I Gotta Get Me One of Those!
Aug 12 at 3:03pm by Aileen
Invisibility Cloak One Step Closer: New Metamaterials Bend Light Backwards
In J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, the boy wizard inherited an invisibility cloak from his father. He could use it to sneak around undetected through the stony halls of Hogwart’s School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, to escape the confines of the same place, and to spy on the plots and plans and deeds of other characters in the story. If you’re 8 years old, the thought of your own personal invisibility cloak is highly entertaining.
Enter scientists – presumably older than 8 – at the University of California at Berkeley, who announced this week that they have engineered some nifty “metamaterials” that can bend light rays around an object to render them effectively invisible. The entertaining dream just became reality, but will likely be reserved mostly for spies and other, more lethal tools of military stealth. Alas, we probably won’t be able to buy our own invisibility cloaks at WalMart any time soon.
Research published in Science describes a metamaterial composed of silver nanowires grown inside a porous aluminum oxide. The result is a structure about 10 times thinner than a sheet of paper that can refract light ‘backwards’ to render a cloaked object invisible to human eyes, radar, and near-infrared wavelengths as short as 660 nanometers. Nature looks at a ‘fishnet’ metamaterial and its possibilities.
We should probably not let the Romulans know about this development. Let them invent their own cloaking device!
Popularity: 12% [?]
The Surprising Technology of the Bacterial Flagellum
Jun 24 at 2:02pm by Aileen
[Photo Credit: Zina Deretsky, NSF]
Scientists at Indiana University Bloomington and Harvard published a report in Science June 20 describing a protein “clutch” that disengages the bacterial tail from the “tiny but powerful engine” that powers its rotation. The flagellum is the means that many bacterial cells – including Bacillus subtilis used in this research – use to ‘swim’ in liquid environments where they live.
Microscopic ‘Clutch’ Puts Flagellum in Neutral
The clutch mechanism was discovered by accident when the researchers were studying the formation of bacterial “biofilm,” where the cells accumulate and become stationary, biofilms are involved in bacterial infections. It is hoped that the discovery will give nanotechnologists some ideas about how to regulate tiny engines they create in the lab.
“We think it’s pretty cool that evolving bacteria and human engineers arrived at a similar solution to the same problem,” says IU biologist Daniel Kearns, leader of the project.
Popularity: 10% [?]
Are Carbon Nanotubes Dangerous Like Asbestos?
May 27 at 4:04pm by Aileen
ScienceNews reported last week that research on mice suggests these new fullerene-based wonder-fibers may be as dangerous as asbestos in the environment. The study showed that multi-walled (rigid) nanotube fibers longer than 15 micrometers cannot be removed from sensitive organic tissues by microphages, and that this causes inflammation that could lead to asbestos-like diseases including mesothelioma, a fatal form of cancer.
The study was published in the May 20 online edition of Nature Nanotechnology, and according to the Washington Post serves as a preliminary warning that there may be serious issues with the technology that warrant very careful planning to protect industrial workers, the public and the environment as nanotube fibers become more common in consumer and industrial products.
Companies around the world produce thousands of tons of nanomaterials a year, not all of them in the form that poses the threat identified by these researchers. Nanotubes alone are expected to become a multi-billion dollar industry within the next few years. While the government pumps about $1.5 billion a year into R&D for nanotechnology, only about 5 percent of that goes into health and safety concerns.
It would be quite refreshing if, for a change, we incorporated the lessons of history as we develop this promising new technology to forestall issues related to health, safety and environmental pollution before they become just more grim statistics attached to greed over due caution. And for this reason the situation bears watching to see if identified areas of concern are simply denied and swept under a profit rug, or rationally dealt with as if humans could accept responsibility – and minimize risks – per the less than hopeful side-effects of our intelligent designs.
Popularity: 16% [?]
Painted-On Solar Cells
Mar 14 at 7:07pm by Aileen
Great news this week on ScienceDaily, picked up by Nanotechnology News and other outlets that researchers from Swansea University has developed a paint coating for steel buildings that will generate electricity even in low light situations.
Check it out at Wise Living Journal.
Popularity: 15% [?]
Little Hoods, Little Goods, Little Doo-Dads from the Woods…
Sep 7 at 3:03pm by Aileen
(With apologies to Zappa/Beefheart and Poofter’s Froth Wyoming)
In the science news this week reports run the gambit of science and technology, including biofuels, nanotechnology, genes and genomes, evolution, and bizarre animal behavior.
Nanotechnology
Single-Atom Data Storage, Single-Molecule Switching
In the quest for ever smaller, ever more useful computers and other devices, IBM reported this week that its researchers have made significant progress in understanding the magnetic properties of atoms, which opens the door to computational and data storage devices that will have practical applications even beyond current AI dreams of quantum computers.
The researchers unveiled the first single-molecule switch, which operates flawlessly and does not disrupt the molecule’s outer frame. They used IBM’s scanning tunneling microscope [STM] to manipulate single iron atoms, arranging them with precision on a prepared copper surface. Two papers on the subject have been published in the Sept. 5 issue of the journal Science.
Popularity: 9% [?]
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