Americas

  • United States
michael_cooney
Senior Editor

The world

Opinion
Mar 17, 20061 min
Data Center

Nature published an article this week showing off the talents of Cal Tech’s Paul Rothemund, who has developed a way to take DNA and fold it around and around to create nanometer-sized works of art – including smiley faces, triangles, snowflakes, flowers and even a “map” of the Americas. According to the article, “Rothemund hopes his method will find a use in electronics and molecular biology” – but we ask, why? Why not do art for art’s sake? Not everything has to have a “use” to be worthwhile. Sheesh.