
Aquaporin Water Channels: From Atomic Structure to Malaria
Aquaporin (AQP) water channel proteins enable high water permeability of certain biological membranes. Discovered in human red cells but expressed in multiple tissues, AQP1 has been thoroughly characterized and its atomic structure is known. Expr....
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Widen Your Scope by Extracurricular Activities: My Example
Some observers might think that fierce scientific competition borders on a rat race. According to Wikipedia: "A rat race is an endless, self-defeating, or pointless pursuit. It conjures up the image of the futile efforts of a lab rat trying to es....
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Cultural Values of Scientific Knowledge
The acquisition of scientific knowledge largely depends on the availability of appropriate research approaches and methodologies. Novel scientific knowledge represents cultural values. On the one hand, it enriches our world-view with impacts on o....
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Proteases and Their Control in Health and Disease
Proteolytic enzymes catalyse a very simple chemical reaction, the hydrolytic cleavage of a peptide bond. Nevertheless, they constitute a most diverse and numerous lineage of proteins. The reason lies in their role as components of many regulatory....
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Four Horsemen of the 21st Century Apocalypse
The ‘Common Sense’ that is needed to survive does not necessarily provide correct answers to the way the Universe works. Science is actually not that old, it really only started in about the 16th Century and was a byproduct of ‘The Enlightenm....
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The Ubiquitin System
The selective degradation of many short-lived proteins in eukaryotic cells is carried out by the ubiquitin-mediated proteolytic system. In this pathway, proteins are targeted for degradation by covalent ligation to ubiquitin, a highly conserved sma....
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What Can We Do with Laser Frequency Combs?
The spectrum of a frequency comb, commonly generated by a mode-locked femtosecond laser consists of several hundred thousand precisely evenly spaced spectral lines. Such laser frequency combs have revolutionized the art measuring the frequency of l....
More details | Watch nowModel Synthesis for Ceramics: Superconductors, Magnets and Others
The discovery of superconductivity in hole doped La2CuO4 was motivated by the interest to find this phenomenon in an oxide. After the discovery near 35 K, copper oxides with transition temperatures of up to 131 K at normal pressure were found, i.e.....
More details | Watch nowThe Energy and Climate Change Challenges and Opportunities
Science and technology has profoundly transformed the world. After giving a few historical examples, beginning with the industrial revolution, I will discuss the challenges, opportunities and necessity for the world to transition to a sustainable e....
More details | Watch nowSuperposition, Entanglement, and Raising Schrödinger’s Cat
In 1935, Erwin Schrödinger, one of the inventors of quantum mechanics, illustrated his discomfort with the theory by pointing out that its extension to the macroscopic world could lead to bizarre situations such as a cat being simultaneously alive a....
More details | Watch nowControlling Photons in a Box and Exploring the Quantum to Classical Boundary
The founders of quantum theory assumed in 'thought experiments' that they were manipulating isolated quantum systems, obeying the counterintuitive laws which they had just discovered. Technological advances have recently turned these virtual experi....
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Powering the Future
Some seeds of what to do in the climate/energy controversy are contained in what will be. In this talk I shall ask everyone to jump over contemporary politics and make a mental journey to a time, several centuries from now, when nobody uses carbon-....
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