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 this problem and, ...

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 ...

Liquids are generally a little too slippery to be tied in knots. But under the right conditions, special types of liquid can knot themselves and then those knots can form crystals. They may be a step ...

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 ...

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