Daily Popular
- Histones: DNA packaging and much more
- Life on Mars, if it exists, is below the surface
- Report: Water shortage risk ranked by country
- On the origin of children
- Guanfacine: A possible drug to improve memory in old age
- Transformation optics: the light fantastic
- Mining Near-Earth Asteroids: The trillion dollar enticement
- Government Internet censorship on the rise
- Common diseases: Rare gene mutations are important
- Microgravity: Overlooking the weightless elephant in the room
Popular Posts
- .
Tag Archives: nanotechnology
“Mix and match” nanocomposite manufacturing
Sometimes the decisive step in the development of a technology is the transition from the lab to manufacturing. If it’s a good or great idea it usually means there will need to be a lot of it. Take nanomaterials, for example. Nanorods and nanocrystals are often combined with other materials to achieve some useful property. [...]
Posted in News: Nanotechnology Also tagged chalcogenides, ligand, manufacturing, nanocomposite, nanomaterials Leave a comment
Printable tagging with Nano-RFID
RFID – Radio Frequency Identification – started in the 1970’s at the edge of technological capability. The idea of ID tags that could broadcast their identification seemed useful, particularly for expensive inventory that could justify the cost. The idea was also somewhat controversial, as it was easy to envision privacy issues with tags applied to [...]
A First: Microchips in living cells
Scientists at the Instituto de Microelectrónica de Barcelona (Spain) have demonstrated for the first time…in their own words: “Silicon microchips can be internalized into eukaryotic cells without interfering with cell viability. Engineered intracellular chips with different biomolecules attached to the surface can be used as intracellular sensors.” At one level this means the researchers were [...]
Posted in News: Body Implants Also tagged biosensors, biotechnology, HeLa cell, intracellular, MEMS, NEMS, silicon chips Leave a comment
New study: Why silk is so strong
It’s been said for quite some time that silks, especially spider silks, are pound-for-pound stronger than steel. Silk is also famously flexible. Now there is a study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT, Cambridge, USA) that explains how this strength is the product of something that shouldn’t be that strong – simple hydrogen bonds [...]
Posted in News: Nanotechnology Also tagged biomaterials, carbon nanotubes, hydrogen bonds, silk, spider Leave a comment
High volume production for graphene
Graphene is – potentially – the new wonder-nanotech-material for the semiconductor industry (that’s the ‘chip’ business for computers and everything else digital). In the form of a pure carbon sheet with many interesting electrical properties, graphene is an upgrade for the old reliable silicon. [SciTechStory: Big news for nanoscale graphene] However, despite the many research [...]
Posted in News: Nanotechnology Also tagged graphene, manufacturing, semiconductor, silicon Leave a comment
Clothes that generate electric power
“Someday we’ll all be wearing clothing that generates electricity.” (…not just static) This statement or something comparable appears in a science or technology story at least a couple of times a year. The broad implication is that by some (new) technology, the motions of daily life will cause our clothing to generate electricity, which can [...]
Posted in Impact: Energy Storage Also tagged clothing, nanofibers, nanogenerators, piezoelectric, PVD Leave a comment
For real: A new way to produce electricity
It’s not every day that a new way to produce electricity is discovered…although it does seem there is a multitude of approaches. This one involves carbon nanotubes, those jacks-of-all-trades in the nanotech business, nanometer sized tubes of pure carbon. (In this case, think of them as ‘wires’ one-hundred thousandth of the thickness of human hair.) [...]
Posted in News: Energy Storage Also tagged battery, electricity, lithium-ion, nanotube, Seebeck effect, thermopower wave Leave a comment
Nanobubbles are really slick
One thing nanotechnology can do, besides create new materials, is use some ‘old’ things in new ways. Take, for example, bubbles. Some bubbles are trapped air. Air repels water, or more specifically air and water don’t mix (immediately) so bubbles are formed. Thinking like a nanotechnologist: What if there were nano-sized bubbles trapped in a [...]
Posted in News: Nanotechnology Also tagged nanobubbles, nanocavities, Teflon, water-repellant, x-ray Leave a comment
Add to the nanokit: Boron nitride nanotubes
There are many possible nanotubes. Some, like carbon nanotubes, are made from common (and therefore inexpensive) material and relatively easy to manufacture and manipulate. Others, such as boron nitride nanotubes, have great potential but are famously difficult to manufacture – which is to say prohibitive for widespread use. The potential is clear: Boron nitride nanotubes [...]
Posted in News: Nanotechnology Also tagged boron nitride, carbon nanotubes, insulator, nanotubes, superhydrophobic Leave a comment
Microcantilever sensors: Small package, great sensitivity
Smaller, faster, cheaper – it’s a formula for sensors too. Smaller sensors are related to cheaper sensors, since manufacturing costs are reduced (usually). Smaller can also be related to faster as in the shift from large analog to much smaller digital sensors. One more thing; the very small sensor is much more…discreet. So it’s only [...]
Nonacene
Every year many new materials (and variations on older materials) are brought into the world. Some of them are known only to specialists, and slip into obscurity. Some go straight to commercial application. Some few show ‘great promise.’ This means there’s something unproven about the material, but its properties indicate it could be important. Nonacene [...]
A Piezo Patch: Body movement input, electricity output
Movement implies energy. When you move, it requires energy in the muscles to make the motion, but the motion itself contains energy (mechanical) and that can be transferred to something else. That something else could be a silicon rubber patch with an embedded piezoelectric material, recently developed by research at Princeton University (New Jersey, USA) [...]
Posted in News: Body Implants Also tagged electricity, implants, nanoribbons, piezoelectricity, PZT Leave a comment
Big news for nanoscale graphene
It is literally big news for nanotechnology applications that may use graphene – a European consortium of researchers (UK, Sweden, Italy) has learned how to make bigger pieces. That’s phrased a little too colloquially. Previously samples of graphene, a one atom thick honeycomb of carbon, were laboriously created as tiny flakes fractions of a millimeter [...]
Posted in News: Nanotechnology Also tagged graphene, quantum Hall effect, von Klitzing constant 1 Comment
Nanodiamonds make a good MRI great
Diamonds are among the hardest substances on Earth. Probably because of their hardness, they are impervious to biological materials. Nanodiamonds, diamond particles no bigger than six nanometers (recall that a nanometer is 1 hundred thousandth of the thickness of human hair), can be released in the human bloodstream and are biologically neutral. So why would [...]
A self assembling forest of peptides
Granted, for most people the words in a ‘self assembling forest of peptides’ may not strike a chord of recognition. Researchers at Tel Aviv University (Israel) hope recognition will come. The phrase describes a preliminary technology, proof of concept really, involving a certain kind of nanotechnology using nanotubes. Like many uses of nanotubes, there is [...]
Stop the bleeding: Nanotech blood platelets
It’s a good example of the spreading use of nanotechnology – artificial blood platelets composed of nanoparticles. Platelets are a small blood-cell type and one of the principle components of blood coagulation, the process used by the body to stop bleeding. Applying nanotechnology to platelets is not an earth-shaking development but it seems a logical [...]
Nanosensors testing blood for cancer markers
Testing lab samples of blood is one thing; there’s lots of control achieved by isolating components of the blood before testing. Testing whole blood, unfiltered and with all components in their usual mix, is another thing. The thing is; testing whole blood is what’s required in the real world. Whole blood is complicated by the [...]
Posted in News: Nanomedicine Also tagged antigens, biomarker, blood, cancer, nanomedicine, nanowire Leave a comment
Prevent oxidation with nanoparticles derived from corn
News about nanotechnology is reported almost every day. Nanotechnology in agriculture, not so much. Nanotechnology made from agricultural products, we hear about that even less. So this story concerning research done at Purdue University (Indiana, USA), which uses nanoparticles manufactured from corn to extend the shelf life of certain oils demonstrates the radiation of nanotech [...]
Posted in News: Nanotechnology Also tagged agriculture, corn, nanoparticles, oxidation, phytoglycogen Leave a comment
Nanotech ink plus a piece of paper: A novel(ty) battery
The search for a better battery is endless. The underlying physics present limitations that are hard to surpass, but there’s seemingly no end to human ingenuity when it comes to finding new ways of storing electrical energy. Try this one: Scientists at Stanford University (California, USA) have created an ink compounded with nanotechnology materials, dipped [...]
Posted in News: Energy Storage Also tagged battery, capacitor, nanotubes, supercapacitor Leave a comment
Powerful peptide penetrates cancer cells
All too often cancer treatments are like taking a howitzer to a hunting party. The treatment might get the cancer, but there’s often a lot of collateral damage. That’s why, almost from the beginning of cancer research, the goal has been to find ways of stopping cancer without harming the rest of the body. Not [...]
Posted in News: Major Disease Cures Also tagged cancer, iRGD, major disease cures, molecular biology, nanoworms, peptides Leave a comment
Lasers make nanoyarn
Add another ‘nano’ contraction to the list: Nanoyarn. In this case, the ‘yarn’ is composed of nanotubes created from boron nitride. (Boron nitride is what makes ‘clown white’ white.) The word yarn is suggestive of possible uses and reasonably accurate. The new nanoyarn, manufactured for the first time by the U.S. Department of Energy Jefferson [...]
Posted in News: Nanotechnology Also tagged boron nitride, carbon nanotubes, lasers, nanomanufacturing, nanotubes, nanoyarn Leave a comment
Key technique: Fluid-process nanotubes like polymers
Carbon nanotubes are the lab stars of nanotechnology. They can conduct electricity better than copper. They can behave like a metal – or a semiconductor. They can be 10 times stronger than steel. They can be controlled by heat or by magnetism. As coated tubes, they can contain medicine. In short, they’re extremely versatile, which [...]
Posted in News: Nanotechnology Also tagged carbon nanotubes, fluid-processing, nano-manufacturing, plastics, polymers 1 Comment
First human trials: Nanoparticles deliver anti-cancer siRNA