nanostructures

In the macro world, the construction shapes available to us are numerous, and the tools to build them are straightforward. But nanoarchitecture has always been much more limited -- first to two dimensions, then to only certain kinds of three-dimensional shapes. This week, scientists have broadened the possibilities for nano-building, programming DNA to bend itself into complicated custom curves. The researchers revealed their creations in the current issue of Science: a group of tight little gears, tubes, and a wireframe ball.

Gold is valuable to many in copious quantities, but for a team of Duke University scientists, a sub-cellular amount was all that was needed to create a nanostructure which could potentially act as a tiny biological sensor. One which could penetrate individual cells and report back on a cell’s inner workings in real time.