E-beams tackle E. coli
For over a century milk has been pasteurised by heating it to 65 degrees Celsius for 30 minutes and then rapidly cooling it to below 10 degrees Celsius for storage. The new technique relies on energet...
Electron transfer made easy
Electron transfer in protein results from quantum tunnelling between reduction- oxidation (redox) centres. “There’s a widely accepted idea that electrons get from one redox centre to anoth...
Read article: Magnetic resonance sees the heart beat
Magnetic resonance sees the heart beat
Ultrasound is commonly used to look at the heart, but it is unsuitable for the 10-20% of the population that have breathing difficulties (emphysema) or who are medically obese. In both techniques, pat...
Physics and biology
Many key advances in the biological sciences have been made possible by physics-based techniques. The future of biomedicine depends on collaboration between the two fields
The brain is ‘classical’
Nearly all the quantum models of the brain depend on how long the brain can keep quantum coherence. Penrose argues for example, that microtubles – small hollow cylinders that help cells keep the...
Nanotubes muscle in on ‘smart materials’
The new technique works because the salt water conducts electricity. As the voltage on the tape changes, electrical charge carriers are injected into the nanotubes. These form electrolyte ions near th...
Radiation causes hidden DNA damage
Li-Jun Wu from Columbia University and colleagues from Colorado State University and the Chinese Academy of Sciences used the radiological research accelerator at Columbia to pass precise quantities o...
Physics solves blood vessel mystery
Experiments on the effect have been performed by introducing a compound called angiotensin II into the blood stream of a rat. This compound narrows the diameter of the blood vessels, which increases t...
Tiling theory could make DNA chips a reality
Previous attempts to use DNA as a molecular building block failed because its double helix structure is so flexible. However, Seeman and colleagues realized that if two synthetic DNA chains were place...
New clues to the left-handed origins of life
Fred Hoyle was the first to suggest that organic molecules developed in outer space and then fell to the earth, but it was not until the discovery of large quantities of left-handed amino acids in a m...
