Category: Definitions
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The tower, self-assembly, Self...
A tower which builds itself is absurd, however in the nano world self-assembly is reality. Physicists have investigated how to control the ordering of such self-assembling structures at the nano-scale. Physicists investigated how they can control the ordering of such self-assembling structures and found out how to switch the assembly process on and off. (1)…
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Excitons... Parmenidions... Exciting!
Getting excited can kick a person’s energy to a higher level. At the nanoscale, strange almost-particles called excitons do the same trick. In a crystal, thin film or even some liquids, an incoming particle of light can slam into an electron, bumping it to a higher energy level and leaving a hole at the energy…
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Fungus eating the DNA-determined dream... No peniciline available!
Fungus. Shapeshifters. Difficult to categorize. A problem to taxonomy. Neither animals nor plants. Even member of the same species can have different properties and appearance. Good thing we have the DNA analysis to determine they belong to the same species. (1) But wait a minute. The DNA says they are the same species even though...…
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Innanimate matter? Well, something more than that...
The features of living matter emerge from inanimate matter in simulation. During a research droplets of filamentous material enclosed in a lipid membrane were used as the models of a “simplified” cell used to simulated the spontaneous emergence of cell motility and division - that is, features of living material - in inanimate “objects”. (1)…
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Species, definitions, science. Towards nothing...
An old bat specimen. Re-examined. Is it one species? Or seven species? An analysis of a museum's bones collections seems to discover issues with the categorization of bats in species. (1) The species definition problem is an old one. The definition-of-anything is actually an old problem in general. We all rely on our definitions. And…
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