Researchers Use Salmon DNA To Make LED Lightbulbs

Al writes "Researchers from the University of Connecticut have created a new light-emitting material by doping spun strands of salmon DNA with fluorescent dyes. The material, which is robust because DNA is such a strong polymer, absorbs energy from ultraviolet light and gives off different colors depending on the amounts of dye it contains. A team led by chemistry professor Gregory Sotzing created the new material by mixing salmon DNA with two types of dye, then pumping the solution from a fine needle while a voltage is applied between the needle tip and a grounded copper plate covered with a glass slide. As the liquid jet comes out, it dries and forms long nanofibers that are deposited on the glass slide as a mat. The researchers then spin this nanofiber mat directly on the surface of an ultraviolet LED to make a white-light emitter. The color-tunable DNA material relies on an energy-transfer mechanism between two different fluorescent dyes, and the DNA keeps the dye molecules separated at a distance of 2 to 10 nanometers from each other."

Eh? I thought DNA was DNA...

[Ralph Spoilsport]

I don't see what is so extra-special about salmon DNA. Why not housefly DNA? Bog knows there's several orders of magnitude more of those little buggers than salmon. Much of the wild salmon stock has dropped, and the salmon farms aren't helping matters. You would think if they needed DNA, they could get it in bulk from termites or ants or flies or algae or crabgrass...

rs