Summaries | Headlines

Buckyballs To Fight Allergy? (June 21, 2007) -- A research team has identified a new biological function for a soccer ball-shaped nanoparticle called a buckyball -- the ability to block allergic response, setting the stage for the development of ... > full story

High-performing Room-temperature Nanolaser Uses Honeycomb-like Photonic Crystal (June 21, 2007) -- Scientists have built a highly efficient room-temperature nanometer-scale laser that produces stable, continuous streams of near-infrared laser ... > full story

Nanotube Adhesive Sticks Better Than A Gecko's Foot (June 20, 2007) -- Mimicking the agile gecko, with its uncanny ability to run up walls and across ceilings, has long been a goal of materials scientists. Researchers have now taken one sticky step in the right ... > full story

Clean Energy: Carbon Nanohorns For The Storage Of Hydrogen (June 19, 2007) -- Hydrogen would be the ideal candidate to replace fossil fuels if only it wasn't so difficult to store it safely. Researchers have now discovered a storage solution which is both efficient and cheap: ... > full story

Nanoparticle Offers Promise For Treating Glaucoma (June 19, 2007) -- A new nanoparticle can safely get past the blood-brain barrier, making it a nontoxic tool in treatment for ... > full story

Nanoparticles Unlock The Future Of Superalloy Metals (June 18, 2007) -- As part of Sandia's nanoscale research, a group of experts specializing in inorganic synthesis and characterization, modeling, and radiation science have designed a radical system of experiments to ... > full story

Nanotechnology Study Could Impact Noninvasive Treatment Of Cancer Tumors (June 18, 2007) -- Scientists started out investigating the complex effects of nanoparticles on cell freezing, according to an article in the journal Nanotechnology. The results of their study -- while not what they ... > full story

Pollution Controls In Nature: Proteins Sweep Up Nanoparticles (June 18, 2007) -- Here's a pollution-control tip from nature: Deep inside a flooded mine in Wisconsin, scientists have discovered a world in which bacteria emit proteins that sweep up metal nanoparticles into immobile ... > full story

Bacteria Ferry Nanoparticles Into Cells For Early Diagnosis, Treatment (June 15, 2007) -- Researchers have shown that common bacteria can deliver a valuable cargo of "smart nanoparticles" into a cell to precisely position sensors, drugs or DNA for the early diagnosis and treatment of ... > full story

Nano Technique Allows Precise Injection Of Living Cells (June 15, 2007) -- Specialized pulsed lasers have been used to inject individual cells with a variety of materials, but little is known about how this type of injection might affect living cells. For the first time, ... > full story

Brightening Prospects Of Using Fluorescent Nanotubes In Medical Applications (June 11, 2007) -- Researchers have removed an obstacle that has restricted fluorescent nanotubes from a variety of medical applications, including anti-cancer treatments. They describe a method that can successfully ... > full story

Silicon Nanowires Upgrade Data-storage Technology (June 11, 2007) -- Scientists have fabricated a memory device that combines silicon nanowires with a more traditional type of data-storage. Their hybrid structure may be more reliable than other nanowire-based memory ... > full story

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Nanomedicine -- Nanomedicine is the medical application of nanotechnology and related research. It covers areas such as nanoparticle drug delivery and possible future applications of molecular nanotechnology (MNT) ... > full article

Nanowire -- A nanowire is a wire of dimensions of the order of a nanometer (10⁻⁹ meters). Alternatively, nanowires can be defined as structures that have a lateral size constrained to tens of ... > full article

Nanorobotics -- Nanorobotics is the technology of creating machines or robots at or close to the scale of a nanometre (10^-9 metres). More specifically, nanorobotics refers to the still largely theoretical ... > full article

Nanoparticle -- A nanoparticle is a microscopic particle whose size is measured in nanometres (nm). It is defined as a particle with at least one dimension <100nm. Nanoparticles made of semiconducting material may ... > full article

Carbon nanotube -- Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are an allotrope of carbon. They take the form of cylindrical carbon molecules and have novel properties that make them potentially useful in a wide variety of applications in ... > full article

Fullerene -- The fullerenes, discovered in 1985 by researchers at Rice University, are a family of carbon allotropes named after Buckminster Fuller. They are molecules composed entirely of carbon, in the form of ... > full article

Quantum dot -- A quantum dot, also called a semiconductor nanocrystal, is a semiconductor crystal whose size is on the order of just a few nanometers. At 10 nanometers in diameter, nearly 3 million quantum dots ... > full article

Materials science -- Materials science is an interdisciplinary field involving the properties of matter and its applications to various areas of science and engineering. It includes elements of applied physics and ... > full article

Mechanical engineering -- Mechanical engineering is a very broad field of engineering that involves the application of physical principles for analysis, design, manufacturing, and maintenance of mechanical ... > full article

Scanning tunneling microscope -- The scanning tunneling microscope or STM, was invented in 1981 by Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer of IBM's Zurich Lab in Zurich, Switzerland. t is used to obtain images of conductive surfaces at an ... > full article

Carbon -- Carbon is a chemical element in the periodic table that has the symbol C and atomic number 6. Carbon occurs in all organic life and is the basis of organic chemistry. This nonmetal also has the ... > full article

Tensile strength -- Tensile strength measures the force required to pull something such as rope, wire, or a structural beam to the point where it breaks. The tensile strength of a material is the maximum amount of ... > full article

Silicon -- Silicon is the chemical element in the periodic table that has the symbol Si and atomic number 14. A tetravalent metalloid, silicon is less reactive than its chemical analog carbon. It is the second ... > full article

Metallurgy -- Metallurgy is a domain of materials science and of materials engineering that studies the physical and chemical behavior of metallic elements and their mixtures, which are called ... > full article

Electron microscope -- The electron microscope is a type of microscope that uses electrons to create an image of the target. It has much higher magnification or resolving power than a normal light microscope. Although ... > full article

Machine -- A machine is any mechanical or organic device that transmits or modifies energy to perform or assist in the performance of tasks. It normally requires some energy source and accomplishes some sort of ... > full article

Molecule -- In general, a molecule is the smallest particle of a pure chemical substance that still retains its composition and chemical properties. In chemistry and molecular sciences, a molecule is a ... > full article

Space elevator -- A space elevator is a theoretical structure designed to transport material from a planet's surface into space. Many different types of space elevators have been proposed. They all share the goal of ... > full article

Chemical compound -- A chemical compound is a chemical substance consisting of two or more different chemically bonded chemical elements, with a fixed ratio determining the composition. The ratio of each element is ... > full article

Chemistry -- Chemistry is the science that deals with the properties of organic and inorganic substances and their interactions with other organic and inorganic substances. In the study of matter, chemistry also ... > full article