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Part-Human, Part-Machine Transistor Devised
asukasoryu writes "Man and machine can now be linked more intimately than ever, according to a new article in the journal ACS Nano Letters. Scientists have embedded a nano-sized transistor inside a cell-like membrane and powered it using the cell's own fuel. To create the implanted circuit, the UC scientists combined a carbon nanotube transistor, lipid bilayer coating, ion pump, and ATP. The ion pump changes the electrical charge inside the cell, which then changes the electrical charge going through the transistor, which the scientists could measure and monitor."
Everyone add the tag, Cylons to this one. :-D
But this is slashdot. A slashdoter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber!
So they put a transister inside a cell membrane. How exactly does that make it part human? Every living creature has cells that have phospholipid bilayers.
My other sig is clever.
completely useless device that makes the user buy other useless devices starting with the letter "i"
So will this be the next weight loss method? If I am powering electronics it must come from burning calories correct?
Resistance is voltage over current.
Future devices could work just the opposite, where an outside electrical current could power the pump and alter how quickly ions are pumped into or out of a cell.
That has potentially far reaching effects assuming they can eventually find a way to install these things throughout the body (or even better just on targeted cells). You could install one of these devices on each cancer cell, for example, and power a pump that forced chemo drugs into the cells. That means that cancer cells would receive a much higher dose than non-cancer cells meaning less side effects and/or more effective treatments. Of course, there's a million problems to be solved before such a treatment could become reality, but the possibilities are endless.
If you could install one of these devices in a cancer cell, it wouldn't need to pump it full of medicine. Water or would work just fine. Pop!
Overlord1: These brutish simple beings have finally yielded some light at the end of the tunnel.
Overlord2: Yes, but it will still be a few centuries to perfect, sell, and drive adoption before we can flip the switch and merge them into Overmind.
Overlord1: Ok - when can I see the Microsoft Project Plan?
L'esperienza de questa dolce vita (The experience of this sweet life) - Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy
If you can find a way to install things on targeted cells, you can just deliver the actual chemo to the cells without this as intermediary.
What a depressingly stupid machine.
OH Senate Passes Bill Banning Human-Anima... ah wait, this one's still legal in Ohio. Never mind.
According to the actual article, there was no cell involved, only proteins resembling a cell wall. Nor was anything human mentioned.
In short, the article describes how they rapped a protein layer around the nano-transistor and it worked. Then it speculated on what it might be able to do in the future.
While powering a single transistor from the cell is interesting, a single transistor can only be on or off. Since, based on the data supplied in the article, there isn't a mechanism to trigger the on/off state, then it seems to be limited use.
Of more interest is the mention of the research done at the Hebrew University where they accomplished the same thing but by using enzymes that the cell ignored. The reason this is more interesting is that enzymes may be able to be tailored to work with specific cell functions, versus just being powered by the the cell.
voltage = futile current
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.