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Can the principles of topology help improve the world’s slums?

Features, Math stories, pnas, public health /

According to the United Nations (UN), nearly 1 billion of the 8 billion people in the world live in slums (1). These dense and disordered communities form in urban areas without a formal plan; their residents frequently lack addresses. Often they don’t have immediate access to water, power, or emergency services. Slums stem from all […]

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What’s the best way to build a molecular machine?

biology, chemistry, Features, materials science, Physics, pnas /

Some of the smallest, most useful machines known to science are the biological molecules that keep living things living. The protein myosin drives the contraction and relaxation of muscle. Kinesin drags cellular cargo around the cell. Motor enzymes unwind, rewind, and maintain DNA, and bacteria use a molecular motor to rotate their whip-like flagella up

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