Harvard University scientists on Wednesday said they had created smileys, Chinese characters and card-game symbols at scales of billionths of a metre using strands of DNA.
The feat marks the next step in “DNA origami” in which the molecule that provides the genetic code for life is used as a building block at the nanoscale, with potential outlets in engineering and medicine.
DNA is like a twisted ladder with double rungs of chemicals which interlock.
By unzipping the ladder and cutting it lengthwise, researchers can create a stretch with a set of single rungs that can partner up with a matching strand.
This is the characteristic harnessed by a team led by Peng Yin of Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inpired Engineering.
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This marijuana will not leave you stoned
Jerusalem: Israeli scientists have cultivated a cannabis plant that doesn’t get people stoned in a development that may help those smoking marijuana for medical purposes, a newspaper said on Wednesday.
According to the Maariv daily, the new cannabis looks, smells and even tastes the same, but does not induce any of the feelings normally associated with smoking marijuana that are brought on by the substance THC, or tetrahydrocannabinol.
“It has the same scent, shape and taste as the original plant — it’s all the same — but the numbing sensation that users are accustomed to has disappeared,” said Tzahi Klein, head of development at Tikkun Olam, the firm that developed the species. “Many of our patients who tried the new plant come back to us and say: ‘You tricked me,‘ because they assumed they had been given a placebo,” he said.
— AFP