[extropy-chat] Lipid bilayer constraints and considerations -- Was Cryonics is the only option?

[Eugen Leitl]

On Thu, Apr 19, 2007 at 04:43:01PM -0400, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote:

> > But I say, it can't be done. The physics and chemistry of the biomolecules
> > won't allow it to be done as a manufacturing process.
> >
> > Anders you say it can? Then let's see how.
> 
> ### You may want to consider that the macromolecules are for the most
> part not bound covalently to each other. They are bound by weaker

Lipid bilayers specifically self-assemble.

I don't understand what the problem is with building vitrified
liposomes by placing lipids down one by one, and squiring water
around it. 

In fact, given enough grad-student time we should be able to build a ring
of lipids on HOPG or silicon, by dragging around lipids
by AFM or STM -- today.

Brett, would you say this can't be done?

> interactions - hydrophobic, electrostatic, even van der Waals. This
> means that merely placing such molecules in close proximity in the
> right orientation should assure proper interactions, without the need
> to induce complex chemical reactions. A molecular printer should
> therefore be able to assemble the tissue out of single molecules, just
> as similar simple assemblages of non-biological molecules have already
> been made with STMs. It's true that many millions of different
> molecular species would be needed by the printer, and the process

If course if you synthesize these from more primitive building blocks,
the diversity goes down. Way down, in the end you only need a small
subset of the PSE.

> would be excruciatingly slow but I know of no fundamental physical or
> chemical obstacles to its success.

Ayup.
 
> This said, I really think molecular printing will not be necessary to
> produce conscious devices patterned after vitrified brains. Ablative
> scanning and in-silico reconstruction/modeling seem to be much easier.

Agreed, the requirement for cryonics to work is to have mature nanotechnology
is a red herring. You don't need machine-phase for resurrecting patients,
if we're talking about numerical models.

-- 
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
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