The overwhelming majority of proteins and other functional molecules in our bodies display a striking molecular characteristic: They can exist in two distinct forms that are mirror images of each other, like your right hand ...
General Physics
May 8, 2012
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New research at Rice University could ultimately show scientists the way to make batches of nanotubes of a single type.
Nanophysics
Dec 6, 2010
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Visiting aliens may be the stuff of legend, but if a scientific team working at the National Institute of Standards and Technology is right, we may be able to find extraterrestrial life even before it leaves ...
General Physics
Apr 22, 2009
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In the tiny world of amino acids and proteins and in the helical shape of DNA, a biological phenomenon abounds.
Bio & Medicine
Feb 2, 2009
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Why is the heart slightly on the left side of the body for most people? Why is DNA almost always a right-handed helix? Same with alpha helices, the building blocks of proteins. Chirality, or handedness, is everywhere in biology, ...
Molecular & Computational biology
Mar 22, 2024
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54
A team of researchers has proposed a new concept for magnet-based memory devices that might revolutionize information storage devices due to their potential for large-scale integration, non-volatility, and high durability.
Condensed Matter
Mar 22, 2024
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32
Researchers from Tokyo Metropolitan University have created a new superconductor with a chiral crystalline structure by mixing two materials, one with superconductivity but no chirality, another with chirality but no superconductivity.
Superconductivity
Feb 5, 2024
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12
In contrast to conventional mirrors, light can be reflected on surfaces known as metasurfaces without changing its polarization. This phenomenon has now been proven by physicists at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg ...
Optics & Photonics
Jan 31, 2024
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19
In nature, organic molecules are either left- or right-handed, but synthesizing molecules with a specific "handedness" in a lab is hard to do. Make a drug or enzyme with the wrong "handedness," and it just won't work. Now ...
Analytical Chemistry
Jan 10, 2024
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100
Hold your hands out in front of you, and no matter how you rotate them, it's impossible to superimpose one over the other. Our hands are a perfect example of chirality—a geometric configuration by which an object cannot ...
Soft Matter
Jan 8, 2024
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