Biosensing nanodevice could hasten security checks, health screenings

We'll go ahead and warn you: if you're hoping to purge your mind of all things science this weekend, this post isn't the one to be reading. For the rest of you knowledge seekers, Arizona State University researcher Wayne Frasch has developed a biosensing nanodevice that could possibly revolutionize health screenings and speed up that grueling airport security process. Put simply (well, as simply as possible), he discovered that the enzyme F1– ATPase can be equipped with an optical probe and "manipulated to emit a signal when it detects a single molecule of target DNA." Currently, a prototype of the DNA detector is already being worked up, but there's no word on when (or if) the device will escape the lab and hit the commercial realm. Still not geeked out? Hit the read link and hold on for dear life.

[Via Physorg]

[Bufsabre @ Mar 30th 2008 12:26AM]

nanotechnology makes jesus cry

[randompass @ Mar 30th 2008 7:22AM]

because it means he's indirectly created something so small even he can't see it?

[Kurt MacD @ Mar 30th 2008 2:26PM]

Ahh, Zenigata and his pig shaped "Lupin Detector" Or otherwise for you dumbasses, 1970's concoction of a DNA detector..lol

[Aguiluz @ Mar 30th 2008 12:50AM]

Health screenings eh? Let's see what happens when you try a butt exam.

[Wwhat @ Mar 30th 2008 1:11AM]

Can we shoot those researcher before they finished pls, shoot them up with LSD I mean of course, the details are less relevant than stopping them.

[Zorque @ Mar 30th 2008 3:28AM]

What.

[Wwhat @ Mar 31st 2008 7:00AM]

I hate anybody that develops crap to suppress people and think they should be stopped early, call me odd..
What do you think they mean with 'security', freaking DNA databases are an affront to thinking people, which I guess isn't an issue for many huh.

[MissUniverse @ Mar 30th 2008 1:12AM]

This hi tech would be great for catching cancer in the earliest possible stages.

But still, getting people to go for checkups will always be a problem - regardless of the hi tech available.

Will loved ones resort to taking saliva left on spoons or forks and secretly getting them analyzed?

[YoJIMbo @ Mar 30th 2008 1:14AM]

I hope that one day, this device will help us find those hidden pumpkins of doom we are all so worried about. Pie anyone?

[Eddy Alvarez @ Mar 30th 2008 1:17AM]

hmm.. cool stuff. its like ASO but insanely sensitive. Could definitely put ASO out of the job. This has the potential to allow medicine to use existing ideas of identification of genes/alleles but without the need for expensive and time consuming PCR amplification.

(i'm a med student so this stuff gets me excited. they are the gadgets I will get to play with when i graduate!! woo! ...unfortunately; it probably won't play doom :-()

[Kurian @ Mar 30th 2008 1:34AM]

Now I can get my own decontamination chamber with the flashing red lights and smoke machine!

[TheTupa @ Mar 30th 2008 1:49AM]

In communist Russia, disease detect you!

[andres @ Mar 30th 2008 4:26AM]

in soviet russia, you scan nanobots

[Greg @ Mar 30th 2008 4:05AM]

compulsory recktum check soon ?

[andres @ Mar 30th 2008 4:30AM]

no, they will not play doom, and you would need nanoscopic blenders to blend them

[Peter J. Lupo Esq. @ Mar 30th 2008 4:47AM]

What will they think of next?! :O)

[TNP @ Mar 30th 2008 12:12PM]

Surely -this- will make us all free, right? Right?

[EQB @ Mar 30th 2008 2:36PM]

Um, correct me if I'm wrong med-geeks, but isn't DNA a combination of many average molecules? Thus, how could you possibly detect "a single molecule of target DNA" when you are building a detector for a specific _STRING_ of DNA?

You can't possibly build a detector that will register on a single molecule of target DNA because you must read much much more than a single molecule to find out if it IS the target DNA no?

[BigD145 @ Mar 30th 2008 2:53PM]

Oh glory be. We can now automatically put "damn dirty foreigners" on no-fly lists without looking at the color of their skin. We could even jump to the conclusion that a white person was 'sleeping' with a black person based on the skin flakes found in luggage. Things just got a whole lot simpler.

Am I joking? .... Um, this is America, isn't it? I'll let you be the judge of what a retard would do with this system.

[TObject @ Mar 30th 2008 7:23PM]

Gay detector for US State Governors :)

[BollockChops @ Mar 31st 2008 2:20AM]

I'm sorry sir you can't have healthcare, have you *seen* your DNA scan results!

Move along please. NEXT!

[palehorse @ Apr 1st 2008 12:03PM]

I only have one question: Can a bunch of these things be dropped on a small town to find a specific DNA target and report its presence/location?

hmm...

[vera @ Apr 11th 2008 9:59AM]

send more info re biosensing nano. thx.

[ivanotter @ May 12th 2008 10:19AM]

This is very scary. Exciting but scary. Being a privacy minded person, this strikes me as having HUGE potential for abuse in the current climate of american fear. And, as someone mentioned above, the ability to exclude people for healthcare