by Dr. Olivier Alirol, Resonance Science Foundation Research Scientist

Circulation of electrons is essential in electronics and also for living organisms. While in our computers, we use semiconductor made mainly of silicon crystal, Nature has found a more effective way: proteins. Protein structures facilitate long-range electron-transfer. Scientists have shown that structural features of proteins have elements that facilitate electronic conductivity.

This phenomenon is largely due to the chiral-induced spin selectivity (CISS). It causes in particular the reduction of the elastic backscattering in electron-transfer through chiral molecules. In fact, electron transmission shows that ordered films of chiral organic molecules act as electron spin filters. The CISS effect gives us important insight for spin-selective processes in biology and allows the use of chiral molecules in spintronics applications.

The electron-transfer process allows for the transfer of energy and information...

^{By Dr. Inés Urdaneta / Physicist at Resonance Science Foundation}

How does it looks like, how does it sounds like, how would it feel? We perceive our reality through our senses: sight, smell, touch, hearing, taste. We usually don’t include the sense of perceiving how it would feel to be someone else… the sense of empathy. Most of our education is focused on the standard view that everyone shares the same senses, hence, they perceive almost the same. But even if we had the same senses, do they perceive the same? Discrimination arrives when we disregard the differences by assuming we all do.

In the USA alone there are approximately 11 million people with serious hearing problems. It is estimated to be 360 million around the globe. Astronomers at the University of California, Riverside, Gillian Wilson and Mario De Leo-Winkler (now director of the National System of Researchers SNI of Mexico), have teamed with teachers at the California School for the Deaf, Riverside...

^{By Dr. Inés Urdaneta / Physicist at Resonance Science Foundation}

After a two years analysis on the emission spectra from a 2016 X-ray transient outburst in the black hole system U4 1630-47, obtained by three different independent space missions; Chandra/HEG, AstroSat and MAXI, the leader of the project Dr. Mayukh Pahari and collaborators could determine the spinning and mass of the BH. The estimated spinning rate is 92-95% the speed of light, with a mass of 5-10 M (million solar masses).

Fig 1 below shows the initial signals detected by the MAXI missions. These spectra are further analyzed, decomposed and fitted in order to obtain the final results published here.

Fig.1: 2016 X-ray outburst of 4U 1630–47 as observed by MAXI and Swift/BAT.

With the independent modeling of the broadband data spectra obtained by the three missions, and using the Markov chain Monte Carlo simulations on fitted spectral parameters, they find a range of the black hole spin parameter depicted...

By Dr. Amira Val Baker, Resonance Science Foundation Research Scientist

The Earth’s magnetic field appears to be shifting and geologists don’t know why.

Like most spinning systems, such as stars and planets, the Earth’s magnetic field is assumed to be generated through the motion of electrically conducting fluids – such as a liquid iron core as is thought to be the case for the Earth. All being well, in a perfect idealized ‘physics’ world, the magnetic field would align with the axis of spin. However, the reality is that the Earth’s magnetic field is aligned at an 11-degree angle to the spin axis, hovering somewhere over Canada. The exact location is variable and over the last 180 years the magnetic north pole has been migrating northwestward with movements of up to 25 miles per year.

Variation of the poles is normal and, in some cases, can result in complete reversal of the poles. This can be seen in the magnetic fingerprints stored in...

by Johanna Deinert, Resonance Science Foundation Research Scientist

The year draws to a close and we have approached once again the astronomical marker of change, the Winter Solstice of 2018. The northern parts of the world are at their darkest times. Depending on the latitude you are located, the angle of the sunrays decline until in the arctic region Polar Night completely deprives the living beings from the much needed sunlight. Some animals like hedgehogs therefore slow down their metabolism to go into hibernation, even in the temperate zone. The aim of this process is to minimize the need of Adenosin-Triphosphate (ATP), which the Mitochondria constantly recycle from Adenosin-Diphosphate (ADP). The energetic potential of sugar and fatty acids is transferred by a process known as cellular respiration. The Phosphate bond in these Molecules – Adenosine as Nucleic-Acid is bound to either three (ATP) or two (ADP) Phospate-Groups – was...

Article by Dr. Johanna Deinert, Resonance Science Foundation Research Scientist

Researchers from University of California – Berkeley found two clocks in our brains with different functions. The paper authored by Assaf Breska and Richard B. Ivry from the Departement of Psychology was published lately in PNAS. There are different locations in the reptilian parts of our brain (the brainstem) where we process present and anticipative time. As well as our sense of orientation in space of the body, our orientation in time is processed by the cerebellum. The anticipatory part is processed in the basal ganglia, meaning the most advanced system of the reptilian brain and the connection to the higher operative systems of the grey matter. One of these basal ganglia is the Thalamus, referred to as “the gate to consciousness” by medical textbooks. It is as well the generator of the brainwave frequencies, hence our conscious activity...

Article by William Brown, Resonance Science Foundation Research Scientist

Barely living “zombie” bacteria and other forms of life constitute an immense amount of carbon deep within Earth’s subsurface—245 to 385 times greater than the carbon mass of all humans on the surface, according to scientists nearing the end of a 10-year international collaboration to reveal Earth’s innermost secrets.

By: Terry Collins & Katie Pratt; Deep Carbon Observatory

Deep Carbon Observatory collaborators, exploring the ‘Galapagos of the deep,’ add to what’s known, unknown, and unknowable about Earth’s most pristine ecosystem

Bacteria, archaea, and other microbes—some of them zombies—exist even in deepest known subsurface, and they’re weirder than their surface counterparts

~70% of Earth’s bacteria and archaea live underground

Earth’s deep life suggests microbes might inhabit the subsurface of other planets

Article by Dr. Amira Val Baker, Resonance Science Foundation Research Scientist

Precise measurements of the electron dipole moment (EDM) may help solve unanswered questions about our universe.

The standard model of particle physics accurately describes all particle physics measurements made so far in the laboratory. However, although it aims to describe our observable universe, from the very big to the very small, it currently leaves many questions open for debate. One such question is – why is our Universe predominantly ordinary matter and not anti-matter?

Back in 1967, the Russian scientist Andrei Sakharov recognized that a possible reason for this asymmetry could be the occurrence of CP violation – that is the charge (C) and parity (P) combined symmetry is not conserved as expected. Sakharov suggested that matter and anti-matter were present in equal quantities in the early universe and that asymmetry developed with the occurrence of CP violation – most probably...

Article by Dr. Olivier Alirol, Resonance Science Foundation Research Scientist

Quantum physics is the general term for a set of physical approaches born in the 20th century which, like the theory of relativity, marks a break with what is now called classical physics. Thus, the so-called “quantum theory” describes the often non-intuitive behaviors of atoms, photons and other particles – something that classical physics could not do.

Today, we know how to produce, using experimental optic methods, twin photon pairs whose properties are perfectly described by quantum physics. Although composed of two particles, these objects must be considered as a whole, from the moment photons are created to the moment they are detected. This quantum phenomenon is fundamental for example in quantum optics because classical physics does not allow any correlation. It is therefore necessary to deeply understand not only their origin, but above all which external parameters could...

Article by William Brown, Resonance Science Foundation Research Biophysicist 

There is an obvious flaw in the current predominant physics model of the fundamental behavior and nature of the universe: current physics theory is a contentious amalgamation of two separate models that seem to be incompatible in characterizing a couple of important properties, like gravity and time. One of the greatest challenges to unifying the description of the microscale, described by quantum physics, with the macroscale, described by Einsteinian mechanics—is delineating the transition between what is considered non-classical, or quantum behavior, and classical behavior that seems characteristic of the macroscale. If “stuff” behaves differently when it is at molecular scales and below, then two different models are needed to describe the “stuff” that comprises the universe; one for the microscopic scale and the other for the macroscopic.

An interesting turn of events...