Siheyuan: I eat melons while doing scientific research

Chapter 1461 I Really Didn't Flatter Him (4k)

Even comrades could guess each other's thoughts: since things have already come to this, why not drag others down with us?

The best solution would be to sell it to them in exchange for some things they need, drag us all down with them, and keep it a secret.

If we don't have them, we might not be able to keep these things confidential at the highest level. But if we did have them, we would have to put a lot of effort into protecting these secrets.

It has to be said, this idea is simply ingenious. Once you're in the same boat, everything will be much easier.

Who said great polar bears are rough and unruly? They're got a whole host of little schemes up their sleeves.

But the more this is the case, the more people admire Gao Zhendong's abilities. To be able to guess that others have nowhere to hide is something no one else can do.

That's why the other party even invested heavily, fearing that we wouldn't like it or care about it, so they simply sold a set of individual pieces.

I refuse to believe that you, my comrade from the South, won't take the bait!

When it comes to CKD assembly, we are veterans. From the earliest fighter jets and bombers, to the assembly of automobiles and other industries after the opening up, we have been making progress and have never stopped.

So when I got this set of individual pieces, I was so happy! Hurry up and assemble it for me!

Although the other party did not sell the production data and tooling fixtures along with the parts, as they do with aircraft like the MiG-21 and Tu-16, that's not a problem; we comrades have a way to solve it.

Of course, the premise is that we are satisfied with the performance of this thing after testing, then anything is possible.

"Hurry up, digest the information, assemble the parts, and fly around as soon as possible. Once you have firsthand information, then we can decide on the next step."

The comrades from the National Defense Industry Committee were very excited. Putting aside everything else, the results of the test flights they had seen were already quite astonishing.

"Should we send a copy to Chief Engineer Gao? Or ask him to take a look?" Looking at the "predicted results" given to them by Gao Zhendong, the comrades felt that they should still discuss this matter with Gao Zhendong.

The comrades from the National Defense Commission shook their heads: "No need for that. He doesn't have time for the details, and he doesn't care about them either. Let's make a copy of the general information for him to see, and we can talk about the details later."

Comrade Zhendong doesn't have time to delve into the details of this thing. Let him take a look at the overall picture first. We can notify him about the details after the prototype is assembled, flies it, and we have a better understanding of the situation.

This matter will definitely be discussed at the meeting, and given its circumstances, Comrade Zhendong will certainly be present.
-
Gao Zhendong had no idea that his wild idea would actually come true. After all, when he proposed to get this thing back, there was an element of taking a gamble to it.

He is now facing Lou Xiao'e, listening to her "work report".

Of course, this was a joke. He was just taking a break from his busy schedule to listen to Lou Xiao'e talk about her work during his free time after dinner.

This couple's after-dinner entertainment is a bit different from that of ordinary people.

Lou Xiao'e thoroughly enjoys sharing her work with her partner. When she talks about these things, her voice rises an octave higher than usual, as joyful as a lark. And with her voice, it's even more like that.

"We've discovered a problem: if we want to research, test, and examine DNA, the first thing we need to solve is the quantity issue..." Lou Xiao'e said, while slightly shaking her head, her black hair swaying gently with her movements, making her look quite playful.

"Why do we need to solve the quantity problem?" Gao Zhendong pretended not to understand, even though he knew the answer.

“The sample size is too low. For example, if we want to study someone’s DNA, we can’t keep drawing their blood and skinning them, right? If the research takes a long time and involves many research projects, wouldn’t we end up draining them dry and skinning them bald?” As she said this, Lou Xiao’e seemed to have already imagined the scene of her acting subject being skinned bald, and couldn’t help but laugh.

“That’s true. If they were to take hair for the research, the person would probably be plucked bald,” Gao Zhendong laughed.

Because obtaining a hair sample for nuclear DNA testing requires the hair follicle to be included, meaning the hair must be plucked from the root. Hair itself doesn't carry nuclear DNA information. The idea in TV dramas of cutting a lock of hair and testing for nuclear DNA is pure nonsense. However, it's possible to test for mtDNA, although this type of DNA has limited applications in genetics.

Lou Xiao'e thought for a moment and laughed even harder: "How annoying~~~~~~! And there's another problem, which is that we asked some of the comrades who are most likely to use DNA in their work, and in practical applications, the amount of sample that can be obtained is very small, and the amount of DNA in it is even smaller. If we want to detect it, we can't detect it at all without solving the problem of replication and proliferation."

A small bloodstain, a piece of skin flake, a few hair follicles—these things are already insignificant. It's unrealistic to expect to extract much DNA from them. There's only so much; whatever.

"So what do you want to do?"

"We want to solve this problem now, and figure out how to proliferate DNA as quickly as possible."

Lou Xiao'e and her team had a clear goal: to solve practical application problems. They had neither the interest nor the energy for research on DNA itself; after all, everyone has their own area of ​​expertise. That's for theorists; they focused on applications.

This approach is generally quite reasonable. Trying to do everything at once is unlikely to lead to good results, because people have limited knowledge, energy, and resources.

Gao Zhendong is an exception; that guy is a cheater.

"Have you made any progress yet?"

"We've got a bit of an idea. We want to start from the enzyme perspective and see if there's any enzyme that can do this job."

Enzymes are very interesting things. In terms of their properties, they are proteins, and in terms of their function, they are catalysts for various biological activities.

Moreover, the function of each enzyme is highly specific and generally very singular; an enzyme can only catalyze one or a certain type of specific life reaction.

This might seem like a downside, as each enzyme has a relatively singular function, but in fact, it's an advantage, a huge one at that.

That is, enzyme-mediated reactions are highly efficient, consume relatively little energy, and produce few side reactions. This is very important for life.

Having already made significant strides in molecular biology for some time, Lou Xiao'e and her colleagues naturally set their sights on this area.

DNA proliferation is a typical biochemical reaction, and enzymes are more effective than any other catalyst in this regard. Moreover, the reaction is singular; it proliferates directly without doing anything else. This means that if a suitable enzyme is found, it will only proliferate DNA and not perform any other actions. This is extremely useful for final testing.

Gao Zhendong nodded: "Hmm, this approach is good, using the specificity of enzymes to directionally amplify DNA. Have you made any progress?"

Unintentionally, he uttered a technical term he'd seen in his past life—"amplification." "Hey, not bad, Lao Gao, that's a great summary. You've got what we want to do perfectly clear in one sentence. Amplification…amplification…and I must say, that word sounds really catchy, it's so cool, hahaha~~~~~"

Lou Xiao'e was very perceptive and grasped the key point and a small leak in Gao Zhendong's words.

"What do you mean, 'run away after Han'?" Gao Zhendong didn't understand everything, only making out the sound.

"It's just stealing and running away. When I was feeding those two big wolfhounds in the back room, they were carrying things in their mouths and running away, sneaking around like that. So I think 'carrying things in their mouths' is a very vivid way of saying 'stealing,' hehehe~~~~~" Unexpectedly, Lou Xiao'e was good at observing details and summarizing.

"So that's how it is," Gao Zhendong thought, imagining the dog's dazed look with its mouth full of something, and couldn't help but laugh.

The couple laughed together for a while, then Lou Xiao'e suppressed her laughter: "However, we are still in the theoretical research stage regarding the specifics, and we are looking for suitable types of enzymes." Although it sounded like a long way off, Lou Xiao'e was in high spirits and thoroughly enjoyed the process.

"Okay, then you guys keep up the good work. By the way, how's the research on the thermophilic bacteria I got for you last time going?"

"I'm keeping it under control, but I haven't had time to work on it lately. I started but then put it aside. I'll wait until the DNA work has yielded significant results." Wow, so much work is waiting for me. Lou Xiao'e felt a sense of happiness and fulfillment.

Gao Zhendong nodded with a sly smile: "Well, that works too. There's always a priority to things."

"Dad! Mom! My little brother is sucking on something~~~~~~" Gao Changying's voice suddenly rang out, her quick and witty remark making the couple laugh heartily.
-
The three-day period has ended, and the Dragon King has returned to his throne...

No, it's just that it's time for the comrades working on carbon fiber to think and research, and they came to Gao Zhendong's place as scheduled.

Pan was still leading the team, indicating that they had already arranged the work organization for aramid and carbon fiber internally. Gao Zhendong didn't gossip about this; his comrades were able to arrange things themselves, just as life always finds a way out.

"So? Any thoughts?" Gao Zhendong asked with a smile.

"We've consulted foreign materials and are still planning to go through the pre-oxidation and then carbonization process," Engineer Pan reported.

Gao Zhendong nodded. There was nothing wrong with following the path taken abroad. After all, the pre-oxidation and then carbonization route is the mainstream route for PAN-based carbon fiber production, not to mention now, even in the 21st century. Other routes are just modifications and additions to this one.

"Hmm, that's a good idea. We should use good things." Gao Zhendong suddenly laughed. He was quite shrewd. Pre-oxidation is patented, but for this small-scale, special application, the patent probably doesn't really matter.

When anglers can use carbon fiber, then the patents will be able to regulate it. However, by then, the current patents will probably have expired, and it still won't be able to regulate it.

As for what happens to the patents after this... Gao Zhendong laughed even harder, guess what we're doing now.

"More specifically, have you considered it?" After his comrades looked at Gao Zhendong with puzzlement and laughed, Gao Zhendong continued to ask.

"We haven't considered the very details yet, but we have some thoughts on a few key difficulties, and we were just about to report them to you." He didn't say he wanted an immediate solution; after all, nobody's a miracle worker, and solving problems instantly is unrealistic. Reporting the problem first, then organizing resources and manpower to tackle it—that's the normal procedure.

"Okay, let's discuss it," Gao Zhendong said.

It's normal that we haven't considered all the details yet. It's only been three days, and the team has already done a tremendous amount of work to identify the key difficulties. After all, when foreign publications share related information, it's usually to secure patents, so they naturally tend to be secretive or even deliberately omit details. It's difficult to get to the details using publicly available information. This isn't decades from now, where all sorts of information are readily available.

"Okay. The first problem is that the pre-oxidized raw silk has strong water absorption and will physically adsorb oxygen. Both of these components will react with the raw silk during the carbonization process, reducing the strength of the raw silk."

Engineer Pan spoke fluently, after all, they had been discussing these issues for a long time.

The carbonization process, simply put, is the process of heating at temperatures above 1,000 degrees Celsius under the protection of an inert gas to remove atoms other than carbon atoms. In this process, whether there is water or oxygen, they will react with carbon and destroy the carbon fiber structure.

It's important to know that carbonization temperatures can reach over 1800℃, and too much oxygen, to put it bluntly, turns into burning charcoal.

Have you considered a solution?

Having identified the problem, it's impossible that no effort was put into solving it: "Yes, Committee Member, yes. The first one is easy to handle: heating and drying. We're considering using a temperature of 100 to 250°C to dry the pre-oxidized fibers, which can effectively improve the strength of the carbon fibers."

It sounds like a rudimentary method, but it's actually very effective.

Gao Zhendong nodded: "We can try raising it a bit higher, 280℃ should be fine." The higher the temperature, the faster the drying. A large part of the cost of carbon fiber production is energy consumption, so the faster the drying time, the more economical it is.

Anyway, this temperature is from the textbook.

"Okay, we'll give it a try then." Engineer Pan was very scientific; he didn't say to use this parameter outright, but rather to try it out. If it worked, we'd use it; if not, we'd lower it.

Gao Zhendong suddenly laughed: "Actually, you don't need to be so afraid of water. You might need it in the future."

"Huh? There's such a thing?" The comrades were all a bit stunned.

"If you want to produce small-diameter carbon fibers, when the diameter of the spinning fiber reaches the lower limit due to the nozzle or other reasons, you can use water vapor to etch the pre-oxidized fiber during the carbonization process to obtain a carbon fiber product with a diameter even finer than the pre-oxidized fiber."

silence...

The comrades were truly dumbfounded. Could this really be possible? They actually thought it was possible!
Questioning water vapor, understanding water vapor, adding water vapor!

"Committee Member Gao, this...this...your thinking is too ingenious! Turning harm into benefit, brilliant! Absolutely brilliant!"

After a moment of silence, Pan Gong, who had recovered from the shock, could not hide his admiration for Gao Zhendong.

—I'm really not flattering or praising Committee Member Gao; it's just that his actions were truly amazing.

The other comrades were speechless and could only silently record the information in shock. Well, if small-diameter carbon fiber filaments are needed, the technology has already been prepared.

(End of this chapter)