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Glass-coated DNA structure is strong with low density (uconn.edu)
17 points by gmays on July 28, 2023 | hide | past | favorite | 5 comments



>Lee believes that DNA origami nanoarchitecture will open a new pathway to create lighter and stronger materials that we have never imagined before.

"You will get a better Gorilla effect if you use as big a piece of paper as possible." -Kunihiko Kasahara, Creative Origami.

http://www.chilton-computing.org.uk/inf/literature/books/wm/...


Well, DNA is commonly known to go very long and is one of the nanowire polyners we know how to flawlessly grow relatively cheaply. So it's origami (or rather, beaded weave) of an extremely long string.

What makes this glass containing structure so much better than normal protein histones? Maybe DNA-protein nanoweave is the material of the future, like kevlar was.


No actual figures for the specific strength in the article??

Fire the editor.


On the last paragraph: "...Our new material is five times lighter but four times stronger than steel"


Those aren’t actual figures. Steel strength varies by an order of magnitude whether you’re talking about mild steel or piano wire or full hard tool steel.

An actual objective UNIT of MEASURE would be nice. The paper actually does show it, and it’s not better than T1100G carbon fiber IIRC. That’s the trick… we have better materials already, but the article writer wants to leave the impression this is better than anything we have.




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