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Perfect Crystals Grown by Cancelling Out Gravity on Earth
willatnewscientist writes "Researchers in the Netherlands and Japan have found a way to grow perfect crystals in 'zero gravity' here on Earth. By exploiting the way a powerful magnet influences diamagnetic materials they have been able to grow protein crystals without the defects normally introduced as a result of gravity (The same trick has been used to levitate a frog before). Normally, such crystals are grown in space, such as aboard the International Space Station."
Did they grow the crystals INSIDE of a levitating frog?
Now that would be cool.
Mmmm... frog crystals...
The challenges poised to frog levitation is now classified as a defect caused by gravity? I thought it was usually the bugs that were misreported as features...
Nearly as costly as space, if I recall correctly- that magnet system costs a fortune to operate.
Yes, but it is easier to experiment on earth, and they'd probably find a way to lower costs if it entered into production.
Table-ized A.I.
On the protein side, this will be interesting, though. As the article states, growing highly precise protein structures is a Big Deal and very very hard. The potential benefits to the medical industry are hard to predict, but will be significant. This isn't merely a fun exercise, this could have some very substantial benefits. Not sure if it could be used to amplify prions, but if it could, that would make studying the B**** so much easier.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Ahem... from TFA:
"What's more, the technique will be faster and much cheaper than growing crystals in space, he says."
So at least they say it will be much cheaper.
Here's the frog they're talking of:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Frog_diamagnet
And here's a more boring example with graphite, although maybe more clear:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Diamagnetic_gr
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
1 levitating crystaline frog pendant--$2,300,000.21 Amaze your friends! Great school project! Requires 1 nuclear reactor(not included) Coming next week--antiproton earrings--
for every complex problem , there is a solution that is simple , neat , and wrong.
It will cost the space program a lot of support.
There goes the 'we can make much better crystals of proteins in zero-G' sales pitch (Anyone dare to guess how many http://www.pdb.org/PDB entries are space-crystals and how much better they are than the flatland versions?)
TFA says, "What's more, the technique will be faster and much cheaper than growing crystals in space..."
Of course, the researcher is likely projecting costs down the road when fine-tuning reduces costs.
We make the pens and Tang down here, too. Why do they get to stay?
Or are you suggesting that we'd already have discovered and created these crystals on earth without that experiment? Why wouldn't we have created the pens and Tang here instead?
Just because something has been done again in a different way doesn't mean the original way wasn't instrumental in finding it.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
You forgot adult diapers...
uh-oh, you can tell from over there?
am i alone in finding the levitating frog cooler? or is it just the weed talking again?
http://xkcd.com/313/
yeah well I dropped a piece of foam on my "evenly-heated cookware" and it left this huge gouge...
We are all just people.
Any photographs of these perfect crystals created in this?
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
No problem. Just use your , NASA supplied , "evenly-heated cookware" repair kit.
for every complex problem , there is a solution that is simple , neat , and wrong.
Just imagine when they adapt this same technique to work with breasts!
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
I write this comment as I sit in my gravity canceling chair, sipping a coke contained in a gravity canceling device called a glass. Even the keyboard is supported by a gravity canceling surface I call a table.
don't cut it off www.mgmbill.org
Actually, growing crystals in zero-G is at best only a small to marginal improvement.
AFAIR, when the space crystals were tested a few years ago, the only improvement was a limited reduction in the rocking width. The crystals did not diffract to higher resolutions. Better crystals could quite likely be achieved by reducing the micro-hetrogeneity
(i.e. purification of some sort). That's a lot cheaper.
There may be one or 2 space structures at www.pdb.org, but they're probably lysozyme.
Also (IFRC again) NASA publicised about how worthwhile it was doing space research by highlighting the importance of improved crystals. They weren't very improved and many members of the community (including me) thought that sending astronauts in to space for reasons such as these was a waste - and the expense (in all ways) could not be justified by the returns.
"there isn't a market for million-dollar CPU cores"
NASA and DARPA beg to differ...
If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits
It could possibly cost the space program a lot of money, but would this have even been discovered without the space program? I mean, if its easier to do the initial research in space, then the space program is serving its purpose.
This sig only exists because you are observing it.
Build a 5000-10000ft deep mine shaft, and install a "free fall" elevator lab. If it takes 10 seconds to grow crystals, you dont need much height to
achieve zero g. Just make a 10sq platform, drop it... falll for 12 seconds.... then slow it down from 12 to 20.... bingo instant 10 second duration zero G LAB on earth.
And just repeat.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
the perfect Crystals. Where are the pics?
What about Tempurpedic mattresses and all those hundreds of products on late night infomercials?
I wonder how affordable this is if it requires a 33 tesla magnet to run long enough for crystals to grow (weeks).
And a lot of people here could use them to build some new COMMENTS.
TFA says they're using a "33 Tesla magnet".
What's with these weird, nonstandard units? How many lightning strikes per american football pitch is that? Or lightbulbs per library of congress?
If I knew the wedgies I gave you back in 6th grade would have resulted in this . . . I might have taken a moments pause.