Stacking-induced fluorescence increase reveals allosteric interactions through DNA

From gene expression to nanotechnology, understanding and controlling DNA requires a detailed knowledge of its higher order structure and dynamics. Here we take advantage of the environment-sensitive photoisomerization of cyanine dyes to probe local and global changes in DNA structure. We report that a covalently attached Cy3 dye undergoes strong enhancement of fluorescence intensity and lifetime when stacked in a nick, gap or overhang region in duplex DNA. This is used to probe hybridization dynamics of a DNA hairpin down to the single-molecule level. We also show that varying the position of a single abasic site up to 20 base pairs away modulates the dye–DNA interaction, indicative of through-backbone allosteric interactions. The phenomenon of stacking-induced fluorescence increase (SIFI) should find widespread use in the study of the structure, dynamics and reactivity of nucleic acids

Surface Charge Control of Quantum Dot Blinking

A characteristic property of colloidal semiconductor nanocrystal quantum dots (QDs) is their emission intermittency. Although a unifying theory of QD photoprocesses remains elusive, the importance of charged states is clear. We now report a new approach to directly study the role of surface charge on QD emission by adding metal ions to individual, core-only QDs immobilized in aqueous solution in an agarose gel. The CdTe QDs show very stable emission in the absence of metal ions but a dramatic and reversible increase in blinking due to the presence of trivalent metal ions. Our results support a charge-separation model, in which the major blinking pathway is the surface trapping of electrons; transiently bound metal ions close to the QD surface enhance this process

Are Thermal Attacks a Realistic Threat? Investigating the Preconditions of Thermal Attacks in Users’ Daily Lives

Thermal attacks refer to the possibility of capturing heat traces that result from interacting with user interfaces to reveal sensitive input, such as passwords. The technical feasibility and effectiveness of thermal attacks have already been demonstrated. Yet, several preconditions have to be met for successful thermal attacks. In this paper, we investigate user awareness of thermal attacks and to which extent the attack’s preconditions are met in the users’ daily lives. We present results from an online study with 101 participants showing that users are frequently at risk of thermal attacks based on their behavior, e.g., due to leaving devices unattended, or their choice of authentication method. Further, only 7 of our 101 participants had heard of thermal attacks. Based on our results, we discuss the implications on user security, operators of public spaces, and the development of thermal attack-resistant input methods

Ultrafast proton transport in water-methanol mixtures

Femtosecond UV/IR pump-probe experiments and ab initio molecular dynamics simulations of 7-hydroxyquinoline in water-methanol mixtures demonstrate an unexpectedly dominant OH-/CH3O- transport pathway but consistent with a solvent-dependent photoacidity free energy-reactivity correlation behaviour

Open data from the first and second observing runs of Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo

Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo are monitoring the sky and collecting gravitational-wave strain data with sufficient sensitivity to detect signals routinely. In this paper we describe the data recorded by these instruments during their first and second observing runs. The main data products are gravitational-wave strain time series sampled at 16384 Hz. The datasets that include this strain measurement can be freely accessed through the Gravitational Wave Open Science Center at http://gw-openscience.org, together with data-quality information essential for the analysis of LIGO and Virgo data, documentation, tutorials, and supporting software