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Artificial membranes² mimicking⁴ those found in living organisms have many potential applications ranging from detecting bacterial⁵ contaminants in food to toxic⁶ pollution in the environment to dangerous diseases in people. Now a group of scientists in Chile has developed a way to create these delicate, ultra-thin constructs through a "dry" process, by evaporating two commercial, off-the-shelf chemicals onto silicon⁷ surfaces. Described in The Journal of Chemical Physics, from AIP Publishing, this is the first time anyone has ever made an artificial membrane¹ without mixing liquid solvents⁸ together. And because the new process creates membranes on silicon surfaces, it is a significant step toward creating bio-silicon interfaces⁹, where biological "sensor¹⁰" molecules¹¹ can be printed onto cheap silicon chip holding integrated electronic circuits.   "Our idea is to create a biosensor that can transmit electrical signals through the membrane," said María José Retamal, a Ph.D. student at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile and first author of the paper. Membranes for Technology, as for Life   The importance of lipid membranes to life is hard to overstate. They are a principal component¹² of the cell, as fundamental as DNA¹³ or proteins, and all known organisms on Earth, from the bittiest bacteria to the biggest blue whales, use membranes in a multitude of ways.   They separate distinct spaces within cells and define walls between neighboring cells -- a functional¹⁴ compartmentalization that serves many physiological¹⁵ processes, protecting genetic¹⁶ material, regulating what comes in and out of cells, and maintaining the function of separate organs.   Synthetic¹⁷ membranes that mimic³ nature are of great interest to science because they offer the possibility of containing membrane proteins -- biological molecules that could be used for detecting toxins¹⁸, diseases and many other biosensing applications.