New Version of Essence# Released: "Scripture"

The main focus of this release (named "Scripture") is to enhance the functionality of the ES command line tool which compiles and executes scripts written in Essence#. It additionally fixes some bugs in the sending of messages to classes (not their instances) that represent CLR types (in other words, messages that are translated into read/write operations on static fields or properties, or into invocations of static methods.)

The functionality enhancements to ES are both major and extensive. The new functionality is fully explained in the documentation section on the Essence# Codeplex site, under Running A Script.

And last but not least, there is now only a single download file that includes the Standard Library, the ES command-line tool, the Visual Studio project for browsing (or even modifying) the C# code for the Essence# runtime system, and the Visual Studio project for browsing (or even modifying) the C# code of the ES command line tool.

And it includes executables for both .Net 3.5 and .Net 4.0, and also for both the x86 and x64 processor architectures (so 4 different configurations.)

And the two Visual Studio projects are now organized into a single Visual Studio "Solution," which has selectable configurations for all four framework/platform combinations, all in the same solution, using only two projects (one for the runtime system, one for the script-running tool.)

And the VS solution and the VS projects it contains have now been upgraded to Visual Studio Express 2013 (which is available for free from Microsoft.)

And finally, the download file is a savvy installation program generated by NullSoft's NSIS installation program generator.

Download Essence#

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Chemists create novel DNA assembly line

From Physorg.com:

Chemists at New York University and China's Nanjing University have created a DNA assembly line that has the potential to create novel materials efficiently on the nanoscale. Their work is reported in the latest issue of the journal Nature.

Full article

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Spiders at the nanoscale: Molecules that behave like robots

From Physorg.com:

A team of scientists from Columbia University, Arizona State University, the University of Michigan, and the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have programmed an autonomous molecular "robot" made out of DNA to start, move, turn, and stop while following a DNA track.

Full article

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DNA could be backbone of next generation logic chips

From Pysorg.com:

In a single day, a solitary grad student at a lab bench can produce more simple logic circuits than the world's entire output of silicon chips in a month.

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New probe promises to reveal brain's mysteries

From Physorg.com:

Dozens of potential applications await a new neurological probing platform developed by European scientists. The new system offers the promise of new cures for neurological disease and a better understanding of how our brain works.

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Untangling the quantum entanglement behind photosynthesis

From Physorg.com:

The future of clean green solar power may well hinge on scientists being able to unravel the mysteries of photosynthesis, the process by which green plants convert sunlight into electrochemical energy. To this end, researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California (UC), Berkeley have recorded the first observation and characterization of a critical physical phenomenon behind photosynthesis known as quantum entanglement.

Full article

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New technique permits development of enzyme tool kit

From PhysOrg.com:

An Arizona State University graduate student, Jinglin Fu, in collaboration with Biodesign Institute researchers Neal Woodbury and Stephen Albert Johnston, has pioneered a technique that improves on scientists' ability to harness and modulate enzyme activity.

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Fab new laser nano-fabrication technology

From PhysOrg.com:

Laser interference lithography can produce very high-resolution nano-scale surface patterns at low cost, and now European researchers have made important breakthroughs in the area.

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New Stanford tool enables wider analyses of genome 'deep sequencing'

From PhysOrg.com:

The new Stanford-developed, web-based algorithm allows scientists to plumb the unprecedented depths of the data provided by new "deep-sequencing" techniques to reveal a pantheon of control regions for nearly any gene. The effect is like expanding a researcher's field of vision from a pencil-thin beam of light trained mainly on the regions near coding sequences to a sweeping spotlight illuminating the contributions of distant genomic regions.

Full article

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Scientists provide groundbreaking new understanding of stem cells

From PhysOrg.com:

Yanes shifted though the data on stem cells and identified an unexpected pattern: stem cell metabolites had highly unsaturated structures compared with mature cells, and levels of highly unsaturated molecules decreased as the stem cells matured. Highly unsaturated molecules, which contain little hydrogen, can easily react and change into many other different types of molecules.

"The study reveals an astounding cellular strategy," commented Yanes. "The capacity of embryonic stem cells to generate a whole spectrum of cell types characteristic of different tissues (a phenomenon referred to as plasticity) is mirrored at the metabolic level."

Full article

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