Using computational predictive models, the scientists identified a shortlist, a kind of 'periodic table', of the most designable knot types, i.e. those knots that could easily self-assemble under ...

Knots are everywhere—from tangled headphones to DNA strands packed inside viruses—but how an isolated filament can knot itself without collisions or external agitation has remained a longstanding ...

Many of the processes essential to life involve proteins -- long molecules which 'fold' into three-dimensional shapes allowing them to perform their biological role. Many of the processes essential to ...

Tangles of string typically become knotted, from macroscopic twine down to long-chain macromolecules such as DNA. Here, we demonstrate that knotting also occurs in quantum wavefunctions, where the ...

As chemists tie the most complicated molecular knot yet, biophysicists create a “periodic table” that describes what kinds of knots are possible. The world is tied up in knots. They form spontaneously ...

(Nanowerk News) Consider a short piece of rope: could you guess which knots are more likely to form if you crumple and shake it? Synthetic chemists have long been working on a molecular version of ...