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MIT Researcher Enlists Bacteria To Assemble Nanotech Materials

Posted by timothy on from the would-change-ikea-directions-forever dept.

The Register reports on an approach to nanotech that combines biological computing with micro-mechanics, embodied in the work of MIT associate professor Timothy Lu. Lu's research has resulted in the creation of tiny structures assembled using modified E. coli. "Specifically," says the article, "the MIT researchers were able to put bacteria to work producing conducting biofilms, some of which were studded with quantum dots, and arranging gold nanowires. This paves the way for the development of mass manufactured cell-based material factories, and even 'living materials' that have some of the desirable properties of bones or trees, Lu confirmed." His most radical idea, says Lu, is furniture that shapes itself to cushion the user's most-stressed areas.

7 of 36 comments (clear)

  1. Re:dogchairs by Cryacin · · Score: 2

    Hmm, nanotech assembly, build anything you want from the molecular level upwards, and the most "radical" idea they have is for a piece of furniture? Talk about using a sledgehammer to crack a peanut.

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    Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
  2. Oh great, MORE job losses by Tablizer · · Score: 4, Funny

    H1Bacteria

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    Table-ized A.I.
  3. Setting One's Sights Low by Anna+Merikin · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I am thunderstruck by the irony of the mind-blowing promise of this technique and the "most radical" use that the lead author can dream up (according to the Register, anyway, which has a reputation to me of overhyping a story and burying leads): A comfy chair made of high-tech volatile-memory foam which needs to eat.

    Another irony: the original TFA appears to be paywalled so we mortals get to read the Register's digest of it. Maybe some advanced-degree reader of Nature can come up with some more original (and profitable, to boot) use for this technique. I mean, quantum dots, gold nanowires and such can conceivably lead to computational devices, can't they? Can this be used to extend Moore's Law further into the future?

    1. Re:Setting One's Sights Low by Sockatume · · Score: 2

      Nature Materials hasn't actually put the paper in an issue yet. When they do, there should be some decent editorial in Nature Mat itself and probably Nature's public news site. Meanwhile these articles are riffing on this press release and (apparently) some other press comments the author has made.

      http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/...

      These hybrid materials could be worth exploring for use in energy applications such as batteries and solar cells, Lu says. The researchers are also interested in coating the biofilms with enzymes that catalyze the breakdown of cellulose, which could be useful for converting agricultural waste to biofuels. Other potential applications include diagnostic devices and scaffolds for tissue engineering.

      The Register writes text news with the editorial style and standards of a red-top tabloid, and your reaction to the research it describes should be filtered appropriately.

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      No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
  4. Without even using imagination by dbIII · · Score: 2

    Snails teeth made of dislocation free incredibly high strength iron is a pretty amazing existing use of metal assembly by an organism without even getting into possibilities. Scaling up something like that (or scaling it up with other materials) has a lot of potential even before getting into possibilities of design right down to the microscopic level - not just composite materials but incorporating electronics and tiny mechanisms.
    Drexler wrote a lot about those sort of possibilities in a few very easy to read books and kicked off a major nanotechnology craze, not to mention plenty in SF. How did a tech journalist manage to avoid that?

  5. Implementation harder than Ideas by dbIII · · Score: 2

    There's a lot of stuff going on at the microscopic level that makes things harder than at the macro level. For instance tiny gears stick together a lot more than large ones due to different forces being proportionally higher at that scale. The same thing that helps geckos cling to the ceiling makes it difficult to turn microscopic gear wheels.
    On a different note it's relatively trivial to lay down material for a semiconductor junction that's only one atomic layer thick (eg. chemical vapour deposition), but getting it a few atoms wide is a very different story.

  6. Re:dogchairs by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 2

    I would award this guy a Nobel if he could at least come up with furniture that identifies and kills bedbugs.