and it's the same physical phenomenon as light induced surface plasmons, which people have been using for quite some time, and is even being used in some commerically available systems (Biacore, for example).
16 nm gold colloid will stay suspended at room temperature even when coated with fairly large biomolecules (around to 100-200 kDa). It's only in the 30-50 nm range for gold that brownian motion at room temp is no longer enough to keep the particles in solution.
This work is basically a version of work done by Chad Mirkin's group at Northwestern 8 years ago. They've changed the scheme by which they link the gold nanoparticles, but the optical signal they're observing has been understood and characterized for years.
I'm also a "nano" researcher, and while I agree that alot of the recent papers havent been huge advances, the fact that characterization methods are very limited at this scale makes it important to learn techniques that work wonderfully as well as those that work minimally at best.
Molecular biosensing happens to be my field, and I have no trouble believing that we'll be able to detect single molecules by 2015. Hell, we can currently detect a handful of DNA molecules and distinguish them from other oligos that are 1-base mismatches. It may take less than 10 years for certain types of biomolecules.
increased metabolism from increased muscle mass is mostly a myth (source: National Strength and Conditioning Association). An extra few pounds of muscle will burn an extra 50 cals a day doesnt help all that much (note: those are estimates, I'm in lab now and dont have time to look up the actual article. maybe when I get home if I remember).
John L Parker, a pretty good runner once wrote that if the furnace is hot enough anything will burn, even big macs. If you work out enough, you can eat just about anything. I ran track in college, and noticed no appreciable difference in body composition (4-5% bf at all times) between the years I ate well and the years I didnt. I did notice a difference in how quickly I recovered from workouts, but that's a separate topic.
Just work out for 1-2 hours a day. even if it's while watching TV, or watching your kids at home. I realize that 1 hour may take a while to work up to, but anyone can do it if they approach the buildup intelligently. And it will lead to lower BMI, increased lean mass, and more energy.
Well, I think nanotech can be used to describe any engineering process which has some controllable dimension less than 100 nm.
The idea that my initial response was trying to convey was that we can do things on the nanoscale, but we still use billions upon billions of molecules to do it. No one has figured out a way to get around the "sticky fingers" problem to control single moleculesv(for more info, do a goodle serach to read Smalley and Drexlers debate on molecular assemblers), and personally I dont think they will in my lifetime. And putting monolayers on a surface is largely wet chemistry from many years ago; it's just recently that we have the tools to "read" our results with enough precision to distinguish molecular precision.
I'd like to point out that current CNT preps yield very polydisperse samples both in terms of diameter and length. And also that getting tubes longer than 1-2 microns is difficult.
Using them for a space elevator may happen one day, but we're nowhere close.
Also- currently we're not engineering things at a molecular level. or rather we are, but not on a molecule by molecule basis that some people tend to assume we're working with. For instance, we coat with a single monolayer of molecules, but over a larger area. Nanotech has a long way to go before it turns into the future we see in The Diamond Age (Neil Stephenson)
so if I understand you correctly they're not patenting the DNA sequence that makes up the gene itself, but the sequence of the complement? Of which there is only 1 for a given gene, although given the length of genes having a few mismatched bases is easily overcome with a bit of temperature control.
Or are you saying that the patent is on a method of gene detection, e.g. PCR followed by a specific annealing/blot test?
I'm curious, because if it's patenting the actual sequences then tomorrow I'm patenting the synthetic DNA sequences I (and many many other people) are using for nanotech research.
Background: ChemE undergrad, Biomats grad.
Yes, engineering profs couldnt care less about undergrads, at least until they become upperclassmen and can at least be useful in the lab. But I found that once you passed the "weedout" classes (usually by the start or middle of junior year) the profs started to actually care.
We started with 30 chemE's and graduated 11. Most of those who left either: a) couldnt pass basic math. If you have trouble with basic calc/DiffEQ you shouldnt be an engineer. or b) just didnt find the subject matter interesting, and therefore weren't willing to suffer. I found the stuff interesting, and was happy (for the most part) to put up with it. Some really smart people cant stand the site of blood. They shouldnt be surgeons. Likewise, engineering isnt for everyone.
well that's depressing, as is much of the real world, I suppose. When you say they didnt care about getting stuff to work do you mean getting stuff to work at all (which doesnt mesh with engineering as I understand it) or did you mean they didnt care about getting stuff to work in a way that is elegent?
because I am master of the ugly hack:)
may I ask what field you're in? Because I find myself working most 3-4 nights a week and at least 1 day a weekend (although granted, that's not my advisors doing as much as it is my protocols following the laws of physics).
This isnt particularly new, anyone who has been following surface plasmons (which granted, is most likely limited to me and a couple hundred other grad students/researchers) have seen things like this before.
Bioacore even makes a substrate surface plasmon resonance detector which does exactly this. So what's the catch? they use antibodies to detect their complementary counterparts. That's great, for cancers that are well understood. Note in the article Leiber (who I've met and believe is brilliant, btw) says that this COULD be scaled up. eventually. So it's going to turn into an optimization competition to see a) who can detect the lowest concentration, and b) who gets the fewest false positives.
Although biacore's instrument is already being used in hospitals to check for enzymes which cause alzheimers when in the bloodstream in elevated levels. So I'm in no way saying this isnt a great paper, just that it's not the novel breakthrough that the article suggests.
Background: I'm an engineering grad student, and have TA'd/taught classes at 3 schools. I've found that the schools without grade inflation (courses graded on a curve, almost allways a C+ average) had a much higher percentage of students excited to be engineers. This (geekily enough) lead to alot of late night brainstorming sessions over beer, and as a result ideas were shared across majors, and still are. But students who werent excited about engineering were weeded out of the programs quickly (we gradauted 11 out of 35).
Fast forward to the grad school I'm at. engineering classes are curved so that almost everyone gets a B+ or higher. The students dont work, dont learn, and an insanely small percentage of undergrads here actually go on to be engineers. I found the same thing at another school I visited for 1 summer.
For the record, both schools are considered top 10 schools for undergrads in various news reports, and are ranked similarly for both graduate and undergraduate engineering.
This article refers to all engineering and science though, not just CS. I think it's pretty difficult these days for a self-taught chemical engineer to get a 35 plate pilot distillation column to play with. Or for that matter to get experience on any sort of high tech equipment used for lithography or imaging on the nanoscale if that happens to be your field.
Those who are geeks would be geeks with or without the schooling, that's true, but for some fields schooling gives access to experimental work, while teaching yourself gives only theory. I hypothesize that most people need both.
I'll chip in too, since it's also my field...I agree that this paper is just a small step. Researchers have been able to manufacture proteins for years. And how to predict their secondary structure is reasonably well understood. The trciky part is that many complex proteins are large enough to have tertiary or quaternary structures. And we're still horrible at that, it's too complex, and we dont understand all the factors that should even go into the models. SOme school in cali (I believe UC-berkley) has even set up one of those screensaver type programs that allows your computer to help them crunch numbers during downtime. It's not only processing power but the fact that we arent sure what to process.
An aside- for anyone who's interested in seeing exactly how difficult predicting structures is I urge you to look at the work of Nad Seamen or Thom Labean, both of whom have made some fascinating structures out of DNA (which we understand pretty well). And even these structures, while impressive as hell, arent all that complex...
To further back up the parents thoughts...
Yes, carbon nanotubes have incredibly high strength to weight ratios. Unfortunately, current synthesis methods yield polydisperse products both in terms of diameter and length. And the longer tubes are ~1-2 microns.
Will researchers improve the synthesis methods? yes, eventually. But since nanotech is so well funded these days (and thank god, I cant imagine living on a more meager stipend than the one I'm currently pulling in), there are a relatively large number of groups researching nanotubes, NONE of whom have come up with any earthshattering improvements. The improvements come in small steps, and as a result we wont see anything like this for many many years.
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and it's the same physical phenomenon as light induced surface plasmons, which people have been using for quite some time, and is even being used in some commerically available systems (Biacore, for example).
the toxin could also cause the particles to form extended networks, which resonate at different frequencies due to plasmonic coupling.
16 nm gold colloid will stay suspended at room temperature even when coated with fairly large biomolecules (around to 100-200 kDa). It's only in the 30-50 nm range for gold that brownian motion at room temp is no longer enough to keep the particles in solution. This work is basically a version of work done by Chad Mirkin's group at Northwestern 8 years ago. They've changed the scheme by which they link the gold nanoparticles, but the optical signal they're observing has been understood and characterized for years.
I'm also a "nano" researcher, and while I agree that alot of the recent papers havent been huge advances, the fact that characterization methods are very limited at this scale makes it important to learn techniques that work wonderfully as well as those that work minimally at best. Molecular biosensing happens to be my field, and I have no trouble believing that we'll be able to detect single molecules by 2015. Hell, we can currently detect a handful of DNA molecules and distinguish them from other oligos that are 1-base mismatches. It may take less than 10 years for certain types of biomolecules.
I use similar equipment in my lab. CPU speed hasnt been much of an issue, but never never NEVER hook it up to the internet or a network.
increased metabolism from increased muscle mass is mostly a myth (source: National Strength and Conditioning Association). An extra few pounds of muscle will burn an extra 50 cals a day doesnt help all that much (note: those are estimates, I'm in lab now and dont have time to look up the actual article. maybe when I get home if I remember). John L Parker, a pretty good runner once wrote that if the furnace is hot enough anything will burn, even big macs. If you work out enough, you can eat just about anything. I ran track in college, and noticed no appreciable difference in body composition (4-5% bf at all times) between the years I ate well and the years I didnt. I did notice a difference in how quickly I recovered from workouts, but that's a separate topic. Just work out for 1-2 hours a day. even if it's while watching TV, or watching your kids at home. I realize that 1 hour may take a while to work up to, but anyone can do it if they approach the buildup intelligently. And it will lead to lower BMI, increased lean mass, and more energy.
any chance you could share the answer? it's been driving me insane. Thanks much
Well, I think nanotech can be used to describe any engineering process which has some controllable dimension less than 100 nm. The idea that my initial response was trying to convey was that we can do things on the nanoscale, but we still use billions upon billions of molecules to do it. No one has figured out a way to get around the "sticky fingers" problem to control single moleculesv(for more info, do a goodle serach to read Smalley and Drexlers debate on molecular assemblers), and personally I dont think they will in my lifetime. And putting monolayers on a surface is largely wet chemistry from many years ago; it's just recently that we have the tools to "read" our results with enough precision to distinguish molecular precision.
I'd like to point out that current CNT preps yield very polydisperse samples both in terms of diameter and length. And also that getting tubes longer than 1-2 microns is difficult. Using them for a space elevator may happen one day, but we're nowhere close. Also- currently we're not engineering things at a molecular level. or rather we are, but not on a molecule by molecule basis that some people tend to assume we're working with. For instance, we coat with a single monolayer of molecules, but over a larger area. Nanotech has a long way to go before it turns into the future we see in The Diamond Age (Neil Stephenson)
so if I understand you correctly they're not patenting the DNA sequence that makes up the gene itself, but the sequence of the complement? Of which there is only 1 for a given gene, although given the length of genes having a few mismatched bases is easily overcome with a bit of temperature control. Or are you saying that the patent is on a method of gene detection, e.g. PCR followed by a specific annealing/blot test? I'm curious, because if it's patenting the actual sequences then tomorrow I'm patenting the synthetic DNA sequences I (and many many other people) are using for nanotech research.
Background: ChemE undergrad, Biomats grad. Yes, engineering profs couldnt care less about undergrads, at least until they become upperclassmen and can at least be useful in the lab. But I found that once you passed the "weedout" classes (usually by the start or middle of junior year) the profs started to actually care. We started with 30 chemE's and graduated 11. Most of those who left either: a) couldnt pass basic math. If you have trouble with basic calc/DiffEQ you shouldnt be an engineer. or b) just didnt find the subject matter interesting, and therefore weren't willing to suffer. I found the stuff interesting, and was happy (for the most part) to put up with it. Some really smart people cant stand the site of blood. They shouldnt be surgeons. Likewise, engineering isnt for everyone.
well that's depressing, as is much of the real world, I suppose. When you say they didnt care about getting stuff to work do you mean getting stuff to work at all (which doesnt mesh with engineering as I understand it) or did you mean they didnt care about getting stuff to work in a way that is elegent? because I am master of the ugly hack :)
may I ask what field you're in? Because I find myself working most 3-4 nights a week and at least 1 day a weekend (although granted, that's not my advisors doing as much as it is my protocols following the laws of physics).
anyone have any advice for slaves?
This isnt particularly new, anyone who has been following surface plasmons (which granted, is most likely limited to me and a couple hundred other grad students/researchers) have seen things like this before. Bioacore even makes a substrate surface plasmon resonance detector which does exactly this. So what's the catch? they use antibodies to detect their complementary counterparts. That's great, for cancers that are well understood. Note in the article Leiber (who I've met and believe is brilliant, btw) says that this COULD be scaled up. eventually. So it's going to turn into an optimization competition to see a) who can detect the lowest concentration, and b) who gets the fewest false positives. Although biacore's instrument is already being used in hospitals to check for enzymes which cause alzheimers when in the bloodstream in elevated levels. So I'm in no way saying this isnt a great paper, just that it's not the novel breakthrough that the article suggests.
Background: I'm an engineering grad student, and have TA'd/taught classes at 3 schools. I've found that the schools without grade inflation (courses graded on a curve, almost allways a C+ average) had a much higher percentage of students excited to be engineers. This (geekily enough) lead to alot of late night brainstorming sessions over beer, and as a result ideas were shared across majors, and still are. But students who werent excited about engineering were weeded out of the programs quickly (we gradauted 11 out of 35). Fast forward to the grad school I'm at. engineering classes are curved so that almost everyone gets a B+ or higher. The students dont work, dont learn, and an insanely small percentage of undergrads here actually go on to be engineers. I found the same thing at another school I visited for 1 summer. For the record, both schools are considered top 10 schools for undergrads in various news reports, and are ranked similarly for both graduate and undergraduate engineering.
This article refers to all engineering and science though, not just CS. I think it's pretty difficult these days for a self-taught chemical engineer to get a 35 plate pilot distillation column to play with. Or for that matter to get experience on any sort of high tech equipment used for lithography or imaging on the nanoscale if that happens to be your field. Those who are geeks would be geeks with or without the schooling, that's true, but for some fields schooling gives access to experimental work, while teaching yourself gives only theory. I hypothesize that most people need both.
I'll chip in too, since it's also my field...I agree that this paper is just a small step. Researchers have been able to manufacture proteins for years. And how to predict their secondary structure is reasonably well understood. The trciky part is that many complex proteins are large enough to have tertiary or quaternary structures. And we're still horrible at that, it's too complex, and we dont understand all the factors that should even go into the models. SOme school in cali (I believe UC-berkley) has even set up one of those screensaver type programs that allows your computer to help them crunch numbers during downtime. It's not only processing power but the fact that we arent sure what to process. An aside- for anyone who's interested in seeing exactly how difficult predicting structures is I urge you to look at the work of Nad Seamen or Thom Labean, both of whom have made some fascinating structures out of DNA (which we understand pretty well). And even these structures, while impressive as hell, arent all that complex...
To further back up the parents thoughts... Yes, carbon nanotubes have incredibly high strength to weight ratios. Unfortunately, current synthesis methods yield polydisperse products both in terms of diameter and length. And the longer tubes are ~1-2 microns. Will researchers improve the synthesis methods? yes, eventually. But since nanotech is so well funded these days (and thank god, I cant imagine living on a more meager stipend than the one I'm currently pulling in), there are a relatively large number of groups researching nanotubes, NONE of whom have come up with any earthshattering improvements. The improvements come in small steps, and as a result we wont see anything like this for many many years.