STEAM Newsletter Vol. 48

"In the Bowen High School gym on Chicago’s Southeast Side one night last month, a young girl stood with a doughnut in her hand and a blue balloon tied around her wrist. The doughnut had a sugar decal with an icon depicting quantum entanglement, and the balloon featured a geometric object called a Bloch sphere and the word “qubit.”

Young children don’t typically know a lot about quantum science, but understanding the physics of nature’s smallest scales wasn’t necessary. Instead, the Quantum Game Night — hosted by the Chicago Quantum Exchange (CQE) and featuring the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering’s (PME) STAGE Center, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign’s (UIUC) LabEscape, and others — was meant to introduce the local community to quantum technology through games and activities.

Held in conjunction with the CQE’s seventh annual Chicago Quantum Summit, the game night, which drew about 150 people, was an early step toward inviting the broader public to engage with the field at a pivotal time in the development of the Midwest’s quantum economy."

"Biologists at Washington University in St. Louis have discovered the origin of a curious duplication that gives plants multiple ways to override instructions that are coded into their DNA. This research could help scientists exploit a plant's existing systems to favor traits that make it more resilient to environmental changes, like heat or drought stress.

The study led by Xuehua Zhong, a professor of biology in Arts & Sciences, was published Nov. 6 in Science Advances.

Zhong's new research focuses on DNA methylation, a normal biological process in living cells wherein small chemical groups called methyl groups are added to DNA. This activity controls which genes are turned on and off, which in turn affects different traits—including how organisms respond to their environments.

Part of this job involves silencing, or turning off, certain snippets of DNA that move around within an organism's genome. These so-called jumping genes, or transposons, can cause damage if not controlled. The entire process is regulated by enzymes, but mammals and plants have developed different enzymes to add methyl groups.

"Mammals only have two major enzymes that add methyl groups in one DNA context, but plants actually have multiple enzymes that do that in three DNA contexts," said Zhong, who is the Dean's Distinguished Professorial Scholar and program director for plant and microbial biosciences at WashU. "This is the focus of our study. The question is—why do plants need extra methylation enzymes?""

"Emotional connection enhances interaction in human relationships. Emotional synchronization in the interaction between a child and a parent is essential for affective attachment. The relationship between a dog and its owner is also based on attachment, but little is known about its physiological mechanisms.

In a study conducted at the University of Jyväskylä, at the Department of Psychology and Jyväskylä Center for Interdisciplinary Brain Research, it was found that the heart rate variability of a dog and its owner are interconnected during interaction.

Heart rate variability, in other words, the variation in the heartbeat intervals, indicates the state of the autonomic nervous system. High heart rate variability is associated with a state of relaxation and recovery, while low heart rate variability indicates stimulation or strain, such as stress during an exam or sports performance.

In this study, published in Scientific Reports, the owner's high heart rate variability was connected to the dog's high heart rate variability, and vice versa. In addition, the physical activity levels of a dog and its owner mutually adapted to each other during the study."