X-Message-Number: 22191 From: "Gina Miller" <> Subject: The Nanogirl News~ Date: Sat, 12 Jul 2003 19:32:04 -0700 The Nanogirl News July 12, 2003 Nanotechnology Group to Address Safety Concerns. The NanoBusiness Alliance, a trade group for businesses at work on nanotechnology, plans to announce a new task force today to address health and environmental concerns that could be associated with microscopic nano-scale products. "We haven't seen anything yet that really scared anyone," said Mark Modzelewski, executive director of the group. But, Mr. Modzelewski said, many members of the group had decided, in light of growing speculation about potential dangers posed by nanotechnology, that they wanted a forum for sharing research and developing better public explanations of the issues. Eventually, he said, the group might commission studies at independent institutions like Rice University's Center for Biological and Environmental Nanotechnology and develop standards for the production or disposal of nanotech products. (The New York Times 7/7/03) http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/07/business/07NANO.html?ex=1058587200&en=5b87 bb385574eb71&ei=5040&partner=MOREOVER Machines that Reproduce May be Reality. Can machines reproduce? More importantly, perhaps -- should they be allowed to? In a recent issue of the journal Artificial Life, a group of Canadian researchers says yes despite warnings to the contrary -- most notably from author Michael Crichton in his new book "Prey," about self-replicating nanobots run amok. To prove their point, the researchers have created a primordial soup that works like a digital DNA factory, where T-shaped "codons" swim in a computer-generated virtual liquid forming single, double, and even triple strands. Like DNA, these digital particles "can be assembled into patterns that encode" information, claims robotics scientist Peter Turney in a new paper. For the first time ever, "we demonstrate that, if an arbitrary seed pattern is put in a soup of separate individual particles, the pattern will replicate by assembling the individual particles into copies of itself." (NewsFactor SciTech 7/10/03) http://sci.newsfactor.com/perl/story/21893.html Nanotechnology may create new organs. Scientists have built a minute, functioning vascular system - the branching network of blood vessels which supply nutrients and oxygen to tissues - in a significant step towards building whole organs. Conventional tissue engineering methods have successfully grown structural tissues such as skin and cartilage in the lab. But not being able to create the supporting vascular system has proved a major stumbling block preventing scientists from creating large functioning organs such as liver or kidneys. Now, researchers from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard Medical School have used computers to design branching networks of venous and arterial capillaries, which start at three millimetres wide and reach a fineness of just 10 microns. (New Scientist 7/8/03) http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99993916 Toward closure: An Open Letter From K. Eric Drexler to Prof. Richard Smalley - Part II. (Nanotechnology Now 7/2/03) http://nanotech-now.com/Drexler-open-letter-II.htm (Site includes VIDEO 1min. 17 sec Quicktime or Realmedia) Gripping Stuff. How'd you like to have shoes or gloves that let you cling to skyscrapers, just like Spider-Man? As this ScienCentral News video reports, nanotechnologists are working on adhesive that could help you match Spidey's feats. Stick-to-it-iveness. At the University of Manchester in England, physicist Andre Geim was looking for a scientific demonstration that would intrigue schoolchildren. He and his research team at the new Centre for Mesoscience and Nanotechnology had read about the work of biologists Robert Full at the University of California Berkeley and Kellar Autumn at Lewis and Clark College. Full, Autumn and their colleagues have been studying geckos, swift and agile lizards that defy gravity with their ability to race up smooth, slippery walls and cling upside down by a single toe. (ScienCentral 7/10/03) http://www.sciencentral.com/articles/view.php3?language=english&type=article &article_id=218392004 Rice University scientist wins $3 million grant. Team using nanotechnology on cancer. A Rice University scientist who has been using nanotechnology to battle cancer has won a $3 million grant from the Department of Defense. Naomi Halas won the department's Innovator Award, which will help fund her team's research into developing harmless means of detecting and destroying tumors. The award, given by the department's Breast Cancer Research Program, is designed to encourage creativity in developing cancer treatments. Halas and colleague Jennifer West are using nanoshells, a specially designed core of material with a thin metal shell that's a little larger than a molecule. (Houston Chronicle 7/10/03) http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/metropolitan/1989586 DNA Works As Nanotube Sorter. You think it's hard keeping your tube socks organized? Try sorting carbon nanotubes, those remarkable molecules whose electrical properties make them potential building blocks for everything from ultrasensitive diagnostic devices to transistors 100 times smaller than those in today's fastest microchips. Trouble is, when nanotubes are fabricated, they're a mixed bag; some are electricity conductors, while others are semiconductors. Since a number of practical electronics applications demand nanotubes of uniform conductivity, sorting technologies are needed. Researchers at DuPont in Wilmington, DE, say they're beginning to solve the problem using another remarkable molecule: DNA. The results are literally visible. A pink-colored vial of nanotubes in solution contains highly conducting nanotubes; other vials, with greenish hues, hold semiconducting ones. (SmallTimes 7/10/03) http://www.smalltimes.com/document_display.cfm?document_id=6341 Japanese government and industry have teamed up to develop a supercomputer founded on smaller computers linked around the country...The Naregi (National Research Grid Initiative) plan hopes to create a supercomputer rated at 100 teraflops by 2007. The fastest computer today, Japan's NEC Earth Simulator, runs at 36 teraflops. The Naregi plan will seek to develop better software that will operate in the top and middle layer of the grid while harnessing the power of the linked computers to run nanotechnology simulations, according to a report in Nikkei Business News. (ZDNet 7/11/03) http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t271-s2137400,00.html Finally, a purpose for nanotech to turn on average Joe: Big-screen TVs. For a decade, scientists in prestigious labs worldwide have sweated over nanotechnology. They've worked at the outer edges of human knowledge, employing room-size, multimillion-dollar contraptions to try to create structures one-billionth of a meter across - the size of three or four atoms. And at last they have revealed a major outcome of this research - a product of magnificent importance to worldwide peace and happiness, not to mention the viewing of football games. That would be: big-screen TVs. Better: CHEAP big-screen TVs. (USAToday 7/8.03) http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/technology/maney/2003-07-08-maney_x .htm Molecular motor goes round in circles. Scientists from the University of Edinburgh, UK, and the University of Bologna, Italy, claim to have made the first artificial rotary motor from molecular components that are not chemically bonded to each other. The mechanically interlocked molecular motor is less than 4 nm wide. "Others have said it's the most sophisticated artificial molecular 'machine' to date," Dave Leigh of the University of Edinburgh told nanotechweb.org. "This is the first example of the control of directionality of motion in an interlocked molecule or any synthetic hydrogen-bonded structure." (nanotechweb 7/11/03) http://www.nanotechweb.org/articles/news/2/7/9/1 Researchers Develop Technique That Could Open Doors To Faster Nanotech Commercialization Berkeley - Engineers at the University of California, Berkeley, have found an innovative way to grow silicon nanowires and carbon nanotubes directly on microstructures in a room temperature chamber, opening the doors to cheaper and faster commercialization of a myriad of nanotechnology-based devices. The researchers were able to precisely localize the extreme heat necessary for nanowire and nanotube growth, protecting the sensitive microelectronics - which remained at room temperature - just a few micrometers away, or about one-tenth the diameter of a strand of human hair. (ScienceDaily 6/24/03) http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/06/030624085134.htm Little wonders of micro-medicine. Engineering at a scale of millionths of a metre could build human organs such as livers and kidneys - and create a "smart" artificial knee which would know when it had become infected, researchers said yesterday. A team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology told an American Society for Microbiology conference in New York that the kind of nanotechnology used to etch the surfaces of a silicon chip could make layers of liver or kidney cells and create a network of microscopic tubes which could deliver oxygen and nutrients to them. "Our microfabricated devices can efficiently supply oxygen and nutrients to sustain the viability of human liver and kidney cells for at least one week in the lab," Mohammad Kaazempur-Mofrad told the conference on micro, bio and nano systems. "So far we have succeeded in making individual, functioning units but the ultimate goal is to make whole functioning organs." (Guardian Unlimited 7/9/03) http://www.guardian.co.uk/medicine/story/0,11381,994482,00.html Artificial hip that 'thinks' on its own. An "intelligent" artificial hip that recognizes when it becomes infected and treats itself, could become a reality. Researchers in the US have already started work on a new generation of "smart" joint replacements using the latest advances in nanotechnology. The aim is to produce a hip or knee implant that not only detects infection, but treats itself with antibacterial drugs and informs the patient's doctor. A group of clinicians, microbiologists and electrical engineers have teamed up to undertake the project. (Ananova 7/9/03) http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_797933.html?menu=news.technology UCLA Physicists Create Single Molecule Nanoscale Sensor; Possible Applications for Medicine, Biotechnology, Detecting Biological Weapons. UCLA physicists have created a first-of-its-kind nanoscale sensor using a single molecule less than 20 nanometers long - more than 1,000 times smaller than the thickness of a human hair - the team reports in the June 24 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The nano molecular sensor could help with early diagnosis of genetic diseases, and have numerous other applications for medicine, biotechnology and other fields, said Giovanni Zocchi, assistant professor of physics at UCLA, member of the California NanoSystems Institute and leader of the research team. (UCLA News 6/19/03) http://newsroom.ucla.edu/page.asp?id=4306 New Way to Control the Motion of Tiny Particles. Nanotechnology researchers may soon be able to design new types of tiny shuttles or conveyor belts which could be used to deliver medications to specific cells or to replace wires in molecular-sized electronic devices. An international team of investigators, including a physicist from the University of Michigan, has devised a method that could help researchers with one of the most challenging problems in nanotechnology: controlling the motion of tiny particles, both in artificial nanodevices and biological systems such as ion channels in cell membranes. (Newswise 6/19/03) http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/?id=36282 Music of the Spheres. A violin string vibrates at many frequencies simultaneously, but all the frequencies are simple multiples of the pitch we hear. Bang a solid sphere with a mallet and you get a far more complicated set of vibrations--so complicated that they have never been directly identified in an experiment. In the 27 June PRL, researchers take up state-of-the-art methods, scattering laser light off silica nanospheres, to verify a century-old theoretical prediction of these vibrations. They identify the frequencies associated with both twisting and bulging motions, a result made possible by the uniformity of the tiny spheres they studied. (Physical Review Focus 6/26/03) http://focus.aps.org/story/v11/st29 Chipping Away at Hardness. Predicting the hardness of materials based on their atomic structure has often been like trying to scratch diamond with chalk. A characteristic of atomic bonds called ionicity seems to be associated with hardness, and now in the 4 July PRL a team comes up with an explicit formula for hardness based on this property. It successfully predicts the hardness for several materials, including a recently-synthesized superhard material. The result could help establish a microscopic model of hardness and aid in the hunt for new superhard compounds. (Physical Review Focus 7/9/03) http://focus.aps.org/story/v12/st1 Nanocrystals double up. Magnetic nanocrystals and semiconductor quantum dots can self-assemble into 'metamaterials' that could be useful in a range of applications, experiments in the US have shown. Franz Redl at the IBM TJ Watson Research Center in New York and colleagues at IBM, Columbia University and the University of New Orleans made the new materials with lead-selenium semiconductor quantum dots and iron oxide magnetic nanocrystals. (Physicsweb 6/26/03) http://physicsweb.org/article/news/7/6/18 IBM: http://www.research.ibm.com/resources/news/20030625_assembly.shtml Ionic Liquids Go Bucky. Carbon nanotube-ionic liquid gels yield potentially useful new materials. Carbon nanotubes and room-temperature ionic liquids can be blended to form gels that may be used to make novel electronic devices, coating materials, and antistatic materials, according to researchers in Japan. University of Tokyo chemistry professor Takuzo Aida, researcher Takanori Fukushima, and coworkers prepare the "bucky gel" materials by grinding suspensions of high-purity single-walled carbon nanotubes in imidazolium cation-based ionic liquids in an agate mortar [Science, 300, 2072 (2003)]. The researchers then use a centrifuge to separate excess ionic liquid from the desired black, viscous gel. (C&E 6/30/03) http://pubs.acs.org/cen/topstory/8126/8126notw6.html Nano Toolbox Gains Carbon Cones. Researchers from the University of Louisville and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have come up with a useful twist on carbon nanotubes. Their nano pipettes grow thicker at one end to form microscopic cones that have central channels. Carbon nanotubes are ready-made, strong, electrically useful microscopic tubes that form naturally in soot from sheets of carbon atoms. Nanopipettes could eventually deliver tiny amounts of fluids under the skin, sense chemicals at very specific locations, form electrodes for retinal stimulation, and be tips for atomic force, scanning tunneling, and near-field scanning optical microscopes. (Technology Review 7/8/03) http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/rnb_070803.asp Chinese Researchers Ready To 'Bring Nano Bones to the World'. For the past six years, Cui had been developing a new method of healing broken bones using nanotechnology. But with the threat of SARS lurking, he had to stop his experiments in late April. Hospitals where clinical trials on the new technology were being held were sealed off, making it impossible for Cui's doctors to see patients. One clinical patient even came down with SARS and couldn't undergo surgery to have the "nano bone" implanted. Fortunately for Cui, the threat of SARS has waned in China. After being halted for a month, experiments are once again being conducted and clinical trials are proceeding. Cui and his team of researchers have successfully implanted nano bones in dozens of patients and he hopes that the technology will be commercialized soon. (Small Times 7/1/03) http://www.smalltimes.com/document_display.cfm?document_id=6300 I hope you all had a wonderful fourth of July. Gina "Nanogirl" Miller Nanotechnology Industries http://www.nanoindustries.com Personal: http://www.nanogirl.com Foresight Senior Associate http://www.foresight.org Extropy member http://www.extropy.org "Nanotechnology: Solutions for the future." Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=22191