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DNA nano thermometer

09.05.2016

Do you need to measure the temperature in hard-to-reach places? Scientists have created the world's smallest thermometer from DNA, which is able to measure the temperature even inside living cells.

Researchers at the University of Montreal have developed tiny molecular sensors based on how RNA folds and unfolds based on local temperature. Thanks to the unique structure of DNA, the scientists were able to carefully adapt the design of the new thermometer along the same lines.

DNA is made up of four bases: adenine, guanine, thymine, and cytosine. The structure they create can be extremely useful, as each base links more or less strongly to the others. "Adenine binds rather weakly to thymine, while cytosine binds strongly to guanine," explains David Garo, one of the researchers, in a press release.

By placing the bases in the correct order, the team was able to create DNA strains that fold and unfold in specific ways at specific temperatures. The result is a 5-nanometer-wide structure that scientists use to measure temperatures, and can be tuned to measure tiny temperature differences (as small as a tenth of a degree) as well as powerful heating or cooling processes.

With the help of these tiny temperature probes, scientists say they can more accurately understand what is happening inside the human body. "We know that the standard temperature of the human body is 36,6 degrees Celsius," explains Prof. Valle-Belil. "But we have no idea if there is any change happening inside a person at the nanoscale within each cell." Now we can find out.

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Household bacteria will tell about your personal life 09.09.2015

Your personal secrets will quickly cease to be secrets if microbiologists take them up. Researchers at the University of Colorado at Boulder and North Carolina State University say the bacteria in your home can tell you how many people, men and women, live in your home and what kind of pets you keep.

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In house dust, you can find a lot of bacteria and microscopic fungi, but the fungi found, according to the authors of the work, differed little from those that lived outside - they were simply brought from the street, and they were not associated with any features of life. On the contrary, a variety of bacteria from the doorpost clearly indicated whether the house was more male or female, and whether cats or dogs lived there.

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Restoring the history of a house can be very necessary for criminalists, and here bacteria can provide an invaluable service. It is possible that in the near future, according to the "door microflora", forensic experts will learn to determine some other features of the character of permanent residents. True, the key word here is permanent. Dust, along with microbes, accumulates for a long time, and the information that we receive here refers to something long-term and stable - in other words, the home microflora is unlikely to "notice" a single visit by a robber.

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