Nanotechnology News – Latest Headlines

University of Miami receives $7.5 m to create Collaborative Institute in Biomedical Nanotechnology

Propelled by a transformative gift from a longtime contributor, the University of Miami is announcing the creation of the Dr. John T. Macdonald Foundation Biomedical Nanotechnology Institute, a collaboration of key scientific disciplines that will harness the field of nanotechnology for clinical applications.

Mar 27th, 2012

Iron-based nanoparticle catalyst promises cheaper, greener drugs

A chemistry team at the University of Toronto has discovered environmentally-friendly iron-based nanoparticle catalysts that work as well as the expensive, toxic, metal-based catalysts that are currently in wide use by the drug, fragrance and food industry.

Mar 27th, 2012

International researchers discuss how the mechanics of materials changes with size

During the international workshop Nanobruecken II at INM - Leibniz Institute for New Materials on 22 and 23 March 2012, materials researchers from Europe discussed why mechanical properties of a material change in smallest dimensions.

Mar 27th, 2012

Communicating nanoethics - report

The 4th annual ObservatoryNano report on Ethical and Societal Aspects of Nanotechnology report focuses on Communicating Nanoethics. The report aims to contribute to current EU policy making on Responsible Research and Innovation.

Mar 27th, 2012

Chemistry in one dimension offers surprising result

Due to their unique properties single walled carbon nanotubes have been suggested as a promising material for electronics, optics and in other fields of materials science. When scientists from Umea University and Aalto University tried to perform a reaction between hydrogen gas and fullerene molecules encapsulated in nanotubes something very unlikely suddenly appeared possible .

Mar 27th, 2012

Medizin mit Lichtschalter

Chemiker der Uni Jena und des Forschungsbereichs Biomaterialien von INNOVENT e. V. stellen einen Wirkstofftraeger auf Nanofaserbasis vor, der Stickstoffmonoxid nach einer Bestrahlung mit UV-A-Licht freisetzt. Grundlage dafuer ist ein neuer, photolabiler Ruthenium-Nitrosyl-Komplex, der in Polylaktid-Nanofasern eingebettet ist.

Mar 27th, 2012

SPIE Photonics Europe Week to begin with a look at Horizon 2020

A presentation on the new European Commission framework programme Horizon 2020 will lead off the more than 1,400 talks at the upcoming SPIE Photonics Europe international congress on materials, nanotechnology, biophotonics, semiconductors, lasers, multimedia, and imaging. The meeting will be held at the Square Brussels Meeting Centre 16-19 April.

Mar 27th, 2012

Butterfly wings' 'art of blackness' could boost production of green fuels

Butterfly wings may rank among the most delicate structures in nature, but they have given researchers powerful inspiration for new technology that doubles production of hydrogen gas - a green fuel of the future - from water and sunlight.

Mar 26th, 2012

Simple, cheap way to mass-produce graphene nanosheets

Mixing a little dry ice and a simple industrial process cheaply mass-produces high-quality graphene nanosheets, researchers in South Korea and Case Western Reserve University report.

Mar 26th, 2012

'Buckliball' - a new class of 3-D, origami-like structures (w/video)

Motivated by the desire to determine the simplest 3-D structure that could take advantage of mechanical instability to collapse reversibly, a group of engineers at MIT and Harvard University were stymied - until one of them happened across a collapsible, spherical toy that resembled the structures they'd been exploring, but with a complex layout of 26 solid moving elements and 48 rotating hinges.

Mar 26th, 2012

More energy efficient transistors through quantum tunneling

Many in the semiconductor field think that the industry is fast approaching the physical limits of transistor miniaturization. The major problem in modern transistors is power leakage leading to the generation of excessive heat from billions of transistors in close proximity. Recent advances at Notre Dame and Penn State show that tunneling field effect transistors are on track to solve these problems by delivering comparable performance to today's transistors, but with much greater energy efficiency.

Mar 26th, 2012