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At Just 54 ATOMS, Scientists Made History by Tying the World's Smallest Knot, and They Have No Idea How They Did It
The Debrief ^ | JANUARY 23, 2024 | MICAH HANKS

Posted on 01/24/2024 1:06:11 PM PST by Red Badger

An international team of chemists has set a new world record for tying the world’s smallest knot, which they say consists of only 54 atoms.

Remarkably, researchers involved with the achievement say it happened by accident, and are unable to account for how it occurred.

Chemists Zhiwen Li, Jingjing Zhang, Gao Li with the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, and research colleague Richard J. Puddephatt with the University of Western Ontario, Canada, were attempting an entirely different process in the lab when the record breaking discovery was made.

Their achievement is described in a study that recently appeared in the journal Nature Communications.

TYING THE WORLD’S SMALLEST KNOT

While attempting to create metal acetylides, a variety of alkynes used in research that involves organic reactions, the group says they unintentionally succeeded at tying a minuscule knot comprised of a small string of only 54 atoms.

The knot was created while the team was attempting to connect carbon structures to gold acetylides, a process relied on in the production of creating basic chains of gold that chemists call caternames.

However, one of the reactions they performed created a chain that tied itself into a chiral trefoil knot similar to those bakers use when making pretzels.

Above: Structure of the trefoil metallaknot [Au6(L)3(dppb)3], Au6, which is now recognized as the world’s smallest knot (Credit: Li, Z., Zhang, J., Li, G. et al.).

“Molecular knots, whose synthesis presents many challenges, can play important roles in protein structure and function as well as in useful molecular materials, whose properties depend on the size of the knotted structure,” the researchers write in their recent paper.

Significantly, the molecular knot the research team unexpectedly created had a backbone crossing ratio (BCR), a measurement of the strength of a knot, of 23. By comparison, most organic knots typically have BCRs of between 27 and 33.

The research team writes that X-ray diffraction measurements confirmed that the chiral trefoil knot contains just 54 atoms in its BCR, making it “the smallest and tightest molecular trefoil knot known to date.”

A RECORD BREAKER THAT REMAINS A MYSTERY

In 2020, similar experiments resulted in the production of a 69-atom knot by another Chinese research team, although that knot had been created intentionally with help from special knot-tying techniques used to entwine tiny strands into knots.

Given that the new record-breaking knot was created entirely by accident, the researchers are unsure of exactly what processes allowed for its creation, nor are they sure whether similar processes could be used to create even tinier knots under lab conditions.

Although the achievement represents a new record, the research team says there could be practical benefits to such processes too. For instance, chemists may be able to build on their observations to help scientists understand how proteins like RNA and DNA form similar knots under entirely natural conditions.

Extremely small knot-making techniques could also help facilitate the creation of new varieties of substances that include plastics with novel properties.

The team’s new paper, “Self-assembly of the smallest and tightest molecular trefoil knot,” was published in Nature Communications on January 2.

Micah Hanks is the Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder of The Debrief. He can be reached by email at micah@thedebrief.org. Follow his work at micahhanks.com and on X: @MicahHanks.


TOPICS: Astronomy; Science; Weird Stuff
KEYWORDS: acetylides; astronomy; caternames; gold; knot; metal; physics; science; stringtheory
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To: martin_fierro

Curses, trefoiled again ...


21 posted on 01/24/2024 2:17:41 PM PST by Weirdad (Orthodox Americanism: It's what's good for the world! (Not communofascism!))
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To: Red Badger

Li, Zhang, Li and Puddephatt


22 posted on 01/24/2024 2:50:36 PM PST by Hebrews 11:6 ("The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed." Romans 8:19)
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To: Red Badger

Prions are folded proteins, right?

There are no cures for them, and they “teach” other proteins to fold, and from this we get bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE, also known as “Mad Cow Disease”), scrapie, and chronic wasting disease; in humans, Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD) and kuru.

What have they done that we’ll all regret?!


23 posted on 01/24/2024 3:01:06 PM PST by Alas Babylon! (Repeal the Patriot Act; Abolish the DHS; reform FBI top to bottom!)
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To: Red Badger

Square or granny?


24 posted on 01/24/2024 3:50:41 PM PST by beethovenfan (The REAL Great Reset will be when Jesus returns. )
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To: beethovenfan

China !!

While American Chemists are busy preparing their lecture notes for an Afro-Chemistry course. See Rice University if you don’t believe me!


25 posted on 01/24/2024 3:54:08 PM PST by Reily (!!)
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To: beethovenfan

Slipknot.

Scouts and scientists aren’t what they used to be.


26 posted on 01/24/2024 4:02:28 PM PST by x
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To: gundog

That’d never hold with monofilament.


27 posted on 01/24/2024 4:16:42 PM PST by sasquatch (Do NOT forget Ashli Babbit! c/o piytar)
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To: Red Badger

Bet those M.C. Escher ants would love to walk on it.


28 posted on 01/24/2024 4:21:55 PM PST by Yardstick
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To: Red Badger

OK, let’s see these scientists tie on a #24 Griffiths Gnat on a 7x tippet at dusk, standing waist deep in 50 F water.


29 posted on 01/24/2024 4:28:13 PM PST by oldskoolwargamer2
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To: Red Badger

Wait, I thought Chinese were good at reverse engineering.
Now I can leash my 28 atom dog!


30 posted on 01/24/2024 4:38:27 PM PST by arizonarick
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To: Red Badger

Good thing it wasn’t a noose, or they’d really be in trouble.


31 posted on 01/24/2024 4:53:45 PM PST by HartleyMBaldwin
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To: Red Badger

The same thing happens to my keys sometime when I put them in my pocket... I have no idea how, and it is such a pain to free the stuck key...


32 posted on 01/24/2024 5:23:00 PM PST by Horkster (Cho-Bai-Den - resident-inept)
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To: Red Badger

I don’t think they should get the glory if they can’t replicate it. It’s like giving them rewards and recognition for something they had admittedly no hand in.


33 posted on 01/24/2024 7:08:19 PM PST by Delta 21 (If anyone is treasonous, it is those who call me such.)
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To: 6SJ7; AdmSmith; AFPhys; Arkinsaw; allmost; aristotleman; autumnraine; bajabaja; ...


· List topics · post a topic · subscribe · Google ·

34 posted on 01/24/2024 11:18:33 PM PST by SunkenCiv (Putin should skip ahead to where he kills himself in the bunker.)
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To: Red Badger

“ Remarkably, researchers involved with the achievement say it happened by accident, and are unable to account for how it occurred.”

Twas all for knot.


35 posted on 01/25/2024 2:24:16 AM PST by Redcitizen
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To: Redcitizen

🤦‍♂️👍.........................


36 posted on 01/25/2024 5:16:17 AM PST by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegal aliens are put up in hotels.....................)
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To: Red Badger
Extremely small knot-making techniques could also help facilitate the creation of new varieties of substances that include plastics with novel properties.

Any clue what those 'novel properties' might be? Or be like?

37 posted on 01/25/2024 6:17:19 AM PST by GOPJ (“POSIWID” systems engineer's acronym that stands for “the Purpose Of a System Is What It Does.”)
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