Catch me! Synthetic nanofibers reach out like fingers and capture a nanoparticle. Each fiber is 1/1000th the width of a human hair. Inspired by biology, Harvard’s Joanna Aizenberg uses nanofabrication strategies to design completely synthetic structures capable of complex functions.
Here, liquid evaporates around an ordered array of epoxy bristles to confer bending forces. These forces spontaneously shape the nanofibers into Medusa like helical bundles, and bundles of bundles, that can capture and release small particles for drug delivery or photonics. In essence, the bundles store elastic energy and information.
The work sounds like fun too. Aizenberg said, “Indeed,our helical patterns are so amazingly aesthetic that often we would stop the scientific discussion and argue about mythology, modern dreadlocks, alien creatures, or sculptures”.
Read More: http://aizenberglab.seas.harvard.edu/index.php?show=research_project&proj=51
madame scientist's not-so-mad musings 
The one on the left looks like the Firefox logo.
Simon Skiles , they are mimicking similar structures at the same scale seen in biology: DNA fibers, amyloid fibers, cilia, cellulose fibrils…
Fantastic stuff…the applications of this will be endless…
They say that they can predict and generate structures of specific chirality (twist direction) and shape.
Just think, Thex Dar , you could have dreadlocks anywhere you wanted 🙂
Prabat Parmal , depends on what they are being designed to do. Optical fibers can be as thin as human hair or much thicker. These nanobristles can self assemble because of the unique way in which they are formed.
More info in the link..they have free papers uploaded. Feel free to check them out 🙂
Ramen! That looks like the flying spaghetti monster! (Sorry, I know this is a serious thread…but it is the first thing that came to mind when I saw the pictures.)
Wow. I wonder how cost-effective this will ultimately prove in terms of building scalable materials… Very interesting. Thanks for sharing, Rajini Rao.
I think it’s a legitimate question, Prabat Parmal. When innovations like this transform the fundamental economics of producing things we already produce, they introduce radical change in the world. Of course, ideas like this can also release fundamentally new applications we can’t even conceive of as well.
But these are serious noodly appendages, Christine Paluch 😉
Rajini Rao Sometimes I wonder if scientists include pictures like the black and white ones as little inside jokes.
One driving force is synthetic biology: the ability to replace worn out nanostructures with these tunable constructions. The researchers also suggest that they can direct flow at a submicron scale.
It’s great to have material engineering intersect with biology. I have more examples of that coming up in a future post, stay tuned 🙂
I hope they do, Christine Paluch 🙂 There’s plenty of humor in the lab.
Peter Lindelauf , does this not belong to Rich Pollett ‘s post on the blue orb 🙂
I ♡ Mark Knopfler. Feisal Kamil introduced me to Mark Knopfler – The Trawlerman’s Song + lyrics and I am forever in his debt.
My threads always start off serious. They rarely end that way thanks to some strenuous threadjacking 😉
Would you believe it, Peter Lindelauf , this is the junk mail I receive at work 🙂 I used to just delete it, but thanks to G+, I keep it around for a day or two first. These images are from the Picture Gallery that the journal Cell has on its web site. They showcase different stuff. If I like something, then I go find the relevant information. Pretty simple 🙂
Haha, Jan Costantini , that hypothesis will be put to the test soon 🙂 Besides, exceptions are always made for Pink Floyd.
Ah, the first of my hypothesis testers has arrived 🙂 Where are Chad Haney and Mahesh Sreekandath? Let’s see if the “corrective finger of doom” is effective 😛
Edit: uh oh, Gnotic Pasta is here too 🙂
Confuzzled Feisal, LOL.
How to change the shape and size of these nano fibers according to one’s requirements….obviously at such small levels one can’t do so by just putting em into molds like one can do while baking a cake….LOL
Sudhanshu Pathania , the shapes are formed with the liquid around these bristles evaporates, just like a paintbrush dries out and forms a pointed end. They can adjust the liquid and the way it dries to make different shapes.
I wouldn’t be here if the threads were not fun for me too, Peter Lindelauf . Believe me, they are! So keep on
trollingtrucking 😉Feisal Kamil hope they come with an instruction manual then….and thanks Rajini Rao for the info…
The nice thing about Harvard Engineering and Applied Scientists is that the instruction manuals are built into their brains 🙂
I’m waiting for programmable nano bots…like the ones in G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra…. 😉
Awesome blog, Mahesh Sreekandath , Biomimesis is exactly the subject of this post (wow…way to stay on topic)! I liked this:How can problem solving methods be abstracted enough to be applied across a myriad of domains? The big challenge here may not be bringing together a bunch of experts from widely different domains but it might be about successfully harnessing their understanding and also in finding ways to make them all talk in the same “language”.
Here, we have a biologist posting something on nanophysics to a bunch of engineers (or programmers) 🙂 Inevitably, this must lead to a tower of Babel.
now the discussion has moved on from nano fibers to rise of cobras….that’s great 🙂
Looks like a great read, Feisal Kamil ! Arthur C.Clarke award, satirist humor..I’ll look for it, thanks 🙂
Hmm, anything other than Elton John (not a fan). Mahesh Sreekandath , read an eBook then 🙂
Eeek, the music is going downhill from Elton John. Mahesh Sreekandath , what is that pretty boy singing..pop?
Mahesh Sreekandath sry buddy could’t view the video as the
The uploader has not made this video in my country…I don’t know why??? and Feisal Kamil Rainbow-Gates of Babylon sounds like music from Arabian Knights….
Awesome, Feisal Kamil (Gates of Babylon).
Mahesh Sreekandath , you get a +1 from my 13 year old for Guns N’ Roses (he took a moment off his video game to cheer..yes, I’m a bad mum, but he has a holiday tomorrow).
I don’t know, but you can bet that mine are 🙂
Feisal Kamil , I only need raise that “corrective finger of doom” for all the critters in my garden to lie down in sacrifice. BTW, Snow Crash has been wirelessly delivered to my Kindle and awaits my reading pleasure 🙂
I grew up on rock, thanks to an older brother.
Hey check out Derya Unutmaz’s last post..had me ROFL’ing. https://plus.google.com/106772544387169323774/posts/FyYBFkmxg46
You put up some amazing photo’s at times.
Thanks, Keith Old . Nanofibers are amazing 🙂
The Economist ran an interesting piece at the end of last year, on the intersection between additive manufacturing and biomimicry: http://www.economist.com/node/21541382
That was a great read, thanks Kevin Clift . Printing artificial hips, moving car mirrors with neural-like networks of commands, and robotic aircraft with ‘cytoskeletons’..the shape of the future looks promising!
No time for breakfast 😦 Only coffee. Miserable rainy day and had to run in to moderate a class (but seeing super smart young people cheered me up- as do my G+ friends).
I am the energy bar, Feisal Kamil 😉 That site is an old favorite, thanks Prabat Parmal . May not be wise for me to succumb to death and doom while I try to do some work, Mahesh Sreekandath !
There’s some more bio-mimicry news today from MIT.
The researchers say they drew their inspiration from nature, where textured surfaces ranging from lotus leaves to desert-beetle carapaces and moth eyes have developed in ways that often fulfill multiple purposes at once.
http://www.mit.edu/newsoffice/2012/glare-dust-and-fog-free-glass-0426.html
There must be something in the air. Here in the news scientists have developed a protective nanotech coating for cotton that not only repels water (and possibly micro-organisms) but does not wash off so easily.
This development too cites bio-mimicry.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17852304
http://www.deakin.edu.au/about/facilities/affric/future-fibres.php
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/la300281q?journalCode=langd5
Natural Art!!!
looks like dry worms
Right photo = spaghetti monster…
Very nice and informative Rajini