computational
A new computational technique could make it easier to engineer useful proteins | MIT News
To engineer proteins with useful functions, researchers usually begin with a natural protein that has a desirable function, such as emitting fluorescent light, and put it through many rounds of random mutation that eventually generate an optimized version of the protein. This process has yielded optimized versions of many important proteins, including green fluorescent protein…
Computational model captures the elusive transition states of chemical reactions | MIT News
During a chemical reaction, molecules gain energy until they reach what’s known as the transition state — a point of no return from which the reaction must proceed. This state is so fleeting that it’s nearly impossible to observe it experimentally. The structures of these transition states can be calculated using techniques based on quantum…
The brain may learn about the world the same way some computational models do | MIT News
To make our way through the world, our brain must develop an intuitive understanding of the physical world around us, which we then use to interpret sensory information coming into the brain. How does the brain develop that intuitive understanding? Many scientists believe that it may use a process similar to what’s known as “self-supervised…