Nobel Prize 2016 

Dear Followers,

here comes again that time of the year....the 2016 Nobel Prize are being awarded. Exciting!

The Nobel Prize of Physiology and/or Medicine is awarded to Yoshinori Ohsumi for his discoveries of mechanisms of autophagy.

By 大臣官房人事課 - 平成27年度　文化功労者：文部科学省, CC BY 4.0,
https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=52028935

What is autophagy?

The word "Autophagy" derived from Greek meaning "eating self". It was coined by the scientist Christian de Duve after he saw cells breaking their part inside the lysosymes, in 1963. Autophagy is a "cleaning" mechanism of cells. 

Ohsumi's discoveries? 
"They led to a new paradigm in our understanding of how the cell recycles its content. His discoveries opened the path to understanding the fundamental importance of autophagy in many physiological processes, such as in the adaptation to starvation or response to infection. Mutations in autophagy genes can cause disease, and the autophagic process is involved in several conditions including cancer and neurological disease."


The Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to three scientists, one half to David J. Thouless and the other half to F. Duncan M. Haldane and J. Michael Kosterlitz "for theoretical discoveries of topological phase transitions and topological phases of matter."

What is topology?

Topology is a branch of mathematics that describes properties that only change step-wise. Using topology, these scientists could demonstrate new matter phases.


David J. Thouless, F. Duncan M. Haldane and J. Michael Kosterlitz's discoveries?
"Michael Kosterlitz and David Thouless overturned the then current theory that superconductivity or suprafluidity could not occur in thin layers. They demonstrated that superconductivity could occur at low temperatures and also explained the mechanism, phase transition, that makes superconductivity disappear at higher temperatures."

"In the 1980s, Thouless was able to explain a previous experiment with very thin electrically conducting layers in which conductance was precisely measured as integer steps. He showed that these integers were topological in their nature. At around the same time, Duncan Haldane discovered how topological concepts can be used to understand the properties of chains of small magnets found in some materials."

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to Jean-Pierre Sauvage, Sir J. Fraser Stoddart and Bernard L. Feringa "for the design and synthesis of molecular machines"


What are molecular machines?

Also called Nanomachines, they are tiny machines composed of one or few molecules and synthetised by several chemical reactions.

Jean-Pierre Sauvage, Sir J. Fraser Stoddart and Bernard L. Fering's discoveries?

In 1983, Jean-Pierre Sauvage managed to link two ring-shaped molecules to form a chain called a catenane. In 1992, Sir J. Fraser Stoddart "threaded a molecular ring onto a thin molecular axle and demonstrated that the ring was able to move along the axle." Molecules called rotaxane.

In1999, Bernard L. Fering developped a molecular motor rotating a glass cylinder that is 10,000 times bigger than the motor and also designed a nanocar.

Nobel Prizes Animations

Dear followers,


This week, I would like to share with you a webpage on Nature.com.
It contains animations explaining the findings of 4 scientists who received the Nobel Prize:




1) Big box, small box, light-filled box with Serge Haroche
2) Tick-tock cold clock with Bill Phillips
3) Ain't no stopping them now with Art McDonald
4) No such animal with Dan Shechtman

I think it is a great initiative to break down complex research for everyone to understand and animation is a great way to illustrate.

Let me know what you think,

Have a nice week-end!

Map-reading can be difficult for women during ovulation

A team of scientists from Concordia University in Montreal studied the memory of women throughout their menstrual cycle. They found that oestrogen and progesterone cause the brain to favor one memory or strategy over the other.

As you may know, the menstrual cycles occurs with the variation of  two of the ovarian hormones called  estrogen and progesterone.

On the graph, we can observe a high increase of estrogen.

45 women who had regular tested where tested for two tasks. One group was asked to memorize a list of words and the other one was asked to find their way through a maze.
The results showed that women that were ovulation performed better in memorizing the list of words and women in their pre-menstrual phase were better at solving a maze.

This study's goal is to better understand the women brain. I hope it will not be used to discriminate more women at work.
Understanding the difference between women and men could trigger the research, notably pharmaceutical, to create targeted therapy.

What do you think ?

Changing the genetic code of life

In August, Science published a fascinating study from a team working in MIT.

The team has designed a synthetic Escherichia coli genome that could use a protein-coding scheme different from the one employed by all known life.

The team reduced the number of codons from 64 to 57 codons.

It is a new step in the engineering of E. Coli and synthetic biology.

The one of the overall goal of this kind of researcher is to create engineered bacteria for industrial purposes. But it also allow us to understand better our biology and its limits.

You can read more details on Science: http://science.sciencemag.org/content/353/6301/819

Enjoy!