Welcome back to
The Creator Revealed.
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Today we're talking
about Molecular Machines,
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the little
machines in molecules.
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And who better
than a nanochemist
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to have on the
second half of the program.
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Exactly, Dr. Ryan
Hayes teaches chemistry
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at Andrews University.
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He is a nanochemist,
that means a chemist who makes
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really tiny, tiny,
tiny little things.
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Now, we've been talking
about nano machines really,
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when we're talking
about those machines,
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those molecular
machines inside the cells.
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So let's meet Dr. Hayes.
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Let's ask him a little bit
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about what exactly
a nanochemist does,
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and then we can get into
some nano machines stuff, yeah.
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Hi, Dr. Hayes. Thanks a lot.
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Welcome.
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Thank you, thanks for having me
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on this program.
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This is exciting.
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Now, we got to be careful
about the term nanochemist
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'cause some people
might think that this means,
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I'm a really,
really small chemist
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and that's not the case.
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I've met you, you're
completely life size, yes.
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That's right.
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But I do study and we
actually have a company
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that I'm a part of,
where we make nano materials.
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And so to a chemist actually,
nano materials are quite large
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but to our eye
and to everyone else,
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nano materials
are very, very small,
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so small that
you can't see them.
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But they are a collection
of atoms and molecules to form
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large chemical structures to us.
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But they're usually precisely
engineered and controlled
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to give you the right
size and functionality
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to do really interesting things.
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And a
nanoscientist, nanochemist,
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there's some out there
trying to build little nano cars
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and nano sized batteries.
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And I like to
build nano sized versions
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of this little suction ball cup,
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can say more about that
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as a little shout
out to my students,
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you know, I like to
talk about nano materials
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that look like this.
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And, but inside our body,
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there's just an amazing
amount of nano sized structures
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doing amazing things there.
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So maybe you can tell us...
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Yeah, maybe you can
tell us a little bit about
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what precisely it takes to make
these really small structures.
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First of all, are they something
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that you can see
under a microscope
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or how would you...
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Are they smaller than that even?
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Well, they're definitely smaller
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than what you can
see with the microscope,
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people have been able to...
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Scientists, many
of them visualize them
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with things like
an electron microscope
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or atomic force microscope.
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And so we have ways of actually
getting visualization of them,
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getting their
structures, but to build them,
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boy, this is a real tough job.
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And it takes a lot of
knowledge of chemistry
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and the rules of how
chemicals react with each other
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to overcome thermodynamics.
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These things
wanna just spread out,
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but we want to bring
all the molecules together.
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So there's some organization
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that needs to be
thought of in advance
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to bring these things together.
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So I do this on a daily basis.
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So what you're saying then is,
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there has to be a
plan when you start,
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you can't just sort of
walk into a lab and say,
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"Let's see what
happens when I mixed together
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these chemicals today?"
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That's exactly right.
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Now, my students
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would hope it
would be like that.
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Let's just make
some things together
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and hopefully get
some great nanostructures
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but, no, we have to go
in with a plan and a recipe.
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And even with that,
even with our best recipes,
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we still struggle
to make pure products
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with the desired
purpose that we have in mind.
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So yeah, definitely need a plan,
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a good recipe and a
good laboratory space,
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that's usually
needs to be clean,
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you need to be able
to run your reactions
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without interference,
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and all at the right
time and temperatures.
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There's a lot of
factors that we think about
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to get to the right structures
that we're trying to build.
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And we're trying to build,
we build some really simple
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nanostructures here,
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especially,
compared to what we see
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in living creatures.
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Well, let me ask you about that.
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I mean, you're a smart guy
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and you have all
of this equipment,
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if you set out
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to make one of these
little nanostructures,
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this relatively
simple little nanostructures,
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about how long would
it take you to make one?
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Is this something that
you can have a good idea
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in the morning and
have by the afternoon
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or is it something that takes
considerably longer than that?
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That's a great question.
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And it depends on,
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how elaborate you
want your structure.
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Now, the ones that we make,
they can take weeks and months
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to make the structures
that we're looking for.
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And these are
relatively simple ones
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that have a lot of
repetitive structures to them.
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Yeah, in fact,
that's kind of a problem
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is how long it can take
and that drives up the cost,
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and these things can
be kind of expensive,
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And so, yeah, it can
take weeks and months.
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And that's not just
letting them sit in a pot
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and stir like a
pot of spaghetti.
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We actually have to go in,
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it will do that
part for little bit,
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then we have to pull out
the materials, clean them up,
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and maybe do some purification,
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and then get them
ready for another step.
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We spend a lot
of time doing that.
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There is some
shortcuts you can take,
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but then you lose
out on the structure.
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You won't get the
beautiful structures,
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if you try to
take some shortcuts.
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It's quite a challenging
time, takes quite time.
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And what you're saying, doctor,
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is that this takes
intelligent design in a plan
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that has to be carried forward.
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Oh, absolutely.
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And even with simple,
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if there's such a thing
as simple nanostructures,
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you definitely need a plan.
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You need an
extreme amount of knowledge
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about how these molecules,
these chemicals, the atoms,
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the electrons, how
all of these things work?
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And without a plan,
you're gonna get a mess.
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And as one of my advisors said,
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you put garbage in,
you get garbage out.
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We need really clean materials,
and you need a good plan,
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you need awesome
intelligence to think about
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all of the side
reactions that can happen,
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and all the ways to go wrong,
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so that you can
prevent those from happening,
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as much as we would like
chemistry to just happen.
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Being in the lab is proven to me
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that this is quite a challenge
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to make even
simple nanostructures.
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So what do you think
about Darwin's theory
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of the warm pool
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and the
chemicals coming together
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for this little
amoeba like structure?
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Yeah, that's a great question.
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It's important to know
the history right there
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and I won't go all into that
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but much of Darwin's
thoughts were formulated
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well before
chemistry was even established
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in the way that it is in
the modern scientific way,
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that we know how
chemicals reacting.
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He thought there was just,
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you know, a couple,
four or five chemicals
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that came together in a
little bubble to make life
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and we know now it's
thousands of chemicals
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coming together in
a complex not bubble,
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but a surrounding
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and an amazing
amount of nanostructures
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that have come together.
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Not just one
nanostructure, but many of them
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that have come together
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to form a working living system.
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So warm little pond, I
think we would love it,
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if it was that easy.
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But the more we know about
life in the nanostructures,
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in the nano materials
that life is made out of,
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we understand the
complexity that's there.
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And I think, there
is a desire or you know,
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that scientists think, well,
maybe we're missing something.
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There's some theory
that's going to come along
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and change all of this.
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Well, the more we look,
the more complicated it gets.
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So this problems
not getting any easier.
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So it's getting
worse and not better.
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Let me ask you this.
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If you think about
these nano machines,
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these complex nano machines
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that we find
inside living things.
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If...
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I mean, you're making
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relatively simple
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nano chemicals,
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would there be any
realistic expectation
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that we would even
have the technology
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to make something like
these kinds of complex machines
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that we find inside cells?
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Or what would that really take?
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Well, doing it from scratch,
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I'd say that we're decades
and decades away from that,
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perhaps centuries
from figuring that out,
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maybe not, but it's a long time.
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You know, what a lot
of scientists do now,
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is we just copy.
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We just copy what
we see in the cell.
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We take things out
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and we try to
change them a little bit,
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to give them some
new functionality.
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But all we're doing is
modifying the master plan
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that's already
been enacted there.
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So people are finding
it easier just to mimic,
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what we see in life
rather than trying this over.
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So basically, we
were plagiarizing.
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Absolutely.
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It's so much easier
to just use what's there
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and tweak it for
some of our own designs,
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that's there.
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And...
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I'm sorry, we're
just running out of time.
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But it's fair to say
that you absolutely believe
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that God is our Creator.
00:10:23.95\00:10:28.92
Absolutely.
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I can see it the handiwork,
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when I see the
chemicals coming together...
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When we look at a
house, we don't go, wow,
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those pieces of wood
and nails just blew together
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with the right
temperature and wind speeds.
00:10:41.44\00:10:44.11
So there's no question
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when we look at a
house that someone built it.
00:10:45.71\00:10:47.51
But when we look at
molecules, we say, "Oh!
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I have no idea
how that happened."
00:10:49.64\00:10:51.11
So chance can do that.
00:10:51.15\00:10:53.08
But when we
understand the chemistry,
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and the mechanisms there,
00:10:55.88\00:10:57.22
we start to see
the hand of a designer.
00:10:57.25\00:11:00.12
I absolutely believe
that God is the designer
00:11:00.16\00:11:03.19
and the head chemist
that put all of this together,
00:11:03.22\00:11:05.89
so that we can have life
and have life abundantly.
00:11:05.93\00:11:09.20
Well, thank you so much
for joining us, Dr. Hayes,
00:11:09.23\00:11:11.33
that's been a real pleasure.
00:11:11.37\00:11:13.03
And there've been some
pretty deep insights there.
00:11:13.07\00:11:15.10
Yes. Amen.
00:11:15.14\00:11:16.47
And it's just
exciting to think about that.
00:11:16.50\00:11:19.04
Yeah, I cannot imagine
that this particular point,
00:11:19.07\00:11:24.58
how you could put a
living thing together
00:11:24.61\00:11:26.82
from scratch,
00:11:26.85\00:11:28.18
even if you did have,
00:11:28.22\00:11:29.78
all of those parts
that are necessary.
00:11:29.82\00:11:33.19
It's truly a triumph
of a kind of technology
00:11:33.22\00:11:40.16
that we
certainly haven't mastered.
00:11:40.20\00:11:42.20
And it's
certainly points towards
00:11:42.23\00:11:43.87
an incredible
brilliance that's there.
00:11:43.90\00:11:45.70
And when you think about it,
I've heard this example before.
00:11:45.73\00:11:48.84
If you have a junkyard and
you throw a bomb out there,
00:11:48.87\00:11:52.27
you don't end up with a shuttle.
00:11:52.31\00:11:54.08
And that's what many scientists
to support Darwin's theory
00:11:54.11\00:11:59.11
seem to be trying to tell us.
00:11:59.15\00:12:00.72
Well, we hope that
you've been encouraged
00:12:00.75\00:12:03.42
to understand
that God created you
00:12:03.45\00:12:06.49
and He loves you.
00:12:06.52\00:12:07.86