Chirality

Scientists warn of taking mirror molecules too far. Learn more about their benefits and risks.

Asteroid Bennu isn't playing nice with a leading scientific hypothesis.

A new report from 38 biologists calls for a global discussion on "mirror life," cells that perfectly mirror the chirality of our own proteins and DNA.

In 2016, University of Groningen Professor of Organic Chemistry Ben Feringa and two of his colleagues were awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for having created "the world's tiniest machines." Feringa had built a light-driven motor comprising one single molecule. The scientific article describing this molecular motor was published 25 years ago, on 9 September 1999, in Nature.

A new optical phenomenon has been demonstrated by an international team of scientists led by physicists at the University of Bath, with significant potential impact on pharmaceutical science, security, forensics, environmental science, art conservation and medicine.

In physics, nonreciprocity occurs when a system's response varies depending on the direction in which waves or signals are propagating within it. This asymmetry arises from a break in so-called time-reversal symmetry, which essentially means that a system's processes observed as they evolve over time will be different compared to those processes observed on rewind.

Helicenes are organic molecules that gained widespread popularity due to their unique helical π-conjugated molecular structure, where the benzene rings are ortho-fused, resulting in excellent chiroptical properties such as circularly polarized luminescence (CPL). The ability to act as a CPL emitter makes helicenes ideal for a wide range of next-generation optoelectronic applications, such as optical information…

Deep-learning methods have revolutionized protein structure prediction and design but are presently limited to protein-only systems. We describe RoseTTAFold All-Atom (RFAA), which combines a residue-based representation of amino acids and DNA bases with ...

A groundbreaking experiment created a field so strong, it could dwarf a neutron star's grip.

Artificially-engineered chiral materials with exceptional light-manipulating capabilities show significantly-enhanced chiroptical response and capability of light manipulation, which have emerged as a promising chiral platform for applications in biosensing, catalysis, and photonics.

The muon is a subatomic particle that resembles an electron but is 200 times heavier. It interacts with nuclei through the weak force, one of the four fundamental forces in the universe. When a muon binds with a deuteron (composed of one proton and one neutron), it forms a system with two neutrons. This process is analogous to proton-proton fusion, where two protons combine to form a deuteron.

National University of Singapore (NUS) physicists have developed a technique to precisely control the alignment of supermoiré lattices by using a set of golden rules, paving the way for the advancement of next generation moiré quantum matter.

One of the central challenges for synthetic chemists is to impose control over free radicals. Highly reactive molecules with an unpaired electron, free radicals, may be familiar to you; these are the type of molecules we take antioxidant supplements for, in an effort to tame oxidative stress.

We interact with bits and bytes everyday—whether that's through sending a text message or receiving an email.

Experiments suggest magnetic materials skewed early biomolecules

By measuring inflated helium nuclei, physicists have challenged our best understanding of the force that binds protons and neutrons.

Article URL: https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/break-out-purple-carrots Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36059437 Points: 1 # Comments: 0

Digital displays comprising organic materials have brought about a new era in consumer electronics, helping to mass produce brighter screens that hold numerous advantages over those made of regular crystalline materials. These organic light-emitting diodes, or OLEDs, can, for example, enable the manufacture of foldable phones that double their screen size when opened.

The QCD vacuum (i.e., the ground state of vacuum in the quantum chromodynamics regime) is theoretically characterized by the presence of non-zero expectation values of condensates, such as gluons and quark–antiquark pairs. Instead of being associated with a lack of particles and interactions in an empty space, physics theory regards this state as filled with the so-called condensates, which have the same quantum…

Self-limited assembly of 'imperfect' chiral nanoparticles enables formation of bowtie-shaped microparticles with size monodispersity and continuously variable chirality to be used for printing photonically active metasurfaces.