Spiders spin extremely thin sheets to help them move through air Contrary to the belief that spiders “fly” with the help of just a couple of fibers, a new study shows they make triangular sheets out of ballooning fibers that are almost invisible. The sheets are largely made from silk only 200 nanometers thick. New […]
Condensed matter • Nanotechnology • Physics • Quantum physics • Theoretical physics
The electronic wave function of an n-electron molecule depends on 3n spatial and n spin coordinates. In a sense, the wave function of a many-electron molecule contains more information than is needed and is lacking in direct physical significance. This has prompted the search for methods that involve fewer variables than the wave function and […]
Lipinski’s “rule of five”, 1 very well known by medicinal chemists, has been defined as a set of rules, based on the number 5 -hence its name-, to evaluate the “drug-likeness” of a given molecule. The rules are: – The molecule should have no more than 5 H-bond donors and 10 H-bond acceptors (i.e. N […]
The most effective interventions in people with autism are based on a personal work by specialized professionals and these therapies, when well designed and well done, achieve a constant improvement in different areas such as social communication, the presence of stereotypes and other atypical behaviors characteristic of autism. However, person-to-person therapies are by their very […]
Cavers find new connections in massive Sistema Huautla Mexico’s Sistema Huautla, one of the world’s deepest cave systems, is larger than previously thought. A group of cavers and researchers found new connections while trapped by flooding inside Sistema Huautla. National Geographic Number of new flu strains found in dogs in China Three hybrid canine flu […]
Condensed matter • Materials • Physics • Theoretical physics
Topological insulators are materials with special universal properties, which are protected against perturbations. Such properties are theoretically described by topology, a branch of mathematics concerned with the properties of geometrical objects that are unchanged by continuous deformations. Concretely, topological insulators are electronic materials that have a bulk band gap like an ordinary insulator but have […]
Applicability or some usefulness is the mantra of new I+D research. However, in trying to obtain results or confirm an application we often forget to check or study the conditions and methods used. One example could be the different methodologies that we can be used to define antioxidant capacity. An antioxidant is a molecule that […]
After years of watching manufacturing plants relocating offshore, hundreds of thousands of jobs gone and deindustrialization creeping up, policy makers and investors from high-income countries are finally willing to bring the manufacturing sector back. But they won’t get this done just competing globally for mass, low-cost production; those days are long gone. On the contrary […]
Companion star’s temperature differences help weigh massive pulsar The close proximity of its companion star has helped researchers weigh a huge pulsar in the binary system PSR J2215+5135. Astronomers measured the temperature differences and the Doppler shift on the two sides of the pulsar’s companion star to discover that the pulsar weighs more than twice […]
A class of materials of utmost fundamental and applied interest is that of semicrystalline polymers. Actually, all solid synthetic polymers are, in general, partly crystalline and partly amorphous. The degree of crystallinity depends on the polymer structure and on how the solid is prepared. Rapid cooling of the molten polymer favors formation of an amorphous […]