In new variation of ways to use nanotech to treat cancer, scientists have shown that using a scorpion toxin to target nanoparticles to brain cancer cells depletes the amount on the cancer cell surface of a protein required to make the cells invasive. From the National Cancer Institute’s Alliance for Nanotechnology in Cancer “Toxin-nanoparticle combo [...]

Now comes a method to prepare high-density arrays of perfectly aligned, 95%-pure semiconducting SWNTs.

Following up on recent posts about concern in the insurance industry and in Congress about risk management practices for (current and near-term) nanotechnology, David Forrest passes along this news of recent action at EPA: The EPA has published their Interim Report on the Nanomaterials Stewardship Program and continues to invite comment for the final version. [...]

Cambridge University scientists announced a way of making long thin carbon nanotubes link together to form a material that might suffice to built a space elevator.

Last September we wrote that one insurer would “no longer insure against bodily injury, property damage, or personal and advertising injury related to the actual, alleged, or threatened presence of or exposure to nanotubes or nanotechnology in any form.” Now Christine Peterson passes along this item from Rhitu Chatterjee writing in the American Chemical Society [...]

In light of the call for open-source sensing arising from nanotech-based environmental monitoring, it is interesting to note this recent progress in building a nanotech-powered biosensor powered by molecular motors.

An international team of investigators has demonstrated in mice a nanotech method of orally delivering an anticancer therapy that would normally have to be delivered by injection.

The Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies, via AAAS EurekAlert, brings us an update on federal efforts to address the potential environmental, health and safety (EHS) risks posed by engineered nanomaterials. “New House bill addresses need for more risk research, oversight“: The House Science and Technology Committee [on January 15] introduced legislation that highlights the growing attention [...]

Having demonstrated a year ago an effective nanotech method for shutting down specific gene expression in a mouse model of colitis, a team of researchers at Tel Aviv University is preparing to test this method in clinical trials for blood, pancreatic, breast and brain cancers.

A method that eliminates metallic single walled carbon nanotubes from mixtures leaving fully functional semiconducting SWCNTs may open the way for various nanotech applications that require pure semiconducting SWCNTs.

From the February 2009 issue of the “science is culture” publication Seed magazine, not yet online: Hypothesis: Civil Nanotechnology Starting in 2009, nanotech-based sensing will enable a level of environmental monitoring that could help reduce pollution tremendously. Such devices could be of immense benefit to the environment, but unfortunately, without careful attention they will trigger [...]

The January issue of Life Extension Magazine offers a report on the eventual promise of medical nanobots.

The ribosome has a previously unsuspected method of error correction—in this case monitoring the fidelity of protein synthesis after the peptide bond is formed.

A newly discovered repulsive quantum mechanical force could be useful for nanotech applications by enabling a type of quantum levitation.

Researchers have used slot waveguides to condense light energy to scales as small as 60 nm allowing them to trap 75-nm polystyrene nanoparticles and DNA molecules and transport them optically.

An open-access review article describes how a layer of nanoparticles of different sizes, compositions, and shapes enhances the efficiency of thin-film solar cells.

The synthesis and characterization of molecules called cycloparaphenylenes could provide nanotech with an efficient way of producing armchair carbon nanotubes of pre-determined diameter.

DNA nanotech continues to improve the devices it produces as Oxford University scientists fix several shortcomings seen in earlier versions of bipedal DNA molecular walkers.

Nanotech could make possible the controlled release within the patient of up to four different drugs by irradiation with different wavelengths of near-infrared radiation.

The answers of 151 thinkers and visionaries to the Edge Annual question for 2009 have been posted. The question: “WHAT WILL CHANGE EVERYTHING?” As phrased by John Brockman, Editor and Publisher, “What game-changing scientific ideas and developments do you expect to live to see?” In his answer, nanotechnology pioneer Eric Drexler points to a role [...]