Why is there Something Instead of Nothing?

At its core, physics is a field devoted to solving fundamental questions. These puzzles have inspired and tormented countless physicists throughout the ages, and the best minds are still busy at work pinning down the details through both active research and philosophizing beside the department coffee machine. What was the universe like in the beginning? What makes up all the stuff we see around us? Why is there something instead of nothing, and why is so much of it crammed onto my desk?

Literature Review: Insights into Formulating a Protective Malarial Medicine

Literature Review: Insights into Formulating a Protective Malarial Medicine

Malaria, unlike many diseases, has evolved as a result of millions of years of interactions at various levels with the mammalian system and hence has found ways to gather resistance to drugs and insensitivity to other treatment modalities. Co-evolution and co-adaptation of the parasite, recrudescence, recurrence, drug resistance, and the complex pathophysiology of the infection process complicate treatment regimens, most of which are ineffective. This brings us to the conclusion that vaccination is the ultimate eradicative strategy. This paper's core idea is to give an extensive overview on the latest developments of anti-malarial vaccine technology.

Literature Review: Conjugated Linoleic Acid: Prospects and Problems for Human Health Promotion

Literature Review: Conjugated Linoleic Acid: Prospects and Problems for Human Health Promotion

Conjugated linoleic acids are a class of 18-carbon polyunsaturated fatty acids found primarily in the meat of ruminant animals and dairy products. Since being shown to inhibit skin neoplasia in mice by Ha, et. Al. (1987), CLA has been demonstrated to have antiatherosclerotic, antidiabetic, antiadipogenic, and anticarcinogenic effects in cell lines and animal models. Attention to these findings has led to the availability of CLA as a dietary supplement. The safety and efficacy of CLA in this capacity is not well established, however, since relatively few studies of CLA's effects have been conducted in humans.

Shell-Transition Dependence of 12-Particle Yukawa Clusters

Shell-Transition Dependence of 12-Particle Yukawa Clusters

The box_tree code is used to simulate the formation of 12-particle three-dimensional Yukawa dust clusters within a complex plasma. The structure of the cluster is analyzed; in particular, the potential energy is calculated for all clusters that fall into stable single-shell states and also for all clusters that fall into stable double-shell states. It is shown that the ground state may be either single-shell or double-shell, depending on the given Debye length. The dependence of cluster structure on Debye length is analyzed quantitatively.