MICROCHIPS, NOBEL PRIZES, AND SEX THERAPY

by Doc Orkney

I hear through the old scientists' grapevine that technology pioneer Jack Kilby, inventor of the computer chip, has been awarded the Nobel prize for physics. It's about time Jack got some recognition. Besides being an old family friend -- Jack and Uncle Percy roomed together and anchored the volleyball team at MIT -- his development of the first miniaturized, integrated circuit in 1958 laid the conceptual and technical foundation for the entire field of modern microelectronics.

The impact of the integrated circuit is hard to overstate. Besides being the fundamental technology at the heart of the personal computer, integrated circuits power just about every electronic device in use today. They are in your phone, your remote control, your car, your camera, your microwave, your cat…. Well, maybe not your cat. I went through a little biotech phase last year and now have a few hybrid android tabbies running around.

For such a critical technology, the actual specifics of integrated circuitry aren't widely appreciated. Basically, an integrated circuit is a construction of electronic components in which semiconductor devices (transistors and diodes) and passive devices (capacitors and resistors) are built into a single unit of material -- usually silicon.

Kilby's invention was the first circuit in which at least one element was contained within the substrate itself -- a monolithic integrated circuit. As the technology was developed -- and as there are no interconnecting wires in an integrated circuit -- it became possible to radically miniaturize circuitry. In the 1970s, large-scale integration (LSI) put thousands of transistors and other components on a silicon chip 3 mm square. Very large-scale integration (VLSI), developed in the 1980s, made possible the microchip as we know it today, and put tens of millions of components on a chip less than 2 cm square.

The rest is history. In short, integrated circuits are very small, very fast, require relatively little power, and can be manufactured cheaply. Thanks to Kilby's invention, electronic systems that would otherwise be impractical are now ubiquitous.

(It's important to note that researcher Robert Norton Noyce, working independently of Kilby, also received a patent on the integrated circuit in 1959. He went on to found a little company called Intel Corporation.)

ENCOURAGING RESEARCH OF THE WEEK AWARD

In their new book "Secrets of the Superyoung," Scottish psychologist David Weeks and science writer Jamie James report that vigorous regular sex can make you look up to seven years younger. According to a Reuters report, the authors claim that "energetic love-making can reduce fatty tissue and release endomorphins from the brain which are natural painkillers and reduce anxiety." The authors reached their conclusions after interviewing 95 people in Scotland who looked very young for their age. Tabloid science? All I can say is that the lovely Mrs. Hollandaise and I have evidently been at the vanguard of science lo these many years.

BITE SIZE TRIVIA

"Histocompatibility antigens" would pose the biggest problem for which monster? (A) Dracula (B) The Mummy (C) Frankenstein's Monster (D) The Wolfman

Answer to last week's question: (B) The newly activated International Space Station is 13 stories tall (or wide, depending on your point of view.)

SPIDERWEBS, TENSILE STRENGTH, AND ROGUE ASTEROIDS

by Doc Orkney

So I'm manipulating some carbon nanotubes with my new electron microscope (Black and Decker, $199.95) when the following query comes over the mojo wire:

"Hey Doc,

I'm starting to get freaked out. I just moved to rural Virginia, and these spiders are giving me the willies. How do they spin these huge webs overnight? How do they manage to suspend webs five feet off the ground between two horizontal surfaces? How can these webs withstand my repeated attacks with the garden hose? Should I attempt total eradication, or consider diplomacy? Faithfully yours, G. Mayo"

From my experience, G., diplomatic relations are the way to go. I have a tenacious colony of daddy longlegs in my dry storage cellar, and we've reached a kind of détente. I don't whack them with the broom anymore, and they don't crawl up my leg when I'm retrieving my sodium bicarbonate samples.

Let's take your questions one at a time. You may be surprised to hear that all spiders have silk-spinning glands, although only some use them to create trap webs. (Others use silk to spin cocoons, for carrying eggs or preserving dead prey.) Those that do spin webs can do so amazingly fast. Orb weaving spiders, who produce the stereotypical Halloween-type web, can easily complete a large snare overnight. In fact, most species prefer to build during the night, usually in the hours just before dawn. (Other types of web spinning spiders include "horizontal sheet weavers," "funnel weavers," and the underachieving "irregular mesh weavers.")

As to how they manage to span horizontal surfaces far above the ground, well, it's rather brilliant in its simplicity. The spider drops a "frame strand" (used for the perimeter and radii lines which anchor the web structure) and waits for the wind to blow it over to another surface. Then the spider carefully crosses and reinforces the initial strand, and begins assembling the rest of the structure.

Regarding your garden hose assaults, this is where things get interesting. Spider silk is made up of chains of amino acids which can have up to five times the tensile strength of steel. In addition, spider silk is very elastic. This combination of strength and elasticity makes spider silk extremely tough. In fact, it's been suggested that a single strand of pencil-thick spider silk could stop a 747 in flight.

This hasn't escaped the attention of industry, by the way. I came across a particularly creepy Web page from chemical maker DuPont about the biotech potential of spider webs. A sample quote: "Recombinant DNA technology provides a practical route to harnessing the power of the biosynthetic process to control polymer sequence and chain length to a degree that is otherwise impossible." Zoinks!

So there you are, G. I suggest you make friends with your new arachnid neighbors before the chemical industry accidentally mutates off some giant steel-cable spinning monster.

DISTANT EARLY WARNING SYSTEM OF THE WEEK AWARD

Discovery.Com reports that the 72-inch diameter Spacewatch telescope, the very latest in asteroid-hunting technology, has started searching the skies for rogue chunks of interplanetary debris. The telescope, located at Kitt Peak, Ariz., was activated on Sept.14, and immediately began charting the speedy near-Earth asteroid 2000 RD 53. (Near-Earth asteroids are those passing within 121 million miles of the sun.) The Spacewatch program has been operating for decades, and tracks tens of thousands of asteroids and comets. Check out this story for full details:

http://www.discovery.com/stories/science/meteors/meteors.html

BITE SIZE TRIVIA

If lepidopterans could appreciate theater, which show would they like best? (A) Oklahoma! (B) Madame Butterfly (C) South Pacific (D) Brigadoon

Answer to last week's question: (C) Histocompatibility antigens would be a problem for Frankie, as they tend to foul up organ transplant procedures.