An answer to mankind's most pressing problem.

Odour tags made by Odegon Technology

Maybe underarm odor isn't the most pressing problem to the planet what with global warming and hunger but it isn't something to be ignored.  Especially when nanotechnology has a solution.  'Odour tags' (the British spelling) are placed in garments and supposed to stay there forever.  So where is the nano?  In the nanoporous activated carbon that is in the pads.  They soak up the stink by the stinking chemical binding to the carbon through very weak but effective bonds,  leaving you odor (or odour)-free.   The company that makes them claims they can be washed or dried so I suppose you can get one for every shirt you have.  Activated carbon isn't new, it was discovered by the British Ministry of Defence (aka Defense) in the 1940's for use in gas masks.  Maybe instead of odour tags we could all just wear gas masks.

DO NOT SMOKE

Artificial windpipe

Well that is the most important thing. Smoking kills.  But if you are shopping for a new windpipe nanotechnology has the answer.  Doctors at University College London have developed a synthetic nanometer-scale material that can be fashioned into a windpipe.  Not to be content with making another piece of synthetic tubing, it was transplanted into a patient in Sweden.  First doctors took a 3D scans of the patient's windpipe and used that to create a new artificial one.  The nanomaterial was designed to attract cells that were taken from the patient's bone marrow.  Then the whole thing was reinserted into back into the patient.  As of about a month ago the patient was doing well returning to his home country of Eritrea.  To be honest I don't know what the cause of his cancer was, but still do not smoke.

Makes sense to me

UC tiny heavy metal sensor

Sensors, sensors everywhere and not a drop to drink.  So what good is a really rapid sensor if you have send the sample to the laboratory to be tested.  Researchers at the University of Cincinnati have developed a sensor to detect heavy metals in humans.  Why?  well heavy metals are found in the soil and other places and sometimes they find their way into your bodies.  This is a special problem in young kids where heavy metals can cause all sorts of problems.  The sensor works with just a small drop of blood and a set of electrodes.  The metal is bound to the sensor and then stripped off by changing the voltage.  It is kind of like the way we electroplate metals on to different things like car bumpers only on a nanometer-scale

Keeping the world safe

Scientists at Cornell University have developed a suitcase sized detector for anthrax.  Work done by Nate Cady who is now a professor at University of Albany began almost seven years ago when he first set out to make a lab on a chip that could extract DNA and then inspect it for different kinds of deadly bugs.  That chip was less than a postage stamp in size.  From there it was a matter of getting all the other stuff into a suitcase that you might be able to lug around to detect anthrax (or Salmonella or anything).  The biggest pain was making pumps that could move around liquids.  "while we are really good at making nanometer-scale electronics, we aren't so good at making things to pump liquids".

nano money

Gucci pocketbooks, Rolex watches and banknotes. What do they all have in common? They have value and there are a lot of fake ones around. In the US over the past couple of years, there are new banknotes that have things in them to reduce the problems of counterfeiting. Now some scientists at Simon Fraser University in Canada are trying to use nanotechnology to prevent bad guys from counterfeiting money. Their inspiration is the blue morpho butterfly which has a cool iridescent blue color. The color is produced when light reflects off the surface---a surface that has nanoscale features which diffract only a narrow spectrum of light. No color pigment that can be copied but only features that can be fabricated into the banknote. Some day these things to prevent counterfeiters could be used in a lot of different kinds of objects.

Start your engines

The impact of nanotechnology on all parts of our lives is growing. And people are worried about how things might change. There are all sorts of rules for things like professional cycling and automobile racing. Mostly stuff like what you can make bicycles and race cares out of. Weight is really important because the less something weighs the easier it is to move around. So it isn't surprising that lots of meetings will be held to talk about this. One at Cranfield University will focus on what race cars are made of and how that might important for the rules about racing. Carbon nanotubes are strong and lightweight. So putting them into all sorts of stuff like the chasis of a car can help make race cars faster.  But along the way many are interested in making sure there are rules to keep them safe.

Just like Mother Nature

Sea urchins that could be a new kind of solar cell

Sometimes the answer lies with a very simple observation. In this case scientists in Switzerland have looked for solar cell designs by peering into the oceans. Sea urchins have a a very high surface area because they are rough. If you look closely the roughness is a very regular structure that is repeating. Using sea urchins as a design these scientists made similar structures from polystyrene and used them to mold nanowires. The array of wires are able to efficiently absorb sunlight more efficiently.
http://www.empa.ch/

Forget about the TV, remote control the worm

Every want to have a little critter that you could direct like a remote control car?  Scientists at the University of Buffalo have put tiny nanoparticles into the worm Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans because nobody wants to pronounce "Caenorhabditis").  These particles can heat up different parts of the worm and cause them to recoil.  The localized heating opens channels that permit calcium to flow into the cells and that causes the worms to react.

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