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Biological Lasers
MancunianMaskMan writes "Sharks in the seas all around the world are interested in this story,
though the less scientifically-minded will read the summary on the beeb web site about laser light produced by a living cell. The technique starts by engineering a cell that can produce a light-emitting protein that was first obtained from glowing jellyfish."
The laser/shark meme is really boring and pathetic. Can't people move on?
How many sharks with frikkin laser jokes will we get on this story?
I think it has jumped the shark
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Greg Egan did this in Bubble Fever. People pass information between each other by shaking hands; infrared emitting cells in the palms of the hand transmit the information. You can also control your TV by waving your hand at it.
I suppose one implementation of a bio-laser would to engineer an eye, or multiple eyes surrounding the entire organism. It would provide exceedingly good vision, but would also work in reverse. Rather take in light, they could emit a beam of light with the lens focusing it on its target. It's ok of the the lens gets damaged in the process. It was only designed to fire once, and you have multiple eyes that provide protection as the other one heals. Much like quills on a porcupine.
Life is not for the lazy.
Sounds like there may be a day when you will be able to get your cell phone display tattooed on your hand. Not clear
how they would incorporate the speaker, mic and camera... In addition, laser beam eyes would be cool at night.
The information wants to be free, I just give it somewhere to go.
"the less scientifically-minded will read the summary on the beeb website..."
Slashdot viewers are more than capable of understanding the paper, but that doesn't mean we want to pay for something we're most likely not going to implement in our basements when we get a spare chance.
Given the recent finding over in Australia that sharks like AC/DC, I get the feeling that sharks just like to rock.
Cyclops' eyes shoot crimson rays of kinetic force. I believe you're thinking of Kryptonians.
It's a laser when coherent wavelength light is emitted. I.e. all the same frequency, going in the same direction.
Okay, cool, we've used transgenic techniques to give other organisms bioluminescence; now tell me how you make that coherent. (No, I didn't read the article.)
Cyclops' eyes shoot crimson rays of kinetic force. I believe you're thinking of Kryptonians.
Red Rays of 1/2mv^2 ?
Ah, comic book physics!
From what I can gather of TFA, the cell isn't really a laser per se, as much as it is a cell that, genetically engineered to express GFP, can survive and be observed while be used as part of the lasing medium in a GFP-based organic dye laser(which is stimulated by blue light from outside the tube in which the cell(s) and the GFP dye fluid are placed).
That is pretty cool, and I suspect that there will be some very elegant live-cell imaging that comes out of applications of this technique; but it leaves me wondering how small a complete biological laser could be: ie. something that both expresses the proteins needed to make up the lasing medium and uses some flavor of bioluminescence to pump its own lasing medium...
... I welcome our meme-bound overlords.
Have gnu, will travel.
I'm not enough of a photonics guy to tell you exactly where the cut-off between "light coming from florescent materials that have been made stimulated by sufficiently energetic light to re-emit at their wavelength of choice(which is usually what people playing with GFP are observing)" and "a dye laser, having been pumped by an outside light source, successfully lasing(which is apparently what is happening here)"; but ruling out bioluminescence should be pretty simple: GFP is, while conveniently florescent in a very distinctive color, not luminescent. It only glows when energized by sufficiently energetic outside light sources(blue or UV typically). The cellular chemistry behind bioluminescence involves a whole different set of chemicals, and one assumes that the scientists wouldn't have started with a bacterial species that possesses those.
Even if they did, since the dye chamber had to be externally pumped to lase, one could simply observe it in the dark in order to establish a baseline of any native luminescence before observing it while it is being pumped.
So, towards engineering a shark with lasers, it seems that one needs:
(a) this "GFP" protein as a gain medium,
(b) mirrors,
(c) this "blue light" to bathe it in, and
(d) some sort of lens(?)
what is interesting, it is that all of the above components can easily be made by nature. GFP is already there, the "blue light" could come from a similar process, lenses are in eyes so I would guess (b) could be the hardest one to come up with, but there are numerous animals with a silver-ish tint (reflective surface) plus several wasp species that have so much metal in their stings (deposited there trace by trace from their diet) that they can easily drill into seeds. Point being that reflective (i.e. metal) components can be intermingled and arrayed into living tissue.
I keep wondering as to what could be the chances of such a "laser organ" evolving naturally? Can the fact that it hasn't be seen as a hint that evolution does not have a plan, and is merely a sum of random events? And let's speculate even further- what use could such an organ have?
The three laws of thermodynamics:(1) You can't win. (2) You can't break even. (3) You can't even quit.
I, for one, welcome our new Zerg Overlords.
Take that, all you naysayers who says there's no way someone can shoot lasers out of his eyes!
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
The magnitude is usually off, but it usually pushes back on Cyclops to some degree. At least there's that.
shhh
stop cramping my style
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
And girls still won't see what's in your pants!
The one nanowatt output is kinda symbolic, don't you think?
You need to get out of yo mama's basement!
wake up and hold your nose
I'm pinned-down by withering shark-fire.
Any chance this could be weaponized, as with the Bugs in Starship Troopers?
No, it's a sum of random events + culling.
Just wondering when Andy Samberg will be collecting his Nobel prize...