SearcharxivSearch

arXiv subjects

Benjamin Trump

Publications and source records attributed to Benjamin Trump.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

The Convergence of AI and Synthetic Biology: The Looming Deluge

The convergence of artificial intelligence (AI) and synthetic biology is rapidly accelerating the pace of biological discovery and engineering. AI techniques, such as large language models and biological design tools, are enabling the automated design, build, test, and learning cycles for engineered biological systems. This convergence promises to democratize synthetic biology and unlock novel applications across domains from medicine to environmental sustainability. However, it also poses significant risks around reliability, dual use, and governance. The opacity of AI models, the deskilling of workforces, and the outdated nature of current regulatory frameworks present challenges in ensuring responsible development. Urgent attention is needed to update governance structures, integrate human oversight into increasingly automated workflows, and foster a culture of responsibility among the growing community of bioengineers. Only by proactively addressing these issues can we realize the transformative potential of AI-driven synthetic biology while mitigating its risks.

q-bio.OT

Bubbles enable volumetric negative compressibility in metastable elastocapillary systems

Although coveted in applications, few materials expand when subject to compression or contract under decompression, i.e., exhibit the negative compressibility phenomenon. A key step to achieve such counterintuitive behaviour is the destabilisations of (meta)stable equilibria of the constituents. Here, we propose a simple strategy to obtain negative compressibility exploiting capillary forces both to precompress the elastic material and to release such precompression by a threshold phenomenon -- the reversible formation of a bubble in a lyophobic flexible cavity. We demonstrate that the solid part of such metastable elastocapillary systems displays negative compressibility across different scales: hydrophobic microporous materials, proteins, and millimetre-sized laminae. This concept is applicable to fields such as porous materials, biomolecules, sensors and may be easily extended to create unexpected material susceptibilities.

cond-mat.soft

Incommensurate magnetism near quantum criticality in CeNiAsO

Two phase transitions in the tetragonal strongly correlated electron system CeNiAsO were probed by neutron scattering and zero field muon spin rotation. For $T <T_{N1}$ = 8.7(3) K, a second order phase transition yields an incommensurate spin density wave with wave vector $\textbf{k} = (0.44(4), 0, 0)$. For $T < T_{N2}$ = 7.6(3) K, we find co-planar commensurate order with a moment of $0.37(5)~\mu_B$, reduced to $30 \%$ of the saturation moment of the $|\pm\frac{1}{2}\rangle$ Kramers doublet ground state, which we establish by inelastic neutron scattering. Muon spin rotation in $\rm CeNiAs_{1-x}P_xO$ shows the commensurate order only exists for x $\le$ 0.1 so the transition at $x_c$ = 0.4(1) is from an incommensurate longitudinal spin density wave to a paramagnetic Fermi liquid.

cond-mat.str-el