COILED BASKETRY

African Basketry: Interweaving Art and Mathematics in Mozambique

The paper presents instances of mathematical ideas interwoven in the artistic decoration of handbags, hats, mats, and other products of basketry from several regions of Mozambique. In particular, examples of female basketry from the Tonga in the Southeast and the Makwe in the extreme Northeast of the country are given and analysed. Further examples from the Makhuwa population in the Northeast a...

Helically Coiled Heat Exchangers

α/β coiled coils

Coiled coils are the best-understood protein fold, as their backbone structure can uniquely be described by parametric equations. This level of understanding has allowed their manipulation in unprecedented detail. They do not seem a likely source of surprises, yet we describe here the unexpected formation of a new type of fiber by the simple insertion of two or six residues into the underlying ...

Coiled bodies without coilin.

Nuclei assembled in vitro in Xenopus egg extract contain coiled bodies that have components from three different RNA processing pathways: pre-mRNA splicing, pre-rRNA processing, and histone pre-mRNA 3'-end formation. In addition, they contain SPH-1, the Xenopus homologue of p80-coilin, a protein characteristic of coiled bodies. To determine whether coilin is an essential structural component of...

DNA coiled coils.

We report the coiled-coil structure of DNA, which is generated by the dodecanucleotide d(ATATATATATAT). The structure has been determined by single-crystal x-ray crystallography. The molecules form duplexes with single-stranded overhangs, which associate with neighbor molecules and give rise to infinite double helices in a coiled-coil conformation, with staggered nicks in both strands. The coil...