Nanodot: the original nanotechnology weblog

Foresight’s Director of Development and Outreach Desiree D. Dudley will speak on a panel at the Space Frontier Foundation’s NewSpace 2012 conference at NASA-Ames July 26-28. Right now the schedule has the panel titled “Approaching the Tipping Point: How Emergent Technologies Will Change the Way We Look at the Future of Spaceflight” at 2pm Saturday July 28th. From the Conference home page:

The next disruptive innovation is already underway and it is in space.
The commercial space industry is building a new market with efficient business processes, a wide spectrum of technology, and almost prescient investors. It’s been said that the first trillionaires will be made through space industrialization and we’re going to show how space pioneers are creating new products and profits. NewSpace is undergoing rapid expansion, similar to the Internet explosion of the 1990′s, and needs to be filled with revolutionary businesses like yours.

The Space Frontier Foundation’s annual conference is one of the most important commercial space conferences in the nation, and will be in July in Silicon Valley. NewSpace 2012 is where networking with leaders, supporters, investors and activists evolves into enterprises that propel the industry upward. It will host a wide-range of thought-provoking panels and visionary keynote speakers that will surpass NewSpace 2011′s already highly-praised programming. …

Wyss researchers have built numerals, letters, and a number of other structures using short strands of DNA as building blocks. (Credit: Wyss Institute at Harvard University)

A substantial addition has been made to the toolkit for structural DNA nanotechnology. Currently the only general way to build arbitrarily complex 100-nm-scale DNA objects is scaffolded DNA origami, in which a long (about 7000 bases), biological single stranded DNA molecule is folded into a pre-determined shape through binding to a specially designed set of short, synthetic “staple” strands. A new method now programs self-assembly of arbitrarily complex 150-nm DNA objects from hundreds of distinct single-stranded tiles, each a 42-base strand folded into a 3nm by 7nm tile and attached to four neighboring tiles. With each tile a pixel, the tiles assemble to form a 310-pixel, 150nm-square canvas. A hat tip to ScienceDaily for reprinting this Wyss Institute news release “Wyss Institute Develops New Nanodevice Manufacturing Strategy Using Self-Assembling DNA “Building Blocks”“:

Researchers at the Wyss Institute have developed a method for building complex nanostructures out of short synthetic strands of DNA. Called single-stranded tiles (SSTs), these interlocking DNA “building blocks,” akin to Legos®, can be programmed to assemble themselves into precisely designed shapes, such as letters and emoticons. Further development of the technology could enable the creation of new nanoscale devices, such as those that deliver drugs directly to disease sites.

The technology, which is described in today’s online issue of Nature [abstract], was developed by a research team led by Wyss core faculty member Peng Yin, Ph.D., who is also an Assistant Professor of Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School. Other team members included Wyss Postdoctoral Fellow Bryan Wei, Ph.D., and graduate student Mingjie Dai. …

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Greg Minnaar riding the new nano-enhanced DH rim at the 2012 World Cup Opener in South Africa (credit: Zyvex Technologies)

The superiority of nanostructured materials continues to find real commercial applications. A hat tip to KurzweilAI.net for reporting this success from Zyvex Technologies for their proprietary carbon nanotube and graphene engineered composite material. From Zyvex News “The world’s first nano-enhanced carbon fiber downhill bike rim“:

The world’s first molecular nanotechnology company, Zyvex Technologies, and ENVE Composites announced an exclusive partnership to provide a bicycle rim specifically for downhill mountain biking that uses the latest advanced materials comprised of nano-enhanced carbon fiber. This new bicycle rim gives a significant competitive advantage to the downhill cycling market as proven during the last year in development and testing. The ENVE DH rim provides performance benefits to all downhill cyclists including those that compete at the highest levels of World Cup racing.

ENVE used Zyvex Technologies’ nano-enhanced carbon fiber technology called Arovex, which is a carbon nanotube and graphene engineered composite material that uses the proprietary Kentera technology to create chemical bonds on the carbon nanotubes. It provides an advantage in toughness without compromising strength. It also protects from fracture damage. ENVE has an exclusive license for this advanced technology for cycling applications.

ENVE developed the first nano-enhanced carbon fiber downhill bike with the intention of its riders winning a World Cup. After being in development for over a year, the rim carried ENVE sponsored rider Greg Minnaar (see photo) to victory at the 2012 World Cup opener in South Africa.

It will be a long road from nanostructured composites to complex molecular machine systems, but successful early steps provide incentives to continue along the development road.
—James Lewis, PhD

Darpa's Living Foundries program is looking to transform biology into an engineering practice. Photo: VA

Synthetic biology promises near-term breakthroughs in medicine, materials, and energy, and is also one promising development pathway leading to advanced nanotechnology and a general capability for programmable, atomically-precise manufacturing. Darpa (US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) has launched a new program that could greatly accelerate progress in synthetic biology by creating a library of standardized, modular biological units that could be used to build new devices and circuits. A hat tip to KurzweilAI.net for pointing to a recent article in Wired Danger Room “Darpa, Venter launch assembly line for genetic engineering“:

… The program, called “Living Foundries,” was first announced by the agency last year. Now, Darpa’s handed out seven research awards worth $15.5 million to six different companies and institutions. Among them are several Darpa favorites, including the University of Texas at Austin and the California Institute of Technology. Two contracts were also issued to the J. Craig Venter Institute. Dr. Venter is something of a biology superstar: He was among the first scientists to sequence a human genome, and his institute was, in 2010, the first to create a cell with entirely synthetic genome.

“Living Foundries” aspires to turn the slow, messy process of genetic engineering into a streamlined and standardized one. Of course, the field is already a burgeoning one: Scientists have tweaked cells in order to develop renewable petroleum and spider silk that’s tough as steel. And a host of companies are investigating the pharmaceutical and agricultural promise lurking — with some tinkering, of course — inside living cells.

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Foresight Presents: “GENOGEN: Regenerating Skin for Life“
Dr. Nancy Mize
Date/Time: Thursday, May 31, 2012, 6:30pm in PDT
Drinks/Dinner: 6:30pm, Talk: 7:30pm
RSVP: $40 via http://www.paypal.com/ to foresight@foresight.org
Location: Ristorante Don Giovanni
235 Castro Street, Mountain View, CA 94041

GENOGEN is developing products that activate resident skin stem cells to stimulate local areas of regeneration of skin naturally – the way children heal. GENOGEN’s first product is a re-purposed agent, currently FDA and EU approved and marketed, and used in humans for over 5 years, with significant utility in the aesthetics sector for treatment of aging skin. Localized skin delivery of the stem cell activator with a growth matrix activates local regeneration and repair in situ – with no stem cell isolation, no stem cell prep, no surgery, extraction or re-implantation – resulting in accelerated healing and young skin.

NANCY K MIZE, PhD, Scientist, Innovator, and CEO of GENOGEN Inc., has researched stem cell activators since 2000, and is the co-inventor on 11 issued patents. Dr. Mize served as the BioMarker Expert for Personalized Medicine at Pacific BioDevelopment, the Director of Protein Bioinformatics at Hyseq/Nuvelo, and Scientist, Drug Delivery Technologies at Alza Corporation. Dr. Mize holds a PhD from UCSF in Cell Biology in the department of Human Physiology, BS from UC Berkeley and has completed Postdoctoral studies at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), Heidelberg, and Genentech.

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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