Human Cells Eat Nanowires
spectrum.ieee.org
spectrum.ieee.org
Edit: Properly reading the article, it looks like this is either slightly older work, or a different experiment from the one I'm familiar with, which did show success in nerve cells last time I saw the talk on it (and used gold, or gold-silicon, my memory is fuzzy now, nanowires).
However, the application of drug transport is also amazing. Currently a lot of research is performed on lipid transports (microbubbles, etc.) or capsule-like nanostructures to carry hydrophilic or oversized molecules across the cell membranes. Stimulation of membrane-mediated transport for any molecule just by attaching a chemically inert nanowire to them would be AMAZING.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/carbon-nanotube-d...
However, if they can make the nanowires shorter than the minimum dimension of a human cell then it likely wouldn't cause the same sort of cancers as asbestos.
It seems like a tiny knife floating around inside the cell would still cause problems, including genetic damage.
Or did you mean it wouldn't cause the same sort of cancers, but rather new, exciting cancers? :)
http://www.dictionary.com/browse/eat
There are non-nutrition definitions, but those concern wear/destruction of a large object by a small object, not engulfment of small object by large object.
(It's something she grew out of, like eating logs if they were rotten enough. I don't know if she had pica or was just an even more enthusiastic chewer than the usual puppy)
William S. Burroughs did a piece where a suppository might be construed as eating. [warning crude]: https://www.google.com/webhp#q=William+S+Burroughs+the+man+w...
We say, for example, "the child ate the book" even if the book wasn't nourishment.
Obviously using a suppository isn't eating, because you don't eat with your butt. Unless you're Cartman.
"Ingestion" would be a more apt term imo, as it unambiguously applies to more than just food. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingestion
>"But before Tian’s group can turn the phenomenon into a tool, they must first understand how exactly a cell will eat a piece of silicon nanowire, and what happens to it once it’s inside the cell. That’s what the group did in today’s report. [...] The process is called phagocytosis"
>"phagocytosis (from Ancient Greek φαγεῖν (phagein) , meaning "to devour", κύτος, (kytos) , meaning "cell", and -osis, meaning "process") is the process by which a cell—often a phagocyte or a protist—engulfs a solid particle" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phagocytosis
So, here is what was really accomplished here (according to this summary). Some researchers asked: "How does a cell eat a silicon nanowire?" They got the answer: "by eating it".
That said, it seems like a useful thing to know that this substance will be phagocytosed. I wish they gave more context though, eg is the nanowire biologically inert, is there something special about the silicon here, etc.
I think experimenting to determine why and how cells do this, and if it is potentially useful is fun/interesting science.
I thought science is not supposed to be fun. It is supposed to be filling out an endless series of grants, which no one will ever inspect very closely, that have mind numbing page-length, formatting, etc rules along with satisfying other miscellaneous approval paperwork and IT/safety training.
Can these nanowires be fabricated on an on-chip array?
If so, how densely?
I'm assuming that they are electrically conductive, so can we create control circuitry to run them at the previously mentioned density?
Can those circuits be made bio-compatible?
If all there are true, then this might be a good upgrade for existing neural interface devices, depending on longevity.
Interesting wording.
Or was that the point of your comment?
I think the use of the word 'essentially' signifies that the definition of thickness depends on the domain you're examining. In this case, I'd expect we're talking about the connectedness of chemical bonds. No thickness should mean it's a chain of atoms each with only 2 bonds, to the atoms before and after it in the chain.