Nanoparticles can introduce two very promising, but easily degraded, therapeutic molecules into a laboratory model of human skin, and together they are much more effective than either is alone is slowing the development of deadly melanoma skin cancer.

Organisms that live in extreme environments may provide building blocks for nanotech applications that need to withstand extreme environments.

On 5 June 2008, Robert Freitas and Ralph Merkle of the Institute for Molecular Manufacturing (IMM) submitted to IEEE Spectrum the following response to the article “Rupturing the Nanotech Rapture” by Richard A.L. Jones (IEEE Spectrum, June 2008 issue). Their brief letter is reproduced below because Spectrum has chosen to publish only one of the [...]

A noninvasive Raman microscope has allowed scientists to track carbon nanotubes injected into living mice.

A practical nanotech method for integrating single-wall carbon nanotubes (SWNT) with existing silicon microtechnology could lead to uses in microelectronics, field emission displays, electronic memory devices and solar cells.

A nanotech material that consists of about 50% carbon nanotubes may soon find wide commercial applications in aerospace and other industries.

Nanotech applications based upon modules of RNA that bind small molecules to control the catalytic activity of other RNA modules may form the basis for a wide variety of synthetic molecular machines.

Combining electrically conductive polymers, transition metal atoms, and spin-coating to form thin films could lead to solar cells with two major advantages that would make them more efficient at converting light to electricity.

Scientists were able to engineer functional communication between two unrelated proteins by taking advantage of the fact that each protein exhibits allosteric regulation.

Two basic structural motifs of DNA nanotechnology have been efficiently and inexpensively replicated in bacterial cells.

A group of German scientists have developed a new slant on DNA nanotechnology by using atomic force microscopy to assemble a DNA scaffold on a surface to which molecular building blocks can then bind.

Combining a nanotech method of getting genes inside cancer cells with genetic engineering of a potent suicide gene driven by control signals that are very active only in cancer cells effectively killed cell lines derived from pancreatic cancer.

Nanotech pathways to a sustainable energy economy are generating a great deal of interest in Europe.

Will “blocking patents” delay nanotech advances, as has happened with biotechmedical advances?

Upon exposure to electrons from an STM tip, pairs of platinum atoms on a germanium surface can be made to pivot on one atom, swinging back and forth like a flipper on a pinball machine.

Nanotech methods for making very small electronic devices may benefit from a new ability to make block copolymers self-assemble into square arrays.

Different chemical surfaces covering a nanoparticle can attract different types of blood proteins to coat the nanoparticle, which might affect how the nanoparticle moves through the body and where it ends up.

DARPA and a Texas fund have awarded $9.7M to investigate one nanotech path toward atomically precise manufacturing.

Christine Peterson passes along this news from the quarterly update of the Institute for the Future (IFTF) as something worth considering: “Foresight members and Nanodot readers may wish to join this collaborative forecasting effort.” The IFTF announced their First Massively Multiplayer Forecasting Platform (MMFG): MMFGs are collaborative, open-source simulations of imagined future scenarios. Designed to [...]

A recently released poll shows that the American public is largely uniformed about both nanotechnology and synthetic biology, and furthermore that the level of public awareness about nanotechnology has not changed since 2004.