the National Institute of Physics were able to slow down light in a vacuum. The physicists used circularly symmetric light beams, known as Laguerre-Gauss beams, to change the way light twists around itself. Suddenly, the light beams were propagating more slowly.

The speed of light varies when it moves through different materials, and it does so at the expense of accuracy in transmitting information. For this reason, more and more people are interested in ways of manipulating the speed of light without affecting accuracy.

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Jun 4, 2016

Scientists experimentally confirm electron model in complex molecules

Posted by in category: physics

Researchers from Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT), and the University of Milan have experimentally confirmed a model to detect electron delocalization in molecules and crystals.

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Jun 2, 2016

Cancer Treatment Update: 3D Hydrogel Biochip To Help Increase Colorectal Cancer Survival

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, physics

A 3D hydrogel biochip, a new way of detecting colorectal cancer in the early stages, has been discovered by the scientists at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology. The announcement was made in time for the upcoming conference of the annual American Society of Clinical Oncology.

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The 3D hydrogel biochip will be using antibodies to determine the CRC specific glycans that emerge in the earliest stages of cancer, with the hope of improving today’s survival rates. These biochips are 3D cells consisting of a special gel that has molecular probes. Based on reports, the physical feature of the gel is an optimal form for running tests. The Russian scientists were able to develop a method that can calculate the concentration of antibodies-to-glycans in the patient’s blood. This means that combining the biochips into a patient’s blood sample will give the mot precise results.

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Jun 1, 2016

The case for black holes being nothing but holograms just got even stronger

Posted by in categories: cosmology, physics

If anything can sum up just how little we truly know about the Universe, it’s black holes.

We can’t see them because not even light can escape their gravitational pull, we have no idea what they’re made of, and where does everything inside go once a black hole dies?

Physicists can’t even agree on whether black holes are massive, three-dimensional behemoths, or just two-dimensional surfaces that are projected in 3D just like a hologram.

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Jun 1, 2016

Physicists make first observation of the pushing pressure of light

Posted by in category: physics

(Phys.org)—For more than 100 years, scientists have debated the question: when light travels through a medium such as oil or water, does it pull or push on the medium? While most experiments have found that light exerts a pulling pressure, in a new paper physicists have, for the first time, found evidence that light exerts a pushing pressure.

The scientists suggest that this apparent contradiction is not a fundamental one, but can be explained by the interplay between the light and the fluid medium: if the light can put the fluid in motion, it exerts a pushing force; if not, it exerts a pulling force.

The researchers, Li Zhang, Weilong She, and Nan Peng at Sun Yat-Sen University in Guangzhou, China, and Ulf Leonhardt at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, have published a paper on the first evidence for the pushing of light in a recent issue of the New Journal of Physics.

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May 31, 2016

Creation of Weak Materials Offers Strong Possibilities for Electronics

Posted by in categories: computing, electronics, physics

New fundamental research by UT Dallas physicists may accelerate the drive toward more advanced electronics and more powerful computers.

The scientists are investigating materials called topological insulators, whose surface electrical properties are essentially the opposite of the properties inside.

“These materials are made of the same thing throughout, from the interior to the exterior,” said Dr. Fan Zhang, assistant professor of physics at UT Dallas. “But, the interior does not conduct electrons — it’s an insulator — while the electrons on the surface are free to move around. The surface is therefore a conductor, like a metal, but it is in fact more robust than a metal.”

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May 25, 2016

New Research Suggests Dark Energy Might be the Reason Time Runs Forward

Posted by in categories: energy, physics

Interesting…


First, we take ‘Time’, as we know it’s one of those things that we take for granted—time moves forward and never backward. But did you ever stop to wonder why it moves in one direction, as opposed to the other?

The question continues to stump physicists. After all, there are certain physical processes that are actually time-reversible—they look the same no matter which way you run them.

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May 25, 2016

Hunting for dark matter’s ‘Hidden Valley’

Posted by in categories: cosmology, physics

Kathryn Zurek realized a decade ago that we may be searching in the wrong places for clues to one of the universe’s greatest unsolved mysteries: dark matter. Despite making up an estimated 85 percent of the total mass of the universe, we haven’t yet figured out what it’s made of.

Now, Zurek, a theoretical physicist at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), says thanks to extraordinary improvements in experimental sensitivity, “We increasingly know where not to look.” In 2006, during grad school, Zurek began to explore the concept of a new “Hidden Valley” model for physics that could hold all of the answers to .

“I noticed that from a model-builder’s point of view that dark matter was extraordinarily undeveloped,” she said. It seemed as though scientists were figuratively hunting in the dark for answers. “People were focused on models of just two classes of , rather than a much broader array of possibilities.”

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