Touching Molecules With Your Bare Hands

FiReaNGeL writes "Researchers at the Scripps Institute just devised an incredibly interactive way to manipulate complex molecules, such as proteins and DNA, with your bare hands. Combining 3D printed hand-held objects with sophisticated computer displays & cameras, this technology allow more natural and intuitive interactions with biological molecules - you can manipulate them with your hands and visualize the results on the computer in real time. Don't miss the incredibly cool movies and images illustrating the 3D printing process and augmented reality interaction with diverse proteins, viral self-assembly simulation and HIV-1 protease folding. A detailed press release is available."

Comments

Re:Eh? This is something new?

[BWJones]

Newsflash!! Anytime you touch anything, you're touching molecules with your bare hands! In fact, your hands are made of molecules, too!

Informative?!!!? I think not. Mod down and here is why: What the article has to do with is how to interact with molecules to see how they interact at the very hard to appreciate scales that one works with. Van der walls, intramolecular and intermolecular forces are critically important for many molecular reactions such as covalent bonding and enzymatic activity. Understanding how this happens is all part of the education in chemistry and for many students can be difficult. A post like this is just silly, or worse yet, ignorant if the poster is serious.