[lit-ideas] Absolute awe
- From: JimKandJulieB@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2007 02:18:03 EDT
_Click here: Cutting-edge Technology: The World's Smallest Scissors - Yahoo!
News_
(http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20070325/sc_livescience/cuttingedgetechnologytheworldssmallestscissors;_ylt=AtQ9dBzppOBBxLp9HiDS_3YDW7oF)
I can't even begin to wrap my mind around this.... and I don't even begin to
understand the science to it (does anyone here speak this language?) -- but I
am awed by the universe.
Julie Krueger
_http://news.yahoo.com/shttp://news.yahoo.com/shttp://news.yahoo.com/s<WBR>/li
http://news.yahoo.com/s<WBR>_
(http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20070325/sc_livescience/cuttingedgetechnologytheworldssmallestscissors)
_Charles Q. Choi_ (mailto:cqchoi@xxxxxxxx)
Special to LiveScience
_LiveScience.com_
(http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/livescience/sc_livescience/byline/cuttingedgetechnologytheworldssmallestscissors/22397848/SIG=10sog4vj6/
*http://www.livescience.com) Sun Mar 25, 10:35 AM ET
Scientists in Japan have created what may be the smallest scissors in the
world—molecular clippers that are opened and closed with light.
These novel shears could help control genes, proteins and other molecules in
the body, researchers said.
The scissors are just three nanometers, or billionths of a meter, long. This
makes them more than 100 times smaller than a wavelength of violet light.
Just like real shears, the molecular device that researcher Takuzo Aida at
the University of Tokyo and his colleagues have designed consists of a pivot,
handles and blades. The team presented their findings today at the American
Chemical Society annual meeting in Chicago.
The blades are made of rings of carbon and hydrogen known as phenyl groups.
The pivot is a molecule dubbed chiral ferrocene, which essentially sandwiches
a round iron atom between two carbon plates. The carbon plates can rotate
freely around the iron atom.
The handles are organic chemical structures dubbed phenylene groups. These
are tethered together with azobenzene, a molecule that reacts to light. Shining
visible light on the scissors makes the azobenzene expand and drive the
handles apart, closing the clipper blades. Shining ultraviolet rays on the
shears
has the opposite effect.
The researchers say their scissors could help firmly grasp molecules like
pincers and manipulate them, say by twisting them back and forth.
"This work is the first example where a molecular machine mechanically
manipulates other molecules by light," Aida said in a prepared statement. "This
work is an important step for the future development of molecular robotics."
The researchers are now working on larger scissors that researchers can
manipulate remotely. Such clippers might find use in the body, operated using
near-infrared light that "can reach deep parts of the body," said researcher
Kazushi Kinbara at the University of Tokyo.
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