Category: Biology Philosophy
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Quantum biology, superposition, Parmenides
University of Chicago researchers have created a synthetic compound that mimics the complex quantum dynamics observed in photosynthesis and may enable fundamentally new routes to creating solar-energy technologies. Engineering quantum effects into synthetic light-harvesting devices is not only possible, but also easier than anyone expected, the researchers report in the April 19 edition of Science. The…
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Eye, complex to simple, fallen angels...
Evolution-explains-everything-and-answers-to-all-philosophical-problems skeptics argue that some biological structures, like the brain or the eye, are simply too complex for natural selection to explain. Biologists have proposed various ways that so-called 'irreducibly complex' structures could emerge incrementally over time, bit by bit. But a new study proposes an alternative route. Instead of starting from simpler precursors and…
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Chimp vs. Human child grammar...
A new study from the University of Pennsylvania has shown that children as young as 2 understand basic grammar rules when they first learn to speak and are not simply imitating adults. The study also applied the same statistical analysis on data from one of the most famous animal language-acquisition experiments (Project Nim) and showed…
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Cells moving... So what?!?
With a custom-built 3-D printer, scientists have created networks of water droplets bound together with a cell-like lipid layer. Altering the concentration of chemicals in the droplets prompts water to move from the blue to the yellow part of the network, spurring curving. In that way the cells seem to resemble skin cells functions, "mimicking…
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(disease > symptoms) or (disease < symptoms) ?
Amyloids -- clumps of misfolded proteins found in the brains of people with Alzheimer's disease and other neurodegenerative disorders -- are the quintessential bad boys of neurobiology. They're thought to muck up the seamless workings of the neurons responsible for memory and movement, and researchers around the world have devoted themselves to devising ways of…
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