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Researchers Use Salmon DNA To Make LED Lightbulbs
Al writes "Researchers from the University of Connecticut have created a new light-emitting material by doping spun strands of salmon DNA with fluorescent dyes. The material, which is robust because DNA is such a strong polymer, absorbs energy from ultraviolet light and gives off different colors depending on the amounts of dye it contains. A team led by chemistry professor Gregory Sotzing created the new material by mixing salmon DNA with two types of dye, then pumping the solution from a fine needle while a voltage is applied between the needle tip and a grounded copper plate covered with a glass slide. As the liquid jet comes out, it dries and forms long nanofibers that are deposited on the glass slide as a mat. The researchers then spin this nanofiber mat directly on the surface of an ultraviolet LED to make a white-light emitter. The color-tunable DNA material relies on an energy-transfer mechanism between two different fluorescent dyes, and the DNA keeps the dye molecules separated at a distance of 2 to 10 nanometers from each other."
What bass voltage did he have to apply to get it to work?
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Energy efficient, yet stinky... I *like* it!
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I did this by accident once, while trying to make breakfast.
I'm taking bets:
LED Salmon vs Laser Shark
Sorry, fish are full of mercury!
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It was to cover up the fact that the faculty spent $400k at last year's xmas party on caviar.
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Just two, my man, but how you get them in there is the tricky part.
Since we already have white LED's, I'd guess the real benefit is the ability to give PETA something else about which they can complain..
There. Fixed that for you.
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this reminds me of that futurama episode where anchovy oil is the ultimate robot lubricant and extremely valuable after they have been fished to extinction. art imitates life yet again.
Is there a drop in luminosity compared to other leds? I mean this is really cool but if it isn't going to be as bright as any other process to make LEDs it's almost moot. Especially if it costs a lot more to make.
My wife had been bugging me to throw out all those salmon I'd been keeping in the garage. "Whatever are you going to use them for?" she wanted to know. I'll show her this and then we'll know who's the clever one!
We'll eat your eggs by the spoonful, with Vodka. And your very DNA will be used as a fluorescent dye.
(I admit, I stole the idea for the joke from Louis CK. Genius comedian, that guy.)
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The smell also needs to be compared. A flourescent bulb smells like wheat, a florescent bulb like roses, while this smells like fish.
Flourescent (adj): smelling like ground wheat.
several posters have asked why salmon dna - ifyou look in a std catalog (say www.sial.com) you will see that fish dna is much cheaper then bacterial (e coli)
this is cause each sperm cell has ~~1,000 times more dna then a bacterial cell, and sperm are easy to collect (hold the jokes) and easy to get dna out of - basically, you just put the sperm in a solution of detergent, and the dna pops out.
but dna is pretty $$ (retail price of 48 dollars a gram in 10 gram lots at sial.com), it degrades in the environment, and typically, the organic dyes that bind to dna have greatly reduced stability compared to inorganic phosphors
sounds like more ivory tower nonsense that will never lead to reasonably priced, cheap product
So this article is about a fishscent bulb, then ?
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