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Robobug: Scientists Clad Bacterium With Graphene To Make a Working Cytobot
Zothecula writes By cladding a living cell with graphene quantum dots, researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) claim to have created a nanoscale biomicrorobot (or cytobot) that responds electrically to changes in its environment. This work promises to lay the foundations for future generations of bio-derived nanobots, biomicrorobotic-mechanisms, and micromechanical actuation for a wide range of applications. "UIC researchers created an electromechanical device — a humidity sensor — on a bacterial spore. They call it NERD, for Nano-Electro-Robotic Device. The report is online at Scientific Reports, a Nature open access journal."
From the article:
"We’ve taken a spore from a bacteria [sic], and put graphene quantum dots on its surface – and then attached two electrodes on either side of the spore," said Berry. "Then we change the humidity around the spore. When the humidity drops, the spore shrinks as water is pushed out. As it shrinks, the quantum dots come closer together, increasing their conductivity, as measured by the electrodes. We get a very clean response – a very sharp change the moment we change humidity."
So clearly, it's not a robot, it's a sensor.
It may not be a cytobot but the synergy is 110% buzz word compliant. We put a bug in an electrical field and it reacted in a way similar to an elastomer or sponge.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
So will God Goo get us first, or AI?
Table-ized A.I.
here we come.
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
How much of the 'quantum' do we truly understand?
Do we know anything about the other side of the 'quantum dot'?
How do we know there isn't any 'quantum wisdom' hiding on the other side?
By cladding a living cell with things that comes with quantum dots we could be hooking that living cell up with some kind of superduper 'quantum brain' which is so powerful that it can easily defy the fabric of space-time itself !
What if that superduper 'quantum brain' reaches over to this world we live in through those 'quantum dots' and supercharged that living cell?
Why are the so-called 'scientists' keep on carrying out experiments without first thinking of the possible consequences?
The ion channels of the bacteria opened and a molecule encoded with a message appeared. The message was "Behold, for I have become invincible!"
I, for one, welcome our new nerd cytobot overlords.
All the clever sensing is done by the bacteria, all they've done is attach a big flag to the bacteria so that when it does what it does we can tell.
Whilst this may be very useful, it's hardly outwitting nature, or creating new forms of life, or doing anything that'd be likely to be disastrous in any way.
It's as tho putting a radio collar on a polar bear turns it into some cyborg killing machine.
foo
In other news, in a breakthrough experiment scientists have scaled the experiment up to the macroscopic scale and strapped magnets to a pigeon, which now appears to react to other magnets in its vicinity.
" a humidity sensor — on a bacterial spore. They call it NERD,..."
For the first NERD I would have used a pizza-detector and not a humidity sensor.
And I always thought spores had humidity sensors built-in, after all it's kind of their 'thing'.
The summary uses both interchangeably. There's a difference between 1 millionth and 1 billionth (or 1 thousand millionth, if you insist on using the "long scale" - look it up on wikipedia if you don't know what I'm talking about!).
> It's as tho putting a radio collar on a polar bear turns it into some cyborg killing machine
That would clearly depend on whether the radio collar is capable to go in TX mode and if yes, at which power it transmits.
Polar bears with 100kW microwave beams sounds to me at least as dangerous as sharks with... oh, well.
Wha? Somebody had to say it..!?
All bears are godless killing machines.
. . . a bug with a feature.
Well, since the poler bear was already a killing machine I'd argue that for certain definitions of "cyborg" it actually does.
This is poorly conceived, poorly executed and poorly written up. (I am a nanotechnologist, I've got a shelf of graphene devices sitting next to me.)
The use of oxidized graphite platelets is not new or interesting in the bioelectronics space. The measurements were done without controls. It is scientific malpractice that they did so much analysis of the conductivity of a graphite-spore complex without measuring the conductivity of the spore by itself. The paper was written using an absurd abundance of jargon and poor language to the point that it is difficult to follow and unclear (poor English is common in scientific papers, but is often remedied by simplifying the sentence structure and jargon - here they have done the opposite). The analysis they're doing is nonsensical. To suggest that a "tunneling network" is a useful device shows a severe lack of understanding of the meaning behind the equations and words they are using. This is a random collection of thermally activated charge traps with poor insulation between them. There is no need to add graphite to a cell to see this. There is no need for a cell. Any collection of hygroscopic biological mass (protein, DNA, carbohydrates) will show the exact same effects they have seen.
Part of me wonders if this is Nature trolling us, showing how low quality papers are the result of open access journals. In 15 years working in this field, the only papers I have read worse than this one involved purposeful fabrication of data.
It's as tho putting a radio collar on a polar bear turns it into some cyborg killing machine.
Not really a good comparison; the polar bear is already a killing machine, and putting a radio collar on it "could" make it a cyborg. It's either a cyborg killing machine, or a radio tracked killing machine.
The bacteria are in essence, armored AND tracked, which makes them pretty a more like Emo kids with smart phones who tweet their every action. Sounds counter productive; "LOL, just arrived at the Colon and man, this dude is whack!" Sorry, my slang is 10 years un-hip.
>>"ad space available -- low rates!!!"
In fact, I have advanced biochem degrees. I keep reading about how the edges of graphene sheets tear the hell out of cell walls; we have NO idea if this stuff is toxic or how/if it gets metabolized (and into what), etc., etc.
We need to be really careful with this stuff lest we invent the next asbestos disaster or something biologically worse than the flood of synthetic estrogens and other organometallic crap molecules we've showered ourselves with.
First prove it's SAFE; don't make us prove is ISN'T.