Appearance of cystic fibrosis at the molecular scale

Despite remarkable medical advances over the last years, cystic fibrosis remains the most prevalent lethal genetic disease. It is due to mutations in the CFTR protein which is normally required to maintain proper fluid balances ...

Quantum causal loops

Normally, causal influence is assumed to go only one way—from cause to effect—and never back from the effect to the cause—the ringing of a bell does not cause the pressing of the button that triggered it. Now, researchers ...

Quantum interference in time

Since the very beginning of quantum physics, a hundred years ago, it has been known that all particles in the universe fall into two categories: fermions and bosons. For instance, the protons found in atomic nuclei are fermions, ...

A new beat in quantum matter

Oscillatory behaviors are ubiquitous in nature, ranging from the orbits of planets to the periodic motion of a swing. In pure crystalline systems, presenting a perfect spatially-periodic structure, the fundamental laws of ...

Mechanisms responsible for tissue growth

In adult tissue, the number of cells in tissues and organs remains constant, and any new cells produced by cell division need to be compensated by the loss of other cells. In contrast, during postnatal growth, an excess of ...

First mushrooms appeared earlier than previously thought

According to a new study led by Steeve Bonneville from the Université libre de Bruxelles, the first mushrooms evolved on Earth between 715 and 810 million years ago, 300 million years earlier than the scientific community ...

Molecules move faster on a rough terrain

Roughness, the presence of irregularities on a surface, is commonly associated with slower motion and stickiness. This is true at different length scales: at human size (1 meter), it takes longer to walk along a path that ...

2-D topological physics from shaking a 1-D wire

Limiting quantum particles to move in one, two, or three dimensions has led to the observation of many striking phenomena. A prime example is the quantization of the Hall conductance measured in 2-D materials in a strong ...

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