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Tag Archives: nanotechnology
Micromold technology: New technique for fabricating cells and tissues
As they say, there’s more than one way to skin a cat. Perhaps they should also say, there’s more than one way to make a cat skin. One of the key objectives of synthetic biology is to create materials that can imitate the functions of cells and tissues, like creating the building blocks of biological [...]
Posted in News: Synthetic Biology Also tagged drug-delivery, hydrogel, Khademhosseini, micromolds, microparticles, MIT, synthetic biology, Tekin Leave a comment
DNA Computing: Advances in organic circuits
DNA logic gate components……Credit: Royal Publishing Society Let’s come at computers from a different angle for a moment. An alien species lands on earth. Their spaceship doesn’t look like a spaceship. It looks like a very large blob, of sorts. It’s a blob because the whole thing is organic, not a scrap of metal on [...]
Posted in Impact: Computer Power Also tagged biochemistry, DNA computing, logic gates, organic, Qian, synthetic biology, Winfree Leave a comment
Finally, a self-powered wireless nanoscale sensor
Nanogenerator system……….Credit: NanoLetters, American Chemical Society One day the world may well be blanketed with sensors (metaphorically). If so, it will be the result of advances in nanotechnology. Perhaps it will be derived from the work of Zhong Lin Wang and his group of ambitious researchers at The Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech, Atlanta, [...]
Posted in Impact: Sensor Technology Also tagged nanogenerator, nanopiezotronics, piezoelectric, RFID, sensor technology, sensors, Zhong Wang Leave a comment
Connecting to neurons with semiconductor nanotubes
“Patching into the brain” is a staple of science fiction and you hear about it fairly often in neuroscience; connecting ‘wires’ into the brain somehow seems routine. It’s not. Scientists and sometimes doctors do lots of things with reading or probing the brain with external (on the skin) sensors. They also occasionally do neural implants [...]
Posted in News: Neuroscience Also tagged brain implant, Justin Williams, nanotubes, neuron connection, neuroscience, prosthetic connection Leave a comment
NEWS: Short List
Transcranial direct current stimulation: Stoking the brain with electricity – Brain Enhancement | While most likely the majority of neuroscientists conduct experiments to read the electrical activity in the brain, there are some interested in stimulating the brain with electricity. With modern techniques this stimulation has become more precise, and the monitoring of reactions (that’s [...]
Posted in News: Also tagged alternative energy, brain enhancement, origin of life, photonics, synthetic biology Leave a comment
Graphene spintronics: Studies show promise
If you’ve had any contact with the concept of ‘digital devices’ (as in theory of, not the use of) you’ve heard it explained like ‘switches’ (i.e. gates) that are either ON or OFF, zeroes or ones – the binary code – that sort of thing. Information is stored or processed based on a sequence of [...]
Posted in News: Nanotechnology Also tagged digital computing, graphene, graphite, nanotube, quantum mechanics, semiconductor, spintronics Leave a comment
Nobels for trend setting: Graphene and IVF
Nobel Prizes are sometimes perfunctory – lifetime achievement, arcane fields. Not this year. The Nobel committees seem to have their brains operating with a vision; they’re seeing a larger context and signaling their awareness. This year’s Nobel Prize for Medicine and Physiology went to Robert Edwards the founding father of in-vitro fertilization (IVF). This is [...]
Posted in Impact: Nanotechnology Also tagged Edwards, fertilization, Geim, graphene, in vitro, IVF, medicine, natal biology, Nobel, Novoselov, physics, Scotch tape Leave a comment
Pulsed scanning tunneling microscope: New tool, new insights
An STM image of atoms forming a “quantum corral”….image developed for IBM. Before the week goes flipping by on the calendar, I wanted to mark one of those achievements that get scant attention but will probably have large impact. I say “probably” because even the people who developed IBM’s new pulsed scanning tunneling microscope don’t [...]
Posted in Impact: Scientific Instruments Also tagged IBM, microscopy, pulsed STM, scanning tunneling microscope, STM Leave a comment
New tool: Nanoneedle to the nucleus
For scientists, as for everybody else, it helps to see what’s happening. This is hard to do in the nucleus of a living cell. Standard techniques for watching the activity within the nucleus use dyes or protein markers. These work but tend to flood the nucleus with large molecules and disrupt the chemical activity. Recent [...]
Posted in News: Scientific Instruments Also tagged cell biology, molecular biology, nanoneedle, nucleus, scientific instrument Leave a comment
Biosensors: A sensor/probe inside a single cell
Can scientists put sensors inside single cells? The answer used to be, yes, but not without damaging the cell (a little or a lot). Cells, human or otherwise, are very small. Human cells vary from nerve cells at about 10 microns (that’s millionths of a meter) to 50 microns for heart cells (still very small). [...]
Posted in News: Nanotechnology Also tagged biotechnology, cells, FET, nanoFETs, nanowire, probe, transistor 1 Comment
New Report: The Construction Nanomaterials Revolution
Of the many ongoing technology developments, it’s arguable that nanotechnology will have the most immediate, visible, and continuing impact. Nano-this and nano-that have already sprung up in the English vocabulary like mushrooms after rain and marketing-speak has long since incorporated the benefits of NEW: With Nano-whatever. Barely a week goes by without an announcement of [...]
Posted in Impact: Nanotechnology Also tagged ACS, construction, environmental impact, materials, materials science, nanoparticles, toxicity Leave a comment
Graphene oxide: Nanotechnology with an eco-friendly end
It isn’t often (like almost never) that a new technology with potential impact on the environment comes with its own natural solution. According to two papers published by scientists from Rice University (Texas, USA), this is the case with graphene oxide. Graphene, a form of carbon, can be simply described as a form of graphite [...]
Posted in Impact: Nanotechnology Also tagged bacteria, carbon, ecology, environment, graphene, graphene oxide, green, Shewanella Leave a comment
A coming marriage: Additive Manufacturing and Nanotechnology
It could be a marriage made in engineering heaven: Additive manufacturing and nanotechnology. First, let’s introduce additive manufacturing. Throughout history manufacturing of metallic parts and most other materials as well starts with a solid shape of the material and gets cut down to size. If you want to make a sword, you first get a [...]
Posted in Impact: Nanotechnology Also tagged additive layers, additive manufacturing, AM, carbon nanotubes, laser, nanomanufacturing, nanoparticles, PEEK, polymers 2 Comments
Nanotech: Fuzzy fabric goes into production
Once in a while it’s useful to note when science transitions to technology and when some technologies leave the laboratory and enter production. Nanotechnology has a good track record in this regard. Born in experiments with molecular chemistry, the science of nanotechnology has found many routes into high-tech products. Here’s a recent case in point: [...]
Posted in News: Nanotechnology Also tagged carbon nanotubes, fuzzy fiber, NAHF-X, nanofabric, substrate, UAV Leave a comment
Nanotech spiders: On track with molecular robotics
You have to love it when the lead scientists on a project say: “You could imagine the spider carrying a drug and bonding to a two-dimensional surface like a cell membrane, finding the receptors and, depending on the local environment,” adds Yan, “triggering the activation of this drug.” Such applications, while intriguing, are decades or [...]
Posted in News: Nanotechnology Also tagged enzymatic DNA, fluorescence microscopy, molecular biology, nanomedicine, nanorobotics, origami DNA, robot, robotics, spider Leave a comment
Nanotube transistors powered by the body’s own energy source
Adenosine Triphosphate (ATP) is the ultimate energy of life. It’s the energy source that powers almost all living cells. Now, in research conducted by Alexandr Noy and colleagues at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (California, USA), ATP is also an energy source for carbon nanotubes transistors that can eventually be used to link living tissue [...]
Posted in News: Body Implants Also tagged ATP, bionanoelectric, ion pump, nanomachine, nanotransistor, protein gate, transistor Comments closed
Coming: Toss the needles. Use a nanopatch.
There are a lot of reasons why decreasing the use of injection needles is a good idea – cost, safety, the fear factor. That’s why the use of sprays, liquids, lozenges, and patches are always popular – when they can be made effective for certain kinds of immunization and medical procedures. Researchers at Queensland University [...]
Posted in News: Nanomedicine Also tagged antigen, immunology, Langerhans, lymph node, nanomedicine, nanopatch, T-cell Leave a comment
Graphene in a communications context
News stories about using graphene in computers appear all the time. Less often, there are stories about graphene used in communications. This will probably change. Graphene is carbon, a specific form of carbon related to graphite (as in the lead of pencils). Graphene is graphite in sheets, very thin sheets precisely one carbon atom thick. [...]
Posted in News: Communications Also tagged communications, electron-hole pairs, fiber-optic, graphene, IBM, photodetector, photon, switching Leave a comment
Progress toward graphene solar cells
Traditionally solar cells are made from either silicon or a ruthenium compound. Unfortunately, ruthenium is relatively rare (a rare Earth element) and will not ‘scale’ to produce the enormous quantities needed for solar energy production. Silicon is what is used now, but silicon is relatively expensive to manufacture correctly. So scientists have been looking for [...]
Posted in News: Alternative Energy Also tagged graphene, graphene sheets, side group, solar cells, solar energy, solvent Leave a comment
A nanoscale black hole, really?
A black hole – one of the most fearsome and powerful objects in the universe – as big as a few atoms, in a lab? Sounds unlikely; but it’s not weird science. Well, perhaps there is a little exaggeration, but researchers at Harvard University (Massachusetts, USA) have created the miniest of black hole like behavior [...]
Posted in News: Nanotechnology Also tagged absolute zero, black hole, carbon nanotube, cold-atom Leave a comment
Tiny generators for tiny sensors
Nanosensors – sensor devices built at the nanoscale (1/100,000 the width of a human hair) – need energy to run. Nanobatteries are one approach under development. Another technology is nanogenerators, nanoscale devices that create electricity from the mechanical energy provided by the environment such as wave action, wind motion, and body movement. Researchers at the [...]
Posted in News: Sensor Technology Also tagged nanogenerator, nanosensor, Ohmic, sensor, Shottky Leave a comment
Ultimate sensitivity: Nanosenors
Everything electronic gets smaller, including sensors. Sensors are the devices that gauge your car’s tire pressure. They feel your fingers pinching an iPhone screen. They’re everywhere in modern technology, and soon they will be ultrasensitive and all but invisible – as nanosensors. There are many companies and academic laboratories working on the incorporation of nanotechnology [...]
Posted in News: Sensor Technology Also tagged MEMS, micro-scale, nano-scale, nanosensor, nanotube, sensor Leave a comment
Tuning for terahertz waves with graphene