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Printing With Enzymes
Roland Piquepaille writes "Researchers at Duke University have developed a new printing technique using catalysts to create microdevices such as labs-on-a-chip. Their inkless printing technique uses enzymes from E. coli bacteria and has an accuracy of less than 2 nanometers. While they're are now using enzymes to stamp nanopatterns without ink, the research team is already working with non-enzymatic catalysts. And it added that 'future versions of the inkless technique could be used to build complex nanoscale devices with unprecedented precision.'"
Shouldn't that be "resolution of less than 2 nanometers", or maybe "accuracy better than 2 nanometers"?
Virtually serving coffee
I was one of them. But since Roland is no longer linking to his own blog, I have no problem with him. Quite honestly, the majority of his submissions are better than the majority of the other submissions. I am not sure what is up with the vendetta any more.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
I swear Scientific American had an article on this a few years ago. At least it's been over a year since I let my subscription lapse.
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
What implications does this have for the "my dog ate my homework" excuse?
Real Strogg printers use stroylent, not these watered-down human enzymes. [Quake4]
Do they moonlight at the local meat packing warehouse?
What?
Yet another scientific story with big claims and little detail. 2nM accuracy sounds a little overstated. First the polyacrylamide gel is elastic. Second they are using fluorescence to see the pattern and this at the very best has resolution of about 300nM. Third they need to generate the pattern on the stamp first and there is no mention in the article what is the accuracy of that. They seem to assume that the accuracy is equal to the DNA diameter.
Infiltrated dot Net
> Researchers at Duke University have developed a new printing technique using catalysts
> to create microdevices such as labs-on-a-chip. Their inkless printing technique uses
> enzymes from E. coli bacteria and has an accuracy of less than 2 nanometers. While they're
> are now using enzymes to stamp nanopatterns without ink, the research team is already
> working with non-enzymatic catalysts. And it added that 'future versions of the inkless
> technique could be used to build complex nanoscale devices with unprecedented precision.
Man Show Boy: Boy, the transhumanist techno-rapture omega point sure is boring to actually sit through.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
I bet a cartridge of enzymes would still be cheaper than ink that printer companies sell us.
Really, come now... Is there anyone reading /. that still uses paper as a communiation medium? When I got my present office I told them to rip out all the file cabinets... "What is it with this archaic desk?" said I. Keyboard and chair is all I need.
Family pictures?? That's what a digital-picture frame is for, duh!
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X's and O's for all my foes.
They can create a dot (circular area) with a diameter of 2 nm. That is the area an enzyme dangling from a linker (tether) can reach. It is not that they can create anything other than a dot, not that they can put purposively 2 dots at a distance of 2 nm from each other, or that they can add material (such as a metal capable of functioning as a conductor) on the surface. Really nice experiment, but don't buy shares unless you're a long-term investor.
Bert
The actual scientific paper appears to be this one:
Phillip W. Snyder, Matthew S. Johannes, Briana N. Vogen, Robert L. Clark, and Eric J. Toone, "Biocatalytic Microcontact Printing" J. Org. Chem., 72 (19), 7459 -7461, 2007 DOI: 10.1021/jo0711541
They use confocal fluorescence which is, as you note, diffraction limited. However for the high-resolution study of the line-edges, they use Atomic Force Microscopy which is of course much higher resolution. The AFM images they show, however, appear to have rather imperfect line-edges, with resolution of >200 nm. Actually, nowhere in the paper do they claim to have demonstrated 2 nm resolution. Rather, they point out in the introduction that their new technique, in principle, could allow higher-resolution printing that conventional soft lithography, because there is no diffusion of reagents in their technique. The news release focuses on this mention of a theoretical 2 nm resolution, rather than pointing out the actual accomplishment of the paper, which in the words of the authors is: So, in short, it's an important advancement but the authors are not claiming to have achieved the intended ultra-high-resolution yet. And, even without that optimistic resolution, the technique is interesting in its own right because it is a new way to control the nanoscale chemical patterning of surfaces.
E-Coli....
Sounds like a load of shit to me
I for one welcome our mind reading computer overlords.
Insert Generic Sig Here:
Shall there be no limit to how small the fine print can be on a EULA!!!
What it appears they did is create a "field" of single-strand DNA "grass". Then they tethered an enzyme "cow" to a point in the field. The "cow" ate all the "grass" it could reach, creating a visible dot. Unfortunately, they do not yet know how to move the cow so it doesn't starve after that.
The printer costs $200. The printer cartridges cost $2 million dollars. :)
EULA: By installing the software, you agree by the terms and conditions as laid out in this document.
The consumer opens the package to find no paperwork inside. The damn thing was written on a microdot!
Do it yourself, because no one else will do it yourself. [beta blockade 10-17 Feb]
Adam is the canvas, and Plasmids are the paint.
Stanford researchers have developed a much much sharper arrowhead for arrows (for use with a better long bow developed by Edinburgh Univ. engineers); an Isreali thinktank has applied the technique and developed a pencil that never needs sharpening; Fuji has purchased the patent rights to a new chemical bath process that makes monochrome film prints even glossier; and Kotex has released a much more reliable, silicon based IUD.
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Any sufficiently outdated or irrelivant technology is indistnguishable from a paperweight (what is paper, again? Its like an old TV or something, right?).
The Admin and the Engineer
I can get my name on a grain of rice!
Operation Guillotine is in effect.