Nanotechnology News

West Virginia University announced that it has received $380,000 from the Bayer Foundation to create the Bayer Scholars for Extrusion-Compounding Program in the Department of Chemical Engineering. ...more

Toshiba Corporation announced a prototype hard disk drive that uses Discrete Track Recording technology to boost capacity to a record-breaking 120 gigabytes on a single 1.8-inch platter. ...more

The first Italian nanoart exhibit will be held in Bergamo, from October 2-21, 2007. ...more

Industrial Nanotech, Inc. announced today that it has awarded African distribution rights for its Nansulate product line to Megaros Industrial Products. ...more

The research center for Advanced Carbon Materials at AIST, Japan invites highly-motivated applicants from various research backgrounds for post-doctoral positions to work on the development of nanotechnology, nanomaterials, and nanodevices. ...more

According to a new model, the processes of electrochemical oxidation within separate aerosol particles are the basis for the phenomenon of ball lightning, which is a cloud of composite nano or submicron particles, where each particle is a spontaneously formed nanobattery which is short-circuited by the surface discharge because it is of such a small size. ...more

The technology exploits a three-component system: metal nanoparticles, novel phthalocyanine photosensitisers and phase transfer reagent. ...more

Using nanometer scale analysis techniques and quantities too small to explode, researchers have mapped the temperature and length-sale factors that make explosives behave the way they do. ...more

Physicists have devised a potentially groundbreaking theory demonstrating how to control the spin of particles without using superconducting magnets. ...more

Colloidal crystals constructed by monodispersed microspheres packed in ordered arrays represent a new class of advanced materials that are useful in many areas. For example, due to their novel light diffraction and photonic bandgap properties, colloidal crystals are promising elements in the fabrication of devices such as optical filters and switches, chemical and biochemical sensors, and photonic chips. Various self-assembly techniques have been developed to form colloidal crystals on different substrates, including the flow-cell methods, vertical deposition, micromolding in capillaries and so on. Although existing methods can provide colloidal crystals of different structures and quality, efficient approaches to high stability and large scale colloidal crystals are increasingly attracting attention. Generating ordered microstructures in the colloidal crystal films and colloidal crystals with different structures and configurations are particularly important in the fabrication of optical devices. ...more

American Elements announced today the formation of a new product group to manage the production, sales and marketing of its quantum dot nanopowder production facilities. ...more

CRAIC Technologies, the leader manufacturer of UV-visible-NIR microscopes and microspectrophotometers, today released the new QDI ImageUV™ imaging system for the QDI 2010™ microspectrophotometer. ...more

Silicon Microstructures, a leader in silicon sensor design and manufacture, today announced the addition of three strategic distribution relationships to its international sales channel. ...more

Medtech Insight, a division of Windhover Information, has announced that 52 promising early-stage medical technologies are already confirmed to present at the company's upcoming "Investment In Innovation (In3) East: A Preview of Early-Stage Medical Technology Companies" conference. ...more

The city of Bristol's (UK) skyline will get an exciting addition today when a large-scale representation of a carbon molecule is installed on the new Centre for Nanoscience and Quantum Information. ...more

Leonid Melamed, head of the Alemar Investment Financial Corporation has been appointed chief of Russia's nanotechnology corporation, a first deputy prime minister said Friday. ...more

MIT works toward safer gene therapy. ...more

The Asahi Shimbun today carries an editorial that mostly deals with the safety issues of nanotechnology. ...more

The much heralded nanotechnology revolution is not happening with a big bang that completely turns our lives upside down, but rather in a creeping stealth mode where many ordinary everyday products, from cosmetics and textiles to electronic devices, sporting goods and car paint increasingly contain engineered nanoparticles. Sometimes, these nanoparticles are just a smaller version of the material already used in a product, for instance zinc oxide in sunscreen lotions, sometimes these particles are a new addition to a product, as for example fullerenes added to oil lubricants to improve their performance. This trend of increasing use of engineered nanoparticles in commercial products raises the question of what happens at the end-of-life stage of these products, when they get disposed or recycled. Is there is a risk of these nanoparticles being released into the environment? And if yes, is there a risk of these nanoparticles causing harm? This is an area of nanotechnology risk research that remains largely unexplored. In a groundbreaking study to determine the effects of nanoparticles on aquatic organisms, scientists at the University of Wisconsin's Great Lakes Water Institute in Milwaukee have demonstrated that all nanoparticles are not created equal - at least when it comes to their effects on aquatic organisms. They have also discovered that existing attitudes toward the safety of titanium dioxide may be dangerous. ...more

The nanotech food market is growing rapidly and will reach over $20 billion by 2010. ...more

The first of two conferences at the Paris expo with a focus on nanotechnology relating to UV filters. ...more

Making silicon dioxide nanocapsules by frothing polymers with supercritical carbon dioxide. ...more

While growth processes of nanostructures are well understood, the stability of artificial nanostructures has not been thoroughly investigated. Fully understanding the fluctuations of nanostructures and their interactions with their surroundings is essential in order to achieve complete shape control of nanostructures. In recent work, French scientists address the morphogenesis, instability and catastrophic collapse of nanostructures. ...more

Microfluidic can be used in the fields of analytical chemistry as well as medical. ...more

Marsh launches Center for Risk Insights to provide guidance on business risk issues. ...more