A l’Institut Paul Scherrer, les scientifiques cherchent des réponses à la question essentielle des structures élémentaires de la matière et des principes fondamentaux de fonctionnement dans la nature. Ils étudient la structure et les propriétés des particules élémentaires – les plus petits composants de la matière – ou se penchent sur la question de savoir comment les molécules biologiques sont structurées et remplissent leur fonction. Les connaissances qu’ils acquièrent de la sorte ouvrent de nouvelles pistes de solution en sciences, en médecine ou dans le domaine des technologies.
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Magnets shine in a different color
Measuring -or feeling- magnetic interactions looks simple at first glance: holding two magnets close to each other gives an immediate idea. How about the case when the 'magnets of interest' are tiny and amount to nothing more than atoms? X-rays generated at the Swiss Light Source allow 'zooming in' on magnetic interactions relevant at inter-atomic scale: we bring forward the first evidence of local spin flips of atomic moments in a 'photon-in photon-out' scattering experiment.
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Dance of the domains
In a ferromagnet regions exist where all the atoms orient their atomic compass neddles into one direction. These regions are called domains. A recent experiment succeeded in exciting such domains and watching their vibration and subsequent relaxation to the original state. This is the Dance of the domains.
Controlling the ribosome
Ribosomes can be thought of as factories that build proteins from a set of genetic instructions. Translation relies on two selection processes: a) charging of tRNA by selection of the correct aminoacid to be covalently bound to it, b) the selection of the tRNA as specified by the codon of the mRNA. Aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases catalyse the first of these steps using hydrolysis of ATP.