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KEY PARTS. "Self-Assembly is a process by which disordered parts build an ordered structure through local interaction ... This phenomenon is scale-independent and can be utilized for self-constructing and manufacturing systems at nearly every scale. We have also identified the key ingredients for self-assembly as a simple set of responsive building blocks, energy and interactions that can be designed within nearly every material and machining process available." http://www.selfassemblylab.net/ View in LinkedIn

HALOPHILES ARE EXTREMOPHILES adapted to high salt niches. Most plants are salt intolerant. "Once inside the cell, salt can cause ionic stresses, largely as Na (and Cl-) inhibit metabolic processes including protein synthesis." But ancient bacteria thrive in these hostile environments. http://www.sebiology.org/publications/Bulletin/July05/salinity.html View in LinkedIn

THE RACE TO CHAOS is a driver of most inert material in the universe, to a more disordered, lower energy state. Self-assembly is the drive of free molecules to a higher ordered state, a property common to all living things. For this reason, and its enormous utility, self-assembly holds a particular fascination for innovative scientists in the quest fo r autonomous self-repairing robots. View in LinkedIn

TIP OF THE ICEBERG. "Few hypersaline environments have been carefully surveyed using molecular methods. Recent findings of bacterial and archaeal metabolic activities suggest that these environments harbour diverse communities of microbes, many of which have not been cultured." https://lnkd.in/dQM9KcT View in LinkedIn

SELF-ASSEMBLY AND SELF-REPAIR are characteristics of living systems that robotics engineers have longed to emulate. This ability is not limited to living things, as colloids, crystals and other systems also display self-assembly driven at a nano or molecular scale by powerful thermodynamic forces seeking energetic equilibrium. View in LinkedIn

FRAGMENT FROM NATURE continues this weekend with a look at salt adapted microorganism, and those adapted to high pressure niches. Both habitats are brutal on cell metabolism, and on the very protein components that service the metabolism. Extreme wholescale adaptations of cellular machinery are often necessary. View in LinkedIn

NANO VS BULK MATERIAL PROPERTIES. "Nanomaterials exhibit many unique and often tunable physical, chemical, and tri-bological properties that are nonexistent in their bulk counterparts, which has led to research in the generation of materials with controlled microstructural characteristics." http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Debabrata_Goswami/publication/226257162_Coded_nanoscale_self-assembly/links/0912f50c2c40387b0a000000.pdf View in LinkedIn

"MOLECULAR SELF-ASSEMBLY is the spontaneous organization of molecules (or parts of molecules) under thermodynamic equilibrium conditions into structurally well-defined stable arrangements through a number of noncovalent interactions without any human intervention." https://lnkd.in/dyqXZ8k View in LinkedIn

"MOLECULAR SELF-ASSEMBLY involves non-covalent or weak covalent interactions (van der Waals, electrostatic, and hydrophobic interaction, hydrogen, and coordination bonds." For self-assembly of large objects, forces like gravitational attraction, electromagnetic fields, manetic, capillary and entropic interactions apply, but not to molecular self-assembly." https://lnkd.in/dMdgwXk View in LinkedIn

ELECTRICAL CODE. "This work demonstrates for the first time that an imposed sequence of electrical inputs can trigger the self-assembly of multilayered hydrogels and thus suggests the broader potential for creating an electrical "code" to generate complex structures in soft matter." https://lnkd.in/dDQgYqG View in LinkedIn