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MRNA vaccines have to potential to end the COVID19 pandemic. How do they work? Are they safe? And how could they’ve been developed so quickly?

The main idea of mRNA vaccines is to trick our bodies to produce part of a virus. This kickstarts our immune response, without getting us sick. All that’s needed is a part of the virus’s DNA or RNA, packaged into mRNA. Cool!

(mRNA is the technology behind the vaccines from Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna & CureVac)

💡 Follow-up video.

2D form of carbon transforms into a high-temperature superconductor if placed near a Bose-Einstein condensate, say theorists.


Graphene can be made to superconduct by placing it next to a Bose-Einstein condensate – a form of matter in which all the atoms are in the same quantum state. According to the theorists who discovered it, this new type of superconductivity stems from interactions between the electrons in graphene and quasiparticles called “bogolons” in the condensate. If demonstrated experimentally, the work could make it possible to develop new types of hybrid superconducting devices for applications in quantum sensing and quantum computing.

Conventional superconductivity occurs when phonons – quasiparticles that arise from vibrations in a material’s crystal lattice – cause electrons in the material to pair up despite their mutual electromagnetic repulsion. If the material is cooled to sufficiently low temperatures, these paired electrons (known as Cooper pairs) can travel through it without any resistance.

Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs) form when bosons, or particles with integer quantum spin, are cooled until they are all in the same quantum state. Within this special “fifth state of matter”, quasiparticles called Bogoliubov excitations can develop. Named after the Russian physicist Nikolaï Bogoliubov, who was the first to provide a theoretical description of them, these quasiparticles are usually known as bogolons. Ivan Savenko, who led the research at the Institute for Basic Science (IBS) in Korea, explains that bogolons are similar to phonons in the sense that they also serve as mediators for electron-electron attractions.

Astronomers have seen light from BEHIND a black hole for the first time. I explained the discovery and results to my editor, Levi. Congrats to D. Wilkins and the astronomy team!

Tap dat Patreon → https://www.patreon.com/physicsgirl.

Special thank you to our X-Ray tier patrons: Carlos Patricio, David Cichowski, Eddie Sabbah, Fabrice Eap, Gil Chesterton, Isabel Herstek, Margaux Lopez, Matt Kaminski, Michael Schneider, Patrick Olson, Tommy Joseph, Vikram Bhat, Vincent Argiro, wc993219.

http://physicsgirl.org/

Summary: Researchers believe they have found a cause of memory loss in epilepsy patients by recording single neurons in the brain.

Source: Cedars Sinai.

The discovery could offer a way to measure the effectiveness of memory-restoring therapies including medications and deep-brain stimulation. It also could be a step toward recovering lost memory among patients with a variety of brain conditions.

A great beginning, but more research is needed.


While there are treatments for temporarily alleviating the symptoms of dementia, there is currently no cure available. The search is therefore on to identify lifestyle factors, such as diet, that can reduce individuals’ risk of developing the condition.

Previous research into possible links between eating foods rich in flavonoids and reduced risk of cognitive decline later in life has been inconclusive, however.

If you’re wondering just how advanced artificial intelligence (AI) systems are getting, then know this: the US military is testing an experimental AI network tasked with identifying likely future events worthy of closer attention, and days before they occur.

The series of tests are called the Global Information Dominance Experiments (GIDE), and they combine data from a huge variety of sources, including satellite imagery, intelligence reports, sensors in the field, radar, and more.

Cloud computing also plays an important part in this setup, making sure that vast chunks of data collected from all over the world can be processed efficiently, and then accessed by whichever military officials and agencies need them.