But treat your physarum polycephalum well, or it could die.
Category: biological
Designer Microbes Aid Space Exploration Efforts
Synthetic biology offers a toolkit to engineer microbes capable of surviving in outer space and for biomanufacturing materials to support astronauts on long missions.
Scientific breakthrough leads to ‘fluorescent biological qubit’ — it could mean turning your cells into quantum sensors
Fluorescent proteins, which can be found in a variety of marine organisms, absorb light at one wavelength and emit it at another, longer wavelength; this is, for instance, what gives some jellyfish the ability to glow. As such, they are used by biologists to tag cells through the genetic encoding and in the fusing of proteins.
The researchers found that the fluorophore in these proteins, which enables the immittance of light, can be used as qubits due to their ability to have a metastable triplet state. This is where a molecule absorbs light and transitions into an excited state with two of its highest-energy electrons in a parallel spin. This lasts for a brief period before decaying. In quantum mechanical terms, the molecule is in a superposition of multiple states at once until directly observed or disrupted by an external interference.
Evidence of a spin-liquid state emerges in pressurized oxygen
Oxygen, the colorless and odorless gas that is essential to the survival of humans and other living organisms, is estimated to make up around 21% of Earth’s atmosphere. While the primary properties of oxygen are now well understood, the states that can emerge in it at extreme conditions (e.g., at high pressures) are still under investigation.
Researchers at Shanghai Advanced Research in Physical Sciences (SHARPS), the Center for High Pressure Science and Technology Advanced Research in China, the Italian National Institute of Optics of the National Council of Research (CNR-INO), the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility and University Montpellier carried out a study exploring the properties of a high–pressure phase of solid oxygen, known as epsilon oxygen (ε-O2).
Their paper, published in Physical Review Letters, offers the first indirect evidence that a dynamic magnetic state, known as a spin-liquid state, emerges in epsilon oxygen.
Soft ‘NeuroWorm’ electrode allows wireless repositioning and stable neural monitoring
In brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) and other neural implant systems, electrodes serve as the critical interface and are core sensors linking electronic devices with biological nervous systems. Most currently implanted electrodes are static: Once positioned, they remain fixed, sampling neural activity from only a limited region. Over time, they often elicit immune responses, suffer signal degradation, or fail entirely, which has hindered the broader application and transformative potential of BCIs.
In a study published in Nature, a team led by Prof. Liu Zhiyuan, Prof. Xu Tiantian and Assoc. Prof. Han Fei from the Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, along with Prof. Yan Wei from Donghua University, have reported a soft, movable, long-term implantable fiber electrode called “NeuroWorm,” marking a radical shift for bioelectronic interfaces from static operation to dynamic operation and from passive recording to active, intelligent exploration.
The design of NeuroWorm is inspired by the earthworm’s flexible locomotion and segmented sensory system. By employing sophisticated electrode patterning and a rolling technique, the researchers transformed a two-dimensional array on an ultrathin flexible polymer into a tiny fiber approximately 200 micrometers in diameter.
Scientists reveal hidden dynamics of the cell’s smallest structures
Scientists at Feinberg are reshaping scientific understanding of the cell’s tiniest components—structures once thought to be static, now revealed to be dynamic engines of cellular life. As they probe the inner workings of cells, they are not only expanding understanding of cellular processes but also paving the way for novel therapies and diagnostics.
Recent research led by Vladimir Gelfand, Ph.D., the Leslie B. Arey Professor of Cell, Molecular, and Anatomical Sciences, and Sergey Troyanovsky, Ph.D., professor of Dermatology, and of Cell and Developmental Biology, has illuminated new roles for cytoskeletal filaments and intercellular junctions, while a separate study by Brian Mitchell, Ph.D., associate professor of Cell and Developmental Biology, has identified a novel mechanism that protects epithelial cells from damage.
Biohybrid crawlers can be controlled using optogenetic techniques
The body movements performed by humans and other animals are known to be supported by several intricate biological and neural mechanisms. While roboticists have been trying to develop systems that emulate these mechanisms for decades, the processes driving these systems’ motions remain very different.
Researchers at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Northwestern University and other institutes recently developed new biohybrid robots that combine living cells from mice with 3D printed hydrogel structures with wireless optoelectronics.
These robots, presented in a paper published in Science Robotics, have neuromuscular junctions where the neurons can be controlled using optogenetic techniques, emulating the neural mechanisms that support human movements.