Nanotechnology News – Latest Headlines

Gold nanoparticles help earlier diagnosis of liver cancer

A research team led by Brown University reports some promising results for earlier diagnosis of hepatocellular carcinoma, the most common cancer to strike the liver. More than 500,000 people worldwide, concentrated in sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia, are diagnosed with it yearly. Most of those afflicted die within six months.

June 22, 2011 Read more

Engineering researchers discover new source for generating 'green' electricity

University of Minnesota engineering researchers in the College of Science and Engineering have recently discovered a new alloy material that converts heat directly into electricity. This revolutionary energy conversion method is in the early stages of development, but it could have wide-sweeping impact on creating environmentally friendly electricity from waste heat sources.

June 22, 2011 Read more

Inaugural University of Toronto nanofabrication institute a success

For nine days this month, 30 graduate students have been learning how to make nano-sized devices. In six three-hour lab sessions, students learned how to operate equipment and perform the processes crucial to fabricating nano-scale devices.

June 22, 2011 Read more

Nanopores follow nature's design in tracking proteins

Dutch and Swiss researchers have developed a biomimetic nanopore that offers a sophisticated test and measurement platform for the way proteins enter the nucleus of a cell. This study provides evidence of how a biomimetic nuclear pore can be created to monitor how single proteins move across the pore.

June 22, 2011 Read more

Versatile membrane makes large-scale energy-efficient separation possible

Hessel Castricum from the University of Amsterdam has developed a versatile membrane that is capable of separating gas and liquid mixtures in an energy-efficient manner. The new membrane can probably be employed under industrial conditions on a large scale in the future. This has not been possible until now, because virtually all membranes developed so far are insufficiently stable.

June 22, 2011 Read more

Molecular robot can be programmed to follow instructions

Scientists have developed a programmable sub-microscopic molecular machine made of synthetic DNA that moves between track locations separated by 6nm. The robot, a short strand of DNA, follows instructions programmed into a set of fuel molecules determining its destination.

June 22, 2011 Read more

Nanocoated 'super sand' for better purification of drinking water

Scientists have developed a way to transform ordinary sand - a mainstay filter material used to purify drinking water throughout the world - into a "super sand" with five times the filtering capacity of regular sand.

June 22, 2011 Read more

New technique yields troves of information from nanoscale bone samples

A new technique developed at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute allows researchers to collect large amounts of biochemical information from nanoscale bone samples.

June 22, 2011 Read more

Elektronenmikroskop der Superlative geht in Betrieb

Mit dem ASTEM (Austrian Scanning Transmission Electron Microscope) koennen Wissenschafter am Zentrum fuer Elektronenmikroskopie Graz sowie am Institut fuer Elektronenmikroskopie und Feinstrukturforschung der TU Graz kuenftig in voellig neue Dimensionen vordringen.

June 22, 2011 Read more

Optics: Through the crystal spheres

Quartz microspheres could enhance the resolution of an optical microscope beyond its classical diffraction limit.

June 22, 2011 Read more

Faster simulation brings nanoscale optical surface characterization closer to practical reality

Vertical scanning interferometry is a well-established zero-contact surface characterization technique, but the analysis involved in interpreting the data is complex and computationally intensive. Wee Keat Chong at the A*STAR Singapore Institute of Manufacturing Technology and co-workers have now developed a computationally efficient model for this technique.

June 22, 2011 Read more

New study explores morphological evolution of a core-shell nanowire

Three-dimensional dynamic simulations shows how the surface morphology of a nanowire changes when subjected to annealing.

June 22, 2011 Read more

Nanowire-based sensors offer improved detection of volatile organic compounds

A team of researchers has made nano-sized sensors that detect volatile organic compounds - harmful pollutants released from paints, cleaners, pesticides and other products - that offer several advantages over today's commercial gas sensors, including low-power room-temperature operation and the ability to detect one or several compounds over a wide range of concentrations.

June 22, 2011 Read more

New family of gold-based nanoparticles could serve as biomedical 'testbed'

A new paper by researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the National Cancer Institute's Nanotechnology Characterization Laboratory (NCL) proposes not only a sort of gold nanoparticle "testbed" to explore how the tiny particles behave in biological systems, but also a paradigm for how to characterize nanoparticle formulations to determine just what you're working with.

June 22, 2011 Read more

New U.S. patent discloses nanoprobe array technique

US Patent 7,964,143 discloses a nanoprobe array technique that allows for an array of individual, vertically-oriented nanotubes to be assembled at precise locations on electrical contacts using electrophoresis. The location of each nanotube in the array is controlled by a nanoscale electrostatic lens fabricated by a process commonly used in the manufacture of integrated circuits.

June 22, 2011 Read more

Putting a new spin on computing

In a recent publication in Physical Review Letters, physicists at the University of Arizona propose a way to translate the elusive magnetic spin of electrons into easily measurable electric signals. The finding is a key step in the development of computing based on spintronics, which doesn't rely on electron charge to digitize information.

June 22, 2011 Read more