Contrary to classical bits, quantum bits can assume two states at the same time: Right and left, yellow and blue, zero and one.
Credit: KIT

Hurricanes, traffic jams, demographic development – to predict the effect of such events, computer simulations are required. Many processes in nature, however, are so complicated that conventional computers fail. Quantum simulators may solve this problem. One of the basic phenomena in nature is the interaction between light and matter in photosynthesis. Physicists of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) have now made a big step towards quantum mechanics understanding of plant metabolism. This is reported in Nature Communications.

“A quantum simulator is the preliminary stage of a quantum computer...

On Aug. 17, 2017, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) and the Virgo Interferometer both detected gravitational waves from the collision between two neutron stars. Within 12 hours observatories had identified the source of the event within the lenticular galaxy NGC 4993, shown in this image gathered with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. The associated stellar flare, a kilonova, is clearly visible in the Hubble observations. This is the first time the optical counterpart of a gravitational wave event was observed. Credit: NASA and ESA. Acknowledgment: A.J. Levan (U. Warwick), N.R. Tanvir (U. Leicester), and A. Fruchter and O. Fox (STScI)

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has observed for the first time the source of a gravitational wave, created by the merger...

A space-filling model of the solved protein complex responsible for the selection of antigens. Credit: AG Tampé

The immune system checks the health of cells by examining a kind of molecular passport. Sometimes, cells present the wrong passport, which can lead to autoimmune diseases, chronic inflammations or cancer. Scientists of the Goethe University Frankfurt explain the process how this happens in the new issue of the journal Science.

Most cells provide the T cells of the adaptive immune system with information about their condition by presenting selected components of their interior (called antigens) on their surface. If these components include fragments of viruses or altered cell components, the affected cell is eliminated. The selection of the antigens is essential in this process...

This is Lori McMahon and Luke Stewart. Credit: UAB

These results in animal models, represent a potentially novel therapeutic target for the treatment of seizure disorders. University of Alabama at Birmingham researchers have found that inducing a biochemical alteration in brain proteins via the dietary supplement glucosamine was able to rapidly dampen that pathological hyperexcitability in rat and mouse models. These results represent a potentially novel therapeutic target for the treatment of seizure disorders, and they show the need to better understand the physiology underlying these neural and brain circuit changes.

Proteins are the workhorses of living cells, and their activities are tightly and rapidly regulated in responses to changing conditions...