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They built a Nerf gun out of DNA. It's 100 nanometers long, 5 times smaller than visible light, and requires an atomic force microscope to see.
- 🔬 The smallest version is 3 million times smaller than a normal Nerf gun, made from DNA origami.
- 🤏 The 100nm version fires a dart, but the 10nm version is too small to cock or fire.
- 🧬 DNA origami uses DNA strands as building blocks, self-assembling into desired shapes.
- 🧪 The process involves mixing scaffold and staple DNA strands, then heating them to self-assemble.
- 🐜 At the 100nm scale, an ant looks like a giant alien monster.
A close-up of a finger with a tiny ant on it, with a magnified inset showing a miniature Nerf gun.