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Moving Water Molecules By Light
Roland Piquepaille writes "An interdisciplinary team of researchers at Arizona State University (ASU) has discovered a new nanotechnology effect, the ability of moving water molecules by light. This is a far better way than current methods such as damaging electric fields and opens the way to a new class of microfluidic devices used in analytical chemistry and for pharmaceutical research. For example, this makes possible to design a device that can move drugs dissolved in water, or droplets of water and samples that need to be tested for environmental or biochemical analyses. Please read this overview for more details and references, plus an image of two water drops illuminated with a fluorescent dye and sitting respectively on a nanowire surface and on a flat surface."
...in the fine print "funded by columbian drug lords who want their bong water back"
Water molecules could move light, so it was only a matter of time to reverse the process
[sig]www.masterslate.org[/sig]
what's wrong with water hoses?
It probably wouldn't be that practical, but it could be effective to dehydrate certain parts of someone's body by moving the water around inside. Maybe the military could find use for that.
I are winner
Would this mark the first step into the evolution of hydrocomputing, just light and water in miniature pipes, feasable to use under water or in environments with a high risk of explosion ?
Would this make any sense to have?
605413? Yes, it's a prime.
Me: "I can't crack this problem. I get this partial differential equation and it looks really hairy."
Lecturer: "Well, you're making it too complex from the start. As a first approximation you should approximate that the intensity is linearly proportional to x..."
Me: "Hey, wait a minute. Where in the problem does it say so?"
Lecturer: "It doesn't say so anywhere. That's what us physicists do. If the mathematics gets too hard, try a simpler physical model. Use your imagination!"
Me: *sigh* "And physics is supposed to be a hard science"
I ,for one, welcome this floorless-elevator technology.
wait... welcome? I--*
"A witty saying proves nothing." ~Voltaire
"d'Oh!" ~Homer
please visit his adverts he means, not an overview that he has cut and pasted with zero added insight
as he would say with his boilerplate article submission template
you can find more details in this overview of Roland Piquepaille's spamming activities here
If the mathematics gets too hard, try a simpler physical model. Use your imagination!
Nothing is impossible, if you can imagine it!
back in my day we moved our water molecules by hand. Both ways, UP HILL! You kids and your newfangled technology. What ever happened to old fashioned elbow grease?
Joking aside, it seems this actually does have some practical uses such as reducing the time and resources required performing tests during drug development.
water displacement by feces?
You kids and your newfangled technologies....
Doesn't moving water molecules with light sound reckless to anyone? Surely this must be the first time water has been moved by photons. I think there may be implications to this beyond our understanding. This might lead to those Ice-9 problems we were warned about.
Science is not about imagination. At least that's what I hope (I'm majoring in math and aiming at becoming a pro mathematician).
Einstein agonized over the ramifications of his research into the atom far too late. We can already see the writing on the wall with nanotech -- perhaps it should be considered that the threat is greater than the promise?
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
If you add a bunch of nanofibers to a wax coated surface, the water will "ball up" and move around more easily. If you make the nanofibers sensitive to light, you can control the speed with which the water moves over the surface by changing the light level.
You feel that it is your duty to file a report about Roland and "serve the public" by informing them of his despicable crime.
God, people like you make me sick.
I have to ask myself why. We can already move liquids quite simplely and from the sounds of it, this will use huge amounts of energy just to get the light to that state.
I like muppets.
You'll be moving water molecules in about 20 minutes.
... you assume a "horse" is a "sphere" to make the math easier.
N4st0r, trixx0r h0bb1tz0rz! Th3y st0l3 0ur pr3c10uzz!
I am so frightened (and by frightened I mean extremely excited) at how fast we are evolving technologically, I can't even get a vague picture of where we'll be 5 years from now let alone 50.
I'd really like to hear some practical non-research based applications for this technology if any knowledgeable person might be able to help out. One of the first things I thought of was that this might be useful for creating cybernetics, since light is a lot less harmful than electricity, and I'm guessing that cybernetics of the future will involve some sort of liquid transfer on a nano scale.
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You know what, this could make for a good water cooler for your cpu. Instead of having a noisy pump, you could just shine a fancy light down your water tubes.
"Now for the small price of $999.00 you too can part the Red Sea."
Dog for sale: eats anything and is fond of children
OK, I a way out of my league in this subject. But, isn't it right that microwave actually moves/spins water molecules (and transfer its energy to the molecules)? That is how a microwave oven works, isn't it? Since light wave and microwave are both electromagnetic waves, should it not be expected that light moves water molecule?
squillions of little nanobots with little lights creating your own private Left hander on the flattest bit of sea you can find .... now theres a good use for this research ... maybe if you were really nasty you could get zillions of the little buggers and impress your friends by creating a tsunami .... then again, mabe not?
Cool, then we can write software rather than visiting the toilet once an hour (if you're a coffee junkie like me, that is)
Looks like you didn't RTFA.
It's about changing the hydrophobic/hydrophilic (water repellent/attractive) properties of a _special_ surface using light. This doesn't work on just any surface.
I dare say the military would prefer to dehydrate parts of your body by vapourizing bits of it e.g. zap you directly with a powerful beam of light. Or ionizing air between a thundercloud and you so that a lightning bolt zaps you ( that's to make it look like an "Act of God").
It'll be just like in the first Batman movie
They had better send the Department of Homeland Security to go and protect the University of Arizona, otherwise the Joker is going to like come steal their research and use it to dehydrate the U.N.
Common, this is all triviality. I mean, if I go outside and the sun burns down, my water molecules move rather quicker than slower to the outside of my body!!
Uhm, ok, well, I cheated, I've only heard about this going outside thingy, I never leave the lab anyways...
Ummm... maybe someone should tell them that light consists of oscillating electric and magnetic fields. :)
Just imagine moving a particular protein or DNA promoter or enzyme, which will be programed to implement certain procedures, into certain place in situ. And perhaps one day this tech can be used in the repairing of a effete cell...
I'm sick of seeing Roland's blog on /.
should be
"the ability to move water molecules with light"
They just moved a few molecules of water with light? My girlfriend's dad once got me moving a lot faster and further by turning on the lights.
I've found that my posts don't format quite right w/o a sig.
Cool - laser pinball!
Don't go to a brothel if you want to buy broth
It probably wouldn't be that practical, but it could be effective to dehydrate certain parts of someone's body by moving the water around inside. Maybe the military could find use for that.
Yeah! Then maybe someone could find commercial uses for this revolutionary new technology -- If light can move water around in a person, imagine what it could do to food! OH the possibilities! Wow, you could even have instant, ready-to-eat meals heated by this device! I better patent this idea of water-moving light quick before someone else steals it!
I guess you wont be raising the speed of light in then
...you complain about everything in hopes of karma!
actually when humans are active participants in scientific exploration, imagination plays a great role as it can be used to find solutions to seemingly intractable problems.
:)
sometimes all it takes is you imagining a situation from a different point of view or using different sense modalities in order to perceive a solution.
the opposite or brute force method is a systematic approach that formulates hypotheses and tests them out then repeats forever. i doubt you have much time to do science this way, which is why imagination is very nice
Hemos seems to usually be the culprit posting the Piquepaille stories. I don't mind if Hemos wants to post stories submitted by this guy (though often even the submissions are inaccurate summaries of the original articles), but it would be appropriate to edit out his links to poorly written, uninformative summaries that he posts on his blog before posting the story. I don't mind somebody occasionally using a Slashdot submission to let the community know about some new product they or their company has developed or interesting article or book they've written, but this blatant traffic farming is way over the top.
What about the logic? The logic will never fail you. If you get a theoretical solution that's intractable at the time, then what's stopping you from publishing it so that later generations can attack it when the mathematics has developed enough (witness the incredible Fermat's problem, for instance).
Solving it by cheating (ie. approximating) is not scientific - it's just stupid.
From the article text:
The lotus leaf effect is a fairly well known phenomenon that combines the microscopically rough surface of the plant's leaves with a waxy chemical coating and leads to high water repellency and self-cleaning of the surface. It is already employed commercially in stain repelling pants.
Where can I buy a pair of such pants?
Please elaborate on the 'goo problem'. Ie, with explicit details on how it would work, not just some qualitative description, which is all that anybody seems to have at the moment.
So somebody said that maybe all life COULD be devoured by a properly-designed nanotech robot that would reproduce quickly and break up organic matter into component monomers, etc etc etc.
I'll say a self-aware self-replicating AI program COULD be created that would spread through the net independent of host operating system, and crash all airplanes, screw up everybody's bank accounts, erase all data, etc etc etc.
Similarly, a 'battlebot' with enough memory COULD somehow be programmed properly that it also attains self-awareness intelligence, reproduces and builds an army of subservient battlebots, and wreaks havoc across the planet.
So, if you are trying to claim we should stop research into nanotechnology, then we should also stop research into computing, artificial intelligence, robotics, etc.
There is NO field where there isn't any risk that something bad could happen. Nanotech is the 'new' field, so this is where the fear-mongering comes in. You're not alone, look at comics, for instance. Most old-school Marvel superheroes got their superpowers, for better or worse, through radioactive effects, back in the fearful decades after the atom bomb. Nowadays the current fear is nanotech, and even the first Spiderman movie changed the story from a radioactive spider to a genetically-modified spider. You're doing the same thing, really.
I work with nanotech. Just 30 minutes ago I was putting carbon nanotubes onto a substrate, and I'll eventually do some electronic transport measurements. Currently I'm scanning the substrate with an atomic-force microscope. There are TONS of amazing uses that nanotubes might have, so we're studying many of their properties. Why is my study of carbon nanotubes different from somebody determining which binary tree search algorithms are most efficient, or what shape sawblade cuts through plastic the best?
make world, not war
for billions of years. All the Sun Gods would claim prior art.
Is it out of your pocket?
No. So shut up already, asshat.
As the body is mostly water could we use this as some weird transportation device ? Would it just move the water and leave the non-water bits behind - could be amusing to watch if it was done on someone you don't like. Instant dick-head, just add water !
Art Makers Just an excuse to show photos of naked women !!
This might be an interesting story. Unfortunately I stopped reading the minute I noticed the submitter thinks this method of moving water might be better than "currnet methods such as damaging electric fields." Is the submitter serious? Here's a free clue Mr. Piqupaille: LIGHT IS AN ELECTRIC FIELD. Another thing: did I miss something with electric fields being "damaging" somewhere? I wonder where this guy is getting his information from.
I happen to know that Piquepaille is just a karmawhore whose aim is to make money for anti-slash with his ad-links.
Devious, isn't it?
Light is not an electric field, it is a propagating electromagnetic wave particle duality.
To address your other point, electric fields can be very damaging when they are sufficiently high intensity. Also, electromagnetic fields can be damaging too.
Not damaging to the water molecules, which are robust, but damaging to the materials disolved or suspended in the water, which may be delicate bio-active organic molecules. For example, there are various cell sorting systems that currently use electric fields. They might better use a system like this.
However, light can be damaging in its own right. Red and infrared light can be heating. Violet and UV light can be energetic and penetrating (think sunburn radiation damage).
The game of Go (Igo, Weiqi, Baduk) has the simplest concept and the deepest play.
Wow... I just was not aware that electric fields could damage water. I guess you learn something every day...
The article does not describe Optical tweezers.. but I just wanted to note that Optical Tweezers are cool, and you can move nano particles around in cells and solutions with light using this device. We used them to measure the binding force of cell surface receptors.
(Receptors are springs... horse is sphere)
Isn't this how they built the pyramids!
Oh, snap.
So somebody said that maybe all life COULD be devoured by a properly-designed nanotech robot that would reproduce quickly and break up organic matter into component monomers, etc etc etc.
I keep reading about the grey goo, and I've yet to see an argument that it is possible from someone who demonstrates an understanding of the complex tradeoffs that limit our currently existing biological self-replicating machines. Problems like:
1: Oxygen is both a nutrient, and a poison.
2: The lack of a universal catalyst. A machine that catalyzes the transformation of one amino acid will be less than optimal for catalyzing a different amino acid.
3: Energy and trace elements severely limit growth at a microscopic level.
That's already happened. If I understand correctly it works my organising millions of amazingly advanced nanotech robots organising into bi-pedal super-colonies which then organise into super-colonies of these super-colonies that then procede to destroy the planet.
That does seem to be the more pressing problem.
This is my sig.
And he submits numerous articles with links to poorly written summaries in his blog. How many good article submissions did the Slashdot editors turn down because of this jerk? How many other people submitted this same article, only to be turned down so dickless can get free hits from Slashdot?
Is it out of your pocket?
For subscribers, yes, it is.
So shut up already, asshat.
No, make me, you cockbiting fuckard.
The novel effect here acutally has nothing to do with light. The 'breakthrough' is in the use of a specially formulated surfaced nano-wire that repels water better. This wire thus has a lower hysteresis, allowing the strenth of a beam of light to move a water droplet.
A better articel title may have been "New nanotech surface allows light to manipulate water"
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-shpoffo