Thanks to a new technique, DNA strands can be easily converted into tiny fibre optic cables that guide light along their length. Optical fibres made this way could be important in optical computers, which use light rather than electricity to perform calculations, or in artificial photosynthesis systems that may replace today's solar panels.In the comments -- your favorite recent weird science story.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
DNA as fiber optics
Courtesy of Warren Ellis, we are shown once again that reality is not only cooler than you imagine, it's cooler than you can ... etc. etc.:
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WOW!! That is too cool and rather geeky...what wavelengths are they useful for, being only 20 nanometers long
Last week's story about the super massive field of dark matter at the edge of the universe, slowly crunching everything into itself.
I imagine it's like a steamroller in a Bugs Bunny cartoon and when the matter from our universe comes out the other side, it's been squeezed into a new dimension, which, after gathering enough mass in such a small space, blows up, big bang style.
Even the multiverse recycles.
My favorite? Definitely the guys who are using super-energized plasma to more-than-vaporize garbage. Turning dirty diapers into surplus power and free hydrogen? Pure awesome.
Weird science? This story about invisibility cloaks for water waves, which could be used to protect off-shore oil rigs (among other things).
A bit weird but mostly just very exciting is this story about an experimental drug that somehow magically gets the body to skip over DNA mutations.
Genes in DNA encode for specific proteins, and are terminated by a specific sequence that says, "stop making protein here". A lot of disorders are caused by spurious "stop signs" getting inserted in the middle of a gene, so the protein gets screwed up and thus you have cystic fibrosis or muscular dystrophy.
This drug seems to be able to get the body to skip the wrong "stop signs" while still obeying the ones that are supposed to be there. Sounds like magic to me, but it's probably just a very advanced form of technology.
What surprises me the most is HOW of this "science fiction become science fact" that I hear about from "non-traditional" news locations AKA blogs. These are the kind of advancement that could change the world in ways we can even understand, but all the news we get is if Paris has another reality show. WTF!?!?!?!?!?!
Wow.
*goes to research it more*
*to steal for the movie he's writing*
My favorite tech oddity would have to be Gekko Tape. A quick, easily-releasable adhesive that can even work in a vacuum. How cool is THAT?
DARPA working on fun things like "Regenerating body parts on "nano-scaffolding"", "telepathy through electronic impulses in the scalp", "memory erasure for treatment of battle trauma", and "self-aware virtual photorealistic soldiers that can be deployed in the battlefield through "quantum ghost imaging". "
Oh, and that last one they want to train to act like real people by unleashing the AI program on an MMO like WoW to see if they can pass for real online. Which I guess means the folks over at Terminator have to teach Summer Glau to teabag...
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