The Result.
Posted on 03/15/2006 1:49:48 PM PST by martin_fierro
A little happiness: "DNA origami" makes world's smallest Smiley
Wed Mar 15, 1:30 PM ET
PARIS (AFP) - A nanotechnologist has created the world's smallest and most plentiful Smiley -- a tiny face measuring a few billionths of a metre across that is assembled from strands of DNA.
Fifty billion Smileys, each a thousand times smaller than the diameter of a human hair, can be made at a stroke under the technique pioneered by Paul Rothemund at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech).
DNA, the molecule that comprises living things, has long been known for its versatility as a microscopic building block.
The molecule can be "cut" using enzymes and reassembled using matching rungs in its double-helix structure. This theoretically opens the way to making DNA quantum computers and nano-level devices including injectable robots that can monitor the body's tissues for good health.
But, until now, nano-assembly has been a complex atom-by-atom procedure that is also costly, because it is carried out in a vacuum or at extremely coldly temperatures.
Rothemund, writing in Thursday's issue of Nature, describes a far simpler and much cheaper process in which long, single strands of DNA can be folded back and forth to form a basic scaffold.
The basic structure is then supplemented by around 200 shorter strands, which both strengthen it and act rather like pixels in a computer or TV image, thus providing a shape that can bear a complex pattern.
In a potent demonstration of his so-called DNA origami technique, Rothemund has created half a dozen shapes, including a five-pointed star, a snowflake, a picture of the double helix and a map of the Americas in which one nanometre (one billionth of a metre) represents 120 kilometres (70 miles).
Rothemund, whose paper is published on Thursday in the British science weekly Nature, has been working on flat, two-dimensional shapes but says that 3-D structures in DNA should be quite feasible with this technique, Caltech said in a press release.
One application would be a nano-scale "cage" in which pharmaceutical researchers, working on novel drugs, could sequester enzymes until they were ready for use in turning other proteins on and off.
"In this research, Paul has scored a few unusual 'firsts' for humanity," his colleague, Erik Winfree, said.
"In a typical reaction, he can make about 50 billion Smiley faces. I think this is the most concentrated happiness ever created."
Winfree said there could be huge potential benefits from this apparently whimsical work, as it provided a major new tool for putting molecular-level machinery together.
The Result.
Ping
Too funny...
Well, as long as they're doing something usefull.
A digital rendering of the way a single, long DNA strand is folded to make a smiley face. Credit: Nick Papadakis
A map of the Americas made using DNA origami. Credit: Paul Rothemund
A snowflake pattern woven with the DNA origami technique. Credit: Paul Rothemund
This has got to be the dumbest thing I have read all day, Thanks for the laugh.
This is a big move forward.
Why do you think it's dumb?
Why do you think it's not dumb?
What...no KillRoy was here?
This is all you get, Tightwad.
< |:)~
But they couldn't get a DNA sample 'cuz Chuck. Don't. Bleed.
He makes others bleed...
A major advance in nanotechnology is dumb? This is the future taking shape, dude.
Industrial Age => Information Age => Nanotech Age
See http://www.crnano.org/ for information on the possibilities.
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