Read more
another blood sucker
Tape, glue, staples. No not a variation on rock, paper, scissors, this is the way that doctors hold things in place in your body. Inspired by those fun loving parasites that attach in your digestive organs and hold on while they eat, scientists at Brigham Women's Hospital have engineered tiny needles based upon the way that parasites attach to the intestines. The needles swell when they are exposed to water and then hold on. This approach is 3-5 times better than surgical tape and could be used to attach patches that deliver different medicines. Ouch, it might hurt to remove it though
read more
read more
Posted by Carl Batt at 4/17/2013 01:36:00 PM 0 comments
Does it come in different colors?
Science even when it is serious is kind of funny. Looking at things on the nanometer-scale is a problem and requires very powerful microscopes. Some of these microscopes that use electrons instead of light are able to see very small things but also usually kill anything that it 'sees'. Basically the electron beam dries out the cells and leaves those critters dead. Scientists at the Japan Science and Technology Agency have devised a clever solution---coat the living thing that you want to see in a polymer suit. These nanosuits are made of a polymer and some detergent but it is flexible and protects the critter while it is being zapped with electrons. Because the nanosuit is polymerized right on the critter, it is a nice custom fit. Oh and does it come in colors? of course not because at the nanometer-scale there is no color.
Read more
Read more
Posted by Carl Batt at 4/16/2013 01:04:00 PM 0 comments
Suck it up
Sometimes it is rocket science and other times it isn't. How to get rid of toxic stuff in the blood? Suck it up using nanosponges. Scientists at the University of California in San Diego have made tiny sponges---so small about 3000 can fit into a blood cell. These nanosponges suck up molecules that are toxic because they form pores membranes. Bacteria like E. coli and Staphylococcus produce these toxin and disease like toxic shock syndrome. A bit too soon to get a nanosponge treatment but the idea is exciting.
Read more or for all the details here
Read more or for all the details here
Posted by Carl Batt at 4/16/2013 12:54:00 PM 0 comments
For flying fleas to far off galaxies
Smaller is better, if you are a nanotechnologist. So the challenge is to make things smaller and smaller. Sometimes it is useful, other times it is for fun. Like the smallest American flag, or the smallest space ship! Right a space ship. One printed using a high resolution 3D printer. Scientists at the University of Austria have used a 3D printer to make a tiny space ship (and a tiny race car) using a lithographic printing technique that builds things up on a layer by layer basis. The space ship was about 100,000 nanometers or about the width of a hair. It took only 50 seconds to make. Does it fly? Not on its own but it is still cool to see.
Check out the video
Check out the video
Posted by Carl Batt at 4/03/2013 12:44:00 PM 0 comments
Lighter than a butterfly
Nanotechnology is all about making unique useful materials. Now the worlds lightest material has been recorded. According to these scientists the material a carbon aerogel, if it were the size of a human body it would be less than 0.5 ounces. So light a glob of it can dance on the tip of a flower! Being lightweight isn't always great but it is if the material is strong and durable. This carbon aerogel stuff can also absorb 900 times its weight in liquid. How is it made? The process is more or less the freeze drying of carbon nanotubes and graphene.
Read more
Posted by Carl Batt at 4/03/2013 10:30:00 AM 0 comments
Little blood sucker
Usually if you need to have your blood tested it means going to a doctor's office having some blood drawn and then waiting a while---the blood is sent to a central laboratory and then the results come back in a few days or so. But imagine if you had a gizmo that was inserted under your skin and tested your blood sending out the results wirelessly. 'too much cholesterol, not enough vitamin B!' and then you could eat right or exercise more. Scientists at the EPFL (École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne--a great research institution in Switzerland) have developed a tiny device to do just that. The sensor is very small and it receives its power from another part of the device that is outside of your skin (think how a cordless toothbrush is charged). The results are then sent by Bluetooth to a doctors computer where the results can be interpreted.
Posted by Carl Batt at 3/29/2013 03:20:00 PM 0 comments
Smaller and smaller
What is the smallest thing you can think of? an electron, a quark? Well now what is the smallest thing you can make? The answer is complicated but one thing you can say is that the smallest piece of a hard drive is about 10 nanometers. That is 10-one billionth of a meter. If you take your average hair and slice it along its width 10,000 times you get 10 nanometers. How about the other way of thinking about it....you need only 50 atoms to make something that is 10 nanometers. Engineers at HGST, a part of Western Digital (you might even have one of their hard drives in your computer) have made 10 nanometer magnetic islands which can be used for data storage. Why is this important? It means you can pack much more data in the same size drive. To make these 10 nanometer magnetic islands, the HGST engineers used 'self-assembling' molecules and nanoimprinting techniques.
read more
read more
Posted by Carl Batt at 3/07/2013 02:27:00 PM 0 comments
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)