While I was at school it was almost a dogma that you’d not get a neuron more than those you were born with. Later, at university we learned that actually there was a region in the human brain, namely the hippocampus (key region for memory formation) where there was indeed adult neurogenesis, that is, formation […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Author: Iker Badiola is an assistant professor in the Department of Cell Biology and Histology, Faculty of Medicine and Nursery, University of Basque Country (UPV/EHU). Colorectal cancer is the third most frequently occurring cancer and a common cause of cancer-related death worldwide. The origin of colorectal cancer is usually a malignant polyp developed in the […]
The scattering of conduction electrons in metals owing to impurities with magnetic moments is known as the Kondo effect, after Jun Kondo, who analysed the phenomenon in 1964. This scattering increases the electrical resistance and has the consequence that, in contrast to ordinary metals, the resistance reaches a minimum as the temperature is lowered and […]
The haploid human genome contains approximately 3,000,000,000 base pairs of DNA packaged into 23 chromosomes. Most cells in the body, except for eggs and sperm, are diploid, with 23 pairs of chromosomes. That makes a total of 6,000,000,000 base pairs of DNA per cell that, if they were to be put in a straight line […]