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Nanotube-Excreting Bacteria Allow Mass Production

Posted by Zonk on from the building-tech-from-the-ground-up dept.

Invisible Pink Unicorn writes "Engineers at the University of California, Riverside have found semiconducting nanotubes produced by living bacteria — a discovery that could help in the creation of a new generation of nanoelectronic devices. This is the first time nanotubes have been shown to be produced by biological rather than chemical means. In a process that is not yet fully understood, the bacterium secretes polysacarides that seem to produce the template for the arsenic-sulfide nanotubes. These nanotubes behave as metals with electrical and photoconductive properties useful in nanoelectronics. The article abstract is available from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences."

73 comments

  1. If they sh*t it, they eat it... by scsirob · · Score: 4, Interesting

    In general, nature re-uses everything. That means if bacteria excrete nanotubes, there are probably other organisms that feed on them. That makes me wonder if we'll find our wonderful nanotechnology will be vulnerable to organisms eating them...

    --
    To Terminate, or not to Terminate, that's the question - SCSIROB
    1. Re:If they sh*t it, they eat it... by G-News.ch · · Score: 0

      Now all we need to find is a proper use for all the shit that's being produced on the internet every day.

    2. Re:If they sh*t it, they eat it... by hyades1 · · Score: 5, Funny

      This phenomenon is well-known, and has frequently been described in scientific literature under the term "Politicojournalistivorism".

      --
      I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
    3. Re:If they sh*t it, they eat it... by GroeFaZ · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Every living organism is a special case of chemistry, so if an organism secretes something, that something might also be broken down without help of an organism, so yes, it's possible, but not necessary. Furthermore, should the need arise, I'm sure stuff made from carbon nanotubes can be made resistant to consumption by organisms for its expected lifetime just as for example a wooden ship, or a sheet of paper, or food, or whatever, can.

      --
      The grass is always greener on the other side of the light cone.
    4. Re:If they sh*t it, they eat it... by RockedMan40 · · Score: 1

      Okay - now THAT was damn funny !!

    5. Re:If they sh*t it, they eat it... by hanshotfirst · · Score: 2, Funny

      Furthermore, should the need arise, I'm sure stuff made from carbon nanotubes can be made resistant to consumption by organisms for its expected lifetime just as for example a wooden ship, or a sheet of paper, or food, or whatever, can.
      Unless you own a Labrador retriever. Trust me, they'll eat anything. Mine has an affinity for checkbook registers, including the vinyl cover.
      --
      Why, oh why, didn't I take the Blue Pill?
    6. Re:If they sh*t it, they eat it... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      + 1 - I just blew wine out my nose!

    7. Re:If they sh*t it, they eat it... by digitally404 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Actually, discussion on the nanotubes from bacteria usually talks about them being used to gain electron neutrality. Some bacteria may serve as acceptors, and others as the donors. What's interesting is that these tubes are also sometimes produced by bacteria seeking metallic elements in order to be able to "dump" their excess electrons, which may be used as a means of manufacturing them.

      Bacteria nanutubes have been discovered in 2006, but originally they were coined as nanoWIRES. This was before they took a closer look at the inner composition of the nanowires to discover that they were actually hollow. It's interesting that they have electrical properties.

      You know, in the future, the internet may quite literally become a series of tubes.

    8. Re:If they sh*t it, they eat it... by mabhatter654 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      but these don't seem to be the same composition as the all carbon ones. The chemically made carbon nanotubes have big environmental problems because they're nearly indestructible. One of the original purposes thought of for Buckyballs (the round relative) was to carry molecules of medicine, but in lab rats the balls were so durable they tore thru individual cell walls... perhaps these will have a natural decay rate so they can be widely deployed.

    9. Re:If they sh*t it, they eat it... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "That means if bacteria excrete nanotubes"

      They don't excrete it they build it and then move it outside.

    10. Re:If they sh*t it, they eat it... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Like coral reefs?

    11. Re:If they sh*t it, they eat it... by stonecypher · · Score: 1

      Hey, man, d'you want to smoke some Labrador?

      --
      StoneCypher is Full of BS
  2. Re:immature fp by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I say Socrates!

  3. more like a series of tubes by User+956 · · Score: 3, Funny

    In a process that is not yet fully understood, the bacterium secretes polysacarides that seem to produce the template for the arsenic-sulfide nanotubes.

    Yes, well, at least they've been proven to not be a truck.

    --
    The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
    1. Re:more like a series of tubes by LifesABeach · · Score: 1

      FTFA, "arsenic-sulfide nanotubes"; That looks like a Hell of a Deadly combination. Maybe a cousin of this bacteria does the same thing, only with carbon? Or maybe Silicon perchance?

    2. Re:more like a series of tubes by ChocoBean · · Score: 1

      nay, sir. It isn't as deadly as it is beautiful:

      http://www.galleries.com/minerals/sulfides/realgar/realgar.htm

  4. Awesome... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 3, Funny

    A new process to create a multi-core CPU and beer at the same time!

  5. arsenic-sulphide? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Wouldn't that mean that the waste would be arsenic and sulphide? Just what we need, landfills with arsenic and sulphide leaching into ground water.

    1. Re:arsenic-sulphide? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      Everyone knows not to mix e-waste with normal garbage, so it doesn't end up in landfills.

    2. Re:arsenic-sulphide? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As though there were not already tons of gallium arsenide LEDs there already.

  6. Swarm by bmgoau · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    Anyone read Prey by Michael Crichton?

    1. Re:Swarm by SiriusStarr · · Score: 1

      Dearly love the book; one of my favorites. You seeing shades of it here? Using bacteria to create electrical components? That could then be assembled...

      --
      Fear the penguin.
    2. Re:Swarm by H0D_G · · Score: 1

      Prey is an incredibly fanciful representation of nanotechnology. the situation described, as well as many of the properties attributed to nanomachines, is complete fiction. problem is, it's believeable to non-scientists. when talking about nanotechnolgy to non-scientists, I either get "what is that" or "you'll kill us all, grey goo." it's actually a damaging book, in that it actively attempts to hobble a science before it was anywhere near that level of complexity.

      --
      Kids! Bringing about Armageddon can be dangerous. Do not attempt it in your home!
    3. Re:Swarm by QuantumG · · Score: 1

      Yes, and its a week I could have spent reading something a worthwhile.

      --
      How we know is more important than what we know.
    4. Re:Swarm by dbIII · · Score: 1

      I pretty well gave up on him after the homocidal albino gorillas with stone ping pong bats in Congo and the entire plot of Sphere. For those of us that don't intend to read Prey what are you referring to?

    5. Re:Swarm by heinousjay · · Score: 1

      It's Cricton. His collected works make up the Luddite's bible. It goes something like this: scientists make technology, demonstrate arrogance and lack of foresight, people die, and the reader's brain is injured by his clunky writing and inability to conceive a plot that doesn't telegraph itself from the dust jacket.

      --
      Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
    6. Re:Swarm by ScrewMaster · · Score: 2, Insightful

      it's actually a damaging book, in that it actively attempts to hobble a science before it was anywhere near that level of complexity.

      Crichton may write what is passed off as "science" fiction, but he's fundamentally anti-technology, anti-progress, and unlike a Clarke or a Heinlein he's not always very careful about working through the numbers to make sure his vision of the future is even remotely probable. I can't stand his stuff for that reason, it's always the same thing. Man reaches for something he doesn't have the wisdom to handle properly, and gets bitchslapped by Mother Nature for overstepping his bounds. It's a common theme running through his books.

      --
      The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
    7. Re:Swarm by ScrewMaster · · Score: 1

      At the end of Jurassic Park he had the military (someone's military, I don't think he specified whose) bomb the island to kill all the saurians, and then (of course) had a colony of velociraptors escape the island and make it to the mainland. The presumption was that the raptors would breed and ultimately put us into a world of hurt. That whole book was classic Crichton, but in order to make the film palatable to everyone who made it out of the 1970's, Spielberg had to change ending. I stopped reading Crichton after that one (although I loved the movie.)

      --
      The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
    8. Re:Swarm by mabhatter654 · · Score: 1

      they sort of put the escape in the second movie when the pterodactyls followed the black helicopters to the mainland.

    9. Re:Swarm by mabhatter654 · · Score: 1

      I look at the works more as a critique of corporate culture than raw science. The idea that "all obstacles" to profit have to be avoided rather than simply lampooning scientific achievement in general.

      Even in computer science/security/privacy I see the same issues as in his books. Just because we CAN track purchases, google searches, etc. doesn't mean we have to or should. Many "normal" people don't see the difference between the ideas of "can" and "should/should not". Middle management (all the way to guys with big bucks like Gates) want things to be "easy" for the masses so they can get money/not lose money. People keep expecting technology to be "magical" and each new thing is marketed as a "silver bullet" and nobody is expected to understand limitations or to be smart enough to work around them and still be safe (or at least principled).

    10. Re:Swarm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Man reaches for something he doesn't have the wisdom to handle properly, and gets bitchslapped by Mother Nature for overstepping his bounds."

      Funny, that's almost exactly the opposite of Crichton's opinion of humanity's role in global warming.

    11. Re:Swarm by MrKaos · · Score: 1
      Yeah, but that's Crichton's audience, I read Prey, it was ok, I handed it over to a plumber so he could read it, and then my uncle the painter who liked Andromeda Strain and Jur-ass-has-had-it Park. Why?, Cause after they read it their eyes don't glaze over when you talk about nano-shit, they ask questions and when they do that they stop being luddites.

      Don't underestimate the value of an author like Crichton just because you're not his target audience. The best thing he could do is write the very stories he does, that raise awareness to an audience that would not know what nano engineering or 'grey goo' is, the very people who need to grasp the concepts, so support at a political level continues and the real science can occur.

      Get over it people, thats why they call it fiction - crappy writing style or not, scientific accuracy is not criteria. Crichton is not Clarke, Asimov, Bear, Brin or any of the other 'giants' of Sci-Fi but he still has a place and an audience to people who would never get past the first or second chapter Greg Bear's 'Eon' or 'Forge of God'.

      --
      My ism, it's full of beliefs.
  7. I keeeeeeel him by Hognoxious · · Score: 2, Funny

    The son of a camel who wrote this article has taken the name of the sacred one(BBHHH) in vain! One hundred lashes is not too many!

    --
    Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    1. Re:I keeeeeeel him by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We killses you and your sacred one, and our bacteria shitses tubes on your headsies!

    2. Re:I keeeeeeel him by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not just that: I hear some sod named a bear after Him.

    3. Re:I keeeeeeel him by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hey, raghead - shut the fuck up, you dumbass sand-nigger.

  8. I for one by odinsgrudge · · Score: 1, Troll

    Welcome our new Nanotube-excreting bacterial overlords.

  9. whos on first? by slyn · · Score: 1, Redundant

    Head scientist: What is all this shit?

    Scientist: Yes.

    HS: What?

    S: It's all shit.

    HS: What the hell are you babbling about?

    S: You asked me what all this was.

    HS: And what is it?

    S: Shit.

    HS: ???

    S: OHHH.... shit.... I thought you asked: "What is all this, shit?" My mistake.

  10. Owwie! by mbstone · · Score: 4, Funny

    It must really hurt to excrete a nanotube. Maybe some nanoprunes would help.

    1. Re:Owwie! by tkw954 · · Score: 1

      PETA must hear of this! This enslavement and torture of living organisms must end now!

  11. Bulletin from University of California, Riverside by prollifik · · Score: 3, Informative

    See also this link. There's a picture. http://www.newsroom.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/display.cgi?id=1730

  12. nanowire, nanotube and bacteria: not so new? by jjq · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I've a question: it seems that nanowire and nanotube are the same objects. In that case, nothing so new. See http://www.geobacter.org/ and a paper in the June 23, 2005 issue of Nature about the geobacter bacteria. I did a funny use of it during the rump session of CRYPTO 2005 at UCSB, see http://www.iacr.org/conferences/crypto2005/rumpSchedule.html "The geobacter attack: when nanotechnology meets chips" with the slides and the video.

  13. I'm just waiting by LilGuy · · Score: 1

    ..for some senator to start talking about how we need to tax all these nano-internets.

    --

    You're nothing; like me.
  14. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 1

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  15. Re:Bulletin from University of California, Riversi by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    Here is another picture not totally OT.

  16. it could solve our ethanol supply problem.... by doug141 · · Score: 1

    ...if we could find an organism that has corn in its poop!

    1. Re:it could solve our ethanol supply problem.... by dotancohen · · Score: 1

      You've obviously never eaten corn. Everything that eats corn has corn in it's poop.

      --
      It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
    2. Re:it could solve our ethanol supply problem.... by guruevi · · Score: 1

      Whenever I eat corn, I have corn in my poop. My body doesn't digest it very well you see. Am I going to be the solution to the world fuel shortage now? Am I going to be rich and famous?

      --
      Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
    3. Re:it could solve our ethanol supply problem.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You've obviously never... well, never mind that. The fact is, what remains in the poop is not a good ethanol raw material, those are just empty outer skins of corn seeds. Most of the starch is digested by then.

    4. Re:it could solve our ethanol supply problem.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      and why do you suppose that is?

      The first part of digestion is masticating the food. I suggest you eat slower and masticate more. Yes, that means you should chew it up in your mouth before swallowing it. That does several things, such as causing your saliva glands to produce saliva which triggers acid production in your stomach which attacks the corn. Also the corn is broken into small pieces which means the acid can attack the corn better and the end result (heh) is that you don't get corn showing in your poop.

    5. Re:it could solve our ethanol supply problem.... by dotancohen · · Score: 1

      To tell you the truth, I'm not all that into scat, nor corn, and I've never had much of a problem with a kernel or two in the can. Hell, where did you think 2.5.14 went?

      --
      It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
  17. Re:immature fp by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    that's no secret

  18. The really interesting part by rbnigh · · Score: 4, Informative

    These researchers are so focussed on industrial production of nanotubes (big bucks) that the completely forget to mention the really interesting part of their 'discovery'. Bacteria exude polysaccharides to create biofilms, the principal expression of bacterial populations in nature. What are the implications of this for the way bacteria control ecosystems? And, by the way,if we don't have a clue as to what is going on here, wouldn't it be prudent to understand a little more before *we* start exuding nanotubes hither and thither?

    1. Re:The really interesting part by superwiz · · Score: 1

      C'mon, this is beyond big bucks. This what could change nanotech from curiosity to mainstream. Everyone talked about commercial infeasibility of the space elevator and such. But is that really about big bucks? If this works on large scale, it would be beyond money. It could redefine humanity.

      --
      Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
  19. Prey by sageimac · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Has anyone read "Prey" by Michael Crichton? This is scary science fiction coming true.

    1. Re:Prey by FooAtWFU · · Score: 1
      Prey is not only laughably implausible in reality... it's only incidentally related. Prey featured nano-robots forming a sort of distributed-group-consciousness-thingy. No one is making nano-robots. People are making nano-tubes, which have about as much relationship to nano robots as a three-foot section of copper phone wire has to a regular-sized robot... and you need more than just that for Prey, you need wireless-mesh-communication self-aware mind-controlling evil nanorobots who can fly through the air like nanoblackhelicpoters.

      Next to all that, the way he butchers computing isn't even worth mentioning.

      --
      The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
    2. Re:Prey by PitaBred · · Score: 1

      Naah. It's just you being unable to tell real science from the bullshit that Crichton writes. It's entertaining, sure, but has very little basis in reality. If you really are scared because of something Crichton wrote, do the world a favor and stop having a public opinion on anything scientific, because you're doing more harm than good.

      --
      My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
    3. Re:Prey by Chandon+Seldon · · Score: 1

      But, but, we have to stop all cloning research or we'll all be eaten by raptors!

      --
      -- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
    4. Re:Prey by MrNiceguy_KS · · Score: 1
      I'll put it like this:
      Real World Nanotech is to Prey
      as
      Real World Hacking is to "It's a unix system! I know this!"

      (and to the anal-retentive Crichton fan, yes I know that was in the movie, not the book)

      --
      Redundancy is good And also good.
  20. I'm still working on it ... by ScrewMaster · · Score: 2, Funny

    I've been trying to train myself to excrete nanotubes, but so far all I've gotten are macrorods.

    --
    The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
  21. Re:Bulletin from University of California, Riversi by InvisblePinkUnicorn · · Score: 1

    That same pic is in the article linked in the summary....

  22. When they follow this up the food chain ... by timothy · · Score: 1

    They'll find that cats have long been producing our most valuable resource, and we were just too stupid to do anything but throw it out with the litter, instead of creating the awesome future they've been trying to have us construct for them.

    timothy

    --
    jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
  23. Correction to dept. by callmevinny · · Score: 2, Funny

    building-tech-from-the-bottom-up

  24. Arsenic sulfide? by perbert · · Score: 5, Funny

    It is just me, or is there irony in the fact that the nanopoop is AsS?

    1. Re:Arsenic sulfide? by stonecypher · · Score: 1

      It's just you.

      --
      StoneCypher is Full of BS
  25. Internet nanotubes? by RudeIota · · Score: 1

    This is quite a discovery!

    This may open the door for much, much smaller, less expensive tubes to replace the Internet's current tubular system.

    --
    Fact: Everything I say is fiction.
  26. Re:Bulletin from University of California, Riversi by prollifik · · Score: 2, Informative

    My bad. I read the abstract and didn't notice the article.

  27. Excuse the pun by drewzhrodague · · Score: 1

    Fab!

    --
    Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
  28. Ha! I excreted a brick this morning... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    complete with perfect corners and "ACME" printed on it. Happens all the time.

    And let me be among the first to welcome our nanotube-shitting bacterial overlords. Sad to see the human race come in a poor second in the race to nanotechnology, but sometimes that's how the gene pool crumbles.

  29. Beware of nanogoatse by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Linking to pictures of someone excreting something? I'm not following that link, sorry =)