One of the biggest helpers in our bodies' ongoing efforts to prevent DNA mutations—mutations that can lead to cancer—is actually rather tiny. Electrons, as it turns out, can signal certain proteins to patch up DNA damage. More specifically, the movement of electrons through DNA, traveling between repair proteins bound to the double helix, helps our cells scan for mistakes that regularly arise in our DNA.
Known as DNA charge transport, this biochemical process was first discovered in the early 1990s by Caltech's Jacqueline Barton, the John G. Kirkwood and Arthur A. Noyes Professor of Chemistry, through chemistry experiments using synthetic DNA. Her research group then found evidence that this charge transport chemistry might be utilized by DNA repair proteins in bacteria. Now, a new study shows that DNA charge transport is also at work in human versions of DNA repair...
The properties of water have fascinated scientists for...
Conventionally consciousness is explained as emerging from electrochemical computational activity of cells in complex neural networks. Prima facie, this is a logical theory as sensory inputs can be de-constructed into data / information—computations are what sorts and processes data—and thus the computational activity of the brain produces phenomenal experiences from sensory data. The only problem is that it is not at all clear how a series of computations can produce phenomenal experience, that aspect of consciousness that is the observer—the experiencer of sensations and mental qualia. Undoubtedly, neuromorphic computations can result in machine learning, and this is most likely an integral aspect of the process of synaptic remodeling (plasticity) that occurs in the brain as one learns.
However, the ability to process data input, execute a response, and optimize that response...
Water is one of the most basic molecules we can find in the Universe but this tiny molecule is still keeping some interesting secrets. Its physics could be very surprising. Among its various properties, water can exist in three different states, either as solid ice, liquid water, or vapor gas. But this common knowledge could change in a near future. A team of researchers from Stockholm University in Sweden has found a new liquid form for water with a different density.
Water molecules are polarized and it exists some sort of dynamic network between these molecules. It has been postulated that water’s hydrogen-bonding network can exist in two liquid forms of different densities, namely high-and low-density liquid water. During recent work, these forms were recently simulated but direct experimental evidence was still missing. Furthermore, it was also hypothesized that the...
Writing in the International Journal of Nanotechnology, Dr. Maestro and co-authors explain how the physical and chemical properties of water have been extensively studied for over 100 years and revealed some odd behavior not seen in other substances. In recent research, Dr. Maestro's team was able to identify two distinct phases or states of liquid water. The preliminary findings suggest that the structure of liquid water can strongly influence the stability of proteins and how they are denatured at the crossover temperature, which may well have implications for understanding protein processing in the food industry but also in understanding how disease arises when proteins misfold.
Article: http://www.sci-news.com/physics/two-states-liquid-water-04359.html
There’s an abundant new swath of cosmic real estate that life could call home—and the views would be spectacular. Floating out by themselves in the Milky Way galaxy are perhaps a billion cold brown dwarfs, objects many times as massive as Jupiter but not big enough to ignite as a star. According to a new study, layers of their upper atmospheres sit at temperatures and pressures resembling those on Earth, and could host microbes that surf on thermal updrafts.
Article: http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/12/alien-life-could-thrive-clouds-failed-stars
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