Spiders walking on DNA thanks to science

[Hank]

Blows my mind:

Spoiler: show

Scientists on Wednesday announced they had created a molecular robot made out of DNA that walks like a spider along a track made out of the chemical code for life.

The achievement, reported in the British journal Nature, is a further step in nanoscale experiments that, one day, may lead to robot armies to clean arteries and fix damaged tissues.

The robot is just four nanometers -- four billionths of a meter -- in diameter.

Milan Stojanovic of New York's Columbia University, who led the venture, likens the nanobot to "a four-legged spider."

The beast moves along a track comprising stitched-together strands of DNA that is essentially a pre-programmed course, in the same way that industrial robots move along an assembly line.
nanotech

The track exploits one of the basic characteristics of DNA. A double-helix molecule, DNA comprises four chemicals which pair in rungs.

By "unzipping" the DNA, one is left with one side of the strand whose rungs can then be paired up with matching rungs.

In other words, the track can be used rather like the teeth in a clockwork mechanism. A cog can move around the teeth, provided it meshes with them.

By using strands that correspond to sequences in the track, the robot can be made to walk, turn left or right as it is biochemically attracted to the next matching stretch.

The spider's "body" is a common protein called streptavidin.

Attached to it are three "legs" of single-strand enzymatic DNA, which binds to, and then cuts, a particular sequence of DNA. The fourth leg is a strand that anchors the spider to the starting point.

"After the robot is released from its start site by a trigger strand, it follows the track by binding to and then cutting the DNA strands," explained Stojanovic.

Once the strand is cut, the leg starts reaching for the next matching stretch of DNA in the track. In this way, the spider is guided down the path set by the researchers.

Eventually, the robot encounters a patch of DNA to which it can bind but cannot cut. At that point, it is immobilized.

Watching the spider strut its stuff was in itself a technical challenge.

The researchers used techniques called atomic force microscopy and single-molecule fluorescence microscopy which showed the molecular robots following four different paths.

Molecular robots have drawn huge interest because of the allure of programming them to sense their environment and react to it. For instance, they could note disease markers on a cell surface, decide that the cell is cancerous and needs to be destroyed and then deliver a compound to kill it.

Other DNA walkers have been developed in the past, but they have never ventured more than a few steps, said Hao Yan, a professor at Arizona State University.

"This one can walk about to about 100 nanometers. That's roughly 50 steps."

The next step is how to make the spider walk faster and how to make it more programmable, so that it can follow many commands on the track and make more decisions, Yan said.

In a separate study reported in Nature, Nadrian Seeman and colleagues from New York University said they had enabled a nano-scale "assembly line".

DNA walkers moved past three kinds of DNA machines that handed them a cargo of gold nano-particles, which are clutched with three "hands".

"This is the first time that systems of nano-machines, rather than individual devices have been used to perform operations, constituting a crucial advance in the evolution of DNA technology," said Lloyd Smith, a chemist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, in a commentary also published by Nature.

http://news.discovery.com/tech/dna-nanobot-spider.html

[Effluo]

And so it begins ...

[Acturus]

The achievement, reported in the British journal Nature, is a further step in nanoscale experiments that, one day, may lead to robot armies to clean arteries and fix damaged tissues.

Somehow, the phrase "robot armies" takes away from all of the good and noble things that these things are supposed to accomplish.

[Blubbartron]

Wait, so are these things actually machines, or genetically engineered viruses/proteins? There appears to be a terminology mismatch in the article.

[Omniyoji]

It's comprised of protein & DNA I think you're confusing the term robot with

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/96/24...1db9d56b7e.jpg

It's robot as in automatically working on a predetermined course.

The advancements in technology growth never cease to amaze me.

[liggy 0]

ope *edit*

[Mayareira]

So what the fuck happened to the flying cars? We were supposed to have them by the year 2000.

[Bikpik]

I for one welcome our new robot overlords

[SubzeroDiabolos]

All hail mini johnny number 5.

[Omniyoji]

All hail mini johnny number 5.

Don't forget the black version too!

http://www.mefeedia.com/watch/30059845

>_>

[liggy 0]

take these nano spiders, a battery pack, some robotic parts and Bioelectric Nanotube Transistor and we got ourselves a cyborg

[Meresgi]

And so it begins ...

http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/k1...olid_snake.jpg


Are you the DARPA Chief?

[Caiyuo]

You can't stop modern science. Can't stop it, you can't stop it.

Retardedly interesting article that I wish I understood more lol

[Zilong]

http://www.bloodygoodhorror.com/bgh/...he_Nanobot.jpg

[Max™]

http://www.crnano.org/BD-Goo.htm

Incidentally.

Grey goo eventually may become a concern requiring special policy. However, goo would be extremely difficult to design and build, and its replication would be inefficient. Worse and more imminent dangers may come from non-replicating nano-weaponry. Since there are numerous greater risks from molecular manufacturing that may happen almost immediately after the technology is developed, grey goo should not be a primary concern. Focusing on grey goo allows more urgent technology and security issues to remain unexplored.

If you accidentally happened to put on a shirt made of nano-replicator pathways, and came into contact with impossible to sterilize von neumann type machines, programmed for some reason to do nothing but make more of themselves (hint: this is a useless design, unless you're trying to collapse Jupiter into a star), then at best you're going to get something resembling a microscopic mold creeping across your oddly designed shirt.

Wait... we just made a nanotech breakthrough...

Plus, this happened last week:

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Jupit...t-141942.shtml

http://www.newscientist.com/data/ima...8889-3_300.jpg
http://www.newscientist.com/data/ima...8889-2_300.jpg

We created the monolith, which went back in time, and is fucking up Jupiter as we speak... WHAT HAS SCIENCE DO!

[liggy 0]

more dots more dots

[Niiro]

I came to this thread expecting some RL spider-man news.

This is some serious bullshit.

[Rhyis.]

One of my old Uni. profs once told me that Star Trek sets the prescient for a lot of our research and development (cell phones/PCs/MRIs/etc)... I thought he was just being a retarded Trekkie. Who knew scientists were trying to turn us into the Borg.


http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_CexmGA6VKh.../Borg_cube.jpg

[Tristam]

One of my old Uni. profs once told me that Star Trek sets the prescient for a lot of our research and development (cell phones/PCs/MRIs/etc)... I thought he was just being a retarded Trekkie. Who knew scientists were trying to turn us into the Borg.


http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_CexmGA6VKh.../Borg_cube.jpg

Saw a talk where someone proposed something about nanoscale medical devices that could attach to a cell phone that could quickly do diagnostic tests on a patient's blood etc.

So tricorders basically.

[oldoldman]

Genetically programmed "robots" like this are one of the only things that truly blows my mind.