Slashdot Mirror
World's Smallest Wedding Rings Made of DNA
fangmcgee writes "Nerd love alert: German researchers have just created the world's smallest wedding rings, measuring less than a thousandth of the width of a human hair. Goethe University professor Alexander Heckel and his doctoral student Thorsten Schmidt made the artificial structures from two interlocking loops of DNA — known as catenane — in a single drop of water."
When you accidentally drop it down the sink later?
In what way are these rings "wedding rings"?
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
Do people buy wedding rings which are intertwined? If so, why? You can't wear them that way.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
Hey, I bought you the "World's Smallest Wedding Ring Made of DNA" . . . um, do you like it . . .?
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
it says they were made in a single drop of water... meaning that they are too small to be worn, and if they are too small to the worn (or likely even seen...) how do the justify calling them wedding rings?
epic sig..... ya i got nothing
I understand the symbolism, but are any wedding rings really interlocking?
Graphite is essentially a series of interlocked benzene rings, btw, so if we want to run with this concept we certainly can find much smaller examples than in TFA.
Or are these wedding rings because they're made of DNA?
"I zero-index my hamsters" - Willtor (147206)
News title: Worldâ(TM)s Smallest 'Wedding Rings' Made from DNA
Scroll down and you see one of the related titles: "Colorful Poo Could Give Health Warning"
Epic. :D
Geek or no. She wants a goddamn diamond!
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
I wonder if the lucky bride also received a necklace made entirely out of DNA later in the day.
This space for rent.
...When someone does something just to get laid with a massive amount of scientific knowledge required while flipping the bird to practicality.
Google images of Turkish Wedding Rings. These traditional wedding rings are made with 4 or more interlocking rings. If the ring is taken off the finger, the ring becomes 4 interlinked rings that are difficult to reassemble.
http://csusap.csu.edu.au/~hulbah01/Pic/r4.gif
The truth shall set you free!
No problem, just explain to her that diamond is thermodynamically unstable and will decompose into graphite anyway within a few billion years.... dramatic pause... "and I'm sure our love will last much longer than that!".
Or maybe, tell her that it quickly converts to graphite at temperatures greater than 1700 degrees C... dramatic pause... "and our passion is much hotter than that!".
Or... dramatic pause... just tell her you're broke.
if she wants a diamond, she'd better be willing to accept small amounts of DNA first.
Ya, something like that allowed John Crichton to initiate his escape from the Peacekeepers, when a guard took an interest in the ring - and putting it back together - as a "field resourcefulness exercise", another thought it might be a weapon, and a fight broke out between the two... Never underestimate the power of Jewelry.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Why?
What about Toluene or methylcyclohexane? That carbon that sticks out - it's a *very* small diamond!
Diamonds. say it with blood
Geek or no. She wants a goddamn diamond!
Yes, but can anything symbolize the love you share more than intertwined rings of your DNA and her DNA, forever protected by Nature's hardest substance, set on an exquisite 24 carat gold ring?
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Geek or no. She wants a goddamn diamond!
And if you are realy geeky then make the diamond from yourself.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
I like the way it's portrayed as a "Geeky present" but the summary uses a retarded way to describe how thin it is.
Catenanes have been known for some time. This is just the first made out of DNA. So the others are smaller. Which makes the story doubly-lame.
I eat only the real part of complex carbohydrates.
Umm...married people have been exchanging DNA for a very long time.
It will be much worse when she finds the rings you have do not fit her finger
Will a paternity test be needed to get a divorce now, to make sure you're actually the father of the wedding ring?
...aren't "wedding rings" the bands that 2 people EXCHANGE to signify their bond to each other? This is just two interlocking loops of DNA that someone made...now if he'd made them out of his and hers DNA contributions, then there would be SOME tie to the relationship.
I mean, if I'm about to get married, and I draw two circles in the beer-foam on the table, can I claim "they're the world's first beer wedding rings!".
Or even better, if I can afford to have to gymnastic hookers form interlocking naked circles, could that be the world's first "hooker wedding rings"?
-Styopa
Wait'll the right wing hears that viruses are getting married. That should really make their heads explode!
Research money well spent. This is the most exiting thing to happen in the wedding field since edible underwear.
Whoever approved this article forgot the NSFW tag for all the jokes about to come...
Talk about Rube Goldberg approach! While the method is somewhat innovative, the structures have been known for at least 30 years. The catenans are easily made when preparing plasmid dna in bacteria. In a regular preparation of plasmid DNA about 1- 2% of DNA is in the form of catenan. They do not interfere with usual applications of plasmid DNA and so people do not pay attention to it's presence.
I don't understand why Slashdot changed the source link. This was the original URL: http://www.ecouterre.com/worlds-smallest-wedding-rings-made-of-interlocking-dna/ It wasn't via any other site, either, which makes the switch even more puzzling.
I've given pearl necklaces made from DNA. Several times.