Posted on 01/24/2024 1:06:11 PM PST by Red Badger
An international team of chemists has set a new world record for tying the world’s smallest knot, which they say consists of only 54 atoms.
Remarkably, researchers involved with the achievement say it happened by accident, and are unable to account for how it occurred.
Chemists Zhiwen Li, Jingjing Zhang, Gao Li with the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, and research colleague Richard J. Puddephatt with the University of Western Ontario, Canada, were attempting an entirely different process in the lab when the record breaking discovery was made.
Their achievement is described in a study that recently appeared in the journal Nature Communications.
TYING THE WORLD’S SMALLEST KNOT
While attempting to create metal acetylides, a variety of alkynes used in research that involves organic reactions, the group says they unintentionally succeeded at tying a minuscule knot comprised of a small string of only 54 atoms.
The knot was created while the team was attempting to connect carbon structures to gold acetylides, a process relied on in the production of creating basic chains of gold that chemists call caternames.
However, one of the reactions they performed created a chain that tied itself into a chiral trefoil knot similar to those bakers use when making pretzels.
Above: Structure of the trefoil metallaknot [Au6(L)3(dppb)3], Au6, which is now recognized as the world’s smallest knot (Credit: Li, Z., Zhang, J., Li, G. et al.).
“Molecular knots, whose synthesis presents many challenges, can play important roles in protein structure and function as well as in useful molecular materials, whose properties depend on the size of the knotted structure,” the researchers write in their recent paper.
Significantly, the molecular knot the research team unexpectedly created had a backbone crossing ratio (BCR), a measurement of the strength of a knot, of 23. By comparison, most organic knots typically have BCRs of between 27 and 33.
The research team writes that X-ray diffraction measurements confirmed that the chiral trefoil knot contains just 54 atoms in its BCR, making it “the smallest and tightest molecular trefoil knot known to date.”
A RECORD BREAKER THAT REMAINS A MYSTERY
In 2020, similar experiments resulted in the production of a 69-atom knot by another Chinese research team, although that knot had been created intentionally with help from special knot-tying techniques used to entwine tiny strands into knots.
Given that the new record-breaking knot was created entirely by accident, the researchers are unsure of exactly what processes allowed for its creation, nor are they sure whether similar processes could be used to create even tinier knots under lab conditions.
Although the achievement represents a new record, the research team says there could be practical benefits to such processes too. For instance, chemists may be able to build on their observations to help scientists understand how proteins like RNA and DNA form similar knots under entirely natural conditions.
Extremely small knot-making techniques could also help facilitate the creation of new varieties of substances that include plastics with novel properties.
The team’s new paper, “Self-assembly of the smallest and tightest molecular trefoil knot,” was published in Nature Communications on January 2.
Micah Hanks is the Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder of The Debrief. He can be reached by email at micah@thedebrief.org. Follow his work at micahhanks.com and on X: @MicahHanks.
Oh, they did knot.
They told the Atoms “Trump”, and they immediately tied themselves into a knot.
😜..................
Dummies. They should have written it down. Step by step.
I did knot see this coming.
Wow. Cool. I’m going to try that right now.
Are they fishermen?
Boy scouts, maybe...............
I’m sure you were tied up with other things at the time.
Question: Did these scientists get millions of dollars for this research?
From website Open Education Database (oedb.org)
100 Places to Find Funding For Your Research
“While research is an important part of academia, it can also be very costly. Fortunately, a whole slew of research grants, scholarships, and fellowships exist – all that’s left is to do the grant research.”
3 of the 10 places:
Grants.gov: backed by the Department of Health & Human Services, Grants.gov provides a valuable resource for searching for fellowships, grants, and other funding opportunities across multiple disciplines.
Foundation Center: One of the largest databases of philanthropy in the United States contains information from more than 550 institutions eager to donate their money to creative, technical, medical, scientific, and plenty of other kinds of causes.
Pivot: Pivot claims it hosts an estimated $44 billion worth of grants, fellowships, awards, and more, accessed by more than three million scholars worldwide.
The best knots ever tied (created) happen while fishing and they are completely by accident and I have no idea how I did it. These knots usually require a loss of about 100 feet of line in order to make the fishing rod and reel operable once again.
Like there are not enough knots in this world.
My youngest granddaughter was born with her umbilical cord tied in a true knot. We don’t know how that happened either. Ah, the mysteries of life.
The chinese scientists immediately went on to weaponize the knot.
If they did not do it intentionally it is not a knot. You have to tie a knot. This case is a tangle. Sometimes you can’t tell the difference by looking because a knot and a tangle can look exactly the same. The difference between a knot and a tangle is intent.
My kid would be interested in the latest research developments in Physics, but he has football practice in 30 minutes.
I bet they have trouble untying it.
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