The concept of vector should be familiar: a quantity for which both magnitude and direction must be stated. This compares with a scalar quantity, where direction is not applicable, like temperature in a precise point. But, what if the magnitude varies with the direction? A vector would be a particular case, with only one direction […]
Until 1932, atoms were considered to consist in positive charges, called protons, located within the atomic nucleus, where the majority of the mass of the atom is concentrated, and negative charges, identified as electrons, surrounding the nucleus to make it electrically neutral. However, in 1932 James Chadwick discovered the neutron, an uncharged particle located at […]
Author: María Girbés Mínguez is a doctoral student at Center for Molecular Neurobiology Hamburg (ZMNH) / UKE (University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf) A recent study published in the journal Cell Systems uncovered that bacterial communities (biofilms) can store complex patterns of information through membrane potentials at the cellular level, in a similar way to neurons. But […]
Urban foxes in UK becoming more doglike Urban red foxes in the UK appear to be evolving to better adapt to urban life, with a shorter, more powerful snout and a smaller brain than their country cousins. They’re also becoming less afraid of humans, and “adapting to life around humans actually primes some animals for […]
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2016 was awarded to Jean-Pierre Sauvage, Fraser Stoddart and Ben Feringa “for the design and synthesis of molecular machines”. Molecular machines are made by one or a few molecules linked together, comprising several hundred atoms. If a molecule can use an energy input to perform a mechanical movement (output) it […]
Humans are not the only animals with a taste for alcohol. It has been described in different animals in the wild, especially mammals, that they do like to eat overripe fermented fruit, and with it experience similar effects to the ones almost all of us are familiar with. It turns out that some mammals cannot […]
The Hodgkin-Huxley model for the generation of the nerve action potential is one of the most successful mathematical models of a complex biological process that has ever been formulated. Alan Hodgkin and Andrew Huxley described the model in 1952 to explain the ionic mechanisms underlying the initiation and propagation of action potentials in the squid […]
Stronger cyclones could intensify global warming The growing intensity of tropical cyclones in the Pacific may be feeding global warming by speeding up some ocean eddies, suppressing others and carrying more heat via the Kuroshio Current. “The collision of these two giant monsters — tropical cyclones and mesoscale eddies — will probably lead to dramatic […]
When we consider the variety of possible wonder applications of plasmonic nanoparticles we usually forget a key aspect: how these laboratory results can be transformed into something really usable in everyday life. For that to occur some not-that-simple problems must be resolved first. For example, plasmonic nanoparticles exhibit excellent light-harvesting properties in the visible spectral […]
Everything is connected. Are you familiar with the butterfly effect? According to this idea small changes could have dramatic consequences. Well, I have been thinking about this lately as one question was forming in my mind: Could it be that the ultimate answer to why I am writing this blog post is intimately related to […]