Nanotechnology News – Latest Headlines

Brain Drain: America needs more money for science

Increased funding, training students and teachers in science, math and related fields, and attracting high-skilled immigrants should be the key mantras for America to maintain its competitive edge in a global world, scientists and industry leaders say.

January 28, 2008 Read more

Defense department funds study of carbon nanotube-based drug

The Department of Defense has commissioned a nine-month study from Rice University chemists and scientists in the Texas Medical Center to determine whether a new drug based on carbon nanotubes can help prevent people from dying of acute radiation injury following radiation exposure. The new study was commissioned after preliminary tests found the drug was greater than 5,000 times more effective at reducing the effects of acute radiation injury than the most effective drugs currently available.

January 28, 2008 Read more

Programming biomolecular self-assembly pathways

Nature knows how to make proteins and nucleic acids (DNA and RNA) dance to assemble and sustain life. Inspired by this proof of principle, researchers at the California Institute of Technology have demonstrated that it is possible to program the pathways by which DNA strands self-assemble and disassemble, and hence to control the dynamic function of the molecules as they traverse these pathways.

January 26, 2008 Read more

Students' Terra di Aqua cocept: nanotechnology provides clean water in city of the future

In the future, there is no bottled water. Plastic bottles boasting the purest drinking water are relics of the past, and cities create pristine reservoirs using the power of nanotechnology. That is the future according to 16 eighth graders from Gates Intermediate School in Massachusetts.

January 26, 2008 Read more

Kalam: Make India a significant player in nanotechnology

Government and private sector should join hands and carry out focussed research to make India a significant player in nanotechnology, former President A P J Abdul Kalam said on Saturday.

January 26, 2008 Read more

Who are the rising stars in the new generation of chemists?

In Tomorrow's Chemistry Today, Bruno Pignataro has selected the rising stars of the new generation of chemists and compiled their innovative and award-winning research projects in one volume. Read Tomorrow's Chemistry Today and spot a future Nobel Prize winner or a development that may change the face of science.

January 25, 2008 Read more

Nanotechnology-based scanners to speed airport checks

The Telegraph in the UK is carrying a story on how new technology could help improve safety and efficiency at airports.

January 25, 2008 Read more

Chemists highly pure nanotubes needed for next generation electronic devices

Chemists have developed a procedure for creating highly pure carbon nanotubes needed for the development of the next generation of electronic devices. The discovery could break the scientific bottleneck keeping electronic devices from shrinking to the nanoscale.

January 25, 2008 Read more

FP7 one year on: revolutionary and working, says Potocnik

The EU's Seventh Framework (FP7), now one year into its seven-year life span, is a 'kind of transition programme', taking Europe's research community in the direction of the new instruments that were introduced last year, said EU Science and Research Commissioner Janez Potocnik.

January 25, 2008 Read more

EU project on intelligent materials to regenerate bone tissue

The Nanobiocom project, funded under the EU's Sixth Framework Programme (FP6), is working on the regeneration and repair of bone tissue. Its aim is to come up with a substitute for bone tissue that can repair the bone and regenerate it in such a way that it will be able to carry out similar functions to those in its natural state.

January 25, 2008 Read more

Towards bio-inspired hydrogen production without noble metals

For the first time, researchers have succeeded in producing hydrogen with a molecular system that doesn't require a noble metal catalyst. This outcome has important implications for the financial future of hydrogen energy.

January 25, 2008 Read more

Scripps scientists develop new method for creating self-assembling, nanoscale materials

While biomedical, electronics, and other branches of research are marching steadily into the realm of the smaller-than-small nanometer scale, building needed materials at this scale has been problematic. This week, however, a team from The Scripps Research Institute unveiled a novel approach to the problem that yields a material with novel properties, which some might find reminiscent of Flubber. The material is produced using naturally occurring proteins as templates for uniform, self-assembled, nano-scale construction.

January 25, 2008 Read more

DuPont's Chowdhry Offers Perspectives on Science and Global Policymaking at Davos World Economic Forum

DuPont Senior Vice President and Chief Science & Technology Officer Uma Chowdhry offered her perspectives on the importance of science in the formation of global policy during a discussion at the World Economic Forum today.

January 25, 2008 Read more

Nanowires hold promise for more affordable solar cells

The Department of Engineering Physics at McMaster University, Cleanfield Energy and the Ontario Centres of Excellence have formed a partnership to pursue the commercialization of nanowire technology in the production of solar cells. The particular type of nanowire technology developed at McMaster is able to trap more sunlight and convert it to electricity more efficiently than traditional solar cells.

January 25, 2008 Read more

Small changes, big impacts

Molecular-scale rearrangements influence how receptors transmit their message, adding another layer of complexity to the regulation of cell signaling.

January 25, 2008 Read more

Quasi-crystals avoid repetition

X-rays, neutrons and theoretical modeling are used to explore the physics of quasi-crystals.

January 25, 2008 Read more