~Nanogirl New~ (with everything nano on the top-of course!) Nov 13, 99
*FEED magazine has an article on nanotechnology. "Thinking Small." Mark
Pesce (co-inventor of VRML) on molecular-scale manufacturing, the gray goo
problem, and how nanotechnology will change the world as we know it.
http://www.feedmag.com/invent/pesce.html?alert
*Ultra-tiny machines are becoming big hope for scientists. After years of
preliminary research, hope and hype, business and industry are starting to
enter the strange, invisible world of the very ... Very ... VERY
small.Government agencies, leading universities and major corporations are
rapidly expanding their efforts to design and build machines and structures
on the scale of atoms and molecules. This exploding new discipline -- known
as ``nanotechnology'' -- has become a top scientific priority in Congress
and at the White House.
http://www.mercurycenter.com/svtech/news/breaking/merc/docs/029581.htm
*Plastic Pillars of the Microworld. Rome wasn't built in a day, but a
nanosized version of it may be thrown up that quickly in the near future. At
the International Symposium on Cluster and Nanostructure Interfaces here
last week, researchers described a new technique capable of creating arrays
of plastic pillars, each less than a micrometer across, that resemble
nothing so much as tiny versions of the great columns of Rome's coliseum.
http://www.academicpress.com/inscight/11041999/graphb.htm
*It's a small, kinky world. Tiny, bent tubes of carbon might be used both to
wire up and to construct DNA-scale electrical devices.
http://helix.nature.com/nsu/991118/991118-1.html
*Yale Research Team First to Describe Molecular-Sized Memory -- Discovery
has Implications for Drastically Reducing Cost of Computer Memory. omputer
storage capacity can be vastly increased using a molecular memory based on a
single molecule, a research team from Yale and Rice Universities has
discovered.
http://www.yale.edu/opa/newsr/99-11-02-01.all.html
*A miniaturized triode could instead replace the transistor as the switch of
information technologies. Driskill-Smith and colleagues have now fabricated
a ‘nanotriode’ tube measuring less than 100 nanometres (millionths of a
millimetre) in any direction.
http://helix.nature.com/nsu/991104/991104-3.html
*Making Robots Microscopic but Mighty. Michael J. Marsella is dreaming small
these days. The assistant professor of chemistry at UC Riverside is trying
to create artificial "muscles" no bigger than a single molecule.
http://www.latimes.com/news/science/science/19991108/t000101547.html
*Chemical researchers build molecular computer. A molecular electronics
research project at Mitre Corp. has achieved a milestone in the effort to
build self-assembled molecular computers. Researchers James Ellenbogen and
Christopher Love have invented chemical building blocks that support the
operation of a digital half adder, which represents a new level of circuit
complexity for the field.
http://www.eet.com/story/OEG19991109S0036
*How Biological Molecules Move Electrons: Simplicity Trumps Complexity. In a
sweeping new study, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania Medical
Center have shown that the natural engineering principles governing electron
transfer within proteins are significantly less complex than has been the
prevailing view.
http://www.med.upenn.edu/news/News_Releases/nov99/elec.shtml
*Crack open an egg and cure a disease. Two American companies are planning a
pilot test of drugs in eggs laid by genetically engineered chickens. The
birds carry genes that make their eggs contain proteins that can treat
disease. These proteins are then passed on to future generations of chickens
without the need to repeat the injection.
http://www.newscientist.co.uk/ns/19991113/newsstory5.html
*Improved biodegradable hydrogels. Two novel biodegradable hydrogels
developed by a Cornell University fiber scientists have potential
applications for controlling and delivering many kinds of medications inside
and outside the body, for anchoring biological substances such as skin and
vascular tissues and may even be used to introduce viruses to the body for
gene therapy.
http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/Nov99/hydrogel.advances.ssl.html
*UNC-CH Physicists Find Atoms Of Chilled Metallic Liquids Chiefly Move In
Lockstep
CHAPEL HILL - For the first time, atomic-scale measurements have revealed
that atoms in a metallic liquid cooled significantly below the melting
point - also known as a super-cooled liquid -- chiefly move together in
clustered lockstep.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1999/11/991112070246.htm
*Lawmakers seek special labeling for genetically engineered food. Everybody
who eats food made in America deserves to know what's in it, a bipartisan
group of lawmakers said as they offered legislation to create special food
labels.
http://cnn.com/FOOD/news/9911/11/bioengineered.foods.ap/index.html
*Novel neurotransmitter overturns laws of biology, offers potential for
stroke treatment. Johns Hopkins scientists have identified a new and unusual
nerve transmitter in the brain, one that overturns certain long-cherished
laws about how nerve cells behave.
http://hopkins.med.jhu.edu/NewsMedia/press/1999/NOV99/991108.HTM
*Memory uses separate information pathways. The memory has separate pathways
for different types of information. This has been demonstrated by means of
anatomical and electrical measurements of the hippocampus and the adjacent
cerebral cortex of laboratory rats. The signal pathways ultimately meet in
the so-called subiculum of the brain, from which information from the
hippocampus is passed on to other areas of the brain.
http://www.eurekalert.org/releases/nwon-mus110999.html
*The Nov 8-22 issue of OakRidge National Laboratory Newsroom is online:
(includes- Spinach and chips, New tool for archaeologists, 10 billion for
dinner, New smart surfaces, and Reigning in uranium.)
http://www.ornl.gov/Press_Releases/StoryTips/storynov99.htm
Also the DOE Pulse for November: (PDF or HTML)
http://www.ornl.gov/news/pulse/
*Cheap energy - a revolutionary new way. Australian scientists have
perfected a new-age combustion technology, which is poised to clean up
greenhouse gas emissions, slash energy costs and significantly boost
productivity."We have produced a new generation pulse combustion technology
which until now has defied the best efforts in the world to turn it into a
practical option for everyday use,"
http://www.csiro.au/page.asp?type=mediaRelease&id=PulseCombustor
*Optic fibre world records broken.Bell Laboratories believe they have broken
two world records in the use of optical fibres to transmit information.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_517000/517733.stm
*Gene Skews Inheritance Patterns. Mouse geneticists have known for decades
that, contrary to the laws of Mendelian genetics, one member of certain
chromosome pairs may be passed to the next generation more often than the
other member. Now scientists have fingered the gene responsible for giving
some mouse chromosomes their advantage.
http://www.academicpress.com/inscight/11121999/grapha.htm
*Great minds share millennial visions. Thirty great minds offer their
visions for the 21st century in a new book titled “Predictions.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/331095.asp
*Irish Times Opinion. "Unseen power of simple microbe." The most common
image evoked by the term micro-organism(microbe) is likely to be that of
"germs", i.e. disease-causing microbes. Some micro-organisms do cause human
disease but to think of this entire class of biological organisms in this
manner is to grossly underestimate its importance and role.
http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/science/1999/1108/sci1.htm
*Taking Einstein to the Mat. Project Peers into Black Holes to Test Theory
of Relativity. Scientists gather this week in the piney woods of Louisiana.
They will be dedicating the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave
Observatory, a $350 million project with a highly ambitious goal: to test
Einstein’s theory of relativity.
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/science/DailyNews/gravwave991111.html
*Dr. Jill Tarter: Looking to Make 'Contact' (She is the woman the movie
"Contact' based the main character on) A little bit of SETI in here.
http://www.space.com/science/astronomy/tarter_profile_991112.html
*Experts tout technologies to revolutionize medicine. (CNN) Picture a world
where wheelchairs can climb stairs and insulin sacs implanted in diabetics
automatically release just the right amount at the right time.
http://cnn.com/HEALTH/9911/12/future.medicine.ap/index.html
*Yahoo! Hit with Patent Infringement Lawsuit. A New Zealand woman has
accused portal giant Yahoo! Inc. of infringing on a patent for online
shopping software.
http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article/0,1087,3_238041,00.html
*Easing the squeeze delivers diamonds. A new way of making artificial
diamond, reported in Nature1, may take the pressure off the
synthetic-diamond industry. The precious crystals are currently made by
squeezing graphite at pressures comparable to those in the deep Earth; the
new discovery offers a gentler way to make graphite’s sparkling sibling.
http://helix.nature.com/nsu/991111/991111-11.html
*NIST Update for Nov. Includes: Study Shows Small Firms Ambitious,
Aggressive in Pursuing Projects, Brochure Highlights CSTL Research and
Services, U.S., Japan Sign Pact for ‘Good Measure', International Effort
Starts ‘Cracking' Down on Reactor Embrittlement, Permeability Database Now
Available Online, Bibliographies of Electronics-Related Work Now Available.
http://www.nist.gov/public_affairs/update/current.htm#Composites
*Oracle to Back IBM-Led Unix Standardization Effort. International Business
Machines Corp. and Oracle Corp., usually fierce rivals, on Friday said they
would collaborate on an IBM- led effort to standardize the Unix operating
system.
http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/r/991112/13/tech-unix-oracle
*Sandia micromirrors may be part of Next Generation Space Telescope.
http://www.sandia.gov/media/NewsRel/NR1999/space.htm
*Scientists grow heart valves from scratch in test tube. Scientists trying
to create replacement parts that work more like the real thing have for the
first time grown heart valves from scratch in a test tube, researchers said.
http://www.seattletimes.com/news/health-science/html98/valv_19991108.html
*May the Micro Force Be With You. After a decade of hype, microscopic
mechanical systems are poised to make major changes in the size of our cell
phones, the reliability of our communications systems -- even the way “Star
Wars” is shown.
http://www.techreview.com/articles/oct99/amato.htm
*Revving up the sluggish race toward nuclear fusion. The scramble for funds
and disagreements over which nuclear fusion technology shows the most
promise have left the scientific community splintered by bitter rivalries.
http://www2.nando.net/noframes/story/0,2107,500056723-500093363-500346506-0,
00.html
*Different Way of 'Melting' Semiconducting Material. Using ultrafast pulses
of light and x-rays, an interdisciplinary group at the University of
California, San Diego has directly observed the melting of material without
taking the route of a typical melting process they report in the Nov. 12
issue of Science.
http://www.newswise.com/articles/1999/11/AMELT.UCD.html
*US Army cracked on the Nov. 11th.
The original site is down, but this was what was left behind:
http://www.2600.com/hacked_pages/1999/11/www.2rotc.army.mil/
And then the Navy on the first, who now adorns a pop up window of moniter
warning:
Original:
http://www.norfolk.atrc.navy.mil/
What was left behind:
http://www.2600.com/hacked_pages/1999/11/ncc.navfac.navy.mil/
*Geneticists find link between ancient gene and the HIV virus.Much like
archeologists who search the fossil record looking for clues about the past,
Duke University Medical Center researchers have done their own genetic
sifting and have found a striking similarity between viral genetic material
that has always existed in humans and HIV, a relatively new virus to infect
humans.
http://www.dukenews.duke.edu/Med/oldgenes.htm
Thank you, and havea nanoriffic day!
P.S. Thanx Greg
Gina "Nanogirl" Miller
Nanotechnology Industries
http://www.nanoindustries.com
Personal Web
http://www.homestead.com/nanotechind/nothingatall.html
E-mail: nanogirl@halcyon.com
"Nanotechnology: solutions for the future."