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carbonqubit t1_j4xzyjn wrote

Reply to comment by jojomaniacal in "Origami" DNA Traps Could Keep Large Viruses From Infecting Cells: by engineering structures out of DNA, scientists could potentially prevent larger viruses, like coronaviruses and influenza viruses, from interacting with cells. by filosoful

It looks like they used UV light with a wavelength of 310 nm to directly cross-link thymidine bases. Nearby pyrimidines are converted to cyclobutane pyrimidine dimers, which then pair with the free thyminde bases to build the cone shaped nanostructures.

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carbonqubit t1_j4xql8j wrote

Reply to comment by filosoful in "Origami" DNA Traps Could Keep Large Viruses From Infecting Cells: by engineering structures out of DNA, scientists could potentially prevent larger viruses, like coronaviruses and influenza viruses, from interacting with cells. by filosoful

It looks like one obstacle was piecing them together in high salt environments because they tended to fall apart when placed in ones that mimic biological concentrations. The neat workaround was using UV light to fortify the bonds, which made them resilient to degradation.

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carbonqubit t1_iwyzp4f wrote

Reply to comment by paulfromatlanta in Dark Matter as an Intergalactic Heat Source. Spectra from quasars suggest that intergalactic gas may have been heated by a form of dark matter called dark photons. by MistWeaver80

A dark photon's mass would be generated from the Higgs or Stueckelberg mechanism and be weakly coupled to electrically charged particles through kinetic mixing with a photon.

Dark photons could also be used to explain the difference between the measured and calculated anomalous magnetic moment of the muon that was first detected in 1959 at CERN.

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carbonqubit t1_iw1iwc0 wrote

Reply to Wormholes Could Be Hiding in Plain Sight. Predictions indicate that wormholes and black holes may have nearly identical polarized light spectra, making these astrophysical objects difficult to distinguish. by MistWeaver80

Wormholes are entirely speculative and need exotic matter with negative mass to exist. According to the optical Raychaudhuri's theorem, which describes the motion of nearby matter in curved spacetime, this requires a violation of the averaged null energy condition.

That is, wormholes defy mathematical boundaries of spacetime being positive in any particular region. Importantly, Einstein's field equations can yield unphysical solutions or things like closed timelike curves that create causality paradoxes and other strange phenomena.

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carbonqubit t1_iuggct6 wrote

Reply to comment by 3Dbpb in When the last star dies by trunktunk

Virtual particles are a bit of a misnomer, as they're actually mathematical constructs that arise from perturbation theory and used to resolve certain complexities in quantum mechanics. Said another way, theoreticians use them to help better estimate particle interactions like those between say two electrons.

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carbonqubit t1_iucnpp3 wrote

Reply to comment by TheLorax66 in A Monster Black Hole has Been Found Right in our Backyard (Astronomically Speaking) by joosth3

This is the basis for electron degeneracy in neutron stars due to the Paul exclusion principle. Black holes on the other hand aren't composed of fermions, as the singularity is more like knotted space or a closed timelike curve. They can be defined as having three foundational characteristics: charge, spin, and mass.

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