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Self-Assembling DNA Pyramids
FleaPlus writes "Physicists in England and the Netherlands have unveiled a technique for constructing rigid DNA pyramids. With the technique, trillions of d4's can rapidly self-assemble from a solution of single-stranded DNA. The scientists also showed that single DNA strands called linkers could be used to attach the tetrahedra to each other, acting as a possible building block for 3D nanofabrication."
Man those D&D games are getting complicated!
Oh... nevermind
---
Let my nucleotides go!
So the real builders oof the pyramids are nonfrabricators. The Egyptians grew them instead of using slave labor to drag blocks into place or getting help from UFOs.
Nanu Nanu (obligatory Mork and Mindy reference).
I knew my DNA had to be a pyramid.
It is more in line with my shape, gets wider the farther you go down!
trillions of d4's can rapidly self-assemble from a solution of single-stranded DNA
In other news, several cheerleaders who were interviewed stated that they were skeptical as pyramids in general are "way hard." They also stated that they doubted the numbers claimed as the largest pyramid they had heard of was composed of 280 or so cheerleaders and that a trillion is "like at least double that."
Just as soon as you send $1.00 each to the following people, then place your name on the top of the list and delete the last name from the bottom of the list! It's that simple and totally legal!*
* In Antarctica
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Should I be more embarrassed that I get my news from a source that calls tetrahedra "d4s", or that I immediately knew what that meant?
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a skull.
Highly advanced scientists in the field of cloning do it asexually.
Send email from the afterlife! Write your e-will at Dead Man's Switch.
...entire self-assembling DNA-based organisms. Scientists are working hard on the technology, but research is hampered by a mysterious and poorly understood preliminary stage called "sex".
THANK YOU for your submission of a new
[x] nanostructure
[ ] laser
[ ] transistor
using
[ ] straw and bailing wire
[x] DNA strands
[ ] silicon
This is a bad idea, because
[x] a 3-D structure is difficult to heat-sink
[x] scientists likely never will produce a transistor this way
[ ] this is a case of outright fraud
The problem however is not to make circuits
[ ] out of lasers
[x] 3-D
[x] self ordered
But the problem is to make them
[x] reliably
[x] at low cost
[x] faster
Further this article was published in
[ ] Science
[ ] New Scientist
[ ] Nature
[x] Science News
which is primarily a publicity-seeking mag, and not a great peer-reviewed journal for physics.
I can say this because I have a
[ ] BS
[ ] MS
[x] PhD
in
[x] Physics
[ ] Electrical Engineering