Do Charles Darwin’s ideas on sexual selection hold up today? The biologist was very much of his time, which meant it may have shaped his understanding of evolutionary biology.
Category: biological – Page 159
Air Protein creates fake steak from CO2 that replicates taste and texture of meat
California-based startup Air Protein has developed a meat alternative called Air Meat, which is made using microbes that turn recycled carbon dioxide into protein.
Described by Air Protein as “the meat of tomorrow”, Air Meat was designed to replicate the flavour and texture of real meat products such as steak.
An ocean in your brain: Interacting brain waves key to how we process information
For years, the brain has been thought of as a biological computer that processes information through traditional circuits, whereby data zips straight from one cell to another. While that model is still accurate, a new study led by Salk Professor Thomas Albright and Staff Scientist Sergei Gepshtein shows that there’s also a second, very different way that the brain parses information: through the interactions of waves of neural activity. The findings, published in Science Advances on April 22, 2022, help researchers better understand how the brain processes information.
“We now have a new understanding of how the computational machinery of the brain is working,” says Albright, the Conrad T. Prebys Chair in Vision Research and director of Salk’s Vision Center Laboratory. “The model helps explain how the brain’s underlying state can change, affecting people’s attention, focus, or ability to process information.”
Researchers have long known that waves of electrical activity exist in the brain, both during sleep and wakefulness. But the underlying theories as to how the brain processes information—particularly sensory information, like the sight of a light or the sound of a bell—have revolved around information being detected by specialized brain cells and then shuttled from one neuron to the next like a relay.
Topological synchronization of chaotic systems
Can we find order in chaos? Physicists have shown, for the first time that chaotic systems can synchronize due to stable structures that emerge from chaotic activity. These structures are known as fractals, shapes with patterns which repeat over and over again in different scales of the shape. As chaotic systems are being coupled, the fractal structures of the different systems will start to assimilate with each other, taking the same form, causing the systems to synchronize.
If the systems are strongly coupled, the fractal structures of the two systems will eventually become identical, causing complete synchronization between the systems. These findings help us understand how synchronization and self-organization can emerge from systems that didn’t have these properties to begin with, like chaotic systems and biological systems.
One of the biggest challenges today in physics is to understand chaotic systems. Chaos, in physics, has a very specific meaning. Chaotic systems behave like random systems. Although they follow deterministic laws, their dynamics still will change erratically. Because of the well-known “butterfly effect” their future behavior is unpredictable (like the weather system, for example).
Interacting Brain Waves Key to How We Process Information
Summary: Study reveals the different ways the brain parses information through interactions of waves of neural activity.
Source: Salk Institute.
For years, the brain has been thought of as a biological computer that processes information through traditional circuits, whereby data zips straight from one cell to another. While that model is still accurate, a new study led by Salk Professor Thomas Albright and Staff Scientist Sergei Gepshtein shows that there’s also a second, very different way that the brain parses information: through the interactions of waves of neural activity.
A biological motor that consumes chiral fuel drives rotation in one direction around a single covalent bond
Bart Blommaertsif it helps. But don’t cut internet cables with that thing!!
Andreas StürmerFinally. Is it going to be a rail or car tunnel?
Eric KlienAdmin.
Andreas Stürmer Rail.
Jose Ruben Rodriguez Fuentes shared a link.
A team of researchers at the University of Manchester has created a molecular motor that consumes chiral fuel to drive rotation around a single covalent bond. In their paper published in the journal Nature, the group describes their work in developing a chemically powered directionally rotating motor and why they believe their efforts will result in similar systems being developed with other materials.
Molecular robots that work cooperatively in swarms
In a global first, scientists have demonstrated that molecular robots are able to accomplish cargo delivery by employing a strategy of swarming, achieving a transport efficiency five times greater than that of single robots.
Swarm robotics is a new discipline, inspired by the cooperative behavior of living organisms, that focuses on the fabrication of robots and their utilization in swarms to accomplish complex tasks. A swarm is an orderly collective behavior of multiple individuals. Macro-scale swarm robots have been developed and employed for a variety of applications, such as transporting and accumulating cargo, forming shapes, and building complex structures.
A team of researchers, led by Dr. Mousumi Akter and Associate Professor Akira Kakugo from the Faculty of Science at Hokkaido University, has succeeded in developing the world’s first working micro-sized machines utilizing the advantages of swarming. The findings were published in the journal Science Robotics. The team included Assistant Professor Daisuke Inoue, Kyushu University; Professor Henry Hess, Columbia University; Professor Hiroyuki Asanuma, Nagoya University; and Professor Akinori Kuzuya, Kansai University.
Microfossils may be evidence life began ‘very quickly’ after Earth formed
Scientists believe they have found evidence of microbes that were thriving near hydrothermal vents on Earth’s surface just 300m years after the planet formed – the strongest evidence yet that life began far earlier than is widely assumed.
If confirmed, it would suggest the conditions necessary for the emergence of life are relatively basic.
New Photovoltaic Cell Makes Electricity From Thermal Radiation
A new PV module makes electricity from thermal radiation. Imagine that.
The electromagnetic spectrum is comprised of thousands upon thousands of frequencies. Sound and light are all part of the spectrum, as are the frequencies that make radio and television broadcasts possible. Today’s solar panels harvest light waves from a small part of the EM spectrum and turn them into electricity, but there are many other frequencies like thermal radiation that could someday stimulate new kinds of photovoltaic cells to generate electricity as well.
Researchers at Stanford have recently published a study in the journal Applied Physics Letters that describes a new type of cell that converts thermal radiation into electricity. When the sun goes down, living organisms and physical structures like buildings, road, and sidewalks radiate heat back into the atmosphere. We call this radiational cooling and it is those electromagnetic waves the Stanford researchers say can be put to work making electricity.