Lock your gadget’s keypad with a a single molecule-sized lock! Activate it by exposing it to the correct password, a sequence of chemicals and light. This newly developed device, scientists hope, could lead to a new level of safeguards for secret information in the future.
This lock will one day be able to save humans from exposure to Sarin or another deadly chemical or biological weapon — when certain sequences of chemicals are released in the body — by recognizing them.
Resembling a simple ATM banking machine, this keypad uses a molecule named FLIP, at the core of which is a component dubbed a “linker” mimicking a bacterial compound that binds to iron.
With this molecular kedypad lock, the scientists can use essentially three “buttons” - with an acidic molecule, an alkaline compound, and ultraviolet light - which when exposed to one sequence of chemicals and light — the alkaline molecule, followed by ultraviolet light — it will emit blue light. When the lock is given another “password” — the acid, then the alkaline, and finally ultraviolet light — it will glow green.
These are all begun with the molecule, FLIP by organic chemist Abraham Shanzer and his colleagues at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovat, Israel.
