A major nanotech advance in engineering multifunctional nanoparticles for imaging and therapeutic applications combines a short RNA (siRNA) to “silence” a specific gene with quantum dots and a “proton sponge” polymer coating to get the siRNA into the cell and released into the right compartment of the cell.

Millimeter-scale nanotech structures self-assembled from hybrid nanowires can sense and respond to external stimuli.

To live long enough to experience some of the more dramatic applications of nanotechnology, you may need anti-aging treatments. For all of us with an interest in longevity, the place to be starting at 4 PM this Friday, June 27, is UCLA for Aging 2008: At Aging 2008 you will engage with top scientists and [...]

Exposure to two different wavelengths of light can cause the azobenzene molecule to switch back and forth between two different shapes. This molecular shape-changing works well in solution but until now has not worked with molecules attached to surfaces. Now scientists from Penn State University and Rice University have found a way to make the [...]

A nanotech version of the optical tweezers traditionally used to manipulate micrometer-scale objects manipulates objects at the 200-nm scale.

A new concept for a very cheap plastic nanotech memory has been developed by combining the favorable properties of ferroelectrics and semiconductors.

The flagellum clutch mechanism may provide ideas useful for nanotech control of molecular motors.

Carbon nanotubes with the proper imperfections were found to replace more problematic and expensive materials in dye-sensitized solar cells.

The combination of electrical stimulation and a nanotech surface composed of carbon nanotubes dispersed in polycarbonate urethane was found to attract cartilage-forming cells.

Chemists have designed molecules that act like nanotech sensing robots by signaling information about their chemical environment.

Two different types of nanostructures have been reported as nanotech methods to clean up oil spills and other organic pollutants.

Atoms or molecules could be pumped through the spinning inner CNT to form patterns of atoms or molecules—a nanotech inkjet printer.

MIT scientists are discovering what controls the proper movement of nanoparticles into cells—the right kinds of molecules must be arranged in the right patterns.

An item from the June newsletter of the Innovation Society (based in St.Gallen, Switzerland) announces a training course for secondary school science teachers to help them develop a teaching syllabus on nanotech: Innovation Society introduces teachers’ training course “TEACH-NANO” As nanotechnology is coming into our daily lives it will also conquer schools in the near [...]

Very precise measurements confirmed many of the unusual effects theoretically predicted for graphene, but they also revealed effects of unanticipated additional interactions, which are not yet understood.

Researchers have developed a method of producing titanium oxide crystals with more reactive surfaces.

Will nanotechnology culminate with diamondoid nanorobots produced in nanofactories by atomically precise mechanosynthesis, or with “soft” machines that mimic the way biological molecular machines work?

Taiwanese researchers have constructed a molecule in which exposure to light causes causes the molecule to change shape so that rotation of one part of the molecule with respect to another part can no longer occur.

The same nanotech approaches being explored to deliver drugs exactly to the cells where they are needed also provide a technology base that might lead to permanent enhancements of human metabolism.

Attaching 12 molecules of an HIV drug to a gold nanoparticle enabled the drug to prevent HIV infection in cultured patient cells.