Radiation-eating superbug
A pink bacterium that shrugs off the worst radiation and which has been taught to thrive on toxic waste is yielding genetic secrets that could lead not only to better waste clean-up but better treatments for cancer, according to researchers.

Most important inventions in 2000 years
Primative societies got their food mainly by hunting and gathering. Farming began about 40,000 years ago, but for thousands of people this farming was merely looking after and guarding grain bearing plants and fruit bearing trees. This practice changed drastically when the digging stick that later became the plough was invented. The first agricultural revolution came when man started breaking the soil instead of merely protecting valuable plants and trees in the jungle. Those new agriculturists removed all unwanted species (the weeds) and planted plants to produce grain on a mass scale and so recreated the land.

“Terabits” of info on chip
Researchers at Cornell University in the USA have developed a new way to write information to magnetic material that could lead to a new kind of computer memory chips.

Science Quiz
by J. P. Garg

Cybersurfing with Amar Chandel

CSIR: strategy for next millennium
by Amar Chandel

When the celebrated scientist, Dr Raghunath Anant Mashelkar, took over as the Director-General of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in 1995, one of the first tasks he performed was to spell out the goals that were to be achieved by 2001. This CSIR Vision 2001 had envisaged 500 international patents, a Rs 350 crore income from industry, $ 40 million foreign earnings and 10 globally competitive technologies. With just two years to go to the D-day, the country is nowhere near the cherished targets.

The income from industry is no more than Rs 83 crore, and the foreign earnings are only a little more than $ 4 million. There isn't even one globally competitive technology to boast of. But the infectiously optimistic scientist is totally unfazed and does not even think of downscaling the targets. The figures, he says, were only to stimulate everyone to give off his best. "The process has started; results will come," he says with a confident smile.

Dr Mashelkar has been consistently using the "lilies in the pool" analogy. If the number of lilies in the pool is to double every day, starting with 0 on the first day, and it has to be full in 30 days, it will be only one quarter full on day 28, and only half-full on day 29, he says. But now that half of the time for "CSIR 2000: Vision and Strategy" has gone by, there just are not enough lilies in the Indian pond. Dr Mashelkar admits as much. "Let us put it this way", he says disarmingly, "we have continued scoring one and two runs. The few sixes we were expecting have not come about. But that multi-million dollar patents cannot elude us forever".

One of the major reasons for the slip-up is the absence of the anticipated industrial growth. "We cannot have islands of excellence, after all". But won't that be seen as excuse-finding? "When I had put the targets in black and white, I was warned not to stick my neck out but I did exactly that, only to make sure that everybody was on his toes. The plan worked. Most of the 40-odd laboratories set up targets of their own and are working towards them furiously," he says. On a pragmatic note, he admits that he will be happy if the foreign earnings rise to $ 16 million by 2001. He underlines the fact that there has been a doubling every year.

The scientist, who is one of the very few in India who have had the privilege of becoming a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS), which has had such titans as Issac Newton in its ranks, is candid enough to admit that the process that he has started is neither permanent nor deep enough.

He underlines the fact that it is not easy to reorient a workforce of 25,000-plus. The top order has quickly aligned itself but those lower down are yet to do so. He also readily agrees that structural changes have to be brought about in the CSIR to get the desired results. Laboratories should be independent in decision making. Power has moved from the Delhi headquarters to the Directors of various laboratories. It has to percolate down further and further to the lowest level.

But what about the legendary rivalries among various laboratories? Dr. Mashelkar sidesteps the question by pointing out that today 20 CSIR laboratories are networking on plant-based drugs. "Team-CSIR" is the mantra of the man who is famous for converting macro issues into micro phrases.

The Director-General denies any government interference or pressure and-rather surprisingly-claims that whenever the CSIR asked something, it was given. So the failure is only in asking. All that he admits is that it is still governed by government rules, due to which administrative, finance and support systems are not able to move at the same speed as the scientific community. (It is another matter that The Tribune has subsequently learnt that at least two of the CSIR labs have been without a regular director for the past one year due to political pressure allegedly exerted by some of the aspirants.)

Tasks ahead

The winner of the coveted JRD Tata Award for Corporate Leadership is at his eloquent best while discussing the tasks ahead. Among the first is to remove the illiteracy on intellectual property rights. The patent culture has to be put in place. We have to be not just patent-conscious but also patent-savvy. Now that people have tasted success, the habit will grow. Every year the number is doubling. We must improve physical infrastructure. The patent policy should be the innovation policy. There has to be a digital database of the traditional knowledge. Since the CSIR has successfully fought the US patent on turmeric, it has created awareness in the patent office there about the knowledge prevalent in India. The process has to be expedited, according to him.

The man who is credited with turning around a typical sarkari council into an up and about corporate body has many admirers but also several critics. One of the most unusual remarks about his performance has come from his teacher, Prof. M.M. Sharma, an FRS himself: "At times it looks like Mashelkar is overselling a bit, but his accomplishments in turning around the CSIR are impressive." Talking of the word "overselling", Dr. Mashelkar bursts out laughing, saying that "I love the CSIR too much; and this shows sometimes." Q.E.D.

The discussion moves onto the agenda for the next millennium. The celebrated chemical scientist has a precise, detailed vision on that, which has come to be known as Panchsheel in some circles. The salient features of this "second freedom movement" will be:

1. Child centred education
2. Woman centred family
3. Human centred development
4. Knowledge centred society, and,
5. Innovation centred India.

"We have to remould the school science education to the mode of 'learning by discovery' than the 'learning by rote' method", he says. The prevailing discipline-centred approach must change to child-centred approach.

A focus on developing and enhancing a woman's entrepreneurial skills and giving her economic freedom will restore her to the rightful place in the family and society. Dr Mashelkar wants special emphasis on the participation of local institutions through new technology. Promoting a job-led economic growth strategy based on pro-nature, pro-poor and pro-woman orientation to the development of technology and its dissemination will need a new impetus. New models to create new micro-enterprises, which are able to add value and generate employment and income, will be needed.

The visionary in him says that only those nations will survive in the next millennium, which build knowledge-centred societies. The others will vanish into oblivion. If the Indian society has to become a knowledge-centred society, then it is important that every Indian becomes a knowledge worker, be it a farmer, a rural woman, a media man or an artisan and so on. Indigenous knowledge systems must be sustained through active support to the societies that are keepers of this knowledge, their way of life, their languages, their social organisation and the environments in which they live. Knowledge without innovation is of no value. It is through the process of innovation that knowledge is converted into wealth and social good. Innovative nations lead the world today. When one looks at India, one feels that centuries of subjugation has perhaps undermined our capacity for innovation and creativity, which has got to be revived. "We cannot allow the 'I' in India to stand for imitation and inhibition; it must stand for innovation," he says.

The peaks that Dr Mashelkar has scaled look all the more dizzying when measured from the depth of the economic deprivation in the millieu from where he started. He lost his father at the age of six. His mother had to do odd jobs in nearby households to pay for his education. The boy who had to walk barefoot till the age of 12 and did not have even three paise to take weekly tests in school on Saturdays, used adversity to emerge as one of the handful of scientists of the country to be inducted into the Royal Society. No wonder that one of the dreams of the man, who will have the honour to be the head of the first Indian Science Congress of the new millennium next year, is to "pick up the deprived and those who failed". As one admirer says, as long as India has the capacity to discover men like Dr Abdul Kalam and Dr Mashelkar and put them on the high pedestals, there is still hope.

Radiation-eating superbug

A pink bacterium that shrugs off the worst radiation and which has been taught to thrive on toxic waste is yielding genetic secrets that could lead not only to better waste clean-up but better treatments for cancer, according to researchers.

Teams at the Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR) in Rockville, Maryland and at the Department of Energy say they had sequenced the Genome — The entire collection of genes — of deinococcus radiodurans.

They say it seems to have thousands of unique genes that help it clean up the damage done to its DNA by radiation, helping it survive where any other creature would die.

Found living happily 40 years ago in a can of food that had been irradiated to kill germs, D. Radiourans has intrigued scientists ever since.

It can survive 1.5 million rads of gamma irradiation — a dose 3,000 times the amount that would kill a human. It also pops back to life after being dried out and can live through high doses of ultraviolet radiation.

Just last year, researchers genetically engineered it to eat up toxic chemicals such as toluene and mercury.

“This is a significant accomplishment,” Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson said in a statement.

Besides the insights into the way cells work, this new research may help provide a new safe and inexpensive tool for some of the nation’s most difficult cleanup challenges”.

The team at TIGR, which has now sequenced the genomes of 10 important micro-organisms, used the “shotgun” method to make multiple copies of every piece of genetic material in the bacterium. Writing in the journal Science, they said they overlapped these to make a full map of its genes.

They found about 3,100 genes arranged on two circular chromosomes, TIGR president Claire Fraser said.

The secret to deinococcus’s toughness seems to be a large number of genes that allow it not to prevent damage from radiation, heat and other assaults, but to repair that damage quickly and efficiently enough to allow it to survive.

Radiation, heat and chemicals create breaks in the double helix of DNA that makes up the genes. This can kill a cell outright, or cause it to make mistakes as it replicates itself — mistakes that can kill it, or cause cancer and other disease. (Reuter)

Most important inventions in 2000 years
by Nataraja Sarma

Primative societies got their food mainly by hunting and gathering. Farming began about 40,000 years ago, but for thousands of people this farming was merely looking after and guarding grain bearing plants and fruit bearing trees. This practice changed drastically when the digging stick that later became the plough was invented. The first agricultural revolution came when man started breaking the soil instead of merely protecting valuable plants and trees in the jungle. Those new agriculturists removed all unwanted species (the weeds) and planted plants to produce grain on a mass scale and so recreated the land.

Early religions condemned this new technology, perhaps because it degraded the environment, though it led to the mass production of cereals. The plough, perfected in the early years of the last two thousand years has proved to feed six billion people successfully.

Language, which comprises symbolic output, body movements and the written or engraved characters, was the next great discovery, starting an explosion of words that united, and later divided people into cooperative behaviour that increased efficiency.

Taming of cattle and the horse was the next great advance. Apart from making farming much more efficient, local rulers could extend their rule over large parts of the world. Mass migrations, such as the movement of the Central Asian tribes into China and the invasions of the Aryans into India resulted from the domestication of these animals. It is not, therefore, surprising that one of the incarnations of Vishnu is the horse headed Hayagriva, an imagery that travelled across the Himalayan mountains to Tibet, China and Japan. Unfortunately, this avatar lost its importance with the advent of more advanced means of transportation.

The invention of paper then caused a profound revolution in our lives. Before the invention of paper, various cultures used stone, metal, wood, papyrus, clay, parchment, vellum, cloth, tree leaves, bark, and rice-pith to record information. Papyrus dates back to around 5000 B.C. when the Egyptains wrote on sheets of papyrus. To make a sheet suitable for writing, the smooth, triangular stalks of the plant were harvested and peeled, and the pith was sliced and pounded together in strips. A second layer of pith was then applied perpendicular to the first and pounded to make a flat sheet, which was then polished smooth with a stone, bone, or shell. The Sumerians wrote pictographs on clay around 4000 B.C., as it was permanent after baking. In the Himalayan region and in the Americas, sheets and rolls of tree bark have been used. The people of the plains of India and South-East Asia scribed their notes on the leaves of the palm and bai-lan trees. The Chinese used rice-pith cut spirally from inside the Fatsiapayrifera plant.

Though recent archaeological data indicates that paper was in use about 100 B.C. it is popularly believed that it was invented in 105 A.D. during the reign of the Chinese emperor, Tsai Lun. In the next half century, paper became the main writing material in South-East Asia, the Indian subcontinent and Central Asia, particularly with the rise of Buddhism. The Moslems introduced the material to Europe but the Christians banned it as a manifestation of Muslim culture. Europeans continued to write on vellum, the inner skin of sheep and cattle, till the printing press changed their attitudes around 1450 A.D. On the down side, the easy availability of paper has allowed people to be manipulated through easily distributed propaganda and the hunger for paper has destroyed forests.

Developed around 100 AD, the decimal system known in the west as the Indo-Arab counting system with the zero symbol united the world, and overcame the rather clumsy but picturesque Roman numeral system. Though the binary notation of the computer is vastly superior in complex calculations, the decimal system still retains its status.

After the development of language and the art of calligraphy, the printing press became the most significant invention of man. In Europe William Caxton published “The Canterbury Tales” in the 15th century with his newly invented printing machine. The traditional method of communication by verse and lecture was replaced by word on a page. Errors in the laborious copying of the script, which inhibited the Vedic sages from inscribing their knowledge, were now eliminated. The drudgery of copiers working day after day in European monasteries and the monotonous scribing of palm leaves was relieved.

Some claim that the glass lens was the greatest invention of the past 2000 years for it opened up the universe, from the planets and stars to the written word and down to tiny organisms. The lens originated in prehistoric times as a drop of water which focused the sun’s rays to cause fire. It was only in the 14th century that Italians began to use lenses to correct bad eyesight and in the 17th century, grinding spectacle lenses was a secret art. Galileo, then teaching at Padua, looked at the sky through a double lens, improved the design of the telescope and changed our view of the universe. At the same time, Hooke peered through a two-lens device to see minute living creatures in a drop of water. This led to discoveries in medicine.

Electricity was another revolutionary discovery. The first invention by Pieter van Musschenbroek in 1745 was the Leyden jar which stored large amounts of electric charge. Initially a circus exhibit, by the mid-19th century, the study of electricity had become a precise, quantitative science which paved the way for the technologies and became a universal necessity. In 1820 the Danish natural philosopher Hans Christian Oersted had discovered electro-magnetism. It was immediately evident that Oersted had made major discovery, but because he belonged to the German school of natural philosophy, his paper contained some unacceptable views. Faraday later commented that “I have very little to say on Oersted’s theory, for I must confess I do not quite understand it”, but it became clear that Oersted had opened up a major field of scientific enquiry. Faraday undertook a set of experiments in his basement laboratory at the Royal Institution in 1821, which culminated in his discovery of electromagnetic rotation — the principle behind the electric motor.

With the aid of electricity, Charles Babbage made his first analytical engine which has now burgeoned into the vast computer industry.

Genetic engineering is the most recent and greatest discovery of man. New strains of crops, flowers and fruits were developed by hit-and-miss cross breeding methods. The directed genetic manipulation that is causing so much controversy consists of targeting particular genes which change the properties of the cell. Such tools and techniques will doubtless have an immense impact on future milliennia. It has, in principle, the ability to redesign living beings and is one of the fundamental techniques with which one can improve our position in the biological world.

To sum up, Murray Gell Mann, the Nobel prize winner and originator of the eightfold way in physics believes that the greatest advance in human conception is a disbelief in the supernatural. The formulation of quantum mechanics really highlighted this aspect and showed that everything is governed by the laws of motion and of chance. In developed countries, the belief in the total power of “heavenly beings” has diminished. A new belief in the necessity for social discipline and the role of faith has taken the place of superstition. (PTI)

“Terabits” of info on chip

Researchers at Cornell University in the USA have developed a new way to write information to magnetic material that could lead to a new kind of computer memory chips.

The chips will have a very high storage capacity and will be non-volatile, meaning they would not require a constant electric current flowing to maintain stored information.

Dan Ralph, Cornell assistant professor of physics, says the effect was demonstrated in devices between 10 nanometres and 100 nanometres across.

If the effect can be commercially harnessed with 10-nanometres devices, he says, it will make single chips capable of storing terabits (trillions of bits) of information. A nanometre is one-billionth of a metre, or about three times the diameter of an atom.

The researchers have shown that a small electric current passed through a “sandwich” of two layers of magnetic material separated by a copper conductor can controllably switch the orientation of the “magnetic moment” — that is, flip the north and south poles — of a small magnetised area. The experiment, which confirms theoretical prediction, was reported in Science.

The researchers created two thin layers of cobalt separated by a copper spacer. The upper cobalt layer is less than 10 nanometre thick, the copper layer is four nanometres thick, and the lower cobalt layer is about 100 nanometres thick. A tiny copper electrode touches the top of the upper layer. (PTI)

Science Quiz
by J. P. Garg

1. Who is the winner of the 1999 Nobel Prize in chemistry? What is his main contribution to chemistry which earned him this award?

2. Buying and selling of goods and services using computers and the Internet is gaining popularity day by day. What is this process called?

3. GRT may become a major weapon in the fight against diseases in the near future. What does GRT stand for and what does this process essentially involve?

4. Can you name this triatomic colourless, odorless gas which on dissolving in ordinary water produces a very weak acid and turns lime water milky when passed through it? What is this gas called when in solid state?

5. A nuclear powered inter-planetary spacecraft launched by the USA on 15th October, 1997, is on way to a planet of our solar system for conducting research about it and shall reach the planet in July, 2004. Name the spacecraft and the planet.

6. In which unit is the power of a lens usually measured? To which characteristic of the lens is this unit intimately related?

7. In a battle field, the infantry advances under the cover of a smoke screen, through which the enemy cannot ascertain the movements of the army. What are the bombs called which produce smoke screen and which chemical is generally used in these bombs?

8. Rich in fats, proteins and enzymes, it is the site of oxidation of food that results in release of energy. Name this power house of plant and animal cells.

9. This metal is widely used in some medicines and for making various types of household utensils. Its use in packing of foodstuff is also on the increase. Which is this metal, the excessive consumption of which can be a cause of brain, bone and blood diseases?

10. The per capita consumption of energy in a country is a major index of its prosperity. So energy production and conservation is the backbone of economic development. To focus attention on the issue, World Energy Conservation Day will be observed shortly. On which date?

Answers
1. Ahmed Zewail, who holds both Egyptian and US citizenship; showing that it is possible with rapid laser technique to see how atoms in a molecule move during a chemical reaction 2. Electronic commerce or e-commerce 3. Gene replacement therapy; isolation of a suitable gene or its artificial synthesis and its transfer to a desired cell 4. Carbon dioxide; dry ice 5. Cassini; Saturn 6. Dioptre; focal length 7.Incendiary bombs; phosphorus pentoxide 8. Mitochondrion 9. Aluminium 10. December 14.

Cybersurfing with Amar Chandel
How things work

It is but natural for a Net lover to be of an inquisitive mind. He (or she, as the case may be) might not only like to put various items to good use but may also like to know how they work. For all such eager-beavers, one treasure trove of a website may be www.howstuffworks.com. It has detailed, easy to understand information on the functioning of literally thousands of items, as varied as gas engines, jet planes, diesel vehicles, cellphones, TVs, CDs, fridge, planes, gears and what not.

Among the most often asked questions are those on caffeine, cavities, computers, Boolean logic, Christmas, time, light sabers (as used in Star Wars) and the year 2038 problem. The result is that you can spend hours in this supermart.

Then there are detailed archives. But here, the search is rather unsatisfactory. Very often, one gets results which have nothing to do with the original question. But if you are just surfing, it is indeed a fab site.

* * * *

Another site which is recommended, especially for school children is www.schoolwork.org. A lot of information is neatly divided into 24 sections such as art, drugs, health, law, philosophy, quotations and religion. One can get a lot of source material on any of these subjects easily.

Some of the sections take considerable time to load but others are adequate.

* * * *

Patents are very much in the news. The general feeling is that once someone gets a patent on his "invention", his career is made. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Here in India, not many people apply for a patent but in countries like the USA, exactly the opposite is true. Visit www.patents.ibm.com to get acquainted with some really bizarre patented items. There is an energy conversion machine in which wind and water energy is utilised for water desalination, heating, cooling or as an underwater life support system.

Then there is a gravity powered airconditioner for one's shoes and a flushable vehicle spitoon.

The wacky patent of the month award goes to an aircraft with equi-spaced power plants.

* * * *

If news about commerce on the Net interests you, the website worth visiting is http://news.cnet.com It gives you ample information about various computer and internet-related topics.

The best part is that if you like any particular item, there is facility available to select it and directly e-mail it to a friend.

The everything fireplace
CRITICS of gas fireplaces contend that the appliances generate little useful heat for the amount of fuel they burn, and that they tend to overheat the area in which they’re installed while doing nothing for the rest of the house. But manufacturers have been taking a closer look at fireplace technology in recent years and have begun rolling out units that qualify as truly useful appliances. Some even dump excess heat outside or transfer it through ducts to other parts of the house. In fact,the efficiency of today’s gas fireplaces rivals that of furnaces.

One of the most innovative fireplace prototypes was recently unveiled by the Advanced Combustion Technologies Laboratory in Ottawa, Canada. According to Skip Hayden, the researcher in charge of the project, the unit isn’t merely a fireplace — it’s also a condensing gas furnace, a water heater, and an air conditioner wrapped into a single package.

The unit overcomes the major downside of ducted fireplaces: You may not want heat, say, in the living room exactly when you need it in the bedroom. Hayden’s prototype solves this by storing excess heat in an insulated water tank. The stored heat can be used when, where, and how it’s needed. The hot water can circulate through a radiant floor heating system, or it can be sent through heat exchangers to drive a forced-air heating system or to heat the home’s drinking and bath water. It can even be used to preheat incoming ventilation or combustion air during the winter. In addition, the system can be fitted with air-conditioning coils for cooling.

Not only are they efficient, but they can potentially eliminate the need for separate heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning appliances — saving homeowners thousands of dollars. (Popular Science)

First GPS-assisted map for drivers
The country’s first digital atlas with a Global Positioning System (GPS) assisted feature has been developed by a Bangalore-based company with the help of Indian Space Research Organisation’s National Remote Sensing Agency (NRSA).

The GPS feature can help drivers reach a destination through a maze of roads.

This new GPS-compatible programme by Street Atlas company could also be of great help to the security forces to track VIP movement. The feature can also help truck drivers transporting goods from one city to another if the programme is expanded to include the whole country.

Company managing director R Rajashekhar said the digital atlas programme on a CD-rom is compatible with GPS device. The device attached to a laptop can provide the precise location of the vehicle on the screen in relation to the destination.

Presently, the digital map on a compact disk, features over a hundred detailed maps panelled seamlessly to give a view of all densely populated areas of Bangalore.

Heavy metals to remove pollutants
To rid the environment of pollutants, Israeli scientists are exploiting the “appetite” of the frail-looking Azolla ferns and water lilies to absorb heavy metals without any detrimental effect to the plants.

Azolla plants have a long life and can absorb copper, cadmium, zinc, chromium and nickel at 500 times their concentration in common effluents.

As the heavy metals bind to the cell walls of the plant, Azolla can be equally effective when dried and pressed, according to the botanists of Hebrew University who discovered this unique characteristic of Azolla.

Biofilters made from Azolla can be “planted” anywhere, especially close to the source of a potential pollutant.

This reduces the amount of effluents that must be treated to a minimum and optimises the efficiency of the biofilter which can be targeted to treat one kind of metal, instead of a complex “chemical soup” of various compounds in a larger body of water, reports Features from Israel.

Gem-quality diamonds
A joint team of Russian and U.S.scientists claim to have developed a technique to consistently produce low cost gem-quality diamonds that can be used in jewellery and next-generation high-speed electronics.

The science of making gem-quality diamonds is known since the 1960s, but the machines were huge and the cost exceeded that of mining natural diamonds.

About the size of a washing machine, the device starts with a carbon source and a tiny piece of a real diamond called a “seed”. The machine squeezes the seed with increasingly high pressure topping out at 850,000 pounds per square inch. Other equipment heat the core to 2,000 to 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The high pressure and temperatures transform the seed into a bigger diamond.

The machines require very little electricity and are not expensive to build, but the Russian researchers were unable to make them consistently to produce diamonds of the same colour or quality.

Assistance came from researchers of University of Florida in the U.S.A. who helped the Russians control the processing parameters like heat and pressure and modify them to get different results, according to a release from the university.

New methane source
US researchers have come up with a new process to produce methane from a naturally-occurring iron-nickel alloy using pressure and heat.

The process, if it occurs in earth’s crust, could imply a source of methane other than digestion or decomposition of dead organic matter, the scientists say.

The researchers call their process abiogenic — i.e., not connected with biological processes — methane formation, according to a report in Science.

Most methane is thought to be produced when dead organic matters decays through the action of microbes or by heat-induced decomposition.

Other means to produce methane in the laboratory exist, but Michael Berndt, a senior research associate in geology and geophysics at the University of Minnesota, says the new process could be an important means of generating methane in nature — specifically, under conditions of heat and pressure found deep in the Earth’s oceanic crust.

Microscopic devices for transplants
A US researcher has developed a method for implanting tiny silicon capsules carrying health transplant cells beneath a patient’s skin, which take the place of malfunctioning cells by producing chemicals needed for the body.

The new method, developed by Mauro Ferrari, a biochemical engineer at Ohio State University, eliminates the need for immunosupression, and for transplanting an entire organ when a few grams of healthy cells will do.

Today, doctors suppress patients’ immune systems with drugs to keep antibodies from destroying transplanted tissue, leaving patients open to infections.

Ferrari and his colleagues were able to create 2-millimetre capsules, each containing millions of channels only 18 nanometres long, approximately 50 atoms across, according to a report in the journal Membrane Science.