I work on sort-of-related stuff in condensed matter physics, and I have skimmed through some papers about the subject, and I had the same thought as the parent (though I was too lazy to post) - that it's cool, but not quite "revolutionary" and that other groups have come up with single-molecule transistors before.
Here's a link describing what two groups published in Nature back in 2002 about single molecule transistors (maybe what the parent post was referring to):
I briefly scanned through the Nature "News and Views" that introduces and supplies background for this recent paper (from today's Nature) and it looks like the main innovation is that the group used a different technique from earlier molecule transistors. According to that Nature article, previous groups relied on metalmoleculemetal types of molecular junctions. Apparently, these junctions have extra geometric complexity due to the metal-molecule coordination that can complicate the charge transport measurements. This group avoided the "geometric uncertainty" by using a junction on a semiconductor (silicon) instead of a metal. They apparently added a carbon atom with an unpaired electron as a 'dangling bond' on the surface of the silicon electrode to form the molecule-electrode interface. The interface is then a covalent bond, instead of the more complicated coordination bond from other molecular junctions. Anyway, that's why I gathered from a quick reading of the Nature summary article, but I don't know about the subject in much depth.
There's definitely a lot of potential with this stuff, though.
It seems like it would be really hard to collect absolute statistics (i.e. so many millions of people or so many minutes) about book reading, but it would be a lot easier to collect relative statistics about percentages of people who are reading regularly.
So, I bet statistics about book sales are absolute figures (i.e. several billion dollars in sales receipts), while statistics about reading are relative figures (percentage of population). It would then make sense that while relative book reading percentages are decreasing, book sales continue to rise, since the population is still increasing.
The article about the ex-sheriff rapist mentions a William Hackel.
The webpage for the current sheriff at http://www.macomb-sheriff.com states that the sheriff is Mark A. Hackel.
Doing a search for William Hackel brings up an article at http://www.freep.com/news/locmac/sher27_20000727.h tm, which states that Mark Hackel ran to be sheriff four years ago after his dad was removed from office and arrested for rape.
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I work on sort-of-related stuff in condensed matter physics, and I have skimmed through some papers about the subject, and I had the same thought as the parent (though I was too lazy to post) - that it's cool, but not quite "revolutionary" and that other groups have come up with single-molecule transistors before.
1 3073522.htm/
Here's a link describing what two groups published in Nature back in 2002 about single molecule transistors (maybe what the parent post was referring to):
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/06/0206
I briefly scanned through the Nature "News and Views" that introduces and supplies background for this recent paper (from today's Nature) and it looks like the main innovation is that the group used a different technique from earlier molecule transistors. According to that Nature article, previous groups relied on metalmoleculemetal types of molecular junctions. Apparently, these junctions have extra geometric complexity due to the metal-molecule coordination that can complicate the charge transport measurements. This group avoided the "geometric uncertainty" by using a junction on a semiconductor (silicon) instead of a metal. They apparently added a carbon atom with an unpaired electron as a 'dangling bond' on the surface of the silicon electrode to form the molecule-electrode interface. The interface is then a covalent bond, instead of the more complicated coordination bond from other molecular junctions. Anyway, that's why I gathered from a quick reading of the Nature summary article, but I don't know about the subject in much depth.
There's definitely a lot of potential with this stuff, though.
It seems like it would be really hard to collect absolute statistics (i.e. so many millions of people or so many minutes) about book reading, but it would be a lot easier to collect relative statistics about percentages of people who are reading regularly.
So, I bet statistics about book sales are absolute figures (i.e. several billion dollars in sales receipts), while statistics about reading are relative figures (percentage of population). It would then make sense that while relative book reading percentages are decreasing, book sales continue to rise, since the population is still increasing.
The article about the ex-sheriff rapist mentions a William Hackel.
h tm, which states that Mark Hackel ran to be sheriff four years ago after his dad was removed from office and arrested for rape.
The webpage for the current sheriff at http://www.macomb-sheriff.com states that the sheriff is Mark A. Hackel.
Doing a search for William Hackel brings up an article at http://www.freep.com/news/locmac/sher27_20000727.