Some people would say there is a rhythm to life, but in fact, there is a hum. Beyond visible movements and growth, every living cell emits vibrations known as “nanomotion.” Thanks to a relatively new material, known as graphene, scientists were able to amplify frequencies of such nanomotion, which individual bacteria emit, and reproduce audio recordings. Via an ultra-thin bilayer membrane of graphene — the latest “spyware,” so-to-speak, in a decades-long arms race against antibacterial-resistant “superbugs” — they were able to rapidly distinguish living and deceased bacteria in a laboratory culture.
In other words, scientists were able to “listen” to the sound of a single bacteria, moving all by itself in the water. The recording, which is linked below, is an unprecedented view into the usually-invisible microscopic world.
The recordings came about as a result of an engineering experiment. Investigating nanomechanical applications of graphene at Delft University of Technology, a research team wondered just how sensitive it was. Could a membrane of graphene, for example, detect vibrational forces of a single bacterium?
“What we saw was striking,” Cees Dekker said in a statement. “When a single bacterium adheres to the surface of a graphene drum, it generates random oscillations with amplitudes as low as a few nanometers that we could detect. We could hear the sound of a single bacterium.”
Published in Nature Nanotechnology, their results could prove critical for monitoring infectious diseases. Particularly as antibiotic-resistant infections become increasingly pervasive, “optimizing our weapons to fight” infections has become critical, according to corresponding author Farbod Alijani. The graphene experiment gives new insight into the world of bacteria.
Graphene is a peculiar material with superb mechanical and conductive properties. Essentially a lattice of pure carbon atoms arranged in a honeycomb-like grid, graphene is both the thinnest and strongest material ever created. Pure carbon comprises both pencil lead and diamond, one of the weakest and strongest materials respe
