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Category: chemistry – Page 246

‘Near-limitless CRISPR therapies’: This drug delivery breakthrough helps gene editing technology infiltrate cells

A team of researchers at Northwestern University has devised a new platform for gene editing that could inform the future application of a near-limitless library of CRISPR-based therapeutics.

Using chemical design and synthesis, the team brought together the Nobel-prize winning technology with therapeutic technology born in their own lab to overcome a critical limitation of CRISPR. Specifically, the groundbreaking work provides a system to deliver the cargo required for generating the gene editing machine known as CRISPR-Cas9. The team developed a way to transform the Cas-9 protein into a spherical nucleic acid (SNA) and load it with critical components as required to access a broad range of tissue and cell types, as well as the intracellular compartments required for gene editing.

These Nootropics May Give Your Brain the Boost It Needs To Function at Max Capacity

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This is not a knock on caffeine by any means. There’s a reason people have been consuming it for thousands of years. It works by blocking the neurotransmitters in the brain that produce drowsiness. This keeps your neurons firing at full speed, which makes you feel awake. And studies show it is very effective at boosting mood. But what if you could do more for your brain than simply tricking it into being awake? What if you could give your brain nutrients that help it work better all the time? Well, with a well-designed nootropics supplement, you can.

Nootropics are often marketed as “smart drugs,” which gives the impression that they’re going to boost your IQ and turn you into a rocket scientist or brain surgeon. But that is not actually the case. Nootropics are simply chemical compounds that help create the biological conditions necessary for optimal brain function. They include things like amino acids, vitamins, minerals, nutrients, and even stimulants such as caffeine. Some of these compounds serve as fuel for cognition. Others modulate various processes involved in neurotransmission.

Changing direction: Research team discovers switchable electronic chirality in an achiral Kagome superconductor

An international research team led by the Department of Microstructured Quantum Matter at the MPSD reports the first observation of switchable chiral transport in a structurally achiral crystal, the Kagome superconductor CsV3Sb5. Their work has been published in Nature.

Whether or not an object is indistinguishable from its mirror image has important consequences for its physical behavior. Say you watch a basketball player in a mirror. The ball, the player and their surroundings are, at first glance, just the same in the mirror as in real life. But if observed closely, some details are different. The ball in the player’s now appears in their left hand in the mirror. While the mirror image still shows the same hand, it has clearly changed from a left to a right hand or vice versa. Many other physical objects also have that differ in a key aspect, just like hands, which is why scientists call them handed or chiral (from Greek χϵρι = hand). Others, like the ball, cannot be distinguished from their mirror image, which makes them achiral.

Chirality is one of the most fundamental geometric properties and plays a special role in biology, chemistry and physics. It can cause surprising effects: One version of the carvone molecule, for example, produces a spearmint smell but its chiral—mirrored—equivalent smells of caraway.

Scientists Uncover How to Reverse Aging

Scientists have successfully increased the lifespan of animals and there are first studies which describe how we might reverse aging. So how could we one day rever aging?

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In the 70s, scientists observed that cells only grow for a limited amount of days in the laboratory (Hayflick limit). Over the years, so-called hallmarks of aging have been uncovered. These hallmarks of aging govern how our cells age and we could try to slow dem down to “reverse aging”.
The first hallmark of aging is mutation. We can acquire mutations by being exposed to UV radiation or certain chemicals or through cell division. Cell divsion also leads to a second hallmark of aging (telomere attrition). Furthermore, our mitochondria start to work less as quality checks do not work properly anymore.
The hallmarks of aging are tightly linked to epigenetics. Epigenetics means that we have mechanisms (DNA methylation, histone modifications) which regulate the activity of genes. Epigenetics governs the development of embryonic stem cells into cells of our body but also impact aging. The loss of mitochondria for example is linked to dysfunctional epigenetic layers. As we age, at least three epigenetic modifications namely H4K16 acetylation, H3K4 trimethylation, or H4K20 trimethylation acumulate. The thing is that epigenetics is reversible… so can we also reverse aging?
Diets have been shown to slow down (and reverse aging to a small degree). Cells also show less damages in their DNA and we find higher levels of proteins which are found in “young cells. The activity of mitochondria is also increased if we undergo caloric restriction. Diets also impact the production of sirtuins which increase the lifespan and reverse aging. Different compounts (such as NMN and remodelin) have been shown to improve the epigenetic landscape which might have an effect on reversing aging. Exercise also might help to reverse aging as it helps to increase the activity of mitochondria. Meditation and having less stress also helps to increase the lengths of telomeres which might help to reverse aging. All in all studies suggests that some hallmarks of aging can be reversed so lets see where that goes!

0:00–0:46 Intro.
0:46–3:53 Hallmarks of Aging.
3:53–6:38 Epigenetics Controls Genes.
6:38–8:45 Reversing Aging: what is known.
8:45–11:25 Reversing Aging through Diets & Sports.
11:25–12:13 My Opinion.

References:

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What does space smell like? Expert recreates 4 aromas from astronaut accounts

From raspberry notes to rum and nail polish ones. Some call it a ‘space party,’ while others say ‘it stinks.’

Doctoral researcher in Astrobiology and professional perfumer, Marina Barcenilla, creates the scents of space based on astrochemistry and reports by astronauts.

Interesting Engineering (IE) report on the range of smells available including which represent the entire journey around Earth’s orbit to the center of the Milky Way. By tapping into the intimate relationship between olfaction (the sense of smell) and memory, the project aims to break communication barriers between science and the public.

Angel_nt/ iStock.

Researchers can also make assumptions about how things might smell in space using various chemicals and elements found on Earth as well as elsewhere in the galaxy.

Researchers develop automatic drawing machine for making paper-based metamaterials

Researchers have developed an automatic drawing machine that uses pens and pencils to draw metamaterials onto paper. They demonstrated the new approach by using it to make three metamaterials that can be used to manipulate the microwave region of the electromagnetic spectrum.

Metamaterials are artificially engineered that derive their properties from patterned microstructures, rather than the chemical composition of the materials themselves. The exact shape, geometry, size, orientation and arrangement of the structures can be used to manipulate in ways that aren’t possible with conventional materials.

“Metamaterials, especially those used as absorbers, generally need to be thin, lightweight, wide and strong, but it isn’t easy to create thin and lightweight devices using traditional substrates,” said research team leader Junming Zhao from Nanjing University in China. “Using paper as the substrate can help meet these requirements while also lending itself to metasurfaces that conform to a surface or that are mechanically reconfigurable.”

Research team develops a theory to improve the energy efficiency of electronic devices

The University of Alicante Quantum Chemistry group has predicted and published the existence of a new natural phenomenon in matter-radiation interaction, which has recently been experimentally confirmed. This finding is the subject of the review that the group’s researcher Juan Carlos Sancho García has submitted to the journal Nature, having been invited to publish in its “News & Views” section.

According to Sancho, his contribution is a successful example of how theory and simulation make it possible to advance and predict phenomena that are later confirmed by experiments, with the corresponding possible impact on the technological advances that populate society and the world today. In particular, the review reports the empirical confirmation of a prediction previously made and published by the UA team using quantum mechanics calculations. This is based on the effect of the “electronic correlation” that occurs strongly in this type of molecules studied, by which it is possible to take advantage of 100% of the energy that is emitted in the form of visible light on any screen.

The researcher explains that each of the pixels of a screen that makes up any device such as mobile phones, tablets, etc. is made up of molecules that emit the three basic colors (red, green, and blue). The battery activates these molecules to emit light () so that they first reach their maximum level of “excitation” and then decay, and it is this loss of energy that results in the emission of color.

Physicists probe ‘astonishing’ morphing properties of honeycomb-like material

A series of buzzing, bee-like “loop-currents” could explain a recently discovered, never-before-seen phenomenon in a type of quantum material. The findings from researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder may one day help engineers to develop new kinds of devices, such as quantum sensors or the quantum equivalent of computer memory storage devices.

The quantum material in question is known by the chemical formula Mn3Si2Te6. But you could also call it “” because its manganese and tellurium atoms form a network of interlocking octahedra that look like the cells in a beehive.

Physicist Gang Cao and his colleagues at CU Boulder synthesized this molecular beehive in their lab in 2020, and they were in for a surprise: Under most circumstances, the material behaved a lot like an insulator. In other words, it didn’t allow electric currents to pass through it easily. When they exposed the honeycomb to magnetic fields in a certain way, however, it suddenly became millions of times less resistant to currents. It was almost as if the material had morphed from rubber into metal.