Living lasers

June 14, 2011 6:38 AM

Lasers made from living cells are a reality. Just a matter of time, then, before we're shooting laser beams from our eyes and fingertips.
posted by jfuller (40 comments total)

Well, when that happens, whatever you do, don't look at or point at an airplane. Homeland Security will be all over your ass.
posted by crunchland at 6:42 AM on June 14, 2011

no more sharks, then?
posted by clavdivs at 6:46 AM on June 14, 2011

Has anyone asked Cyclops how he feels about this?
posted by dortmunder at 6:49 AM on June 14, 2011 [5 favorites]

Sounds like a great plot in the making for Real Genius part 2 :)
posted by udon at 6:54 AM on June 14, 2011

Great - laser cells. Looking forward to some heavily armed bacteria too - e-coli that can shoot death rays, for example.

Nice one, poindexters. You science people are always hatin' on Jesus and his intelligent designs, but when YOU start playing God, you just hand a fucking gonococcus a laser beam and wait for the applause.

Maybe if you were in CHURCH more you'd spend less time fucking up the world with your bullshit evil science inventions - like Frankenstein's monster, nuclear bombs, Windows 7, etc etc.
posted by the quidnunc kid at 6:56 AM on June 14, 2011 [5 favorites]

Oh, no. You know what's coming next. Our undoing.

Laser Cats.

Some will use the cats for good, others for evil.
posted by maryr at 6:57 AM on June 14, 2011 [2 favorites]

You can make a telephone poll lase if you hit it hard enough.
posted by fatllama at 6:57 AM on June 14, 2011 [2 favorites]

e. Coli doesn't need death rays. It does that well enough on its own.

I'd actually rather be shot with a laser beam.
posted by Malice at 6:57 AM on June 14, 2011

Seriously, though, this is pretty cool, though I don't believe them about the medical applications. Sounds like this experiment mostly went from in vitro to in vivo - it was already known that GFP worked for lasing.

My favorite part of the article, however, is the physicist admitting that oops, mol bio isn't as easy as you'd think.

The cell survives the process, although Gather says he killed many cells by mistake while he was still learning the biological techniques to make GFP containing cells. Being a physicist he had to learn a lot of new techniques to insert the GFP gene into HEK cells and then grow them up. 'We both knew in theory how the protein should work, but neither of us had a good idea how to do the hands on work,' says Gather. 'It was quite an experience.'

I'm glad it wasn't my tissue culture hood that had physicists messing around in it. I wonder how long the work took them and how much of that time was in the cloning. Was the actual laser work trivial? Was it known how hard you could hit the cells and have them survive the process? I suppose I shall have to read the actual paper to find out. Err...assuming there is one, no link in the article. Hm.
posted by maryr at 7:07 AM on June 14, 2011

That was easier to find that I expected. It's in the Letters to Nature Photonics. Login required for full access, it seems. Can't help you there.
posted by maryr at 7:10 AM on June 14, 2011

dortmunder: "Has anyone asked Cyclops how he feels about this?"

Who cares, he's such a douchebag. Christ, I hate Scott Summers. Havok, on the other hand... (seriously what the fuck did Jean Grey see in Scott?)
posted by symbioid at 7:10 AM on June 14, 2011

(or was that Maddy? Either way. bah.)
posted by symbioid at 7:11 AM on June 14, 2011

e. Coli doesn't need death rays.


But my plan won't work if it doesn't.
posted by louche mustachio at 7:12 AM on June 14, 2011 [2 favorites]

whatever you do, don't look at or point at an airplane...

"Well, Folks, It Appears Some Shithead Down There Is Shining A Laser Pointer Into The Cockpit And We're About To Crash," by Capt. Denny MacMillon.
posted by Iridic at 7:17 AM on June 14, 2011

Laser Cats.

Some will use the cats for good, others for evil.

I hate to say this, but once cats have lasers they won't let themselves be used by anyone.
posted by tommasz at 7:17 AM on June 14, 2011 [3 favorites]

...Maybe if you were in CHURCH more you'd spend less time fucking up the world

E. coli doesn't need death rays. It does that well enough on its own.

I don't know about you guys, but apart from helping with the digestion of my food, supplying me with a number of vitamins I don't synthesize all that well myself and displacing pathogens, my E. coli are currently whispering that they demand a blood sacrifice!
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 7:23 AM on June 14, 2011 [2 favorites]

no more sharks, then?

Oh, we'll still use sharks. Out of nostalgia.

But the lasers will be in their heads, not attached.
posted by chillmost at 7:29 AM on June 14, 2011 [2 favorites]

Just a matter of time, then, before we're shooting laser beams from our eyes and fingertips.

As long as you have a 5ns blue light pulsed source embedded in your eye/fingertip directly behind a one-cell thickness ( perfectly aligned! ) array of GFP producing cells, with lasing-transparent material over them....... but yeah, sure!

This is a "living laser" the way the breathless headline talks about it the same way a cow is a "bunker busting missile" - if you took said cow, stapled it to a iron disk and shot it from a railgun.
posted by lalochezia at 7:30 AM on June 14, 2011 [5 favorites]

They're made partly from living cells - the living cells provide the gain medium, and I can see that it might not be hard to get the initial pulses added in from living cells, but the optical cavity - the mirrors at either end, aren't biological.

Or pretty much what lalochezia says, on preview.
posted by edd at 7:32 AM on June 14, 2011

Just a matter of time, then, before we're shooting laser beams from our eyes and fingertips.

I'd do without that skill, personally -- for the same reason some comedian I heard once gave for not owning a gun: "Because I'd never stop using it."
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:33 AM on June 14, 2011 [3 favorites]

> As long as you have a 5ns blue light pulsed source embedded in your eye/fingertip directly
> behind a one-cell thickness ( perfectly aligned! ) array of GFP producing cells, with lasing-
> transparent material over them....... but yeah, sure!

Evil overlord leaves implementation details to his army of enslaved developers. Evil overlord is just the concept guy.
posted by jfuller at 7:43 AM on June 14, 2011 [4 favorites]

I bet the Pew Research Center will be all over this.
posted by Kabanos at 7:46 AM on June 14, 2011 [11 favorites]

Pew! Pew pew pew pew! Pew!

Just practicing.
posted by ardgedee at 7:46 AM on June 14, 2011 [4 favorites]

The power levels generated are pretty weak so we're not going to see Cyclops from the X-Men any time soon. At best you might be have a bioluminescent body part that might help you manoeuvre more successfully in the dark.
posted by longbaugh at 7:51 AM on June 14, 2011

Obligatory Perry Bible Fellowship link.
posted by smoothvirus at 7:54 AM on June 14, 2011

Next: Tasers. Tasers on my fingertips. I promise to use them only `when all gentler means of conflict resolution have been exhausted. Bwahahahaha...
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 8:19 AM on June 14, 2011

...we're shooting laser beams from our eyes and fingertips.

That's not where I want to shoot laser beams from....
posted by Confess, Fletch at 8:24 AM on June 14, 2011

Oh, this is such old news! What did you people think caused that "pins and needles" feeling in your limbs? Laser battles!
posted by orme at 8:48 AM on June 14, 2011

the same way a cow is a "bunker busting missile" - if you took said cow, stapled it to a iron disk and shot it from a railgun.

CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!!
posted by quin at 9:01 AM on June 14, 2011

Some crustaceans use mirrors, instead of lenses, in their eyes (see here for example). So I wonder if you could add biological mirrors to this system....
posted by sevenyearlurk at 9:05 AM on June 14, 2011

Obligatory Perry Bible Fellowship link.

I actually came here to link to think this one.
posted by mordax at 9:10 AM on June 14, 2011

The more I think about this technology, the more excited I am; it's the thing that is finally going to give me the extra strength I need to defeat Sho'nuff (The Shogun of Harlem!) and save vanity from that evil little fucker Arkadian.
posted by quin at 9:10 AM on June 14, 2011

The only video I could find of this song.
posted by klangklangston at 9:30 AM on June 14, 2011

I thought that article was going to be about xFP transfected cells. I was right.

That glimmer of hope that somehow someone had engineered an organelle to do the thing the two mirrors in an actual laser do... gone. Thanks a lot MeFi. *Sniff
posted by Slackermagee at 9:34 AM on June 14, 2011

If you want to shoot lasers out of your fingertips, the problem isn't just going to be supplying the mirrors. You must also supply the energy to 'pump' the cells, that is, excite them enough that they amplify light. And you have to do that with... another laser. You really might as well just shoot your enemies with that.

Lots of materials will lase if you pump them hard enough. I seem to recall that tea works, although that's hard to google because there's also a kind of gas laser called a T.E.A. laser.
posted by Pre-Taped Call In Show at 9:34 AM on June 14, 2011

That's how Earl Grey won his earldom, I believe.
posted by maryr at 10:14 AM on June 14, 2011

Throw me a frickin' bone here, people:

javascript:document.getElementById('page').innerHTML=document.getElementById('page').innerHTML.replace(/laser/g,'FRICKIN LASER');return false;
posted by swift at 10:34 AM on June 14, 2011

Actually, could we please get to work on figuring out a way to stop lasers from shooting out of our fingers and eyes? Only the matter seems to have become one of increasing urgency for me.
posted by FAMOUS MONSTER at 10:57 AM on June 14, 2011

lalochezia: "This is a "living laser" the way the breathless headline talks about it the same way a cow is a "bunker busting missile" - if you took said cow, stapled it to a iron disk and shot it from a railgun."

Your ideas intrigue me; I would like to purchase stock in your company.
posted by danny the boy at 11:19 AM on June 14, 2011

longbaugh: At best you might be have a bioluminescent body part that might help you manoeuvre more successfully in the dark.

I prefer those glow-in-the dark stars that people use to decorate their bedrooms. That way it's like a wizard's staff!
posted by C^3 at 8:42 PM on June 14, 2011