High school students in the COSMOS program were treated to an early version of the NanoEngineer-1 modeling software for atomically-precise nanotechnology. Foresight Director of Education Miguel Aznar reported to Nanorex president Mark Sims on the nanotech course results: Success! NanoEngineer-1 greatly enhanced my nanotechnology class. My students were excited to manipulate and simulate the world… Continue reading Nanotechnology software enables students to design molecular machines
John Brandon at PC Magazine does a close-up on the NanoRobotics Laboratory at Carnegie Mellon: Tiny robots will someday crawl up your spine—literally. These microscopic critters, currently in a development phase at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, are biomimetic (that is, based on biological principles), have bacteria motors attached to their near-invisible bodies, and can… Continue reading Carnegie Mellon pursues top-down path to nanorobots
From Azonano.com, news from Canada: Forget the phrase, “sharp as a tack.” Now, thanks to new University of Alberta research the popular expression might become, “sharp as a single atom tip formed by chemically assisted spatially controlled field evaporation.” Maybe it doesn’t roll off the tongue as easily, but considering the researchers have created the… Continue reading Single-atom sharpest tip made in Canada
Purdue University is extremely serious about being a leader in nanotech and they are putting serious money into that goal. They’ve just opened a new nanofabrication cleanroom that sounds unique: combining the usual semiconductor capabilities with nanobio work, in cleanrooms that connect to each other. This sounds very handy for cool cross-disciplinary R&D. From the… Continue reading Purdue builds one-of-a-kind nanotech lab
MIT now has a series of mini-documentaries over at Technology Review online. Check out the 5-minute film “Nanogates” describing a new sub-nanometer valve that is small enough to channel individual molecules. Currently it is the last film on this page. (Requires Flash player)
A UK/France/Italy/Netherlands/Czech team have announced the building of a new nanosensor/switch/actuator. As described by CORDIS (Source: Foresight News Digest): “The motor is attached to the [DNA] strand at the specific sequence of bases. Then the team introduces ATP, the phosphate molecule that provides energy within living cells, into the microfluidics channel. This is the fuel… Continue reading European team make nanoactuator
From New Scientist, we learn of the modeling by UCSD physicists of 100,000 atoms to test the design of a silicon nitride nanopore reading DNA 200 times faster than doable today: “The system could process the human genome in hours, researchers claim, compared with the 6 months it would take in today’s best labs. ”… Continue reading UCSD physicists model 100,000-atom nanopore reading DNA
From Livescience: “In another feat in the effort to truly downsize Detroit, the researchers have now installed a miniature, light-powered motor in their diminutive automobile. “The nanocar is about as wide as a strand of DNA. Roughly 20,000 of them could park side-by-side in a lot no wider than a human hair. “Such small devices… Continue reading Nanocar gets nanomotor via US/Dutch collaboration
Kevin Bullis of TechnologyReview.com brings us word of an MIT/Harvard collaboration on treating prostate cancer in mice just published in PNAS: “A single treatment of drug-bearing nanoparticles effectively destroys prostate cancer tumors in mice, according to experiments by researchers at MIT and Harvard Medical School. This approach could lead to powerful treatments without the side… Continue reading Single shot of nanospheres: complete tumor elimination
Longtime reader Eoin Clancy from the UK brings our attention to a piece in Nature (1.6 MB pdf) by senior reporter Declan Butler on the prospect of ubiquitous sensing and computing: “Everything, Everywhere: Tiny computers that constantly monitor ecosystems, buildings and even human bodies could turn science on its head…Computers could go from being back-office… Continue reading Ubiquitous nanometric sensing & computing
