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!

[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.

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.

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.

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.

Nanotech Biology

Blending DNA and Nanotechnology
DNA – it’s not just a template for life anymore. It was reported this week that researchers at a John Wiley & Sons, Inc., a corporate nanotech laboratory, have developed a method of using DNA molecules as pattern templates for high-aspect ratio trenches for nanochannels and nanowire deposition for nanocircuitry and other nanofabrications.

They call it “DNA shadow nanolithography” and takes us yet another step farther into the brave new nanoworld.

Genetics, DNA

Genetic Trigger for the Cambrian Explosion?
A Croatian research team reported that a novel methodology they developed for approaching evolutionary studies has allowed them to shed light on issues that have puzzled biologists since Darwin’s time.

Their approach doesn’t rely on fossilized remains, which display significant gaps in the evolutionary record. Instead, they suggest that the current genome of every species carries within it a “snapshot” of each evolutionary epoch that species went through in the deep past. The paper fully presenting their theory of genomic phylostratigraphy will be published in the November issue of the journal Trends in Genetics.

One might wonder about that theory, given the asserted mechanisms and predictions of the standard theory of evolution, the Neodarwinian Synthesis. Yet strangely enough, there is intriguing evidence that large, very ancient portions of genomes are perfectly conserved through eons of evolution (with zero mutations), even though these ultraconserved sequences apparently serve no purpose for the organism. Hmmm…

Mice Thrive Missing Ancient DNA Sequences
Scientists reporting in the September issue of the online open access journal PLoS Biology are trying to explain why ‘knockout’ mice missing 4 of the 481 “ultraconserved” genetic sequences that are shared exactly with humans have showed no signs of abnormalities. As team leader Nadav Ahituv explained,

The discovery that deletion of ultraconserved elements does not render mice inviable or infertile is a major challenge to our understanding of how highly conserved elements of the genome persist and what their functions are, [team leader Nadav Ahituv said]. He and his colleagues are pursuing research aimed at answering these compelling new questions.

First Diploid Human Genome Sequence Shows Surprising Difference
Human genome sequencing superstar Craig Venter of the J. Craig Venter Institute [JCVI] has once again sequenced his own genome, this time accounting for both chromosome pairs instead of just one – a full diploid genome.

With help from collaborators in Toronto and UCSD, the new diploid genome was dubbed “HuRef” and the research is to be available to the public and other researchers via the open access online journal, PLoS Biology. Venter’s HuRef genome demonstrates how greatly previous human genome sequences underestimated the genetic diversity among humans at least sevenfold.

Biofuels

‘Sweet’ Biofuels Research Goes Down on the Farm
Oklahoma State University’s sorghum biofuels researchers are working on methods for producing ethanol from easily grown, environmentally friendly sorghum right on the farm where its grown.

With the help of a sorghum field harvester invented by entreppreneur Lee McClune of Sorganol Production Co., Inc., the OSU Ag Sciences workers are hoping to develop a means to ferment the harvested sorghum juice (300-600 gallons per acre depending on efficiency) right on the farm, during harvest season when environmental temperatures make it feasible.

Will A Biofuel Economy Be Sustainable?
Farmers in the midwestern U.S. “Corn Belt” grow a lot of corn. And they are increasingly growing it for biomass and biofuels production rather than for human and animal food. Researchers in agriculture and biosystems engineering have been trying to answer some questions about how the U.S. agricultural economy will be changing as our demand for biofuels increases.

The article reports a paper published in Crop Science online, Potential for Enhanced Nutrient Cycling through Coupling of Agricultural and Bioenergy Systems.

Biology News of the Bizarre

Got Arachnophobia? Here’s Your Worst Nightmare
That picture doesn’t do it justice. This communal web covers 5 acres of the Lake Tawakoni State Park in Texas, and it hosts millions of spiders. They’re taking over an entire lakeside penninsula.

Biologists say this behavior is usually not seen outside the tropics, where a few species of ’social’ spiders are known to build communal webs. Some are saying it could be the unusual amount of rain this part of Texas enjoyed this year, others suggest it might be a symptom of global warming, and still others think it’s just a fluke. Any way you slice it, the town of Wills Point, Texas is going to have a heck of a haunted hayride opportunity this Halloween!