From: Gina Miller (nanogirl@halcyon.com)
Date: Tue Nov 23 1999 - 19:17:34 MST
~Nanogirl News~
Nov. 23, 99
*World's smallest transistor. Scientists have produced the world's smallest
transistor. This new design may allow silicon chips to continue to get
smaller. It could also double the processing speeds of some chips. The
50-nanometer transistor - roughly 2,000 times smaller than the width of a
human hair - is known as a "vertical" transistor because all of its
components are built on top of a silicon wafer.
http://www.bell-labs.com/news/1999/november/15/1.html
There is also a section in slashdot about this, at the bottom:
http://www.slashdot.org/
*Silver-based crystalline nanoparticles, microbially fabricated. "A strain
of bacteria that can manufacture tiny crystals of silver has been reported
by Swedish scientists. This skill may eventually prove useful to engineers
who want to fabricate extremely small optical and electronic devices."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_533000/533416.stm
*Scientists Discover How to Make Nanostructures Assemble Themselves.
Princeton researchers have created ultrasmall plastic structures with a
method that is cheaper and more versatile than previous techniques. The
discovery has yielded surprising insights into the behavior of materials at
very small scales, while spawning many basic research questions. It also
could pave the way to a new generation of miniature products, from computer
memory chips and video components to devices for sorting DNA molecules.
http://www.princeton.edu/pr/news/99/q4/1118-chou.htm
For pictures see:
www.princeton.edu/pr/pictures/other/LISA/
*R&D predictions for the new millennium, includes a nanotech growth paper by
Richard Smalley, and other papers by Ray Kurzweil (spirtitual machines),
Carol Bartz (autodesk), Kary Mullis, John Pople and more with their
speculations.
http://www.rdmag.com/features/0699rd/0699toc.htm
*Yale Research On Molecular Switches May Lead To Smaller, Cheaper Computers.
Yale and Rice University scientists have demonstrated molecular devices that
act as reversible electronic switches, making it possible to build smaller
computers that are less expensive.
http://www.yale.edu/opa/newsr/99-11-18-01.all.html
*Berkeley engineers report chip breakthrough. A new semiconductor transistor
so small that a single computer chip can hold 400 times more of the devices
than before could help lead to significantly faster and cheaper chip
technology, scientists said on Monday.
http://www.cnn.com/TECH/computing/9911/23/transistor.reut/index.html
*Scientists Tally 1 Billion Pairs in Human Genome. Scientists said on
Tuesday they have determined the exact order of 1 billion of the basic
chemical building blocks of life, putting them one-third of the way in the
massive push to sequence the whole human genome. Findings url:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genome/seq/
*Virtual city for UK science. A new "city of science" has been launched on
the web to showcase publicly-funded science in the UK. Called UK Science
City, the site will also host debates on major topics of the day. (open
project)
http://www.sciencecity.org.uk/city/Pagefront.html
*Gene markers posted on net. The major international effort to track down
important genetic markers known as single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs)
released its first batch of data on Tuesday. SNPs are the minute variations
scattered through human DNA that make us all different.
http://snp.cshl.org/data/
*Playing God. Scary eugenics documents from the turn of the century shine a
disturbing light on ethical dilemmas raised by genetic testing.
http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/1999/11/17/eugenics/index.html
*NASA has been cracked: international.gsfc.nasa.gov
The original site is down.See what was left behind:
http://www.2600.com/hacked_pages/1999/11/international.gsfc.nasa.gov/
*Silicon Stocks. Chip shares knock down Nasdaq. Investors pummeled
technology stocks in afternoon trading Tuesday, as trouble in the
semiconductor sector knocked down the Nasdaq Composite on the heels of its
14th record close in 17 sessions.
http://www.salon.com/partner/marketwatch/index.html
*Life's 'first chapter' ready for publication. An international team of
researchers are about to announce that they have reached a milestone in the
history of science. As part of the global effort to map all the genes that
form the blueprint of a human being, scientists will publish shortly the
entire DNA sequence of one of our chromosomes. (#22)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_533000/533614.stm
*Choosy Black Holes in a Test Tube. Here's the paper that describes,
theoretically, how to create a black hole in the laboratory, just for
electrons.
http://front.math.ucdavis.edu/gr-qc/9911011
*Recodable Locking Device. The Recodable Locking Device, which use
microelectromechanical system (MEMS) technology so small that it takes a
microscope to see it, is a series of tiny notched gears that move to the
unlocked position only when the right code is entered. It's the first known
mechanical hardware designed to keep unwanted guests from breaking codes and
illegally entering computer and other secure systems.
http://www.sandia.gov/media/hacker.htm
*More than 33 million worldwide are HIV-positive, U.N. says. Despite
powerful new drugs and broad education programs, the AIDS virus is spreading
at a growing rate, according to a report released Tuesday.
http://www.nandotimes.com/noframes/story/0,2107,500060731-500100349-50041935
4-0,00.html
*Double Helix That Changed the Shape of Life Sciences (Seattle Times
article)
http://www.latimes.com/news/science/science/19991117/t000104818.html
*New evidence of ancient flood. Modern science meets biblical legend deep in
the Black Sea.
The biblical story of Noah and the great flood inspired this engraving by
Gustave Dore, titled "Dove Sent Forth From the Ark." Now scientists say they
have found new evidence for a catastrophic flood thousands of years ago.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/336589.asp
*Alphabet Originated Centuries Earlier Than Previously Thought. Sometime
during the beginning of the second millennium B.C., long before ancient
biblical times, a traveler passing through a desert valley of what is now
southern Egypt, stopped at a rock and inscribed on it his name, his title
and probably a short prayer for safe passage. The discovery of this
traveler's ancient calling card, and another one similar to it, indicates
that the first alphabet.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1999/11/991122153642.htm
*Scientists Discover How Cells "Catch" A Cold. In what could be a first
step toward finding a cure for the common cold, scientists at the U.S.
Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory have discovered how
one form of cold virus binds to human cells. The discovery, appearing in
this week's issue of Science, could lead to the development of drugs that
block infection.
http://www.pubaf.bnl.gov/pr/bnlpr111899.html
*Yale Researchers Turn Carbon Dioxide Into Gel. A Yale research team has
succeeded for the first time in turning supercritical carbon dioxide, which
is CO2 under tremendous pressure, into gel form.
http://www.yale.edu/opa/newsr/99-11-18-02.all.html
*Sandia's "Garage" Computer Hookup Grows, Prospers. Among the 500 listings
of the world's fastest supercomputers is a peculiar entry at 44th post.
Rather than the familiar manufacturing names -- Intel, IBM, Cray-SGI,
Fujitsu, Hitachi, and so on -- that occupy all other spots on the Top500
website, the 44th-positioned machine is described as "self-made."
http://www.sandia.gov/media/NewsRel/NR1999/Cplant.htm
*Chemists Create The First Of A New Class Of Catalysts To Handle Big
Molecules.
A team of chemists working at Arizona State University has designed and
synthesized the first stable example of an important new class of materials
that are expected to be of special use as catalysts. The new material, and
other materials that can now be created following its model, should be
useful in isolating and modifying molecules that previously known catalysts
have not been able to handle, particularly larger molecules.
http://clasdean.la.asu.edu/news/metalorg.htm
*Topics in this months Iowa State science tips: 1- Cutting the clatter in
space, 2- Polymer nanotechnology, 3- Second hardest material discovered, 4-
ISU gets "new" supercomputer.
http://www.newswise.com/articles/1999/11/TIP1199.ISU.html
*Table-Top Laser Substitutes For Huge Cyclotrons. University of Michigan
researchers have announced a new method to accelerate ions by using powerful
light from a table-top laser instead of the radio-frequency waves that have
been used for ion acceleration ever since Ernest O. Lawrence invented the
cyclotron more than 60 years ago.
http://unisci.com/stories/19994/1116991.htm
*Message in a Microdot. Inspired by the World War II “microdot” technique,
which concealed microscopic text by pasting it on top of a period at the end
of a sentence in an innocuous-looking letter, scientists have devised a way
to hide undecipherable messages in DNA.
http://www.popsci.com/scitech/news/991108.s.html
*A Unified Physics by 2050? Experiments should let particle physicists
complete the Standard Model, but a unified theory of all forces may require
radically new ideas.
http://www.sciam.com/1999/1299issue/1299weinberg.html
*Alien inspiration. A walking robot could make its wearer incredibly
powerful. Influenced by the robotic "exoskeleton" worn by Sigourney Weaver
in the 1986 movie Aliens, engineers in Australia are building a two-legged
industrial robot that will be able go places and do things no forklift truck
ever could.
http://www.newscientist.co.uk/ns/19991120/newsstory2.html
*NASA official predicts longer space missions, robotic outposts. In a
lecture that sometimes sounded more like science fiction than science, a
NASA official said the next era of space exploration will involve missions
that last for years - not weeks - and will eventually pave the way for
manned probes to the planets.
http://www.nando.net/24hour/nao/healthscience/story/0,2276,500060353-5000996
77-500388090-0,00.html
*Curving Beyond Fermat. When Andrew Wiles of Princeton University proved
Fermat’s last theorem several years ago, he took advantage of recently
discovered links between Pierre de Fermat’s centuries-old conjecture
concerning whole numbers and the theory of so-called elliptic curves.
Establishing the validity of Fermat’s last theorem involved proving parts of
the Taniyama-Shimura conjecture.Four mathematicians have now extended this
aspect of Wiles’ work, offering a proof of the Taniyama-Shimura conjecture
for all elliptic curves rather than just a particular subset of them.
http://www.sciencenews.org/sn_arc99/11_20_99/mathland.htm
OR:
http://www.academicpress.com/inscight/07091999/grapha.htm
*Genetic work offers hope for struggling mint farmers."We're attempting to
open up a metabolic bottleneck," Croteau said. Some wild mint plants produce
twice as much oil as commercial varieties, he said. His lab is attempting to
identify the genetic reasons for this prolific oil production and transfer
those genes to spearmint or peppermint plants.
http://www.seattlep-i.com/business/mint23.shtml
and also in the Seattle Post Intelligencer: Dispute over genetically altered
food:
http://www.seattlep-i.com/business/farm23.shtml
*(Forbes) Amazing new scientific discovery: There is no such thing as
willpower. The evidence: Your brain is filled with chemicals. Ethics at the
Molecular Level.
http://www.forbes.com/forbes/99/1129/6413081a.htm
*EMAX Solution Partners Announces Strategic Marketing Agreement with
Sigma-Aldrich Corporation. Integrating the e-Business Supply Chain for Life
Science Research Operations Worldwide.
http://news.excite.com/news/bw/991122/pa-emax-sigma-aldrich
*Meatspace. Godzilla vs. Frankenstein. Researchers at the Tokyo University
of Agriculture have drawn the ire of the Japanese government for their
aggressive cloning experiments. The team transplanted the nuclei of human
white blood cells into the egg cells of cows and applied electric shocks to
fuse them.
http://www.slate.com/Egghead/99-11-22/Egghead.asp
*Biological Glue Could Help Treat Cancer, Diabetes, Alzheimer’s. At a
scientific meeting three years ago, Dr. Orest Blaschuk was told the U.S.Air
Force had heard about his research into a biological glue and wanted to know
if it could be used to attach directly onto the brain a computer chip
capable of guiding a fighter jet.
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/living/DailyNews/brainglue991122.html
*Science Uncovers Apes' Hidden Soul. Scientists have found the strongest
evidence yet that some animals could have "souls". They have located the
cells responsible for self-consciousness in the human brain — and found
similar clusters in great apes. The cells, named "self-awareness neurons",
appear to integrate the work of various parts of the brain — and create a
sense of individuality.
http://www.foxnews.com/js_index.sml?content=/scitech/112399/times_souls.sml
*Integrated Surgical Systems Announces NeuroMate consists of a robotic arm
assembly and a PC-based positioning system. NeuroMate consists of a robotic
arm assembly and a PC-based positioning system.
http://news.excite.com/news/pr/991122/ca-integrated-surgicl
*Science journals form common ground on Web. Twelve publishers of scientific
and scholarly journals yesterday said they were linking up on the Internet
to make it easier for scientists to do research.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-1451759.html?tag=st
*Preparing to counter an invisible adversary. Genes enlisted to identify
bioterror agents.
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/990222/22terr.htm
Genetic Information Of World's Most Radiation-Resistant Organism Decoded.
Applications seen in environmental cleanup, new industrial processes,
improved understanding of cancer
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1999/11/991123080430.htm
Okay, I'm drained, that is all. Thank you, and goodnight.
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."
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