It’s All About Geometry: Protein Contact Surfaces Hold Key to Cures

jane2007 submitted, created time 11 months 4 days (ucsdnews.ucsd.edu)

For scientists seeking new treatments for diseases like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, geometry is very important. In the atomic-level landscape of proteins, shape determines the all-important function of these molecules of life.

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The mind chip

lifestory submitted, created time 1 year 11 months (www.newscientisttech.com)

It resembles the strung-out entrails of a computer: five circuit boards, connected by an intestinal tangle of wires. A lens peers out at Kwabena Boahen, the creator of the device, from one of the boards, and on a screen nearby the blocky pixels of his face nod and gesture.
Though the chips mounted on these circuit boards are the same sort used to build everything from iPods to supercomputers, that's where the similarity ends. This machine can't run a word processor or let you email, but it can do things most desktop computers find virtually impossible to do in real time: it can see.

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