willatnewscientist writes "Researchers in the Netherlands and Japan have found a way to grow perfect crystals in 'zero gravity' here on Earth. By exploiting the way a powerful magnet influences diamagnetic materials they have been able to grow protein crystals without the defects normally introduced as a result of gravity (The same trick has been used to levitate a frog before). Normally, such crystals are grown in space, such as aboard the International Space Station."
Did they grow the crystals INSIDE of a levitating frog?
Oh!
That would make for an even crunchier frog [youtube.com], provided that they use only the finest baby frogs, dew-picked and flown from Iraq, cleansed in finest-quality spring water, lightly killed, and then sealed in a succulent Swiss quintuple smooth treble cream milk chocolate envelope and lovingly frosted with glucose.
You're right, these are just your normal, boring, everyday zero gravity crystal formation and frog levitation scientists. There is nothing inherently humourous about this scenario at all. Please move along.
The challenges poised to frog levitation is now classified as a defect caused by gravity? I thought it was usually the bugs that were misreported as features...
It won't work for all types of crystal, only those with specific magnetic properties. Proteins are fine, but semiconductors - where defects in the tens of nanometers are highly significant - won't be growable this way. Of course, there's nothing to stop you launching a vaccuum flask-like container into space and have crystals grow in true microgravity conditions at a very very slow pace. Sadly, there isn't a market for million-dollar CPU cores.
On the protein side, this will be interesting, though. As the article states, growing highly precise protein structures is a Big Deal and very very hard. The potential benefits to the medical industry are hard to predict, but will be significant. This isn't merely a fun exercise, this could have some very substantial benefits. Not sure if it could be used to amplify prions, but if it could, that would make studying the B**** so much easier.
But then it wouldn't grow symmetrically--you'd have to rotate it extremely fast, changing direction periodically and quickly, to achieve that sort of effect.
When you rotate something, provided it remains intact, you are changing the direction of all the particles constantly. This can be a good thing - you can create "artificial gravity" by spinning things up by using this method. Because more massive particles will have more inertia than lighter particles, it can also be used to separate things that are mixed together. This is how plasma is extracted from the other components in blood, for example. When things are loosely connected, there is also usually some dragging going on, which is why rapidly-spinning galaxies have a spiral shape. The extra distance the outside needs to travel is so great and the connection so weak that the arms are smeared backwards. For more tightly-connected things, there's usually some strain built up. Your computer's hard drive is probably spinning at 7200 revolutions per minute, which is equal to 120 times a second. The center of the spindle has a speed of zero feet per second. The outside of the drive is traveling at around 157 feet per second. That's not insignificant, although drives are built to easily withstand such stresses. I've seen many a hard drive fail due to head crashes and bearing failures, never deformed surfaces.
This is not to say that spinning couldn't be used to prepare certain materials under certain conditions. As I said, separation is a major use for spinning, and artificial gravity is another. Don't ever be put off by people saying that something can't be used for X because the odds are that it IS used for Y and will be used for Z once someone figures out what Z is. Asking questions like this is important, because that's when intuition usually gets converted into inspiration.
1. likely won't work for all proteins. It seems this just allows the crystals to grow BIGGER (which is a very good thing) but doesn't actually make the process easier. Protein crystals are a bastard to grow, depending on a lot of things like solvent conditions, temperature, even vibrations and so on. They only used lysosome as a test, which had been done a long time ago, as a protein, it's easy to produce and purify. You can even order it by the grams cheaply from Sigma, it's sort of the biological equivalent of buying sugar and salt from the supermarket. Would be more interesting if they tackled something more difficult, like a big complex or something.
2. Prions won't crytallise (easily...). They are fibrous. I think the closest type of things people have managed was fibrinogen, and they had to chop up that protein into its core region before it can be done (and it was a major finding when it was published). Prions in its "bad" form aggregates fast and is resistant to a lot of tricks to break it down. Furthermore, even prion in its "good" form seem to lack defined structure, so even the good form isn't going to crystallise that well.
Build a 5000-10000ft deep mine shaft, and install a "free fall" elevator lab. If it takes 10 seconds to grow crystals, you dont need much height to achieve zero g. Just make a 10sq platform, drop it... falll for 12 seconds.... then slow it down from 12 to 20.... bingo instant 10 second duration zero G LAB on earth.
Build a 5000-10000ft deep mine shaft, and install a "free fall" elevator lab. If it takes 10 seconds to grow crystals, you dont need much height to
achieve zero g. Just make a 10sq platform, drop it... falll for 12 seconds.... then slow it down from 12 to 20.... bingo instant 10 second duration zero G LAB on earth.
In something like half that time you are going to run into problems with terminal velocity. Unless you can find a way to make your shaft a decent vacuum.
Could the process be used to create Very-Very-Long chains of carbon tubes? Also, by changing the support catalyst, could a Silicon Alloy be used instead of Carbon?
1 levitating crystaline frog pendant--$2,300,000.21
Amaze your friends!
Great school project!
Requires 1 nuclear reactor(not included)
Coming next week--antiproton earrings--
I'll take the crystaline frog, please... the earrings would be a cool gift, but there's just no place in this universe anyone would wear them. Not unless they want to be the booming center of attention, anyway.
We make the pens and Tang down here, too. Why do they get to stay?
Or are you suggesting that we'd already have discovered and created these crystals on earth without that experiment? Why wouldn't we have created the pens and Tang here instead?
Just because something has been done again in a different way doesn't mean the original way wasn't instrumental in finding it.
I write this comment as I sit in my gravity canceling chair, sipping a coke contained in a gravity canceling device called a glass. Even the keyboard is supported by a gravity canceling surface I call a table.
It will cost the space program a lot of support. There goes the 'we can make much better crystals of proteins in zero-G' sales pitch (Anyone dare to guess how many http://www.pdb.org/ [pdb.org]PDB entries are space-crystals and how much better they are than the flatland versions?)
Actually, growing crystals in zero-G is at best only a small to marginal improvement. AFAIR, when the space crystals were tested a few years ago, the only improvement was a limited reduction in the rocking width. The crystals did not diffract to higher resolutions. Better crystals could quite likely be achieved by reducing the micro-hetrogeneity (i.e. purification of some sort). That's a lot cheaper.
There may be one or 2 space structures at www.pdb.org, but they're probably lysozyme.
Yes, but... (Score:5, Funny)
Now that would be cool.
Mmmm... frog crystals...
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Re:Yes, but... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Yes, but... (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:Yes, but... (Score:5, Funny)
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"We secretly replaced these French diners' frog legs with Folger's Crystals. Let's see if they notice the difference...!"
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Oh!
That would make for an even crunchier frog [youtube.com], provided that they use only the finest baby frogs, dew-picked and flown from Iraq, cleansed in finest-quality spring water, lightly killed, and then sealed in a succulent Swiss quintuple smooth treble cream milk chocolate envelope and lovingly frosted with glucose.
Ah, progress...
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Wait.. (Score:1)
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One big problem. (Score:5, Interesting)
On the protein side, this will be interesting, though. As the article states, growing highly precise protein structures is a Big Deal and very very hard. The potential benefits to the medical industry are hard to predict, but will be significant. This isn't merely a fun exercise, this could have some very substantial benefits. Not sure if it could be used to amplify prions, but if it could, that would make studying the B**** so much easier.
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Just curious.
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Re:One big problem. (Score:5, Insightful)
This is not to say that spinning couldn't be used to prepare certain materials under certain conditions. As I said, separation is a major use for spinning, and artificial gravity is another. Don't ever be put off by people saying that something can't be used for X because the odds are that it IS used for Y and will be used for Z once someone figures out what Z is. Asking questions like this is important, because that's when intuition usually gets converted into inspiration.
Parent
Re:One big problem. (Score:5, Informative)
2. Prions won't crytallise (easily...). They are fibrous. I think the closest type of things people have managed was fibrinogen, and they had to chop up that protein into its core region before it can be done (and it was a major finding when it was published). Prions in its "bad" form aggregates fast and is resistant to a lot of tricks to break it down. Furthermore, even prion in its "good" form seem to lack defined structure, so even the good form isn't going to crystallise that well.
Parent
Sure there is! (Score:1)
NASA and DARPA beg to differ...
How long does it, take , just use free fall! (Score:2)
achieve zero g. Just make a 10sq platform, drop it... falll for 12 seconds.... then slow it down from 12 to 20.... bingo instant 10 second duration zero G LAB on earth.
And just repeat.
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In something like half that time you are going to run into problems with terminal velocity. Unless you can find a way to make your shaft a decent vacuum.
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Ahaha! HaahahahAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA
That was AWESOME!!
I'd say more, but there's a Police Academy marathon I'm really itching to catch. CYA!!!
The Incredible Levitating Frog (Score:5, Informative)
Here's the frog they're talking of:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Frog_diamagnet
And here's a more boring example with graphite, although maybe more clear:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Diamagnetic_gr
Re:The Incredible Levitating Frog (Score:5, Informative)
Diamagnetic Frog on YouTube [youtube.com]
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EBAY listing-- (Score:3, Funny)
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So all that's left is Tang? (Score:1, Offtopic)
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Or are you suggesting that we'd already have discovered and created these crystals on earth without that experiment? Why wouldn't we have created the pens and Tang here instead?
Just because something has been done again in a different way doesn't mean the original way wasn't instrumental in finding it.
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uh-oh, you can tell from over there?
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hmmm... (Score:1, Offtopic)
Null Gravity (Score:1, Offtopic)
Photographs? (Score:2)
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Think of the spin-off technologies (Score:4, Funny)
Good science, bad headline (Score:5, Insightful)
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If I had a chair like that I would never stand.
A 33-tesla magnet uses a lot of juice (Score:2)
Weird units... (Score:2)
What's with these weird, nonstandard units? How many lightning strikes per american football pitch is that? Or lightbulbs per library of congress?
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Yes, but it is easier to experiment on earth, and they'd probably find a way to lower costs if it entered into production.
Re:Cost? (Score:4, Insightful)
Ahem... from TFA:
"What's more, the technique will be faster and much cheaper than growing crystals in space, he says."
So at least they say it will be much cheaper.
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There goes the 'we can make much better crystals of proteins in zero-G' sales pitch (Anyone dare to guess how many http://www.pdb.org/ [pdb.org]PDB entries are space-crystals and how much better they are than the flatland versions?)
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AFAIR, when the space crystals were tested a few years ago, the only improvement was a limited reduction in the rocking width. The crystals did not diffract to higher resolutions. Better crystals could quite likely be achieved by reducing the micro-hetrogeneity
(i.e. purification of some sort). That's a lot cheaper.
There may be one or 2 space structures at www.pdb.org, but they're probably lysozyme.
Also (IFRC again) NASA
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Of course, the researcher is likely projecting costs down the road when fine-tuning reduces costs.
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