Strong enough not only for use in impact protection systems in cars, but able to absorb the shock waves produced by a detonation. Those are just some of the properties shown by the metallic foams developed by materials scientists Stefan Diebels and Anne Jung at Saarland University. Their super lightweight and extremely strong metal foams…
Tiny Nano-bot Probes Inside Human Cells
University of Toronto Engineering researchers have built a set of magnetic “tweezers” that can position a nanoscale bead inside a human cell in three dimensions with unprecedented precision. The nano-bot has already been used to study the properties of cancer cells, and could point the way toward enhanced diagnosis and treatment. Professor Yu Sun (MIE,…
Material Design Aided by X-ray Analysis of Carbon Nanostructures
Nanostructures made of carbon are extremely versatile. They can absorb ions in batteries and supercapacitors, store gases and desalinate water. How well they cope with the task at hand depends largely on the structural features of the nanopores. A new study from the Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres (HZB) has now shown that structural…
Nanotweezers Detect Conformational Changes
Biomolecules, such as DNA and proteins, are not static structures. They undergo complex conformational changes that are essential to their functioning and the signaling pathways they belong to. Understanding these changes is pivotal to a deeper comprehension of how the body works and could eventually shed light on certain diseases that afflict us. Recent advancements…
R&D Executive Talk: Transforming Nanomaterial R&D into Next-Generation Innovation
Sometimes innovations come from unexpected places. In 2007, a team of scientists and engineers who previously worked on the stable dispersion of nanoparticle colloids for photographic film emulsions at Kodak, set out to form a new venture—translating expertise pioneered as part of the photography business into something with a much bigger range of applications. “Kodak…
Defects Help Nanomaterial Quickly Soak Up Pollutant
Cleaning pollutants from water with a defective filter sounds like a non-starter, but a recent study by chemical engineers at Rice University found that the right-sized defects helped a molecular sieve soak up more perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) in less time. In a study in the American Chemical Society journal ACS Sustainable Chemistry and Engineering, Rice…
Nanochannels Function as Highways for Water Molecules
Removing water vapor from air and other gas mixtures, which is crucial for many industrial processes and air conditioning, could become cheaper and more effective through polymer membrane technology now developed at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST). “We have made a polymer film with extremely high permeability for water vapor while presenting…
Protocells Utilize DNA Logic to Communicate and Compute
Researchers at the University of Bristol, Eindhoven University of Technology and Microsoft Research have successfully assembled communities of artificial cells that can chemically communicate and perform molecular computations using entrapped DNA logic gates. The work provides a step towards chemical cognition in synthetic protocells and could be useful in biosensing and therapeutics. Molecular computers made…
Nanoparticles Affect their Liquid Environment
These days, nanoparticles finely distributed in suspensions are used in many areas—for example in cosmetic products, in industrial catalysts, or in contrast agents for medicinal examinations. For the first time, a research team from the University of Bayreuth has managed to precisely determine the interrelationships of magnetic nanoparticles with the liquid surrounding them, even down…
Nanoparticles Harnessed to Beat Cancer
Every year, more than 18 million people around the world are told, “You have cancer.” In the U.S., nearly half of all men and more than one-third of women will develop some kind of cancer during their lifetimes, and 600,000-plus die from it annually. Despite the billions of dollars and countless new treatments that have…
Exact Edge between Superconducting and Magnetic States Measured
Nanoparticles Built by Directed Evolution
The 2018 Nobel Prize in Chemistry went to three scientists who developed the method that forever changed protein engineering: directed evolution. Mimicking natural evolution, directed evolution guides the synthesis of proteins with improved or new functions. First, the original protein is mutated to create a collection of mutant protein variants. The protein variants that show…
Nanoclay-reinforced Hydrogel Turns Stem Cells into Bone
Assistant Professor Alireza Dolatshahi-Pirouz and colleagues have developed a hydrogel that combines synthetic materials with living cells, and can turn stem cells into bone without adding external growth or differentiation factors. More than 50 percent of women and 20 percent of men over the age of 50 will experience a bone fracture during their lifetime.…
New Material Offers More Secure Computing
As computers advance, encryption methods currently used to keep everything from financial transactions to military secrets secure might soon be useless, technology experts warn. Reporting in the journal Nature, a team of physicists and engineers led by University of Texas at Austin physics professor Xiaoqin Elaine Li report they have created a material with light-emitting…
Nanotech Leads to Targeted Treatment for Aggressive Breast Cancer
New findings put forth by the University of Maryland Fischell Department of Bioengineering (BIOE) and researchers from four other academic institutions outline a targeted therapeutic strategy to treat triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC)—a potential first for the particularly aggressive form of breast cancer. As demonstrated in the group’s paper published in Nature Nanotechnology, the proposed strategy…
Packing Insecticides in Tiny Capsules Could Increase their Toxicity
Encasing insecticides in microscopic plastic capsules—a common formulation for many pest sprays on the market—could lead to unintended consequences, according to a new study from Oregon State University. Environmental toxicologist Stacey Harper and her team found that a common insecticide in its “capsule suspension” formulation—with molecules of the active ingredient encapsulated in tiny, inert plastic…
Using Nanotechnology, Researchers Inject Genes Into Plants to Fight Off Droughts, Fungal Infections
External factors can limit crop growth and harvest yields for farmers. Now, a team led by researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has created a genetic tool that uses nanoparticles to deliver genes into the chloroplasts of plant cells, engineering plants to survive droughts and resist fungal infections. The new technique offers plant…
Quantum Optical Micro-Combs Enable Quantum Breakthroughs
Compact quantum devices could be incorporated into laptops and mobile phones, thanks in part to small devices called quantum optical micro-combs. Quantum optical micro-combs are devices that generate very sharp precise frequencies of light an equal distance apart—a bit like the teeth of a comb. They can enable ultrafast processes and could be an important…
Liquid’s Structure Holds Secret to Metallic Glass
Researchers have found that liquid has structure in certain circumstances, and that this structure significantly influences the mysterious and complex formation of metallic glasses. Moldable like plastic but strong like metal, metallic glasses are a relatively new class of materials made from complex, multicomponent alloys. Their unique properties come from how their atoms settle into…
Vitamin C Aids in Nanowire Growth
A team from Rice University has discovered how to transform small gold nanorods into fine gold nanowires with just a small dose of vitamin C. “There’s no novelty per se in using vitamin C to make gold nanostructures because there are many previous examples,” Rice chemist Eugene Zubarev said in a statement. “But the slow…
Nanopore Sensing Detects Particle Changes in Real Time
Researchers in Virginia Commonwealth University’s Department of Physics have discovered that a technique known as nanopore sensing can be used to detect subtle changes in clusters, or extremely small chunks of matter that are bigger than a molecule but smaller than a solid. “Nanopores act as extremely small volume sensors that are on the order…
New Strategy Utilizes ‘Butterfly-Shaped’ Palladium Subnano Clusters
Miniaturization is the watchword of progress. Nanoscience, studying structures on the scale of a few atoms, has been at the forefront of chemistry for some time now. Recently, researchers at the University of Tokyo developed the new strategy to construct sub-nanosized metal aggregates, building up small metal clusters into grander 3-D architectures. Their creations could…
Nanopores Enable Portable Mass Spectrometers for Peptides
Scientists of the University of Groningen have developed nanopores that can be used to directly measure the mass of peptides. Although the resolution needs to be improved, this proof of principle shows that a cheap and portable peptide mass spectrometer can be constructed using existing nanopore technology and the patented pores that were developed in…
Anti-Bacterial Coating Depends on Shape-Changing Element
A University of Canterbury research team is another step closer to developing germ-proof surface coatings for environments such as hospitals, after an unexpected development in the lab. Once commercially available, an anti-microbial coating applied to high-traffic surfaces, such as door handles, will help minimize infections that spread within hospitals. Research lead UC Professor Susan Krumdieck…
Revolutionary Technique Quickly Analyzes Nanomeds for Cancer Immunotherapy
With their ability to treat a wide a variety of diseases, spherical nucleic acids (SNAs) are poised to revolutionize medicine. But before these digitally designed nanostructures can reach their full potential, researchers need to optimize their various components. A Northwestern University team led by nanotechnology pioneer Chad A. Mirkin has developed a direct route to…