Mustafa(pbuh) Prize News

The 27th Science Cafe was held on Wednesday, July 30, in Tehran, featuring a talk by Mehdi Kargarian, associate professor of physics at Sharif University of Technology. Speaking to an audience of students and science enthusiasts, Kargarian discussed key concepts in quantum physics and the properties of topological materials in the context of Mohammad Zahid Hasan’s groundbreaking research, which earned him the Mustafa(pbuh) Prize in 2021.

MSTF Media reports:
By taking a look at the world around us, we will notice that, at first glance, the periodic table of elements seems to be the most thorough approach to classify the matter around us. This table forms the foundation of chemistry and our understanding of matter. Upon closer inspection, however, we will realize that this is only the surface of physical reality. The periodic table is, ultimately, made up of atoms and the bonds between them; but what are the atoms themselves made of?

MSTF Media reports:

There have been times in our lives when we felt relaxed after drinking a mug of chamomile tea, or when that one nasty cold was soothed by a lemon tea. These moments of calm and contentment may have made us appreciate these natural products and think about other benefits we can receive from flowers, fruits, herbs and spices. We may have asked ourselves: Can natural remedies replace the conventional synthetic methods that we receive when we have an illness? Does the latter need to be altogether discarded or can both methods coexist and provide us with more effective medicine?
We asked for an expert opinion in the field, Muhammad Iqbal Choudhary to explain these issues. Choudhary enlightened us on nature’s healing legacy, his ongoing research on curing “neglected diseases,” and the importance of creating a “seamless healthcare system.” 
Plants: a Treasure House of Fascinating Molecules

MSTF Media reports:

A cell is the smallest structural and functional unit of living organisms. It consists of a membrane, genetic material, cytoplasm, and organelles. Cells can grow and divide through a process known as the cell cycle. This division varies depending on its purpose and the type of organism. The cell cycle is divided into several distinct stages, with specific proteins ensuring the accuracy of the division at the end of some phases. If cells continue to divide indiscriminately, beyond the natural cycle, they turn into cancerous cells, which may cluster together to form tumors.
 

How would you feel if you were told that there are about 8 billion libraries, each with about 46 bookshelves and a total of 20,000 to 25,000 books? Each library is estimated to contain about 3 billion pages of paper.

Materials engineering, as one of the core engineering disciplines, today encompasses a wide range of materials, including metals, ceramics, polymers, semiconductors, magnetic materials, photonic materials, and biological materials

In the early days of software, the typical image that came to mind was of a programmer writing code alone in the confines of their room, isolated from other collaborators, striving to create something valuable. However, today, this image is far from reality, with hundreds of thousands of programmers, each with their own expertise, working collaboratively to develop software systems. This naturally raises a question:  Are other skills beyond coding needed to develop software?

Having put his idea of Mining Software Repositories into practice, Ahmed Hassan focused on building a scientific community around this area of study. His dedicated efforts in this regard seem to have been as successful as his ideas in the field of MSR.

With a microscopic view of our surroundings, we step into a realm of the unknown—a world where countless microorganisms thrive, each telling a different story of life’s complexity. Among them, viruses, despite their relatively simple structure, remain some of the most enigmatic entities in existence. These beings blur the line between life and non-life. Their survival depends entirely on their unfortunate hosts, and outside their target cells, they are nothing more than dormant genetic packets.