This contribution has been forwarded by Ivo Rivetta. The primary forces on the nanometer scale are scaled versions of what we experience on a day to day basis. Instead of gravity, surface forces such as water tension and electric charge dominate. As an example, compare wet basketballs and wet sand. The weight of the basketballs [...]

The oscillating synthesis and degradation of regulatory RNA molecules was used to produce a molecular clock to control the opening and closing of a DNA tweezers, and also to control the production of another RNA molecule to alter the fluorescence of a dye molecule.

Yarn woven from carbon nanotubes provides a thousand times more rotation than is obtained from other artificial muscles, and could be made into motors to provide propulsion for micrometer-sized medical nanorobots.

Varying the length of the DNA used to connect the nanoparticles provides for a wide variety of nanoparticle sizes and crystal symmetries.

This contribution has been forwarded by Ivo Rivetta. Researchers at UC Berkeley have taken a bioinspired approach to control the nanostructure of deposited thin films. In living organisms, the orientation of collagen in tissue determines its properties: For instance, a number of blue-skinned animals, including the mandrill monkey, derive their coloring not from pigment, but [...]

Tiles made from DNA helices have been made to self-assemble into a more complex structure, which then was used to seed the formation of a complementary structure. This second structure in turn seeded the formation of multiple copies of the first structure.

A complex piece of DNA that acts as a biological computer when it is inserted into cells determines whether or not the cell is a specific type of cancer cell, and if so, initiates the suicide of that cell.

Nanotechnology has been applied to produce various types of nanoparticles that can deliver toxic agents specifically to the cancer cells. Many of these approaches have shown promise in animal studies. One approach using magnetic nanoparticles has now gone into trials in patients. From “Nano-therapy that cooks deadly brain tumors advances in Germany,” by Ryan McBride: [...]

An algorithm helps design peptides that will self-assemble on a given surface to produce a supramolecular structure of desired geometry.

Growing heart cells in a scaffold containing gold nanowires produces a tissue patch that is thicker and in which the cells beat synchronously as they do in healthy heart tissue.

Engineered bacteria that incorporate unnatural amino acids at multiple positions provide a new tool that may facilitate designing proteins to fold more predictably into molecular machinery components.

Have you seen those beautiful animations illustrating how the complex molecular machinery in a cell works? (Ex. http://youtu.be/sa563MdIiXE) Just how much of that is ‘made up’? How much is real? How is the information gathered, and what potentials can we unlock with it? Foresight is proud to announce its next dinner lecture: “Elucidating Bio-Nanomachines: Microscopies [...]

Those interested in issues of communication at the nanoscale will be interested to learn that the first volume of the new journal Nano Communication Networks, from Elsevier, edited by Ian Akyildiz, is available free of charge. The volume comprises four issues dated March through December of 2010. Just to pick one article out of dozens [...]

A neural network made from 112 DNA strands organized into four artificial neurons was trained with four pieces of information to answer questions.

DNA nanotechnology provides cell-surface sensors for real-time monitoring of single cells, including potential use in personalized medicine to test which drugs would be suitable for which individuals.

A nanotechnology therapy using targeted dendrimers shows promise against head and neck cancer in experiments in which human tumors are implanted into immunocompromised mice.

The world’s first synthetic organ transplant was a replica windpipe made from a nanocomposite scaffold seeded with the patient’s own adult stem cells.

Will an inexpensive automated evolution machine accelerate the development of molecular machine systems by simultaneously evolving multiple parts to improve function?

New computational method screens for small molecules that bind to RNA molecules that move through a variety of conformations.

We’re going to take a shot at doing a live webcast of Foresight@Google: 25th Anniversary Conference and Celebration. See this page for schedule and link: http://foresight.org/reunion/schedule.html It’s free so please have patience if we run into any technical difficulties. You can try sending questions to speakers by using this Twitter tag (though in-person participants get first [...]