Nanodot: the original nanotechnology weblog

The new double-walled silicon nanotube anode is made by a clever four-step process: Polymer nanofibers (green) are made, then heated (with, and then without, air) until they are reduced to carbon (black). Silicon (light blue) is coated over the outside of the carbon fibers. Finally, heating in air drives off the carbon and creates the tube as well as the clamping oxide layer (red). (Image courtesy Hui Wu, Stanford, and Yi Cui)

A clever new method for making hollow silicon nanostructures produces a battery anode that is not quickly destroyed by the stress of repeated charging and discharging. A hat tip to PhysOrd.com for reprinting this SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory news release written by Mike Ross “New nanostructure for batteries keeps going and going“:

For more than a decade, scientists have tried to improve lithium-based batteries by replacing the graphite in one terminal with silicon, which can store 10 times more charge. But after just a few charge/discharge cycles, the silicon structure would crack and crumble, rendering the battery useless.

Now a team led by materials scientist Yi Cui of Stanford and SLAC has found a solution: a cleverly designed double-walled nanostructure that lasts more than 6,000 cycles, far more than needed by electric vehicles or mobile electronics.

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Dmitri Lapotko. (Credit: Jeff Fitlow/Rice University)

In yet another wrinkle in the rapidly developing area of using nanotechnology to enhance cancer chemotherapy, targeted nanoparticles were used to produce “nanobubbles” inside cancer cells instead of to deliver a chemotherapy drug to the cancer cells. In laboratory tests, the nanobubbles proved to be much more efficient in specifically killing cancer cells while sparing neighboring healthy cells. A hat tip to ScienceDaily for reprinting this Rice University news release with its embedded video “‘Nanobubbles’ plus chemotherapy equals single-cell cancer targeting“:

Using light-harvesting nanoparticles to convert laser energy into “plasmonic nanobubbles,” researchers at Rice University, the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) are developing new methods to inject drugs and genetic payloads directly into cancer cells. In tests on drug-resistant cancer cells, the researchers found that delivering chemotherapy drugs with nanobubbles was up to 30 times more deadly to cancer cells than traditional drug treatment and required less than one-tenth the clinical dose.

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foresight’s Director of Development and Outreach Desiree D. Dudley was featured recently on Singularity Hub talking about Foresight and nanotechnology. Topics addressed include Foresight’s series of dinner lectures, its upcoming technical conference, a new youth outreach program, Foresight’s relationship with the general futurist community, and the balance of emphasis on near-term nanotechnology and advanced molecular manufacturing. The interview led to a discussion of the role of synthetic biology in the development of nanotechnology, and the interfaces between the materials science and the biotechnology aspects of nanotechnology. The video is available on YouTube.
—James Lewis, PhD

Rice University graduate student Daniel Hashim burns oil out of a sponge-like material made of carbon nanotubes and a dash of boron. The sponge can soak up oil, which can then be burned off and the sponge reused. (Credit: Jeff Fitlow/Rice University)

A new technique that dopes carbon nanotubes with boron atoms provides new evidence of the enormous practical utility of improving methods to control the structure of matter at the nanometer scale, even if the control is not yet atomically precise. A hat tip to ScienceDaily for reprinting this Rice University news release written by Mike Williams “Nanosponges soak up oil again and again” (includes video):

Researchers at Rice University and Penn State University have discovered that adding a dash of boron to carbon while creating nanotubes turns them into solid, spongy, reusable blocks that have an astounding ability to absorb oil spilled in water.

That’s one of a range of potential innovations for the material created in a single step. The team found for the first time that boron puts kinks and elbows into the nanotubes as they grow and promotes the formation of covalent bonds, which give the sponges their robust qualities.

The researchers, who collaborated with peers in labs around the nation and in Spain, Belgium and Japan, revealed their discovery in Nature’s online open-access journal Scientific Reports ["Covalently bonded three-dimensional carbon nanotube solids via boron induced nanojunctions"].

Lead author Daniel Hashim, a graduate student in the Rice lab of materials scientist Pulickel Ajayan, said the blocks are both superhydrophobic (they hate water, so they float really well) and oleophilic (they love oil). The nanosponges, which are more than 99 percent air, also conduct electricity and can easily be manipulated with magnets.

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This illustration shows lithium atoms (red) adhered to a graphene lattice that will produce electricity when bent, squeezed or twisted. Conversely, the graphene will deform when an electric field is applied, opening new possibilities in nanotechnology. Illustration: Mitchell Ong, Stanford School of Engineering

Bulk piezoelectric materials are already used for atomically precise nanopositioning to position the tips of scanning probe microscopes. Would there be any advantages to engineered control of piezoelectrical properties in a two-dimensional material? Currently piezoelectric properties of materials cannot be engineered—it is a property only available in certain 3D crystals. Now calculations have demonstrated that graphene can be made piezoelectric by adsorbing atoms on one surface. A hat tip to Physorg.com for reprinting this Stanford University news release written by Andrew Myers “Straintronics: Engineers create piezoelectric graphene“:

Graphene is a wonder material. It is a one-hundred-times-better conductor of electricity than silicon. It is stronger than diamond. And, at just one atom thick, it is so thin as to be essentially a two-dimensional material. Such promising physics have made graphene the most studied substance of the last decade, particularly in nanotechnology. In 2010, the researchers who first isolated it shared the Nobel Prize.

Yet, while graphene is many things, it is not piezoelectric. Piezoelectricity is the property of some materials to produce electric charge when bent, squeezed or twisted. Perhaps more importantly, piezoelectricity is reversible. When an electric field is applied, piezoelectric materials change shape, yielding a remarkable level of engineering control.

Piezoelectrics have found application in countless devices from watches, radios and ultrasound to the push-button starters on propane grills, but these uses all require relatively large, three-dimensional quantities of piezoelectric materials.

Now, in a paper published in the journal ACS Nano [abstract], two materials engineers at Stanford have described how they have engineered piezoelectrics into graphene, extending for the first time such fine physical control to the nanoscale.

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One of the most promising current applications of nanotechnology to medicine is the use of nanoparticles to specifically target drug therapy to cancer cells. A variety of different types of nanoparticles using different drug delivery strategies are being investigated, including one type using biopolymers that we described here last week. Another report shows that a very different type of nanoparticle, composed of gold, works by delivering a drug directly to the nucleus of cancer cells. A hat tip to ScienceDaily for reprinting this news release from Northwestern University written by Megan Fellman “Tiny hitchhikers attack cancer cells: Gold nanostars first to deliver drug directly to cancer cell nucleus“:

Nanotechnology offers powerful new possibilities for targeted cancer therapies, but the design challenges are many. Northwestern University scientists now are the first to develop a simple but specialized nanoparticle that can deliver a drug directly to a cancer cell’s nucleus — an important feature for effective treatment.

They also are the first to directly image at nanoscale dimensions how nanoparticles interact with a cancer cell’s nucleus.

“Our drug-loaded gold nanostars are tiny hitchhikers,” said Teri W. Odom, who led the study of human cervical and ovarian cancer cells. “They are attracted to a protein on the cancer cell’s surface that conveniently shuttles the nanostars to the cell’s nucleus. Then, on the nucleus’ doorstep, the nanostars release the drug, which continues into the nucleus to do its work.” …

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When a sheet of graphene sits atop a sheet of boron nitride at an angle, a secondary hexagonal pattern emerges that determines how electrons flow across the sample. (Illustration by Brian LeRoy)

Despite its superlative properties, graphene has not been used to make electronic devices because electrons travel so well though it that they cannot be easily controlled. Now physicists have discovered that placing graphene sheets on boron nitride at the proper angle creates a superlattice that controls the movement of graphene electrons. A hat tip to ScienceDaily for reprinting this University of Arizona news release written by Daniel Stolte “Microprocessors From Pencil Lead“:

Graphite, more commonly known as pencil lead, could become the next big thing in the quest for smaller and less power-hungry electronics.

Resembling chicken wire on a nano scale, graphene – single sheets of graphite – is only one atom thick, making it the world’s thinnest material. Two million graphene sheets stacked up would not be as thick as a credit card.

The tricky part physicists have yet to figure out how to control the flow of electrons through the material, a necessary prerequisite for putting it to work in any type of electronic circuit. Graphene behaves very different than silicon, the material currently used in semiconductors.

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An artist's rendering of BIND-014. Image credit: Digizyme, Inc.

We have often reported here that targeted nanoparticles to treat cancer have shown great promise in animal studies. An MIT news release written by Anne Trafton now informs us that “Targeted nanoparticles show success in clinical trials“:

Targeted therapeutic nanoparticles that accumulate in tumors while bypassing healthy cells have shown promising results in an ongoing clinical trial, according to a new paper.

The nanoparticles feature a homing molecule that allows them to specifically attack cancer cells, and are the first such targeted particles to enter human clinical studies. Originally developed by researchers at MIT and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, the particles are designed to carry the chemotherapy drug docetaxel, used to treat lung, prostate and breast cancers, among others.

In the study, which appears April 4 in the journal Science Translational Medicine [abstract], the researchers demonstrate the particles’ ability to target a receptor found on cancer cells and accumulate at tumor sites. The particles were also shown to be safe and effective: Many of the patients’ tumors shrank as a result of the treatment, even when they received lower doses than those usually administered.

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Christine Peterson, Foresight Co-Founder & Past President

August 8, 2012 Stanford University, Stanford, CA USA

Exploring the frontiers of knowledge and imagination, fostering interdisciplinary networking

Foresight Institute co-founder and Past President Christine Peterson will speak at the Leonardo Art/Science Evening Rendezvous of August 2012, chaired by Piero Scaruffi. Her talk is scheduled from 8:30-8:55pm and is titled “The Nanocentury: Bringing Digital Control to the Physical World”.

285-micron racecar (credit: Vienna University of Technology)

For those interested in atomically precise manufacturing, 3D-printing is an interesting microscale technology for making centimeter-scale objects. We commented on this technology a few months ago with the introduction of two competing technologies for printing complex digitally-designed plastic consumer items. Foresight Senior Associate Charles Vollum sends word of the extension of 3D-printing to nanoscale (approximately 100 nm) resolution. In addition, the new procedure is much faster and enables true 3D fabrication, without requiring layer-by-layer fabrication. A hat tip to KurzweilAI for describing this Vienna University of Technology news release “3D-printer with nano-precision“:

Printing three dimensional objects with incredibly fine details is now possible using “two-photon lithography”. With this technology, tiny structures on a nanometer scale can be fabricated. Researchers at the Vienna University of Technology (TU Vienna) have now made a major breakthrough in speeding up this printing technique: The high-precision-3D-printer at TU Vienna is orders of magnitude faster than similar devices (see video). This opens up completely new areas of application, such as in medicine.

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Miguel F. Aznar, Foresight’s Director of Education, sends the following nanotechnology education items.

Nano Outreach and Education in Ibero America

NanoDYF promotes nanoscience / nanotechnology outreach and education in Ibero America. The NanoDYF 2012 conference in Puebla, Mexico 2012 June 11 – 13, will draw together leaders in research, education, business, and politics to share discoveries and discuss objectives for this outreach. I will present on critical thinking about nanotechnology. More information is at http://www.nanodyf.org/ (use translate.Google.com if you don’t read Spanish). The NanoMex 2012 Conference runs immediately afterward, June 13 – 15, at the same location.

Buckyball Toy

Would you like a Buckyball model to hang from your ceiling? Trying to teach someone how hexagons and pentagons drive the shape of C₆₀? Would you like to see which size Buckyballs can form? Having trouble visualizing armchair and zig-zag carbon nanotubes? Would you like to let your mind wander while toying with shapes that carbon can form? About $3 lets you model a C₆₀. Buy 2 x $3 to model C₇₀, C₇₆, C₈₂, etc. Buy more to model carbon nanotubes.

These are not general purpose models. Each “carbon” is black plastic with 3 equally distributed bonding bumps in a plane and “bonds” are white plastic tubes that fit snugly over the bumps. One of the three bonds is an implied double bond, so if identifying it is important, a permanent marker is easiest. Spray-painting 1/3 of the tubes might look better. Diamond cannot be modeled with this kit, as it requires all four bonds exposed for tetrahedral bonding. Also, this kit is much smaller than the near-standard Prentice-Hall molecular modeling kits. It will not connect to those.

The model is easy to assemble, but holds together for hanging, handing around, or rolling on the floor. The least expensive I’ve found is at Suntekstore.com, which ships free out of Hong Kong. See here. If you would like to sponsor a school by providing a class-set of these kits, I would be happy to facilitate (aznar@foresight.org).

Swiss Children Learn Nano Fundamentals

The Switzerland-based Innovation Society has developed SimplyNano 1 (use translate.Google, if you don’t read German), an experiment kit being distributed to 7th – 10th grade classrooms in Switzerland. It focuses on nano dimensions, surfaces, and reactivity. It includes teaching guides plus materials to make a Lego + laser model of an atomic force microscope. Read a short article translated to English.

I have not received a kit yet, but if as good as it looks and priced reasonably, it could improve nano education in the US. When / if I can answer these questions in the affirmative, I will repost and welcome those who would like to sponsor a school for acquiring a set of these kits.

Miguel F. Aznar
Director of Education
Foresight Institute

A couple months ago we noted that Abundance, by Foresight Advisor Peter Diamandis and science writer Steven Kotler hit #1 on both Amazon and BarnesAndNoble. On Wednesday, April 11, Singularity University will present a live webcast with co-founder and chairman Peter H. Diamandis on Abundance:

Diamandis will present the case that the world is getting better at an accelerating rate through the convergence of four powerful forces: the exponential advancement of technology, DIY (Do It Yourself) innovators, Techno-philanthropists, and the Rising Billion, which, acting together, will create abundance in the areas of clean water, nutritious food, affordable housing, personalized education, top-tier global health care, and ubiquitous energy – helping to solve humanity’s biggest challenges.

Diamandis co-authored Abundance with award-winning technology writer Steven Kotler, bringing together decades of data and extensive interviews with hundreds of innovators and entrepreneurs, including Larry Page, Steven Hawking, Dean Kamen, Daniel Kahneman, Elon Musk, Bill Joy, Stewart Brand, Jeff Skoll, Ray Kurzweil, Ratan Tata, and Craig Venter.

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As synthetic biology seeks to build ever more complex biological machines, the possibility of a bridge from biological to artificial molecular machine systems grows less far-fetched. Recent advances in yeast molecular biology are leading to the ability to make more complex molecular machines in yeast, substantially augmenting the synthetic biology toolkit. A hat tip to ScienceDaily for reprinting this AlphaGalileo news release from Imperial College London: “Scientists develop tools to make more complex biological machines from yeast“:

Scientists are one step closer to making more complex microscopic biological machines, following improvements in the way that they can “re-wire” DNA in yeast, according to research published today in the journal PLoS ONE [open access article].

The researchers, from Imperial College London, have demonstrated a way of creating a new type of biological “wire”, using proteins that interact with DNA and behave like wires in electronic circuitry. The scientists say the advantage of their new biological wire is that it can be re-engineered over and over again to create potentially billions of connections between DNA components. Previously, scientists have had a limited number of “wires” available with which to link DNA components in biological machines, restricting the complexity that could be achieved.

The team has also developed more of the fundamental DNA components, called “promoters”, which are needed for re-programming yeast to perform different tasks. Scientists currently have a very limited catalogue of components from which to engineer biological machines. By enlarging the components pool and making it freely available to the scientific community via rapid Open Access publication, the team in today’s study aims to spur on development in the field of synthetic biology.

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Photo and description courtesy of University of Washington

“The various levels of electrical signal from the sequence of a DNA strand pulled through a nanopore reader (top) corresponds to specific DNA nucleotides, thymine, adenine, cytosine and guanine (bottom).”

We recently noted the contribution of nanotechnology-based DNA sequencing methods to research and to the emerging field of personalized medicine. Another major step along this path was taken more recently by combining a mutated protein pore with a DNA polymerase molecular motor. A hat tip to ScienceDaily for reprinting this University of Washington news release written by Vince Stricherz “Tiny reader makes fast, cheap DNA sequencing feasible“:

Researchers have devised a nanoscale sensor to electronically read the sequence of a single DNA molecule, a technique that is fast and inexpensive and could make DNA sequencing widely available.

The technique could lead to affordable personalized medicine, potentially revealing predispositions for afflictions such as cancer, diabetes or addiction.

“There is a clear path to a workable, easily produced sequencing platform,” said Jens Gundlach, a University of Washington physics professor who leads the research team. “We augmented a protein nanopore we developed for this purpose with a molecular motor that moves a DNA strand through the pore a nucleotide at a time.”

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Photo and description courtesy of UMass Amherst

“A card-sized pad of Geckskin can firmly attach very heavy objects such as this 42-inch television weighing about 40 lbs. (18 kg) to a smooth vertical surface. The key innovation by Bartlett and colleagues was to create a soft pad woven into a stiff fabric that includes a synthetic tendon. Together these features allow the stiff yet flexible pad to “drape” over a surface to maximize contact.”

Another example of current nanotechnology too cool to ignore is provided by a card-sized adhesive that can support up to 700 pounds on a glass surface, be easily released, and reused many times. A hat tip to ScienceDaily for reprinting this UMass Amherst news release “Inspired by gecko feet, UMass Amherst scientists invent super-adhesive material“:

For years, biologists have been amazed by the power of gecko feet, which let these 5-ounce lizards produce an adhesive force roughly equivalent to carrying nine pounds up a wall without slipping. Now, a team of polymer scientists and a biologist at the University of Massachusetts Amherst have discovered exactly how the gecko does it, leading them to invent “Geckskin,” a device that can hold 700 pounds on a smooth wall.

Doctoral candidate Michael Bartlett in Alfred Crosby’s polymer science and engineering lab at UMass Amherst is the lead author of their article describing the discovery in the current online issue of Advanced Materials [abstract]. The group includes biologist Duncan Irschick, a functional morphologist who has studied the gecko’s climbing and clinging abilities for over 20 years. Geckos are equally at home on vertical, slanted, even backward-tilting surfaces.

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Credit: Image courtesy of University of Texas at Austin

“Hindlimb ischemia was created in rats and treatments were delivered over seven days with an osmotic pump. The laser doppler imaging above shows the rat’s hind limb prior to treatment (on the left) and with increased blood flow (image on the right) just seven days after treatment.”

A major advantage of nanoparticles used in nanomedicine is that they can combine and deliver together more than one therapeutic component. This capability has been brought to bear in the quest to encourage regenerative blood vessel growth after ischemic disease, which causes much cardiovascular morbidity. Delivering a growth factor in a nanoparticle containing a different biomolecule as a coreceptor achieves results where delivering the factor alone had failed. A hat tip to ScienceDaily for reprinting this University of Texas at Austin news release “New Ability to Regrow Blood Vessels Holds Promise for Treatment of Heart Disease“:

University of Texas at Austin researchers have demonstrated a new and more effective method for regrowing blood vessels in the heart and limbs — a research advancement that could have major implications for how we treat heart disease, the leading cause of death in the Western world.

The treatment method developed by Cockrell School of Engineering Assistant Professor Aaron Baker could allow doctors to bypass surgery and instead repair damaged blood vessels simply by injecting a lipid-incased substance into a patient. Once inside the body, the substance stimulates cell growth and spurs the growth of new blood vessels from pre-existing ones.

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Image courtesy of Oregon State University

Nanomedicine will make major contributions to health care not only by providing new and improved therapies, but by providing new diagnostic methods that will be faster and less expensive than currently available procedures. A hat tip to KurzweilAI News for reprinting this news release from Oregon State University “Nanotube technology leading to fast, lower-cost medical diagnostics“:

Researchers at Oregon State University have tapped into the extraordinary power of carbon “nanotubes” to increase the speed of biological sensors, a technology that might one day allow a doctor to routinely perform lab tests in minutes, speeding diagnosis and treatment while reducing costs.

The new findings have almost tripled the speed of prototype nano-biosensors, and should find applications not only in medicine but in toxicology, environmental monitoring, new drug development and other fields.

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Christopher William Ince Jr. writes about the role of carbon nanotubes in providing superior materials for the wind energy industry:

A major problem plaguing the wind energy industry is the inability of current manufacturing materials used in wind turbine blades to keep up with increasing demand. Dr. Usama Younes and Dr. Serkan Unal of Bayer MaterialScience LLC plan to release the results of a study recently conducted by Bayer on its development of polyurethane turbine blades designed to withstand increased stress. The study discusses how the properties of carbon nanotubes improves the fracture toughness of the materials used in the blades. According to Dr. Younes,

“Incorporation of a small amount of multi-walled carbon nanotubes improves the fracture of both polyurethane and epoxy composites by as much as 48 percent. The addition of carbon nanotubes is a viable option to improve the strength of wind turbine blades.”

This development was made possible by a grant from the Department of Energy for the purposes of comparing current materials with newer polyurethane systems as well as for the development of stronger composites for turbine blades.

Source: Azonano. (2012). Carbon Nanotubes Improve Fracture Toughness of Polyurethane Composites for Wind Turbine Blades.

Respectfully,
Christopher William Ince Jr.

Image courtesy of The University of Sheffield, project leader Professor John Rodenburg, of the University of Sheffield´s Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering

Although not visible at this magnification, the high resolution image in the open access research publication clearly shows the gold atoms, with a spacing of 0.236 nm between atomic planes.

In his famous visionary 1959 talk in which he described molecular machines building with atomic precision, Feynman suggested that if physicists wanted to help biologists, they should improve the electron microscope by a hundred times to see individual atoms. Many improvements have been made over the years, such as aberration-correcting electron lenses, but a recent contribution from the University of Sheffield has succeeded in showing for the first time that it is possible to recover the complex exit wave from a diffraction image at atomic resolution, over a wide field of view, and using low-energy electrons. A hat tip to ScienceDaily for reprinting this University of Sheffield news release “Scientists revolutionise electron microscope“:

For over 70 years, transmission electron microscopy (TEM), which `looks through´ an object to see atomic features within it, has been constrained by the relatively poor lenses which are used to form the image.

The new method, called electron ptychography, dispenses with the lens and instead forms the image by reconstructing the scattered electron-waves after they have passed through the sample using computers.

Scientists involved in the scheme consider their findings to be a `first step´ in a `completely new epoch of electron imaging´. The process has no fundamental experimental boundaries and it is thought it will transform sub-atomic scale transmission imaging.

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Personalized Life Extension 2012
Mar 31-Apr 1, 2012
South San Francisco
http://lifeextensionconference.com/

Hi folks — Join fellow Foresight members, self-trackers, self-experimenters, and health geeks to explore the latest ways to optimize your body and brain & slow aging.

Foresight is a partner on the conference, so we can use discount code NANODOT for $100 off.

If you plan to register but haven’t quite gotten around to it, now is the time. Tomorrow, March 14, is the cutoff for early rate registration, and also the deadline for the hotel room discount (see Logistics page).

Not sure? Check out the program, look through the blog posts, and see the list of participants on the registration page. Lots of Foresight names on that list.

Based on feedback from last time, I can say for certain that you’ll be healthier if you join us for this meeting. Hope to meet you there! –Christine Peterson, Conference Chairman & Foresight co-founder