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DNA As Electrical Conductor
Tekkaman writes: "Britannica Online has an interesting article about a new discovery about DNA which may lead to huge advancements in nanotechnology. Apparently, scientists have discovered how to create 'DNA wires'; that is, strands of DNA which can conduct electricity. Already ideas for biosensors that can detect abnormalities in DNA are being researched -- the possibilites seem boundless."
The concept was originally invented by two Swiss researchers, and was announced 1 1/2 year ago in Nature.
I thought it was a joke because it was released on April 1st, 1999...
As with ANY technology - it's just a tool, and it can be used for good or bad. Consider:
Cars: good uses - they can be used to transport us to fun events, bad uses - can be used as a getaway in a bank robbery
The Internet: good uses - Slashdot, Open Source, information transfer, bad uses - promoting paediophilia.
MP3 files: good uses - Frees musicians from the RIAA, bad uses - can be used for broadcasting hatred.
Airplanes: good uses - travelling to fun places, bad uses - Saddam Hussein using them to bomb the Kurds.
MySQL opensource database: good uses - storing messages for a web-board, bad uses - storing a hitman's target list.
Should we shun all these technologies because it is possible to use them for something bad?
Consider that instead of the company firing you because you have a gene for a certain disease, the technology can be used to CURE the disease before it even becomes a problem!
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Actually, this isn't very far off from an adaptive Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA). While it doesn't physically change its wiring, it does the equivilent and reconfigures it's connections and balance of processing power to improve it's own performance. There is a whole class of adaptive filters that select tap weights to improve their performance when in contact with their environment. They are quite useful devices, and the current Internet would be impossible without them.
I think reconfigurable systems are more useful that systems that could "change it's physical wiring" because such systems would 1) Give nasty glitches when they are in the act of rewiring, and 2) Be VERY hard to analyze and test.
- Are DAMNED expensive(c.$300/tr.oz. Au, c.$500/tr.oz. Pt)
- Get nowhere near thin enough for nano apps.
Instead of using DNA in a microdot, why not just use ANYTHING ELSE to hide the message. These alternatives would definately be cheaper and more efficient. I suppose you forget that deoxyribonucleic acid is one of the most available on earth. As far as cost? TLA's that would use DNA microdots for info transmission don't have to worry about cost. And as an anti-counterfeiting measure, it's proven extremely effective in Sydney. The Olympics are a Big Deal, and the IOC and the Sydney Olympic Committee get a license fee for every shirt sold. (Not to mention the raw margins for the independant sellers.) The money involved is, to be frank, huge considering it's two weeks and two days. How long is it until someone just takes a couple of pounds of DNA and makes the worlds first DNA paperweight? "Why'd you use DNA?" "It's a proof of concept. Now we know you can make paperweights out of DNA." Been there, done that. It's called "Taxidermy." On a different tangent, since 'DNA computers' are going to have four states for each bit instead of two, we'll need a different method define the states. Here's my proposal for the different values of each bit(Quadruple-state logic):- 1
- 0
- UNDEFINED
- NULL
How about 0, 1, 2, 3? As in 'false', 'probably false', 'probably true', and 'true'? Why can't there be "quits" and "quads"?I used to be someone else. Now I'm someone better.
Real life is underrated.
Oh yeah, I really want my computer growing new circuits for itself. I can see the new passtime for the script kiddies now. "Yeah, d00d5! I gave this guy's Linux box cancer of the graphics card. It was way cool ..."
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The DNA provides the scaffolding for the metal atoms to sit on. It's easy to generate, and it makes small/straight threads easily. I challenge you to invent a metal wire effectively one-atom-thick without using something like DNA as a substrate.
This is not a new discovery. I remember reading this when I was a biochem student around 1996.
The way dna conducts electricity is that the chromatic rings of the bases have overlapping pi bonds. These rings are like a stack of pancakes. The pi bonds are half occupied and orbit purpendicular to the plane of the rings above and below. So they overlap and contribute considerably to the rigidness of the overall helix. Because the orbital clouds occupy the same space electrons can freely pass from one pi bond of one ring in the chain to the orbital of the next ring.
I believe the particular paper described actually annealing a single strand of DNA to a pair of microelectrodes and measuring the various potentials that could be created accross it.
KidSock
Maybe historical DNA in your computer is going to be the next uber-geek chic.
"I think OJ did it... I mean... ever since I've been using his DNA, I've racked up a hell of a lot of frags..."
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The author writes "any deletions or mutations in the hybridized DNA act as a barrier that prevents electron flow."
I can imagine how additions would break conductivity (adding links to the dna chain that are not bound to a metal). But how would removing links in the dna strand break conductivity? Presumably, the links left in the strand still have their metal.
--- -- - -
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It seems like the cool thing to do these days is make things out of DNA. This, using DNA to thwart counterfitters, hiding Morse code in DNA microdots.
But why do you need to do any of this? If you're coating DNA strands with metal why don't you just make really small wires? Instead of using DNA in a microdot, why not just use ANYTHING ELSE to hide the message. These alternatives would definately be cheaper and more efficient.
How long is it until someone just takes a couple of pounds of DNA and makes the worlds first DNA paperweight? "Why'd you use DNA?" "It's a proof of concept. Now we know you can make paperweights out of DNA."
On a different tangent, since 'DNA computers' are going to have four states for each bit instead of two, we'll need a different method define the states. Here's my proposal for the different values of each bit(Quadruple-state logic):
Trolls throughout history:
Jonathan Swift
2 3369/102-4030351-8478532> Frankenstein, Or, the Modern Prometheus </A>
In 1994, Len Adleman did an experiment involving getting DNA to solve a simple 7 city "travelling salesman" problem ( finding the shortest route between cities) using parallel processing.
The DNA computer he used consisted of 7 DNA strands each representing a "city" and 14 strands representing the "roads" connecting the cities. The calculation took about 1 second to complete. Cool huh?
Another interesting tidbit about DNA is that it is estimated that one cubic centimeter of DNA can store one trillion bits of information.
Check it out at http://www.syntac.net/dl/Clam/reson.html.
Quiquid latine dictum sit altum viditur
Unfortunately, we haven't heard any more from him, so it mustn't have worked quite as well as he hoped (making this idea work requires, amongst other things, that evaluating the utility of the present configuration be very fast - if it takes you 5 minutes to determine whether this configuration works or not, this technique obviously falls down). Still was a fascinating idea, even if it was never going to do the things he was claiming for it.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Yes, then we'll have a...BRAIN
Or, maybe not.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
If there's DNA in it, then it can reproduce, right? Has anyone looked into this? Because if no one has, then someone should. That's what I'm getting at, I think.
This sounds like it could be really cool in cybernetics. I'm surprised they didn't mention it, but I suppose that's a bit pie in the sky. I wonder if this could be used to fix severe nerve damage since that works on electrical system? The possibilities racing through my mind for this sort of thing is too great to write down at once.
-Jennifer
What we need to do now is harness DNA's ability to reproduce itself. Imagine, a circuit that can actually change it's physical wiring to handle new conditions and/or optimize itself...
It may look like I'm doing nothing, but I'm actively waiting for my problems to go away.
--Scott Adams
Extrapolating this to the nth degree, and we have the basis for the Star Trek universe tricorder. In it are a whole host of different DNA based conductive sensors. When one wants to make a scan, these DNA "masters" are duplicated using normal DNA copying. The copies are then exposed to the air or material to be scanned. The individual DNA sensors are then checked to see if they changed (i.e. detected what they were each designed to detect). Correlate the results and display to the user. Once scanning is complete, break down the DNA sensors into building blocks again, and add it to the "soup" used for making DNA copies.
Anyone have a spare patent application lying around? I think I've got a winner here. Oh, and can we get Congress to extend patent terms to lifetime + 70 years like copywrites? I need to protect my children's children's livelihood! They're going to make a mint off this 50 years from now when it's practical.
DNA has many fine and interesting traits, but ability to self-replicate definitely isn't one of them. A large and complicated enzyme called polymerase and very special conditions are needed for even simplest replication of DNA. Food for thought: enzymes aren't stable. We keep them in -20, -70 deg C. Typical polymerase will be degraded after a couple of hours at room temperature.
Generally, this whole debate is a mixture of ignorance, misunderstanding, writing *something* quickly without having a hint of knowledge on the subject and without reading and understanding the original text (someone mentioned cybernetics. Well, I don't see any connection here. I would even go as so far as to say that DNA-based nanoelements would be especially unsuitable for any implants, since their expected lifetime in an organism full of DNA-digesting enzymes would be measured in minutes). What is even worse is that this is perfectly representative for Slashdot.
Slashdot -- corporate & legal news, misinformation en gros. "So why read Slashdot if you don't like it?" -- well, I won't. From now on. Slashdot is boring and full of "sensations" which usually turn out to be totally uninteresting, harmless, old.
About two years ago I have found Slashdot -- as a Ph.D. student in molecular biology who is doing also casually some bioinformatics, it was exactly the kind of thing I liked. Since then, I usually started my day by reading Slashdot. You may not believe it if I tell you, but there were usually genuine and interesting news about science and technology, often with links to articles written by profis, and not recycled second-hand information some laic wrote in some boulevard magazine. And if it was labelled "funny", then it was usually a couple of orders of magnitude more hilarious then "Diablo meets the Sims", which is what I call the humour for the rest of us. OK, enough with the rant. See you in a better world.
Cheers,
January