Yeah, his autistic dedication to math, near complete ignorance of evolutionary biology and politically correct eye-rolling virtue signaling of treating "space colonization" as a racial slur reminds me of my middle school teachers.
I don't know a lot about proteins, but even I can tell this is gonna be revolutionary. Since protein folding is a hard problem to simulate, I assume lots of people thought the main breakthrough would come from using quantum computers for that. But what better way to find out what a protein does than to just... look at what it does!
I think you're right, this can change everything, the key word being "dynamic". we've been able to "look" at the tiny world for a very long time now, but to watch it in motion is a very big factor in understanding things at this tiny level. Again Anton You Rock!
DNA molecules can store up to 215 petabytes, or 215 million gigabytes, of data in a single doubled stranded molecule, making it one of the highest storage density mediums in the world. That's mind blowing!
Is that taking into consideration that one of the strands is just a reversed copy? Or that DNA uses a coding system that is much denser than binary by using 4 bases to code instead of 2?
@@chadnuts technically, it's more than just a 4 base code. since the bases can be modified, but idk if that can be applied to artificial information storage.
At time stamp 2.25 there is a small animation of a walking figure. BBC horizon covered this topic in huge depth a while back. The animation was superb. My memory on this topic is focused on the animation therein. However , this entire topic , presented here - is amazing. Well done Anton.
It's a great demonstration but the real thing is a bit more chaotic and they can only walk one way, But science is only going to get harder to communicate as we look deeper into the unknown.
Before getting to exited: "The DNA- or PEG-based fluorescent nanoantennas contain a fluorescent dye at one end, such as fluorescein (FAM), and biotin at the other to facilitate attachment (Start)" so look for fluorescent tagging to really understand that the DNA itself is not the antenna (better to say not the used antenna here and as a electronic engineer would say DNA is not more or less an antenna then anything could be an antenna).
Nice post, Anton, but this time I am going to call out the hype of this work. First, it’s an old technique: chromaphore oligonucleotides have been used in PCR assays for decade(s). Second, while a novel application to protein dynamics with new and interesting results, protein fluorescence spectroscopy is even an older methodology (four decades). The major limitation to this technique is to find a suitable analogue that binds to the protein but does not affect “native” behavior. I would suggest taking a look a quantum spectroscopy - that method has greater potential to clearly define ultra-fast macromolecular dynamics.
Mr. Petrov, I learned in my childhood that sounding a pitch that matches one of my violin strings would cause that string - otherwise un-touched - to resonate "in sympathy" with the frequency that impinged upon it. (I'm just trying to think thru this concept here...) Later study clarified that the sound energy was optimally absorbed with the natural harmonic series of the string,.. but this will work for any structure that has a natural shape that resonates to a fundamental pitch, and its harmonic series: 1/1, 1/2, 1/3, 1/4... et cetera. That's the alternating compressions and rarefactions of the air molecules impinging on the fiddle string (or guitar, or piano, etc.) and adding energy like one child pushing a friend sitting in the seat of a Swing Set each time the friend returns in that pendulum movement. Later in physics class, we learned that this "sympathetic resonance" also works with electromagnetic energies, with transverse as well as longitudinal waveforms. I don't recall hearing of any upper or lower limit to the frequency ranges our present Reality can generate. These principles as applied to structures at the scale of molecules and atoms, seem to lend themselves to mathematical analysis of energy patterns - absorbed and emitted, in response to samples of known composition being irradiated with known frequencies... Like X-ray Crystallographic analysis of structures. • Seems as if the purity of the irradiated target molecule "samples" would be a sticky challenge in all that, along with calibrating the signal going in and returning! • So, Those HIGH Frequencies seem to imply High Energies as well. And that makes me wonder how much energy a DNA strand can absorb without exceeding the chemical bonds that keep the structure intact. For instance, don't astrophysicists detect Giga-electron-volt Cosmic Rays from 4th or 5th-generation "daughter" particles, so they are _INFERRING_ the characteristics of the Original cosmic ray that crashed into our upper atmosphere???? Jeez-0-Peez, that seems to be a big pile of assumptions pile on top of each other!
Hello wonderful Anton! Actually, we have a lot of methods already for monitoring protein dynamics - most prominently NMR, but also Deuterium exchange mass spectroscopy, 2D IR spectroscopy etc. The technique described in the paper actually falls among those techniques that go beyond Diffraction-limit.
I am missing something. I agree with your statement that many techniques exist for monitoring protein dynamics, but why are you concerned about the 'diffraction limit' here? XRD was not used in this study at all, and deuterium exchange MS and NMR (solid state or solution) are not diffraction limited techniques.
Can one of you guys tell me please if these DNA antennas are built to survive a mammalian immune system? Or are they only using them externally? I'm not trying to be controversial, just ruminating. They can receive and transmit data??
@@Opti-Mystic Unfortunately, it seems that Anton and many of the commenters here are misunderstanding what really is happening with these putative DNA antennas. If you read the published work - Anton included a link to the paper - it would be obvious to those with a chemical or biological background that the DNA was used only as a transporter macromolecule for an attached fluorophore probe molecule whose fluorescent emissions were monitored in real time and in vivo (in the native live cell environment). These emissions are especially useful in a process called Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET) where the fluorescent emissions of one fluorophore molecule is absorbed by another nearby fluorophore molecule as a function of their separation, relative orientation and molecule type. This gives critical information about the kinetics - or dynamics - of what is going on with proteins, for example. In this study the DNA fundamentally just served as a means to introduce the fluorophore molecule into the cell; the DNA itself was not as critical as everyone seems to think here because PEG (PEG = polyethylene glycol) was also used similarly with comparable observed trends to DNA. So, the DNA itself was not some sort of transmitter or antenna in the sense that the physicists or engineers here are thinking about it. Having said this, there is an emerging area of research called optogenetics, where one goal is to modulate or control the process of genetic transcription or translation using intermediate molecules, engineered proteins or nanomaterials that could turn on or off gene expression using optical signals. At the same time, DNA itself is being explored as a robust means of long-term information storage; but the information is stored as a function of nucleotide sequences in the DNA, not wirelessly transmitted data. Finally, I am not aware of any research exploring the immune response to such modified DNA, if for no other reason that this is an analytical technique used by researchers to study biological processes as opposed to a clinical diagnostic tool to treat disease. Hope that this helps you understand this topic a little better.
7:07 That actor portraying a scientist fumbling around with the microscope might have better luck if he took off his glasses whilst using the microscope.
Remember the implications of this video when you next hear someone say that 'we are light'. Then put a smile on your face and carry on proud, you glorious bioluminescent sacs of water and intelligent starlight! XD.....
Very nice! Thanks! I have often wondered about optically energized processes in living organisms. This seems to open a new window into those possibilities!
I like your frequencies when you say things Anton. It doesn't take a person long to figure out that different DNA combinations will operate differently and may be a key to the type of frequency expected. We might be asking a supercomputer about that soon. Since I'm not part of the science cult I get nothing for my contributions, Sad yet true.
Thank you for your excellent summary of this lovely bit of chemistry. I will find and read this paper to be sure, but from your comments here I must confess to being only somewhat impressed by the novelty of this work. People have been purposefully attaching chromophores (absorbers of visible wavelength light) to proteins for at least 7 decades now, and they have been studying a large array of various dynamical processes as well - conformational changes, electron transfer reactions, excited state relaxation kinetics, energy transfer, ligand binding, phosphorylation and other small group reactions...it's long, long list which has grown as time-resolved spectroscopic methods have proliferated. Molecules are by their very nature on the "nano-" scale once they have more than a few atoms strung together, and I'm afraid that pulling out the nano- buzz word has now become a somewhat over-used attention grabber (peruse the literature and you'll see this done all over the place).
OK, couple things, right off, holy OMG wow! It's amazing what I've learned from these videos! Thank you so much. Wonderful presentation, clearly breaking down the minute details for us non-genius IQ types, amazing work.
'with all this costing almost nothing..' back in the late 90s, machines like the one mentioned that read emission cost about 100,000$. now, i'm sure prices have gone down, and I'm not sure if it was the exact same type on machine or just a similar one, but i'm guessing that's still a mighty expensive piece of lab equipment that most labs can't afford.
This mean we can be telepathic. If our dna is a antenna. This means many of us could be receptive or sensitive to income frequency through space and time. Giant waking receivers.fantastic news.
@@steveatkinson85 Truly amazing technology, the ability to monitor a hosts biological data wirelessly without the need of an internal artificial power source.
@@kevindegenaar So these DNA antennas can exist internally without being eliminated by a mammalian immune response? And they receive and transmit data ?
@@Opti-Mystic There is an immune response, however the application of an immunosuppressant can have great results in slowing this down. Data transmission is achieved by means of a nearby wireless device( Preferably hand-held). Exactly the same principle is applied to tech like the Apple air-tag. RX and TX data are controlled by a separate molecule at this stage.
Looking at the comments here? We're effing done for. I'm all for science but the lack of questioning of what's going on with this is bordering on religious faith.
'Dangerous!' cried Gandalf. 'And so am I, very dangerous: more dangerous than anything you will ever meet, unless you are brought alive before the seat of the Dark Lord. And Aragorn is dangerous, and Legolas is dangerous. You are beset with dangers, Gimli son of Glóin; for you are dangerous yourself, in your own fashion.
This groundbreaking in so many ways example maintaining sells health research and understanding of DNA control and interaction with cells proteins possible benefits life extension
I know this is going to sound a little crazy but how about nano to femto size Hilbert curves? Hilbert curves are a space filling curve and they can be n equals 1 2 3, they are a type of fractal and depending on how many bends and how complex you want it you change the number n, but in the cell phone world these antennas are like a two-dimensional well actually fractal dimensional object inside the phone and they are really really good at receiving radiation. So what I'm talking about is like really small Hilbert curves nano-sized that can receive information, that is even higher energy than a gamma ray. Maybe there are energies higher than that but we never had an ability to actually observe them??? According to the displacement curve or Wien's displacement law most of the radiation is in the visible spectrum is probably in the low infrared. Radiation beyond gamma would be quite rare I think and to trap it and observe it would be difficult. Where do I get these ideas? I've got this idea and it's too crazy to even talk about but I'm talking about scaling. The grand scaling of the Universe into like microscopic worlds and it's based on my observations of black holes and neutron stars and the way matter compacts. Maybe I'm nuts or maybe I'm just having a fun time, or both. I don't know I'll figure it out.
WOW! The HST/JWST of proteins! Biology often gets overlooked, but so much progress since my last class in 1969! Glad I don't have to take it now, seems like quantum mechanics to me these days!
This is a little of topic but on the night of the 19th i think. I was looking at Orion (i live in Melbourne Australia) it was 2am when i noticed Rigel across opposite beetlguse went very bright then over a 10min period it slowly dimmed to the point i thought it was going to disappear. There were no clouds a full moon just happened it was very odd how the star just brightened suddenly looking large and very striking then dimming to a very dull point. If anyone can tell me why this happened i would be very appreciated. Thank you 😊
Sooooo... interesting topic... (I might have to see the video again to fully grasp the subject,,,) the thing looks to me more like a SONAR... but... ?how the reception of the feedback is measured in a DNA-antena? is mechanical, electric, photo-signal... ? Thanks again for making this subjects available (and comprehensible) wonderful person...
Ok I have a question, maybe it's dumb, but if it is I'd like to know why. The question is this.... There are particles flying around atoms, right... But how fast are they flying, like if you took them from circling and made them fly in a straight line?, how long would it take a particle to fly an inch?, are they all flying at the same speed? and wat keeps those particles from colliding?
Fluorescent proteins have been used like this for a couple of decades. They're a standard laboratory workhorse. It would be nice to have a summary of why these are better. I'm also curious about how DNA would get attached to proteins, since that's not something I've heard of before. DNA gets translated into proteins, and RNA is sometimes incorporated into protein structures, but reliably incorporating DNA into proteins would be something new that you'd have to trick cells into doing rather than being able to tap into existing cell machinery.
The link to the paper was included, and there is no paywall to access it. That said, as I noted above, DNA in this study was literally used only as a transporter molecule for a fluorophore molecule attached to it. That is, the DNA itself only served as a carrier for a probe molecule whose fluorescence was monitored in real time and in vivo (in live cells) as a function of such parameters as DNA strand length, use of single-stranded or double-helix DNA, the type of fluorophore molecule used, and the nature, geometry and proximity of an acceptor molecule (acceptor molecules are used to facilitate a process called Forster Resonance Energy Transfer, or FRET, which is useful in understanding the kinetics of biochemical processes). Ultimately DNA was not as critical to the results of this study as so many commentators here seem to believe, as similar trends were also observed in this reported study using PEG-based polymers (PEG = polyethylene glycol) as carriers. But the key distinction is that this probe works in real time in vivo to understand protein dynamics in their native cellular environment
@@dgc0120 Thanks for the summary. I glanced at the paper, then realized I was too lazy to read it and try to understand it. :-) I'll probably have to do some more reading to really wrap my head around everything you (and the paper) are talking about.
Proteins could watch very tiny TV's & Radio's now that a DNA antenna has been developed. I bet they won't like commercials, or RAP music. Maybe I could talk to my proteins, I could say things like "what's up Mac?" "Any cancer down there?"
this makes more effective, the modeling of the vast permutations of chemical reactions not even yet observed. over time, these observed interactions in nature, at this temporal detail, can now build more accurate computer models (predictors and tools) of general chemistry. truly groundbreaking, and a bit scary to be honest.
Hi Chris. The energy of the light (a photon) striking the fluorescent molecule raises an electron to a higher energy level. The fluorescence is the light released when the electron falls back to a lower energy level.
