Science

Thu Apr 19, 2012 11:39 am » by **Constabul**

All things Science, from the finite to the infinite. A series of discussions and videos talking about the great expansions in knowledge.

Neil deGrasse Tyson: Pluto Files

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Skip intro, 11:30 in.

A Brief History Of Quantum Mechanics

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Quantum Mechanics: The Structure Of Atoms

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Wave Function And Wave-Particle Duality

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Quantum Mechanics: The Uncertainty Principle

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Quantum Mechanics: Properties Of Elementary Particles

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Quantum Entanglement - The Weirdness Of Quantum Mechanics

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The Human Genome

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The DNA Instruction Manual

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Genetic Disorders And Diseases

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The Future Of Genetics

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Moar to come.

Thu Apr 19, 2012 12:21 pm » by **One-23**

Cheers constabul, love this stuff, even if some of it goes straight over my head, still fascinating to watch :flop:

Thu Apr 19, 2012 1:59 pm » by **Evildweeb**

Professor Zapinsky proved that the squid is more intelligent than then housecat when posed with puzzles under similar conditions.

:banana:

Thu Apr 19, 2012 9:28 pm » by **Constabul**

CERN: The Standard Model Of Particle Physics

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First Second Of The Universe

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The Standard Model Explains Force And Matter

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Quarks | Standard Model Of Particle Physics

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Gluons | Standard Model Of Particle Physics

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Electrons, Protons And Neutrons | Standard Model Of Particle Physics

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Photons, Gravitons & Weak Bosons | Standard Model Of Particle Physics

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Neutrinos | Standard Model Of Particle Physics

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'The God Particle': The Higgs Boson

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Fri Apr 20, 2012 12:39 am » by **2020**

Scientists at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge have used light to help push electrons through a classically impenetrable barrier. While quantum tunnelling is at the heart of the peculiar wave nature of particles, this is the first time that it has been controlled by light.

Particles cannot normally pass through walls, but if they are small enough quantum mechanics says that it can happen. This occurs during the production of radioactive decay and in many chemical reactions as well as in scanning tunnelling microscopes.

According to team leader, Professor Jeremy Baumberg, "the trick to telling electrons how to pass through walls, is to now marry them with light".

This marriage is fated because the light is in the form of cavity photons, packets of light trapped to bounce back and forth between mirrors which sandwich the electrons oscillating through their wall.

Research scientist Peter Cristofolini added: "The offspring of this marriage are actually new indivisible particles, made of both light and matter, which disappear through the slab-like walls of semiconductor at will."

One of the features of these new particles, which the team christened 'dipolaritons', is that they are stretched out in a specific direction rather like a bar magnet. And just like magnets, they feel extremely strong forces between each other.

Such strongly interacting particles are behind a whole slew of recent interest from semiconductor physicists who are trying to make condensates, the equivalent of superconductors and superfluids that travel without loss, in semiconductors.

Being in two places at once, these new electronic particles hold the promise of transferring ideas from atomic physics into practical devices, using quantum mechanics visible to the eye.

:nails:

http://phys.org/news/2012-04-physicists-quantum-tunneling.html

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120418135306.htm

Fri Apr 20, 2012 4:37 am » by **Constabul**

@2020

Boundary Between Electronics and Biology Is Blurring: First Proof of Ferroelectricity in Simplest Amino Acid

ScienceDaily (Apr. 19, 2012) — The boundary between electronics and biology is blurring with the first detection by researchers at Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory of ferroelectric properties in an amino acid called glycine. A multi-institutional research team led by Andrei Kholkin of the University of Aveiro, Portugal, used a combination of experiments and modeling to identify and explain the presence of ferroelectricity, a property where materials switch their polarization when an electric field is applied, in the simplest known amino acid -- glycine.

ORNL researchers detected for the first time ferroelectric domains (seen as red stripes) in the simplest known amino acid – glycine. (Credit: Image courtesy of DOE/Oak Ridge National Laboratory)

"The discovery of ferroelectricity opens new pathways to novel classes of bioelectronic logic and memory devices, where polarization switching is used to record and retrieve information in the form of ferroelectric domains," said coauthor and senior scientist at ORNL's Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences (CNMS) Sergei Kalinin.

Although certain biological molecules like glycine are known to be piezoelectric, a phenomenon in which materials respond to pressure by producing electricity, ferroelectricity is relatively rare in the realm of biology. Thus, scientists are still unclear about the potential applications of ferroelectric biomaterials.

"This research helps paves the way toward building memory devices made of molecules that already exist in our bodies," Kholkin said.

For example, making use of the ability to switch polarization through tiny electric fields may help build nanorobots that can swim through human blood. Kalinin cautions that such nanotechnology is still a long way in the future.

"Clearly there is a very long road from studying electromechanical coupling on the molecular level to making a nanomotor that can flow through blood," Kalinin said. "But unless you have a way to make this motor and study it, there will be no second and third steps. Our method can offer an option for quantitative and reproducible study of this electromechanical conversion."

The study, published in Advanced Functional Materials, builds on previous research at ORNL's CNMS, where Kalinin and others are developing new tools such as the piezoresponse force microscopy used in the experimental study of glycine.

"It turns out that piezoresponse force microsopy is perfectly suited to observe the fine details in biological systems at the nanoscale," Kalinin said. "With this type of microscopy, you gain the capability to study electromechanical motion on the level of a single molecule or small number of molecular assemblies. This scale is exactly where interesting things can happen."

Kholkin's lab grew the crystalline samples of glycine that were studied by his team and by the ORNL microscopy group. In addition to the experimental measurements, the team's theorists verified the ferroelectricity with molecular dynamics simulations that explained the mechanisms behind the observed behavior.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 121531.htm

Fri Apr 20, 2012 6:33 am » by **Constabul**

TV as Thin as a Sheet of Paper? Printable Flexible Electronics Just Became Easier With Stable Electrodes

Imagine owning a television with the thickness and weight of a sheet of paper. It will be possible, someday, thanks to the growing industry of printed electronics. The process, which allows manufacturers to literally print or roll materials onto surfaces to produce an electronically functional device, is already used in organic solar cells and organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) that form the displays of cellphones.
Although this emerging technology is expected to grow by tens of billions of dollars over the next 10 years, one challenge is in manufacturing at low cost in ambient conditions. In order to create light or energy by injecting or collecting electrons, printed electronics require conductors, usually calcium, magnesium or lithium, with a low-work function. These metals are chemically very reactive. They oxidize and stop working if exposed to oxygen and moisture. This is why electronics in solar cells and TVs, for example, must be covered with a rigid, thick barrier such as glass or expensive encapsulation layers.

After introducing what appears to be a universal technique to reduce the work function of a conductor in printable electronics, a team led by Georgia Tech's Bernard Kippelen has developed the first completely plastic solar cell. (Credit: Virginie Drujon-Kippelen)

However, in new findings published in the journal Science, Georgia Tech researchers have introduced what appears to be a universal technique to reduce the work function of a conductor. They spread a very thin layer of a polymer, approximately one to 10 nanometers thick, on the conductor's surface to create a strong surface dipole. The interaction turns air-stable conductors into efficient, low-work function electrodes.

The commercially available polymers can be easily processed from dilute solutions in solvents such as water and methoxyethanol.

"These polymers are inexpensive, environmentally friendly and compatible with existent roll-to-roll mass production techniques," said Bernard Kippelen, director of Georgia Tech's Center for Organic Photonics and Electronics (COPE). "Replacing the reactive metals with stable conductors, including conducting polymers, completely changes the requirements of how electronics are manufactured and protected. Their use can pave the way for lower cost and more flexible devices."

To illustrate the new method, Kippelen and his peers evaluated the polymers' performance in organic thin-film transistors and OLEDs. They've also built a prototype: the first-ever, completely plastic solar cell.

"The polymer modifier reduces the work function in a wide range of conductors, including silver, gold and aluminum," noted Seth Marder, associate director of COPE and professor in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry. "The process is also effective in transparent metal-oxides and graphene."

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 143123.htm

Fri Apr 20, 2012 7:00 am » by **Jet17**

Synthetic DNA Created, Evolves on Its Own
"XNA" may help answer basic questions of biology, study says.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news ... e-science/

Christine Dell'Amore

National Geographic News

Published April 19, 2012

Step aside, DNA—new synthetic compounds called XNAs can also store and copy genetic information, a new study says.

And, in a "big advancement," these artificial compounds can also be made to evolve in the lab, according to study co-author John Chaput of the Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University. (See "Evolution vs. Intelligent Design: 6 Bones of Contention.")

Nucleotides, the building blocks of DNA are composed of four bases—A, G, C, and T. Attached to the bases are sugars and phosphates. (Get a genetics overview.)

First, researchers made XNA building blocks to six different genetic systems by replacing the natural sugar component of DNA with one of six different polymers, synthetic chemical compounds.

The team—led by Vitor Pinheiro of the U.K.'s Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology—then evolved enzymes, called polymerases, that can make XNA from DNA, and others that can change XNA back into DNA.

This copying and translating ability allowed for genetic sequences to be copied and passed down again and again—artificial heredity.

Last, the team determined that HNA, one of the six XNA polymers, could respond to selective pressure in a test tube.

As would be expected for DNA, the stressed HNA evolved into different forms.

This shows that "beyond heredity, specific XNAs have the capacity for Darwinian evolution," according to the study, published tomorrow in the journal Science. (Read "Darwin's Legacy" in National Geographic magazine.)

"Thus, heredity and evolution, two hallmarks of life, are not limited to DNA and RNA."

XNA Could Demystify Origins of Life?

All of XNA'S actions are "completely controlled by experimentalists—it's 100 percent unnatural," study co-author Chaput noted.

But such control means that scientists can "use [XNA] to ask very basic questions in biology," such as about the origins of life, Chaput said.

For instance, "it's possible that life didn't begin with DNA and proteins like we see today—it may have begun with something much, much simpler," he said.

A scientist could potentially evolve XNA to discover various functions that would have been important for early life.

Overall, he said, the new discovery is "pretty cool—and very powerful."