{"id":182744,"date":"2024-02-15T07:23:29","date_gmt":"2024-02-15T13:23:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2024\/02\/ex-nasa-engineer-mark-rober-created-the-worlds-smallest-nerf-gun-from-dna"},"modified":"2024-02-15T07:23:29","modified_gmt":"2024-02-15T13:23:29","slug":"ex-nasa-engineer-mark-rober-created-the-worlds-smallest-nerf-gun-from-dna","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2024\/02\/ex-nasa-engineer-mark-rober-created-the-worlds-smallest-nerf-gun-from-dna","title":{"rendered":"Ex-NASA engineer Mark Rober created the world\u2019s smallest Nerf gun \u2014 from DNA"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<p><iframe style=\"display: block; margin: 0 auto; width: 100%; aspect-ratio: 4\/3; object-fit: contain;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/9c2NqlUWZfo?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope;\n   picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Mission accomplished. Except Rober wasn\u2019t done yet. Out of curiosity \u2014 and in preparation for the challengers to follow \u2014 he wondered if it was possible to make an even smaller blaster. One, say, three <em>million <\/em>times smaller? To answer that, he asked <a href=\"https:\/\/www.salk.edu\/scientist\/pallav-kosuri\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Pallav Kosuri<\/a>, an assistant professor at the Integrative Biology Laboratory at the Salk Institute, if it was possible.<\/p>\n<p>Kosuri\u2019s reply: Sure! You just need to make it out of DNA.<\/p>\n<p>The technique Kosuri had in mind is known as \u201cDNA origami,\u201d and like its paper-based namesake, it is both simple and intriguing. The idea to make microscopic structures with folded DNA was conceived by Nadrian Seeman, a crystallographer, Kosuri explained in an interview with Freethink.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mission accomplished. Except Rober wasn\u2019t done yet. Out of curiosity \u2014 and in preparation for the challengers to follow \u2014 he wondered if it was possible to make an even smaller blaster. One, say, three million times smaller? To answer that, he asked Pallav Kosuri, an assistant professor at the Integrative Biology Laboratory at the [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":367,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-182744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/367"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=182744"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182744\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}