Educating and inspiring students through nanotechnology

New educational videos and a nanotech-enabled superhero contest are among new activities to educate and inspire students to prepare for high-tech jobs of the future.

An up-close view of bacterial motors

Over millennia, bacteria have evolved a variety of specialized mechanisms to move themselves through their particular environments. In two recent studies researchers used a state-of-the-art imaging technique to capture, for the first time, three-dimensional views of this tiny complicated machinery in bacteria.

Nanoparticle-based cancer therapies shown to work in humans

Scientists have shown that nanoparticles can function to target tumors while avoiding adjacent healthy tissue in human cancer patients.

How to make metal alloys that stand up to hydrogen

High-tech metal alloys are widely used in important materials such as the cladding that protects the fuel inside a nuclear reactor. But even the best alloys degrade over time. Now, researchers has found a way of greatly reducing the damaging effects these metals suffer from exposure to hydrogen.

A biomimetic 'bridge' to precision medicine

Researchers have developed a technique that uses antibody-coated nanoparticles as imaging probes to watch cell-to-cell interactions under microfluid conditions.

We don't talk much about nanotechnology risks anymore, but that doesn't mean they're gone

The worries that even nanotechnology proponents had in the early 2000s about possible health and environmental risks - and their impact on investor and consumer confidence - seem to have evaporated. So what?s changed?

Effective graphene doping depends on substrate material

Physicists have discovered unexpected effects in doped graphene - i.e. graphene that is mixed with foreign atoms.

Multilingual circuit: 'Optomechanical transducer' links sound, light and radio waves

Researchers have developed a piezo-optomechanical circuit that converts signals among optical, acoustic and radio waves. A system based on this design could move and store information in next-generation computers.

Quantum effects at work in the world?s smelliest superconductor

Researchers have found that quantum effects are the reason that hydrogen sulphide - which has the distinct smell of rotten eggs- behaves as a superconductor at record-breaking temperatures, which may aid in the search for room temperature superconductors.

New nanoparticle reveals cancer treatment effectiveness in real time

A new technique developed in pre-clinical models offers a new approach and a read out on the effectiveness of chemotherapy in as few as eight hours after treatment.

Revealing the ion transport at nanoscale

Researchers have shown that a law of physics having to do with electron transport at nanoscale can also be analogously applied to the ion transport. This discovery provides insight into a key aspect of how ion channels function within our living cells.

Querying excited electrons

New theoretical approaches provide insights into chemical bonding and structure from biology to materials.

A manufacturing method for microbatteries with organic electrode materials

Researchers have demonstrated the fabrication of electrochemically active organic lithium electrode thin films, which help make microbatteries more efficient than before.