Self-assembly_ The power of organizing the unorganized - Skylar Tibbits - video Dailymotion

TED-Ed

From something as familiar as our bodies to things vast as the formation of galaxies, we can observe the process of self-assembly, or when unordered parts come together in an organized structure. Skylar Tibbits explains how we see self-assembly at work in biology and chemistry -- and even in our future technologies.  Lesson by Skylar Tibbits, animation by London Squared Productions.

Transcript

00:00Music

00:14Have you ever wondered how things are built within our bodies?

00:17Why our bodies can regrow and repair themselves?

00:20And how we can pass on genes from one generation to the next?

00:23Yet none of our man-made objects have these traits.

00:25They're simply thrown away when they break and they definitely can't reproduce.

00:29The answer lies in something called self-assembly.

00:32Self-assembly is a system where unordered parts come together in an organized structure,

00:36completely on their own.

00:38This means that a pile of parts on your desk should in theory be able to move around on their own,

00:42find one another, and build something useful.

00:45This seems impossible like Transformers or the Sandman,

00:48but it's exactly how our bodies are built, how our immune system works, and why we can reproduce.

00:53Self-assembly is the factory and copy machines within our bodies

00:57that make proteins fold and DNA replicate.

01:00It's a process that not only happens in the biological and chemical world,

01:03but is a phenomenon that can be seen from magnets to snowflakes, robotics, social networks,

01:08the formations of cities and galaxies, to name just a few.

01:12In biology and chemistry, self-assembly is everywhere from atomic interaction,

01:16cellular replication, to DNA, RNA, and protein folding.

01:20Proteins are like bicycle chains with sequences of amino acid links.

01:24They self-assemble into 3D structures because of the interaction between the amino acids along the chain,

01:29as well as the relationship between the chain and the environment.

01:32These forces make the flexible chain fold into a 3D shape that governs the function of the protein.

01:38Viruses, on the other hand, are like soccer balls.

01:41They're made up of a series of subunits with specific shapes.

01:44Those shapes have attraction to one another, so they fit together in precise ways.

01:48Imagine you want to build a perfect sphere.

01:51It turns out that making a precise sphere through traditional means is actually quite difficult.

01:56Alternatively, you could try to self-assemble the sphere.

01:59One way would be to inflate the sphere like a bubble or a balloon.

02:02Another option would be to create many identical pieces that would come together to make a perfect sphere.

02:07You could try to put the pieces together one by one, but it might take a long time and you'd still have human errors.

02:13Instead, you could design a connection between the components like magnets and dump them into a container.

02:19When you shook the container, all the parts would find one another and build the sphere for you.

02:24Self-assembly is being used as a new design, science, and engineering tool for making the next generation of technologies

02:30easier to build, more adaptive, and less reliant on fossil fuels.

02:35Scientists are now making molecular microchips for computers where small molecular elements are given the right conditions

02:41to form themselves into organized pathways.

02:44Similarly, we can now use self-assembly as a way to make 3D structures with DNA,

02:48like capsules that could deliver drugs inside the body, releasing them only if certain conditions are met.

02:54Soon, self-assembly will be used for larger applications, where materials can repair themselves,

03:00water pipes can reconfigure on demand, buildings can adapt on their own to environment or dynamic loading,

03:07and space structures can self-assemble without humans.

03:10Imagine if our factories were more like organisms or brains,

03:14and our construction sites were like gardens that grow and adapt independently.

03:18The possibilities are endless, and it's now up to us to design a better world through self-assembly.

03:40And so…

03:50we're all about to be able to construct your power so that the way the places you are going to launch the body,

03:53and the ones that want to be built to maintain the mind of the body,

03:54to be in the body of the body.

03:55And so…

Self-assembly_ The power of organizing the unorganized - Skylar Tibbits

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