(Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies) The inability of the Consumer Product Safety Commission to carry out its mandate with respect to simple, low-tech products such as children's jewelry and toy trains bodes poorly for its ability to oversee the safety of complex, high-tech products made using nanotechnology, according to a new report released by the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies.
(University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston) Would you like a lemony watermelon? How about a strawberry-flavored banana? Biochemists at The University of Texas Medical School at Houston say the day may be coming when scientists will be able to fine tune enzymes responsible for flavors in fruits and vegetables. In addition, it could lead to environmentally-friendly pest control.
(University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) Cancer cells are deadly traitors, good cells gone bad. They evade the body's defense systems, passing themselves off as organisms that pose no threat.
(U.S. Environmental Protection Agency) Today, the US Environmental Protection Agency announced the award of a $2 million grant to the University of Kentucky to investigate how the sizes and shapes of nanoparticles affect their ability to enter the brain. This is the largest EPA Science to Achieve Results grant ever awarded to the University of Kentucky as well as the largest single grant ever awarded by EPA STAR for nanotechnology research.
(Purdue University) Engineers have created a tiny motorized positioning device that has twice the dexterity of similar devices being developed for applications that include biological sensors and more compact, powerful computer hard drives.The device, called a monolithic comb drive, might be used as a "nanoscale manipulator" that precisely moves or senses movement and forces.
(Kent State University) A European patent court agrees that Kent State University and Kent Displays own the rights to a flexible liquid crystal display technology invented by professors John West and Deng-Ke Yang. The recent decision is the latest word in a protracted international legal battle.
(University of Michigan) The fastest quantum computer bit that exploits the main advantage of the qubit over the conventional bit has been demonstrated by researchers at University of Michigan, US Naval Research Laboratory and the University of California at San Diego.
(NIH/National Human Genome Research Institute) The National Human Genome Research Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health, today awarded more than $20 million in grants to develop innovative sequencing technologies inexpensive and efficient enough to sequence a person's DNA as a routine part of biomedical research and health care.
(Louisiana State University Health Science Center) New research led by Chu Chen, PhD, Associate Professor of Neuroscience at LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans, provides evidence that one of the only naturally occurring fatty acids in the brain can help to protect brain cells from neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.
(University College London) The semiconductor silicon and the ferromagnet iron are the basis for much of mankind's technology, used in everything from computers to electric motors. In this week's issue of the journal Nature, an international group of researchers from the UK, US and Lesotho, report that they have combined these elements with a small amount of another common metal, manganese, to create a new material which is neither a magnet nor an ordinary semiconductor.
(University of Leicester) An international team of engineers is to develop mission-critical control software for future European robotic space missions.
(Centre for Addiction and Mental Health) The Center for Addiction and Mental Health is proud to announce a landmark investment of $15 million by the Canada Foundation for Innovation. This contribution, the largest individual grant in CAMH's history, kicks off a $38 million project that will enable CAMH to focus on transforming lives across six research themes: schizophrenia, mood disorders, addictions, community health and knowledge exchange, neuroimaging, pharmacogentics and neuroscience.
(Wiley-Blackwell) A famous Neolithic Iceman is dressed in clothes made from sheep and cattle hair, a new study shows. The researchers say their findings support the idea that the Iceman was a herdsman, and that their technique, reported today in the journal Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry, has use in the modern clothing industry.
(Duke University) Duke University chemists have patented an efficient technique for synthesizing a marine algae extract in sufficient quantities to now test its ability to inhibit the growth of cancerous cells while leaving normal cells unaffected.
(Ohio State University) Researchers here have found a way to convert ethanol and other biofuels into hydrogen very efficiently. A new catalyst makes hydrogen from ethanol with 90 percent yield, at a workable temperature, and using inexpensive ingredients. The new catalyst is much less expensive than others being developed around the world, because it does not contain precious metals, such as platinum or rhodium.
(Penn State) The proliferation of solar, wind and even tidal electric generation and the rapid emergence of hybrid electric automobiles demands flexible and reliable methods of high-capacity electrical storage. Now a team of Penn State materials scientists is developing ferroelectric polymer-based capacitors that can deliver power more rapidly and are much lighter than conventional batteries.
(DOE/Brookhaven National Laboratory) Vigabatrin, a medication proposed as a potential treatment for drug addiction by scientists at the US Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory, also leads to rapid weight loss and reduced food intake according to a new animal study from the same research group. The study will be published online Aug. 20, 2008, by the journal Synapse. Vigabatrin is currently undergoing US Food and Drug Administration-approved Phase II clinical trials against cocaine and methamphetamine addiction across the US.
(American Chemical Society) A newly developed medical imaging technology may provide doctors with a long-awaited test for early diagnosis of osteoarthritis, according to researchers. By far the most common form of arthritis, OA causing joint pain and disability for more than half of those over age 65 -- nearly 21 million people in the United States alone, the scientists say. Their study will be presented in August at the American Chemical Society national meeting in Philadelphia.
(American Chemical Society) Chemists are reporting the first identification of a specific "odor profile" for skin cancer, a discovery that could form the basis of a rapid, non-invasive test for diagnosing the most common type of cancer in the United States. The findings may enable doctors in the future to diagnose skin cancer quickly and accurately by waving a handheld scanner or sensor above the skin, they say. Their study will be presented in August at the American Chemical Society national meeting in Philadelphia.
(American Chemical Society) Chemists are reporting a discovery that could expand the palate of human tastes, such as sweet, sour or salty, to include a new flavor that could be called "calcium." Their research will be presented in August at the American Chemical Society national meeting in Philadelphia.
Do you think there are too many scientific papers coming out of China? Think again. As our special focus on China highlights, improvements in quality over quantity are inevitable.
The fast-paced economic development in China needs to be complemented by strong support for fundamental research, particularly in the materials sciences.
Nature Materials spoke to Lu Yongxiang, President of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, on the roles that the academy and its more than 100 research-related institutions have in advancing science and technology in China.
Colloidal nanocrystals randomly turn their photoluminescence off and on under continuous light illumination. Growing thick shells around the crystals can reduce the blinking effect dramatically, with great potential advantage for applications.
The propagation of submillimetre cracks reveals how the numerous internal structural dimensions in bone lead to a toughness that varies with orientation and scale.
The in vivo characteristics of the extracellular matrix, such as biochemical, mechanical and flow properties, are a challenge to mimic in vitro. Now, a three-dimensional hydrogel structure with integrated multiple phases shows promise as such a model.
Biological factors are not the only influence on stem-cell behaviour ? the physics and chemistry of the environment play a part too. The interaction of materials science and stem-cell science brings with it a wealth of opportunities for future therapies.
Controlling simultaneously the electric and thermal properties of materials can lead to very efficient thermoelectric devices. Advances following different routes were highlighted at a recent conference.
Elucidation of the framework structure of zeolites can sometimes prove difficult. The combination of powder diffraction and electron microscopy using a charge-flipping algorithm enables ordered silicon vacancies in a zeolite catalyst to be revealed.
The presence of organic solvents in solar cells has hindered the application of devices, especially in flexible cells. Now, by mixing three solid salts, a solvent-free liquid electrolyte for dye-sensitized solar cells has been discovered that shows both excellent efficiency and stability.
The interfaces between some perovskite oxide insulators show spectacular electronic properties, originating from the formation of an electron gas. The spatial extent of the electron gas is still under debate. Conducting tip atomic force microscopy is now used to show that, depending on the growth conditions, the high-mobility electron gas can extend to hundreds of micrometres or to just a few nanometres from the interface.
The contractile forces of cells can cause extracellular matrices to detach from their surroundings, which is problematic for biological studies and tissue engineering. Now, multiple phases of cell-seeded hydrogels can be integrated using a collagen-fibre-mediated method, resulting in the construction of well-defined and stable patterns of three-dimensional matrices.
Although lithium iron phosphate is a promising electrode material for lithium-ion batteries, its intercalation mechanism remains unclear. Characterization by X-ray diffraction and electron microscopy demonstrates that the lithium deintercalation process occurs as a wave moving through the crystal, and can be described by a domino-cascade model
Developing novel strategies to drive or manipulate the migration of particles in solutions is important for lab-on-a-chip technologies, especially in the context of biological and chemical analysis. A strongly amplified and tunable migration of large particles using a passive transport phenomenon is now reported.
Nanowire lasers have so far consisted of homogeneous semiconductor structures. The achievement of lasing from a multi-quantum-well heterostructure deposited on a nanowire demonstrates a new complexity in nanophotonic devices.
Stimuli-responsive hydrogels show potential as smart materials for drug delivery, however, the triggers used must be applicable in vivo. Now, a hydrogel has been synthesized that contains protein?protein interactions that respond to a specific pharmaceutical drug and enable the hydrogel to controllably release its load of a human growth factor, which increases cell proliferation.
Geometric information on lithium diffusion is crucial to understanding electrode reactions for lithium ion battery applications. Combining high-temperature powder neutron diffraction and the maximum entropy method, experimental evidence for a curved one-dimensional chain for lithium motion in LixFePO4 is now provided.
Precise control over the geometry of nanoscale one-dimensional structures is challenging. Cylindrical polymer brushes have now been used to synthesize organo-silica hybrid nanowires that are not only soluble in water but also in many organic solvents.
The observation of Rabi-oscillations between single and triplet states in an organic light-emitting diode demonstrates the possibility of manipulating the spin states in organic electronic devices. The data also provide direct evidence of very slow spin-dephasing, which should prove crucial for the development of organic spintronics.
Magneto-chiral dichroism is an effect in which unpolarized light is absorbed differently for parallel and antiparallel propagation with respect to an applied magnetic field. Previous observations have only seen a rather weak demonstration of this effect. Following a challenging synthesis, strong magneto-dichroism has now been observed in enantiopure chiral ferromagnets.
In solid-state lighting, phosphors are typically used to complement the blue light of the original emitter to achieve white-light emission. The capability to deposit certain phosphors at much lower temperatures than previously enables their use on organic substrates and opens the door to fabricate large-area white-light emitters.
The scales of a fish are its first level of defence. Now, the multilayered structure of fish scales has been analysed according to its mechanical properties and penetration resistance. This study of the four different layers provides a mechanistic understanding of evolutionary design as well as inspiring new materials for armour protection.
Electrodes exhibiting single-phase lithium insertion processes can be advantageous for storage applications such as lithium-ion batteries. By modifying the particle size and ion ordering of LiFeFO4 electrodes an unprecedented single-phase room-temperature process is observed.
