* Link : http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2009/10/117_52814.htmlPohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH) has the lowest dropout rate among 188 universities. According to the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, Thursday, POSTECH had 17 students give up their studies at the university last year, out of a total of 1,711 ― 1 percent of the total student body. The average dropout rate among institutes of higher education, including 2-year and 3-year colleges, stood at 5 percent. Among those who left their original schools, 44 percent voluntarily withdrew, 33 per..

Korean scientists have identified the structure of a protein linked to epilepsy and other brain function abnormalities, which they say could present new opportunities in treatment and drug development. In a study published by peer-review European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) Journal, a team of researchers led Kim Kyung-jin of Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH) presented the crystal structure of the succinic semialdehyde dehydrogenase (SSADH) protein. SSADH deficiency has been associated with epilepsy and other neurological conditions, and understanding the structure..

Mad cow disease made headlines in the early 2000s when 4.4 million cattle in the United Kingdom alone were killed as a precaution against it. Now, there may be a way to not only trace the disease in its incubation period but also medically treat it. Professor Daehee Hwang (School of Interdisciplinary Bioscience and Bioengineering) and his group, in collaboration with the Institute for Systems Biology (ISB), the McLaughlin Research Institute, the University of California, San Francisco, the Allen Brain Institute, and the European Bioinformatics Institute, have spotted a set of genes that go hay..

30-nano class Gallium Arsenide (GaAs) nano-transistor: comparative advantages in its performanceEasy manufacturing process: less than half the cost of commercializationIt is possible to receive and enjoy various multimedia contents such as music, movies, and other data, at speeds of several tens of Mbps using high-speed internet widely available in households. Studies on the improvement of communication speeds have been continuously conducted over the recent years.Professor Yoon-Ha Jeong and research team have successfully succeeded in developing 35-nano GaAs nano-transistors (metamorphic HEMT..

Ultra-fast flash light revealing mystery of atoms, into the world of attoseconds (10-18 second) Beyond the femtosecond (10-15 second) barrierFerroelectric RAM (FeRAM) is a type of non-volatile computer memory, similar to dynamic random access memory (DRAM) which can be found in majority of our computers. FeRAM uses a ferroelectric layer to achieve non-volatility and offers a number of advantages from lower power usage to faster writing speeds.Ferroelectrics such as PbTiO3 have usually two stable oppositely-polarized states without external electric fields, and the negatively-polarized state ca..

Ajoint research between POSTECH (Pohang University of Science and Technology) and Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics, Halle, has produced an advanced technology applicable to the development of the permanent memory, FeRAM, which can save 176 billion bits per square inch (published in Nature Nanotechnology, vol. 3, page 402). FeRAM has attracted many researchers’ interest because of its excellent characters such as nonvolatility, fast read and write, and high reliability. However, limitation in realizing large scale integration of ferroelectrics on a single chip has hindered t..

The invention of the scanning tunnel microscope (STM) opened the door to nanoworld, enabling humankind to actually touch and feel the individual atoms at the surface of a material. It has inspired a series of inventions such as the atomic force microscope (AFM), the lateral force microscope (LFM), the magnetic force microscope (MFM), etc. Recently, the scanning probe microscope (SPM), which encompasses all these inventions, has evolved into the millipede technology which has a potential to make competing data storage technologies obsolete. A common denominator of these exciting developments is..

It is well known that plants can fix carbon dioxide (CO2) into sugar. In plant cells, the chloroplast is responsible for fixing carbon dioxide into sugar. Thus chloroplasts as the factory for sugar production play essential roles not only for plants themselves but also for most of living organisms on Earth. However, chloroplasts are not just carbon dioxide fixing factory but also responsible for producing a large number of chemical compounds that are essential for plant growth and development. Interestingly, chloroplasts in plant cells are thought to be originated from ancestral cyanobacterium..

Many clinically important drugs are natural products produced by bacteria and fungi. In particular, polyketide antibiotics have been found to be an extremely rich source of biologically active compounds with a broad range of pharmaceutical activities. Aromatic nitro groups are relatively rare functional groups in natural products including polyketide antibiotics but are found in diverse types of important antibiotics, such as chloramphenicol, pyrrolnitrin, aureothin, azomycin, and rufomycin. Surprisingly, the biosynthesis of aromatic nitro groups is poorly understood. To date, only two enzymes..

Nowadays the term of ‘nano’, which means 10-9 as the SI prefix, is commonly mentioned in the media. Usually, a human hair is taken as a means for lifelike recognition of 1 nanometer. One nanometer is 1/100,000 of a hair, which is too small to observe through optical microscope. When we consider that 1 nm is 3 or 4 atomic scale at the most, similar to DNA with the size of 2 nm, its very small size is true to nature for us. Hence, to control an individual atom and to reveal the mystery of the DNA of human body, ‘nanotechnology’ has been attracting great attention as one o..