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protein folding as a game online

Some of us spend enough time playing with computer. This coupled with the human ability to solve puzzles could be used to help science: on the website fold.it , protein folding has become a game in which the highest score for the state of lowest protein energy. The player who finds the structure that is closer to its optimal structure of the protein takes the most points and win well. Since there are many who are playing, and all of them now are co-authors of a recent publication in the journal Nature describing the scientific game online Foldit.

Proteins are biomolecules that sustain life functioning of all organisms. Enzymes and hormones, for example, belong to the group of proteins. Hemoglobin, the blood that carries oxygen is too, such as collagen. The function of a protein in a body as our body depends on its shape and structure. This structure is usually quite complicated and difficult to predict. But without knowing the structure, one can not know how the biomolecule. Hence the interest in solving the structure of a protein. Learn how to predict a structure, for example, may be useful in the development and synthesis of new drugs.

In recent years, the use of computers has become very popular for studying protein structure. Given to a program based on a structure of a protein and it tries, based on various chemical and physical rules, search for other structures better. It is a slow process and does not always give satisfactory results. Alternatively, a group of molecular biologists take advantage of our affinity for the game and our ability to solve puzzles. Foldit In the game, the player is confronted with the structure of a protein and have to find another better structure. Bending, folding, twisting, and other movements through parts of the molecule are obtained several protein structures of different energies. The highest score corresponds to the best structure, ie the lowest energy.

turns out that in many cases the structures found players better than computer programs. Sometimes, to reach a new lower energy structure, must pass through structures with very high energies. For a human player does not mean no problem if he thinks that the structure where you want to reach will have a lower energy than the first. These types of software, on the other hand, are not scheduled to undergo high-energy structures. This will not make any major changes in the structure and thus find the optimal structure.

Foldit is a prototype of how to use the tremendous capacity Science and human progress. Besides scientist at universities and other research institutions, forming a kind of scientific citizen, the amateur interested in contributing what they can. Playful, yet learning, supports and contributes to the research process. They conclude: "Our results indicate that scientific progress is possible if you can channel, even a small fraction of the energy spent playing computer games to scientific discoveries."

Cooper S, Khatib F, Treuille A, Barber J, Lee J, Beenen M, Leaver-Fay A, Baker D, Popović Z, & Players F (2010). Predicting Protein Structures with a multiplayer online game. Nature, 466 (7307), 756-60 PMID: 20686574

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face of the moon

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) is a year orbiting the moon. Is a satellite that takes images of the surface of the Moon and, among other things, measure its temperature. And you can find the first images in the website of NASA:

found a place in the Hermite crater where it only -248 ° C, which appears to be the lowest temperature ever measured in our solar system:

Credit: NASA / Goddard / University of California, Los Angeles

also took pictures on the side of the Moon never seen from Earth. In this image, the color indicates the elevation / depression of the lunar surface. Red means high, blue low. The highest point rises over 6,000 meters and lowest point is 6,000 meters below the surface. In comparison, due to their different diameters, a mountain of 6,000 meters on the moon would be one of 22,000 meters on Earth. Only Mount Everest is about 9,000 meters.

Credit: NASA / Goddard

Mountains on the Moon were formed by tectonic movement as on Earth, a process that takes millions of years. On the Moon, asteroid impacts earth move so much in just a few seconds, enough to form peaks and elevations that have nothing to envy to the mountains on Earth.

Credit: NASA / Goddard / Arizona State University

On the other hand, the LRO observed the landing of Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong, where and Buzz Aldrin were the first humans to set foot on soil alien. You can see the landing site where a portion of the lander was left behind. Also are the footprints of the astronauts and the remains of his team.

Credit: NASA / Goddard / Arizona State University

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the proton size

The proton is a tiny particle with a neutron to form the nucleus of atoms. It turns out that these protons are smaller than previously thought. New measures of the Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland as the radius of the proton give a value of 0.84184 femtómetros (an equivalent to a milbillónesima femtómetro of a meter), 4% smaller than previous measured values. (For comparison, the thickness of a sheet of paper in relation to the radius of the Earth does not matter that the radius of the proton in relation to the thickness of the sheet.) does not seem much but it has important implications for physics. You can imagine how extremely difficult it is to measure the size of something so tiny.

The experiment to calculate the range consisted of a hydrogen gas in which electrons are exchanged atoms for muons. A muon is a particle very similar to the electron but 200 times heavier. The important thing here is that they have exactly the same load. It can acquire the site of the electron (driving it) in a hydrogen atom is stabilized by electrostatic interaction between the positively charged nucleus and negatively charged muon. Due to the greater weight of the muon orbits - their way of moving in an atom - are altered compared to the electron. And this change in the movement as accurate a measure faciliti.


In an excited atom, the muon is in an orbit with higher energy orbit in part, its preferred state. Eventually decays, this means that the muon orbit pass high to low, driving down the road a photon. The energy of this photon has the same energy as the difference between the two levels. In addition, energy is characteristic for the proton-muon system and depends on the radius of the proton. By detecting the energy of these photons the researchers could calculate the radius of the proton, which turned out to be smaller than they had expected.

Although a difference of only 4 percent of the above measures not enough, has implications for physics. Unfortunately, even the scientists themselves know the origin of this discrepanica. Maybe the theories used is no longer accurate enough and require further adaptation. Or end up not fully understanding the nature of the muon and the way they interact with the proton. This is one of those cases where en un deja más prequntas experiment by challenging them to solve it originally querían.

Pohl, R., Antognini, A., Nez, F., Amaro, F. Biraben, F., Cardoso, J., Covita, D., Dax, A., Dhawan, S. Fernandes , L., Giesen, A., Graf, T., Hänsch, T., Indelicato, P., Julien, L., Kao, C., Knowles, P., Le Bigot, E., Liu, Y. Lopes, J., Ludhova, L., Monteiro, C., Mulhauser, F., Nebel, T., Rabinowitz, P., dos Santos, J., Schaller, L., Schuhmann, K., Schwob, C. , Taqqu, D., Veloso, J., & Kottmann, F. (2010). The size of the proton Nature, 466 (7303), 213-216 DOI: 10.1038/nature09250