A computer program is allowing researchers to accurately simulate protein folding dramatically faster than previous methods.
Understanding the intricacies of protein folding is a crucial step in deciphering the genetic code that serves as the operating system of all living things. Protein misfolding is a critical factor in many diseases, including Alzheimer’s, cystic fibrosis, emphysema, and various cancers. The new computer program will allow scientists to peer deeper into the roots of the diseases.
The researchers describe their simulation of three short proteins using the new technique in the cover story of the current Journal of Chemical Physics.

Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh have demonstrated a monkey controlling an advanced robotic arm by using its thoughts. The experiments were led by Dr. Andrew Schwartz, a professor of neurobiology and involved a high degree of complexity in the robotic arm, the level of control, and the intricacy of the manipulations.

In a feat that is the culmination of two and a half years of tests and adjustments, researchers at the J. Craig Venter Institute inserted artificial genetic material — chemically printed, synthesized, and assembled — into cells that were then able to grow naturally.

“We all had a very good feeling that it was going to work this time,” said Venter Institute synthetic biologist Daniel Gibson, co-author of the study published May 20 in Science. “But we were cautiously optimistic because we had so many let downs following the previous experiments.”

Quantum teleportation is central to the practical realization of quantum communication. Although the first proof-of-principle demonstration was reported in 1997 by the Innsbruck and Rome groups, long-distance teleportation has so far only been realized in fibre with lengths of hundreds of metres. An optical free-space link is highly desirable for extending the transfer distance, because of its low atmospheric absorption for certain ranges of wavelength. By following the Rome scheme, which allows a full Bell-state measurement, we report free-space implementation of quantum teleportation over 16 km. An active feed-forward technique has been developed to enable real-time information transfer. An average fidelity of 89%, well beyond the classical limit of 2/3, is achieved. Our experiment has realized all of the non-local aspects of the original teleportation scheme and is equivalent to it up to a local unitary operation. Our result confirms the feasibility of space-based experiments, and is an important step towards quantum-communication applications on a global scale.

A laser has been used to generate small clouds on demand in lab, and real-world experiments suggest this could be a way to call down rain when it’s needed.

People have experimented with cloud seeding for decades in the hope of boosting rainfall, usually by sprinkling silver iodide crystals into clouds high in the atmosphere.

These crystals encourage large water droplets to form around them, and the droplets then fall as rain – in theory, at least. “The efficiency of this technique is controversial,” says Jérôme Kasparian at the University of Geneva, Switzerland, one member of a research team that think lasers may be a better way to trigger rain on demand.

Kasparian and colleagues have just reported the first successful use of this technique to summon clouds from air both in the lab and in the skies over Berlin, Germany.

Bentham imagined a prison built in the form of a gigantic ring, with cells by their hundreds disposed around its inner wall. In the very middle of the structure’s central void stood the prison’s sole watchtower, atop which he placed a guard shack with 360-degree visibility. How to maintain control over the prisoners with but a single tower and a relatively small cadre of guards? For all its formal ingenuity, Bentham’s real innovation was this: the cells lining the periphery were to be brightly illuminated at all times, while the guard tower itself was never lit. The guards were therefore free to observe activity in any cell, at any moment…while the contrast between their brightly-lit cells and the watchtower’s mute windows meant prisoners could never be certain if the guards were observing them, someone else or no one at all. (In principle, the prison administration could go a step further and achieve the same docilizing results without even staffing the tower. How would the inmates even know? After all, they were, and would remain, literally in the dark.)

What’s the difference between Ubiquitous Computing (“ubicomp”) and Augmented Reality (“AR”)? I hear this question often, and you could replace “augmented reality” in that question with any of the following buzzy paradigms for people-interacting-with-computers: Virtual Reality, Pervasive Computing, Mobile Computing, Wearable Computing, Multi-Device Interaction, Cloud Computing, Intelligent Systems, Ambient Intelligence, Context-Aware Computing, Adaptive Systems, Machine Perception, Social Computing, Smart Environments, Everyware, and so on.