EurekAlert! - Nanotechnology
Sun Apr 24 04:23:16 EDT 2011
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The ultimate camo: Team to mimic camouflage skill of marine animals in high-tech materials - (Marine Biological Laboratory) Camouflage expert Roger Hanlon of the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) is co-recipient of a $6 million grant from the Office of Naval Research to study and ultimately emulate the exquisite ability of some marine animals to instantly change their skin color and pattern to blend into their environment.

Optical microscope without lenses produces high-resolution 3-D images on a chip - (University of California - Los Angeles) UCLA researchers have redesigned the concept of a microscope, by removing the lens, to create a system small enough to fit in the palm of a hand, but powerful enough to create 3-D tomographic, or sectional, images of miniscule samples. The advance, published online this week in PNAS, represents the first demonstration of lens-free optical tomographic imaging on a chip, a technique capable of producing high resolution 3-D images of large volumes of microscopic objects.

Researchers create functioning synapse using carbon nanotubes - (University of Southern California) Engineering researchers at the University of Southern California have made a significant breakthrough in the use of nanotechnologies for the construction of a synthetic brain. They have built a carbon nanotube synapse circuit whose behavior in tests reproduces the function of a neuron, the building block of the brain.

Scientists engineer nanoscale vaults to encapsulate 'nanodisks' for drug delivery - (University of California - Los Angeles) The first steps toward the development of the vault nanoparticle into a versatile and effective DDS are reported in this paper. The ability to encapsulate therapeutic compounds into the vault is a critical and fundamental obstacle in their development for small-molecule drug delivery. Recombinant vaults are engineered to encapsulate the highly insoluble and toxic hydrophobic compound all-trans retinoic acid (ATRA) using a vault-binding lipoprotein complex that forms a lipid bilayer nanodisk.

UC Berkeley launches Synthetic Biology Institute to advance research in biological engineering - (Pontifex Marketing and Communications) Aiming to create "an industrial revolution in biological engineering," the Synthetic Biology Institute is launching a collaborative effort with its first Industry Member, Agilent Technologies Inc., a leader in measurement technologies and products to advance science and engineering research. Agilent is helping to initiate SBI research with a multi-year, multi-million dollar commitment, including early access to Agilent technologies through the active participation of the company's research scientists and engineers.

Engineering professor wins award for pioneering work expected to improve electronic devices - (University of California - Riverside) A professor at the University of California, Riverside's Bourns College of Engineering will receive an international award for his pioneering work in nanotechnology that could have far-reaching impacts on electronic devices.

Smart Systems Week in Helsinki June 14-17, 2011 - (EUREKA) EURIPIDES -- in close cooperation with VTT and TEKES -- is proud to announce its 5th Annual Forum at the Scandic Marina Congress in Helsinki from June 14-17, 2011.

Limit to nanotechnology mass-production? - (Institute of Physics) A leading nanotechnology scientist has raised questions over a billion dollar industry by boldly claiming that there is a limit to how small nanotechnology materials can be mass produced.

UCLA researchers now 1 step closer to controlled engineering of nanocatalysts - (University of California - Los Angeles) Yu Huang, assistant professor of material science and engineering at UCLA Engineering, and her team have demonstrated a rational approach to producing nanocrystals with predictable shapes. Huang's work could one day lead to the ability to rationally produce nanocatalysts with desired crystal surfaces and hence catalytic properties.

Leburton named associate member of Royal Academy of Belgium - (University of Illinois College of Engineering) Jean-Pierre Leburton, the Gregory Stillman Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, has been elected to the Academy of Sciences, Letters, and Fine Arts of Belgium, the oldest scholarly society in Belgium.

New biosensor microchip could speed up drug development, Stanford researchers say - (Stanford University) A new biosensor microchip that could hold more than 100,000 magnetically sensitive nanosensors could speed up drug development markedly, Stanford researchers say. The nanosensors analyze how proteins bond -- a critical step in drug development. The ultrasensitive sensors can simultaneously monitor thousands of times more proteins than existing technology, deliver results faster and assess the strength of the bonds.

Collecting the sun's energy - (Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (EMPA)) Conventional silicon-based rigid solar cells generally found on the market are not suitable for manufacturing moldable thin-film solar cells, in which a transparent, flexible and electrically conductive electrode collects the light and carries away the current. A woven polymer electrode developed by Empa has now produced first results which are very promising, indicating that the new material may be a substitute for indium tin oxide coatings.

Pitt-led researchers create super-small transistor, artificial atom powered by single electrons - (University of Pittsburgh) A Pitt-led team reports in Nature Nanotechnology a single-electron transistor with a central component -- an island only 1.5 nanometers in diameter -- that operates with the addition of only one or two electrons. The transistor, named SketchSET, provides a building block for new, more powerful computer memories, advanced electronic materials, and the basic components of quantum computers that could solve problems so complex that all of the world's computers working together for billions of years could not crack them.

New kid on the plasmonic block - (DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory) Berkeley Lab researchers have achieved plasmonic properties in the semiconductor nanocrystals known as quantum dots. Until now, plasmonic properties, which hold promise for superfast computers and ultrapowerful optical microscopes among many other possibilities, have been limited to nanostructures featuring interfaces between noble metals and dielectrics. This new discovery should make the already hot field of plasmonic technology even hotter.

For testing skin cream, synthetic skin may be as good as the real thing - (Ohio State University) New research suggests that currently available types of synthetic skin may now be good enough to imitate animal skin in laboratory tests, and may be on their way to truly simulating human skin in the future. Researchers compared the response of synthetic skins to rat skin when they were both exposed to a generic skin cream treatment, and the results indicated they both reacted similarly.

Sandia and UNM lead effort to destroy cancers - (DOE/Sandia National Laboratories) Melding nanotechnology and medical research, researchers have produced an effective strategy that uses nanoparticles to blast cancerous cells with a melange of killer drugs.In the cover article of the May issue of Nature Materials, the researchers describe silica nanoparticles as honeycombed with cavities that can store large amounts and varieties of drugs.

Researchers pinpoint graphene's varying conductivity levels - (North Carolina State University) Researchers at North Carolina State University have found one of the first roadblocks to utilizing graphene by proving that its conductivity decreases significantly when more than one layer is present.

Ferromagnetism plus superconductivity - (Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres) It actually seems impossible: Scientists from the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf and the TU Dresden were able to verify with an intermetallic compound of bismuth and nickel that certain materials actually exhibit the two contrary properties of superconductivity and ferromagnetism at the same time. A phenomenon that had only been demonstrated around the globe on a small number of materials and which might provide highly interesting technological opportunities in future.

NRL scientists demonstrate novel ionic liquid batteries - (Naval Research Laboratory) Limits imposed by using corrosive electrolytes often result in severe restrictions to battery geometry and the need for special corrosive-resistant battery containers. The use of reactive ionic liquids in non-aqueous cells replace the more hazardous highly alkaline electrolytes.

New global portal for cyber-physical systems research launched - (Vanderbilt University) Vanderbilt's Institute for Software Integrated Systems (ISIS) has built and will operate a Web-based collaboration platform for the new National Science Foundation-funded Cyber-Physical Systems Virtual Organization. The CPS-VO aims to bring together researchers, educators and students working in academics, industry and government agencies in a kind of virtual brain trust to foster progress, develop priorities and quickly distribute information in the rapidly emerging field of cyber-physical systems.

Toward a more efficient use of solar energy - (Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres) The exploitation and utilization of new energy sources are considered to be among today's major challenges. Solar energy plays a central role, and its direct conversion into chemical energy, for example hydrogen generation by water splitting, is one of its interesting variants. Titanium oxide-based photocatalysis is the presently most efficient, yet little understood conversion process.

New spin on graphene - (University of Manchester) University of Manchester scientists have found a way to make wonder material graphene magnetic, opening up a new range of opportunities for the world's thinnest material in the area of spintronics.

New DNA nanoforms take shape - (Arizona State University) Miniature architectural forms -- some no larger than viruses -- have been constructed through a revolutionary technique known as DNA origami. Now, Hao Yan, Yan Liu and their colleagues at Arizona State University's Biodesign Institute have expanded the capability of this method to construct arbitrary, two and three-dimensional shapes, mimicking those commonly found in nature.

UMD scientists make magnetic new graphene discovery - (University of Maryland) University of Maryland researchers have discovered a way to control magnetic properties of graphene that could lead to powerful new applications in magnetic storage and magnetic random access memory.

Grove School professor leads new metamaterials center - (City College of New York) A new National Science Foundation-sponsored industry and university cooperative research center program will "provide a one-stop shop for the design, fabrication and testing of a wide range of metamaterials." Dr. David Crouse, associate professor of electrical engineering in the Grove School of Engineering at The City College of New York, serves as director of the new Center for Metamaterials.