DNA Strands Modified Into Tiny Fiber-Optic Cables

holy_calamity writes "New Scientist reports on the latest idea from researchers trying to make microcomputers use photons in place of electrons — to make optical interconnects from strands of DNA. Mixing DNA strands with the right dye molecule upgrades them into wires for light, like microscopic optical fibers, able to absorb photons at one end and transmit them to the other. One of the neat things about using DNA is it is the right scale to play nicely with existing and future chip lithography. Quoting: 'The result is similar to natural photonic wires found inside organisms like algae, where they are used to transport photons to parts of a cell where their energy can be tapped. In these wires, chromophores are lined up in chains to channel photons.'"

Comments

Robots

[pipatron]

Ok great, yeah, give the robots DNA too. Like we'll have any chance now.

Damn!

[Anonymous Coward]

We had this ability already built into our biology and we instead use chemical signals for our nervous system? It is a pity we didn't have an intelligent designer (one with degrees in electrical engineering and physics).

Re:Damn!

[Xerxes333]

Perhaps the intelligent designer chose the "home" edition rather than the "professional" edition and we are in breach of some universal EULA.

The organisation of life

[Kupfernigk]

This is yet more evidence, if it was needed, that there is something about carbon chemistry that facilitates the emergence of life. Once you have a DNA or RNA molecule, organisation and replication of small molecules seems to emerge almost from nowhere. This evidence that even a concept as significant as photon collecting and channelling could emerge out of a largely self-organising process is quite extraordinary, because it starts to answer the objections of Creationists to, for instance, the evolution of light sensitivity. Given the sheer vastness of geological time, the range of environments on even a minor planet going around a mid-rank star, the opportunities for something to get started are enormous. It's a kind of corollary to Murphy's law: in a sufficiently large system, given long enough, practically anything possible is going to happen at some point.

This of course is not evidence for or against any kind of theology in general, because theology is a much more diverse (and interesting) subject than the Creationists and IDers would have you believe. But it does look as though the question "how did life get started", which is vague and ill defined, is gradually resolving down to the question "under what circumstances can ribose nucleic acids form spontaneously, and how many other small molecules can we find which can spontaneously arrange themselves in the presence of ribose nucleic acids?" which is testable.

Re:The organisation of life

[Doc Ruby]

I read the links. For someone divinely inspired, you're not a very good guesser.

I didn't see anything in there about "1914". Nor do I see the number "1914" anywhere in "the" bible.

The other "bibles" I'm talking about are those held sacred (and literal) by other faiths, such as the Mahabarata and other Vedic scriptures, any number of Buddhist sutras, the oral traditions of North American tribes, the Greek, Roman or Egyptian texts and traditions, and on and on around the world. Of course you don't think of those as "the bible", but rather just some superstition, but of course their believers think the same of yours, and of each other.

There are other things that have changed. Even the Hebrew torah changed in important ways about 2000 years ago, and there's plenty of analysis showing it changed from an original form to its form around the time of the Roman conquest in specific sections. And of course the original christian canon of over 400 different texts was reduced to the 4 in the "new testament" by a christian order about 1600 years ago. The persistence of biblical transcription and consistency through the millennia is still remarkable, but owes to the priority for exact transcription, and the fear of punishment for failure in both the living world, and the expected "afterlife". Zoroastrian gospel has been at least as consistent since about 3000 years ago, while spending its first millennium transmitted only orally, with at least as many "efforts to destroy it entirely".

There is no evidence that "the" bible you prefer is effective for family life, work ethic, view of money, treatment of fellow man, etc. Practically no one follows the entire literal prescriptions of the bible, to the exclusion of any other source of life guidance. And there are plenty of perfectly functional and happy people who follow their own bibles, with little influence sourced from "the" bible you prefer.

I know "the" bible, and its blindered, faithy adherents (of many denominations, many bibles), quite well, thank you. I also know science and reason, which make it easy to debunk any of the bible worshippers' contrived arguments like you've offered here. The only way that bible worship ever meets science and reason with any chance of survival is by willful blindness, or acceptance of science and reason debunking the bible except as a self-programming exercise in pure metaphysics.

The bible's got some good lessons, co-evolving with a successful style of civilization the dominance of which self-selects for successful life strategies within its constructed values. But it's a work of humans, even if quite an excellent one. Except maybe when it doesn't matter what's true, and what you're looking for is a good story to share with other people you like, when believing it's something supernatural is harmless fun. Taking it further than that is unwarranted, and usually leads to terrible consequences fairly quickly.

Re:Right scale...

[elp]

You be afraid. I can't wait. Oh the trans-humanity!

Think Photosynthesis, not Fiber Optics

[cynicsreport]

These modified DNA strands seem to act more like the photosynthetic electron-transport system than they do optical fibers. In fact, one of the applications listed is "light harvesting in artificial photosynthetic systems." It is curious that TFA describes this as a fiber optics corollary.
Fiber optics works based on the principles that photons will reflect off of a surface given a sufficient difference in refractive index and approach angle, allowing high-bandwidth communication. This new DNA photon transport system seems to have very little resemblance. I would guess that using DNA for communication would be very slow and very low bandwidth, to the point of being practically infeasible.

Re:Signal loss?

[Doc Ruby]

These DNA "optical fibers" are made by inserting chromophores into DNA strands. The DNA is the path between two points, a substrate on which to lay out a sequence of chromophores. The chromophore path can transfer photons from one chromophore to another. The light isn't "reflecting", its transmission is something like the inverse of internally refractive transmission through an optically transparent medium. Chromophores do form the path through which light travels, but this new publication doesn't specify the physical mechanism by which light is transmitted from one chromophore to another along the DNA. However, the chromophores are not a contiguous optically transparent medium, so they're not transferring the photons the way that familiar fiberoptics do, which depends on them acting as a contiguous optical medium.