If you shine light of high enough energy on to a metal, electrons will be emitted from the metal.

Transduction is the process by which foreign DNA is introduced into a cell by a virus or viral vector.

Viral vectors are tools commonly used by molecular biologists to deliver genetic material into cells.

Viruses have evolved?

specialized molecular mechanisms

to efficiently

transport their genomes

inside the cells they infect.

Delivery of genes, or other genetic material, by a vector is termed transduction and the infected cells are described as transduced.

A transducer is a device that converts energy from one form to another. Usually a transducer converts a signal in one form of energy to a signal in another.

This nonspecific cation channel opens when illuminated with blue light, depolarizing the cell [4, 6] to trigger action potentials cells with high temporal precision [5]. Since the initial discovery of ChR2, many modifications have been made to refine the kinetic properties.

For example, ChETA, engineered to address limitations of spike fidelity with ChR2, has faster temporal kinetics and can maintain reliable spike precision up to 200 Hz [7].

Halorhodopsins (NpHR), light-gated chloride pumps activated by yellow light, allow for temporally specific hyperpolarization with single spike precision [8–10].

Archaerhodopsin-3 (Arch), a yellow light-activated outward proton pump, is an increasingly popular tool for light-induced hyperpolarization to inhibit cellular activity. Arch recovers spontaneously from inactivation with a much shorter recovery time than NpHRs [11].

Arch currents continue to increase with increasing light intensity, while NpHRs saturate [11]. The increased light sensitivity of the ArchT variant, along with better membrane targeting, allows for improved neural silencing both at cell bodies and terminals [12].

In continuum mechanics, stress is a physical quantity that expresses the internal forces that neighbouring particles of a continuous material exert on each other, while strain is the measure of the deformation of the material.

For example, when a solid vertical bar is supporting an overhead weight, each particle in the bar pushes on the particles immediately below it. When a liquid is in a closed container under pressure, each particle gets pushed against by all the surrounding particles.

The container walls and the pressure-inducing surface (such as a piston) push against them in (Newtonian) reaction.

These macroscopic forces are actually the net result of a very large number of intermolecular forces and collisions between the particles in those molecules. Stress is frequently represented by a lowercase Greek letter sigma (σ).

Residual stresses inside a plastic protractor are revealed by the polarized light.

During a normal pregnancy, oxidative stress enhances antioxidant mechanisms that are capable of reacting by way of enzyme activity and non-enzyme free radical deactivators. However, pregnancy is also a state in which this adaptation and balance may be easily disrupted.

There is strong evidence that a chronicin flammatory reaction combined with the presence of a local oxidizing environment may play a vital role in the etiology and development of complications during pregnancy.

In late pregnancy, damage to DNA (especially when it is caused by oxidative stress) is associated with pre-eclampsia(PE), intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR), and the death of mothers in developing countries; it largely determines pregnancy – related susceptibility to diseases

The referential values of ROS and NOS and their minimal and safe concentrations or physiologically beneficial concentrations are yet to be determined.

The measurement of oxidative stress in vivo is perceived as controversial,

as the sen-sitivity and specificity of various oxidative stress markers is unknown.. .

November is here, and that means a massive shift is coming. And by "massive" I am of course referring to the redefinition of the kilogram unit of mass that the world has been building up to for more than 100 years. Let me explain:

1/ I've had an unhealthy fascination with metrology (the study of measurement) ever since my 2nd year as a physics major when I took a class devoted to duplicating historic physics experiments, so please indulge me for going into heavy detail (get it?) about the kilogram.

2/ So what actually *defines* a unit of measurement? If you're American, you probably know a mile is 5280 feet and a foot is 12 inches and an inch is 2.54 centimeters etc. But where does this chain of definitions end? Is it turtles all the way down?

3/ It's actually not! For all units (even the imperial units used in America) the answers all end with the Système International (SI) unit definitions established and maintained for over 100 years by the Bureau International des Poids et Mesures (BIMP) in France.

4/ At the base of this tower are the SI base units. Just 7 SI base units define every other unit in existence. They are:

Kilogram, kg (mass)
Meter, m (distance)
Second, s (time)
Kelvin, K (temp)
Ampere, A (electric current)
Candela, cd (luminous intensity)
Mole, mol (quantity)

In a number of Sunday papers:
Scientific advisers said it was “hard to see” when the restrictions would end as new variants continued to emerge, delivering a potentially devastating blow to the travel industry. The prime minister said that after progress with vaccinations...

...”what we don’t want to see is all that work undone by the arrival of a new variant that is vaccine-busting”.
The idea is planted in people’s mind that this virus is mutating in such a way as to evade prior immunity. This is completely unfounded, certainly as regards immunity..

...gained naturally, after repelling the virus (which well around 99.9% of the population do, fewer, obviously in the very elderly & already ill, more in those younger & well). It’s important to appreciate that upon infection, the human immune system cuts up an infectious...

...agent into short pieces. Each of these short pieces of protein are presented to other cells in the immune system, like an identity parade. Our cells have a truly astonishing range of abilities to recognise different protein structures, and there will be some which recognise...

...each of the pieces of the invader. The cells which recognise a piece are instructed to multiply selectively so that, after a few days to a couple of weeks, our bodies contain large numbers of virus piece specific cells. These have a range of functions. Some make antibodies...

Did you know that all the nuclear bombs we exploded in the '40s-50s-60s have permanently contaminated all the steel the world has produced since then? All steel in the world is divided into two categories: pre-1945 non-contaminated steel, and post-1945 contaminated steel.

How?

Nuclear bombs (including the tests) create a lot of radioisotopes that are not found in nature. For example Cobalt-60 (a radioactive version of Cobalt-59). And since the 1945 Trinity test, these have all dispersed in the atmosphere.

What does this have to do with steel?

The process of manufacturing steel uses atmospheric air (or atmospheric oxygen). Some of the radioisotopes like Cobalt-60 get pulled in too, and as a result, any steel produced after 1945 has embedded in it some of these radioisotopes, sitting there emitting gamma rays.

Why do we care about traces of radioisotopes in steel? When making Geiger counters, or medical devices to check for radioactive contamination, or astronomical instruments, the emissions from the contaminated steel would interfere with the measurements.

So we need pre-1945 steel

Pre-1945 non-contaminated steel is called "low background steel". And when we need it, where do we get it from?

We go, find pre-World-War-II sunken shipwrecks, and then salvage the steel (and lead) from those to build our instruments which need heavy radiation shielding.

Wonder why your Ph.D./Master's application is being rejected?

Here are some insider reasons (from a committee member) that result in such "Love Letters" 👇

- A Short Thread

1) First, you should know that sometimes, an independent reviewer is required (especially in the US) to review applications even after PIs must have selected their candidates. So, even if any bias slips through the PI, the independent reviewer will pick it up.

2) Having said this, there are three major issues that application reviewers/committees often find with your application. These three components make your applications almost challenging to assess.

3) NUMBER ONE - Incomplete Applications

This occurs when you do not upload the requested documents needed to evaluate your file. Think of a candidate that did not send a GRE score when the institution clearly requires it for admission.

4) NUMBER TWO - Error laden Essays

This is particularly interesting because based on reports from this resource person, it is not particularly about how little your experience is but how you communicate it error-free or at least extensively minimized. This gives headache!