• MARCH 25, 2021
    • 0
    Questions beyond Questions 问题之外的问题

    Questions beyond Questions 问题之外的问题

    IPhone 12 芯片有125亿颗晶体管,如果损坏,理论上讲无法找出哪一颗出了毛病,所以维修时会把整只芯片换掉。人类细胞核的DNA有30亿碱基对,它们不是人类设计的,不要说哪个错了难以发现,我们对怎样才是正确的都所知甚少。至少计算机科学家知道每一个晶体管是干什么用的,而很多DNA片段是干什么用的,生物学家一无所知。那么什么时候我们会把30亿对怎么用的搞清楚呢?生物学家一定会说,我们以前有一个问题,找到遗传物质基础,解决了一个旧问题后,我们碰到了3万个新问题(3万个基因)。…

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    • MARCH 24, 2021
    • 0
    The Wisdom of Bacteria 细菌的智慧

    The Wisdom of Bacteria 细菌的智慧

    一个成人拥有约30万亿个人体细胞,同时拥有40万亿个细菌,这些细菌占我们体重的1%至3%。尽管细菌经常被视为疾病的一种来源,但细菌大多无害甚至有益。我们的肠道生活着500种大约1公斤(100万亿)微生物。它们是人类非同寻常的伙伴,它们雕刻我们的器官,保护我们免受疾病侵害,分解我们的食物,教育我们的免疫系统,指导我们的行为,用其基因轰击我们的基因组,并赋予我们不可思议的能力。…

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    • OCTOBER 28, 2020
    • 0
    Midnight Feasts Could Cause Melasma 夜宵也会导致黄褐斑

    Midnight Feasts Could Cause Melasma 夜宵也会导致黄褐斑

    Overnight, keratinocytes (kind of skin epidermis cell) proliferate rapidly, preparing and protecting our outer barrier for the sunlight and scratches of the coming day. During the day, these cells then selectively switch on genes involved with protection against the sun’s ultraviolet (UV) rays….

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    • OCTOBER 22, 2020
    • 0
    Epidermis-Honeycomb-Water Cube 表皮-蜂巢-水立方

    Epidermis-Honeycomb-Water Cube 表皮-蜂巢-水立方

    130 years ago, Lord Kelvin asked how space might be partitioned into cells of fixed equal volume with minimum surface area [1]? Although his work was dismissed as “a pure waste of time” by his colleagues, he worked out through intensive calculation and proposed a fourteen-face shape (tetradecahedron)…

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