Today’s Solutions: November 05, 2024

Most likely you’ve used tweezers to take out a tough splinter. Now, engineers are taking the humble tweezer to a whole new level with tweezers so small and precise they can grab individual molecules. 

It may sound impossible, but the newly developed “nanotweezers”, built by engineers at Vanderbilt University, are capable of grabbing individual biomolecules and proteins without damaging them. Existing optical tweezers could trap and manipulate tiny objects using highly-focused lasers but couldn’t grab anything smaller than a red blood cell. 

The tweezers, technically called opto-thermo-electrohydrodynamic tweezers (OTET), use a laser to trap and lift individual objects as small as ten nanometers. According to lead researcher Justus Ndukaife, this gives us “the ability to understand the way our DNA and other biological molecules behave in great detail, on a singular level.”

So what does this mean for humans? Not only can we learn more about the intricate details of our cellular makeup, but researchers are also hopeful that the new technology will help diagnose and treat Alzheimer’s in earlier stages. Using the tweezers, doctors would theoretically be able to spot the proteins associated with the disease earlier. 

The potential uses for this new technology are endless. As Ndukaife puts it, “The sky is the limit when it comes to the applications of OTET.”

Solutions News Source Print this article
More of Today's Solutions

Brazil fines meat producers $64 million over ties to deforested Amazon land

BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM In a major environmental crackdown, Brazil's IBAMA fined meat packers and cattle ranchers $64 million for rearing or ...

Read More

How to spot a moon ring: a guide to lunar halos and other moonlight phenomena

BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM The ring around the moon, also known as the lunar halo, is a breathtaking yet surprisingly common sight ...

Read More

The surprising reason you should turn your camera off during Zoom calls

To all of you who have been keeping their cameras off during Zoom calls, well done. You may have simply been trying to hide ...

Read More

Hummingbirds have the widest color range of all birds

Among the different species of birds, hummingbirds are among the most iconic and distinct in the skies. These unique creatures hover unlike most birds, ...

Read More