Walking Molecule Now Carries Packages 108
Roland Piquepaille writes "Chemists from the University of California at Riverside designed two years ago a molecule which could move straight on a flat surface — a nano-walker if you wish. Now, they've found a way to force this walking molecule to carry packages. The nano-worker can now carry two CO2 molecules. And like yourself when you carry two heavy bags, this nano-worker is slower when it carries other molecules. The researchers think their discovery will lead to reliable ways of carrying molecules, an equivalent of the conveyor belts in today's factories."
Re:Energy Source? (Score:5, Informative)
From a previous article on the walker:
"Activated by heat or the nudge of a scanning tunneling microscope tip, DTA will pull up one foot, put down the other, and thus walk in a straight line across a flat surface. The planted foot not only supplies support but also keeps the body of the molecule from veering or stumbling off course."
Re:Energy Source? (Score:2, Informative)
Some reactions require GTP, CTP, or UTP. These other nucleotide tri-phosphates are used much less and only for very specific functions, so it could be one of these but I would bet against them. Other possible sources of energy are: concentration gradients, membrane potentials, pH gradients, etc... There are many many different sources of energy in the biochemical world, however for most biological reactions ATP is the energy source of choice.
New tag (Score:2, Informative)
Re:New tag (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Where's the power supply? (Score:5, Informative)
1) For a while a year or two ago, it seemed like every other story posted was submitted by him
2) He used to always link *only* to his own blog, not to the actual article in question
3) He (used to?) sells his consulting services on how to drive traffic to your website
4) Despite numerous complaints and comments, neither he nor the admins were listening to us
Now they're not necessarily all his fault, but all together it lead to an awful lot of speculation, including about whether or not he was paying for his stories to be posted. It was this uproar, when the admins finally took notice, that lead to the "nofollow" attribute being added to the submittor's URL when a story is posted.
I can't blame him for shamelessly seeking a little bit of publicity on Slashdot in order to make some money with his blog.
That's just it though - for a while, he was shamelessly seeking - and getting - a lot of publicity. It started to look an awful lot like advertising to a lot of people, some of which pay not to get adverts here.