From: Gina Miller (nanogirl@halcyon.com)
Date: Wed Mar 20 2002 - 23:27:40 MST
The Nanogirl News
March 20, 2002
Nanotubes are Hot, and might be made to act like tiny filamentary
light bulbs, a nanometric equivalent of the carbon filament light
sources of a hundred years ago. A group of physicists at the
University of Claude Bernard in Lyon, France sends currents through
carbon nanotubes. The electrons, when they arrive at the end of the
tube will, if the voltage is high enough, fly forward toward an
anode. Such a "field emission" (FE) effect could someday be a
component in flat-panel displays.(Physical Review Focus 3/13/02)
http://www.aip.org/enews/physnews/2002/split/580-2.html
US Army seeks nanotech suits. A new Institute for Soldier
Nanotechnologies was created on Wednesday at MIT, with a US Army
grant of $50 million over five years. The institute has a remit to
produce fabrics that can morph to improve camouflage, stiffen to
provide splints for broken limbs and store energy that can be tapped
later to increase the wearer's strength.
NewScientist (3/14/02)
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992043
Adaptable Nanotubes Make Way for Custom-Built Structures. Tiny
self-assembled tubes, about 1/1,000th the width of a grain of sand,
may now be used as a scaffold to custom-build molecular wires and
other components for use in nanometer-sized electronic devices.
Purdue University (03/12/2002)
http://news.uns.purdue.edu/UNS/html4ever/020311.Fenniri.scaffold.html
Luke P. Lee, assistant professor of bioengineering at UC Berkeley,
and his doctoral student Sunghoon Kwon have developed a miniature
microlens and scanner that can see inside of a cell. "You could put
this device on the tip of an endoscope that could be guided inside a
cancer patient," said Lee. "Doctors could then see how tumor cells
behave in vivo. It would also be feasible to deliver drugs directly
to the tumor cell, and then view how the cell responds to the drugs."
Berkeley Campus news site (3/13/02)
http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2002/03/13_micro.html
Purdue to help NASA create life-supporting ecosystem in space. The
National Aeronautics and Space Administration announced today
(Tuesday, 3/12) that Purdue University will head a center to develop
"advanced life support" technologies for sustaining human colonies on
Mars and elsewhere in space. Purdue News (March 12, 2002)
http://news.uns.purdue.edu/UNS/html4ever/020312.Mitchell.NASAcenter.html
A next-generation configurable circuit architecture is being proposed
by a group of designers at startup Cell Matrix Corp. The company is
building small prototype chips based on the concept.
The architecture goes beyond basic FPGAs by building arrays of
"cells" rather than simply reconfigurable gates. Each cell has a
small amount of logic and local memory and communicates with its
nearest neighbor. EE Times 3/19/02
http://www.eet.com/at/news/OEG20020319S0029
The University of Missouri-Columbia's recent discovery of a carbon
material could become a new fuel alternative for the next generation.
MU physicist Peter Pfeifer believes thisnew material could relieve us
of our dependence on foreign fuel and sees a commercially viable
carbon nanopore storage product on the market within five years.
See University of Missouri website (03/14/02):
http://www.missouri.edu/%7Enews/releases/carbonnanopores.html
Entropy Gives DNA a Shove. Snaking Around. Long, ropelike DNA
molecules maximize their entropy by slithering free of a confining
forest of small pegs. DNA isn't just for cloning sheep. The stringy
stuff also ideally illustrates the effects of entropy, the elusive
thermodynamic property that reflects disorder. In the 25 March issue
of PRL, physicists have demonstrated its newest entropic trick: an
elongated DNA molecule squirts from a confined space into an open one
under the propulsion of entropy alone.
Phys. Rev. Lett. Print issue 3/25/02
http://focus.aps.org/v9/st15.html
Nano-Newt!No longer a partisan crusader, Newt Gingrich's new causes
are nanotechnology, homeland security, and science education. He
came, he saw, he conquered--almost. Ever since Newt Gingrich left his
post as Speaker of the House of Representatives in November 1998,
this Baby Face Nelson with gray hair and a paunch who rubbed out the
Democratic majority in Congress for the first time in 40 years, led
the Republican revolution as chief architect of the sanctified
Contract With America, and was Time's Man of the Year has been
conspicuously absent from public life.
Redherring (3/18/02)
http://www.redherring.com/insider/2002/0318/2002.html
G-quartet biomolecular nanowires (to be published in Applied Physics
Letters (2002)) The authors present a first-principle investigation
of quadruple helix nanowires, consisting of stacked planar
hydrogen-bonded guanine tetramers. Our results show that long wires
form and are stable in potassium-rich conditions. We present their
electronic bandstructure and discuss the interpretation in terms of
effective wide-bandgap semiconductors. The microscopic structural and
electronic properties of the guanine quadruple helices make them
suitable candidates for molecular nanoelectronics. (March 18, 2002)
http://www.arxiv.org/abs/cond-mat/0203139
Japanese Companies Getting Ready To Churn Out Nanotubes By The Ton.
Nanomaterials will be the first big market for nanotechnology, and
several Japanese companies are positioning themselves to become bulk
suppliers. A dramatic increase in the world supply of fullerenes and
carbon nanotubes, and a corresponding drop in their price, will
encourage potential applications in thermal barrier coating, lithium
ion batteries, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, gas storage and deposition
of diamond films, said Hideki Murayama, vice president and head of
Frontier Carbon Corp. (FCC). Smalltimes (3/13/02)
http://www.smalltimes.com/document_display.cfm?document_id=3258
Swedes Take The Lead In Nano Thread Semiconductors. Europe is one
step ahead of the US in the development of a new type of
semiconductor structure consisting of incredibly thin nano threads.
A Swedish team headed by Professor Lars Samuelson at the LTH, the
Lund Institute of Technology, Lund University, has taken the lead in
this field of research. "In nano threads, we can combine
semiconductor materials that no one has previously been able to grow.
This results in entirely new electrical properties: a single electron
can be monitored and made to run a unidimensional electronic
steeplechase," says Professor Samuelson.
Unisci 3/1/02
http://unisci.com/stories/20021/0301025.htm
Shimadzu to create DNA mapper with nanotechnology.
Precision-equipment maker Shimadzu Corp. said Monday it will begin
developing a next-generation DNA-mapping device by using
nanotechnology.Very small article: The Japan Times (3/19/02)
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nb20020319b1.htm
Turning Diatoms Into Nanodevices. Tiny shells can be engineered into
a variety of minute devices, claims a team of scientists. The team
has demonstrated a way to transform the silicon dioxide shells of
diatoms, one-celled algae, into magnesium oxide. The trick could lead
to miniature sensors, drug-delivery capsules, and other devices.
inScight (3/18/02)
http://www.academicpress.com/inscight/03182002/grapha.htm
The Physics of Time Travel. Start with a Black Hole ...
The physical possibility of time traveL is something of a catch-22.
Any object that's surrounded by the twisted space-time that time
travel requires must by its very nature be fantastically perilous, a
maelstrom that would inevitably tear apart the foolhardy traveler. So
physicists have labored to create a theoretically acceptable time
machine that's free from nasty side effects like certain death. Their
starting point: black holes.
Popular Science
http://www.popsci.com/popsci/science/article/0,12543,211498,00.html
Nanoelectronics road-map cut in half. The roadmap for the
introduction of commercial nanoelectronics has been halved by one of
Europe's main specialist consultancies. CMP Científica says that
devices could reach the wider market within three to seven years,
against a previously estimated 10 to 15 years. Its latest research
also suggests that the UK is one of the leaders in the European
nanotechnology market.
EE Times (3/20/02)
http://www.eet.com/at/news/OEG20020315S0015
South Korea will invest $150 Million (203 billion won) in
nanotechnology this year, according to recent statements made by the
Ministry of Science and Technology. This is a 98 percent increase
over the amount spent for nanotechnology in 2001 by the Ministry.
Nanotech Planet (3/19/02)
http://www.nanotech-planet.com/briefs/article/0,4028,6551_994831,00.html
ALTAIR NANOTECHNOLOGIES And NTERA File Joint Patent. NTera and Altair
believe that low cost nanostructured batteries will make hybrid
electric power a realistic alternative to the internal combustion
engine for vehicles and will have a significant affect on the ongoing
development within the hybrid automobile industry. Altair website
(3/19/02)
http://www.altairint.com/News/2000/2000.html
Cornell researchers turn "plumber's nightmare" into flexible ceramic
material with potentially wide applications. Using nanoscale
chemistry, researchers at Cornell University have developed a new
class of hybrid materials that they describe as flexible ceramics.
The new materials appear to have wide applications, from
microelectronics to separating macromolecules, such as proteins.
What is particularly striking, even to the researchers themselves, is
that under the transmission electron microscope (TEM) the molecular
structure of the new material -- known as a cubic bicontinuous
structure -- conforms to century-old mathematical predictions. "We in
polymer research are now finding structures that mathematicians
theorized long ago should exist," says Ulrich Wiesner, associate
professor of materials science and engineering at Cornell.
Cornell (3/18/02)
http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/March02/Wiesner.materials.deb.html
Gina "Nanogirl" Miller
Nanotechnology Industries
http://www.nanoindustries.com
Personal: http://www.nanogirl.com
Foresight Senior Associate
nanogirl@halcyon.com
"Nanotechnology: Solutions for the future."
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