This Could Spell Trouble
By Andy Impey
Research is all about discovery and pushing the boundaries of science. Were it not for the dogged determination of lab-coated boffins around the world our daily lives would be sadly lacking. Imagine a world without cheese or duct tape or escalators; it just doesn’t bear thinking about does it? Anarchy. The world over.
However, on occasions the final product of a scientist’s toils can often appear at first glance as, how shall I put this, rather pointless. Take microscopic alphabet shapes for example. Now the scientists at UCLA are very excited about their ‘solid polymeric fluorescent microscale particles’ dispersed in a liquid solution; whereas, to the untrained eye, it looks more like nano-alphabet spaghetti.
The scientists boast that you can even choose which font style you require, which is surely just ammunition for the sceptics amongst us to exude even greater amounts of derision. Who the hell needs to write that small and how many of us would have the patience to use the nano-tweezers? Give me the spaghetti any day (possibly with a dusting of black pepper).
But is there a hidden benefit that I’m missing here? Maybe I should check out the nano small print and look beyond the flippant rhetoric. The team at UCLA do after all anticipate that their ‘litho particles’ will have significant technological and scientific uses, and seemingly not just for tiny people. They have successfully developed a method to create objects of precisely designed shapes that are highly uniform in size.
It has been suggested that the letters are so small they can be used to label individual cells. When I was at school my gym kit had my name in it so that some thieving little tyke didn’t take a fancy to it; I can’t, however, see the need to have my spleen labelled in a similar fashion. Unless, that is, the organ fairies are about.
The researchers are on the verge of making ‘functional devices in solution’ and claim that their research could lead to the creation of medical applications such as tiny pumps and motors.
But wouldn’t that be a pump that is so small you need a microscope to see it? What is it going to power? Maybe this is modern day HEP (haemoglobin electric power)… ahhh, now I get it; they’re going to harness the power of blood flow and produce a pacemaker that has no need for a battery – brilliant!
It seems reasonable therefore to suggest that patients up and down the country will have a greatly improved quality of life largely thanks to spaghetti.
There is even talk of this micro-technology being used in the future in security applications. Tiny car alarms for tiny cars – it’s just so obvious when you think about it.
However, on occasions the final product of a scientist’s toils can often appear at first glance as, how shall I put this, rather pointless. Take microscopic alphabet shapes for example. Now the scientists at UCLA are very excited about their ‘solid polymeric fluorescent microscale particles’ dispersed in a liquid solution; whereas, to the untrained eye, it looks more like nano-alphabet spaghetti.
The scientists boast that you can even choose which font style you require, which is surely just ammunition for the sceptics amongst us to exude even greater amounts of derision. Who the hell needs to write that small and how many of us would have the patience to use the nano-tweezers? Give me the spaghetti any day (possibly with a dusting of black pepper).
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| The Null team got overly excited about the appearance of an old teatime favourite. |
It has been suggested that the letters are so small they can be used to label individual cells. When I was at school my gym kit had my name in it so that some thieving little tyke didn’t take a fancy to it; I can’t, however, see the need to have my spleen labelled in a similar fashion. Unless, that is, the organ fairies are about.
The researchers are on the verge of making ‘functional devices in solution’ and claim that their research could lead to the creation of medical applications such as tiny pumps and motors.
But wouldn’t that be a pump that is so small you need a microscope to see it? What is it going to power? Maybe this is modern day HEP (haemoglobin electric power)… ahhh, now I get it; they’re going to harness the power of blood flow and produce a pacemaker that has no need for a battery – brilliant!
It seems reasonable therefore to suggest that patients up and down the country will have a greatly improved quality of life largely thanks to spaghetti.
There is even talk of this micro-technology being used in the future in security applications. Tiny car alarms for tiny cars – it’s just so obvious when you think about it.
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