Bodywork could one day double as a car’s battery
Parts of a car’s bodywork could one day double up as its battery, according to the scientists behind a new €3.4 million project announced today.
Researchers from Imperial College London, UK, and their European partners, including Volvo Car Corporation, are developing a prototype material which can store and [...]

The SiO2 coating on a filament of a microfiber. (The fissure was induced in order present an image which shows the characteristics of the coating.)
Spray-on liquid glass is transparent, non-toxic, and can protect virtually any surface against almost any damage from hazards such as water, UV radiation, dirt, heat, and bacterial infections. The coating is [...]

Come 2010 and we have another invisibility cloak technology knocking on our doors to be embraced. Continuing the illusionary invisible cloaking technique from Harry Potter books, Ji-Ping Huang and colleagues from Fudan University in Shanghai, China, theorize a technique of suspending silver-plated nanoparticles in water to create soft and flexible metamaterial, that forms an ingredient [...]

Viagra sheets look likely to become genius invention of the year.
 

Color-changing contact lenses
There is great news for diabetics. A revolutionary technology is on its way to help them measure blood sugar levels without drawing blood daily.
 

David Cox, a scientist in the Quantum Detection group at the National Physical Laboratory in the UK, is an expert in nanofabrication techniques. Recently, using the tools of his trade and a bit of humor, he has created his latest masterpiece: the world’s smallest snowman, which measures just 0.01 mm across (about one-fifth the width [...]

Nanosized “forest of peptides” can be used as the basis for self-cleaning windows and more efficient batteries.
A coating on windows or solar panels that repels grime and dirt? Expanded battery storage capacities for the next electric car? New Tel Aviv University research, just published in Nature Nanotechnology, details a breakthrough in assembling peptides at the [...]

Scientists from Purdue University have prepared a new solid propellant with explosive results. The fuel, a combination of nanoaluminum and ice, is a new kind of environmentally friendly solid rocket fuel that could someday be used in missions to outer space. With the motive to minimize fuel consumption onboard, the fuel has been successfully field-tested [...]

Power that literally ROCKS!

Rochus Jacob designed and built the Murakami Chair. As the user rocks back and forth during the day, the chair charges a battery that powers the lamp. Jacob writes: I was looking for opportunities to generate energy through activities we naturally do. The final result is a rocking chair that enables the [...]

 
Tomato seeds exposed to nanoparticles in the form of carbon nanotubes that are only 1/50,000 the width of a human hair, sprouted sooner and grew faster in what researchers are describing as a step toward the “goals of nanoagriculture.”
 

Flexible dye-sensitized solar panels incorporated into this bag make it capable of recharging electronic gadgets.
The first commercial product to incorporate dye-sensitized thin-film solar cells will soon be on the market. Backpacks coated with the cheap, lightweight, and flexible solar cell, for on-the-go recharging of portable gadgets, were unveiled at the Hong Kong Electronics Fair last [...]

Dr. Ben Wang shows a model of an ‘unmanned aerial vehicle’
Nanotechnology has surprising applications in mundane materials like sunscreen and esoteric items like high-tech body armor for soldiers. But some fear scarier scenarios worthy of a science fiction novel.  At Florida State University, engineers are creating new body armor for American troops. It’s more durable, [...]

Section of a butterfly wing under a microscope
A team of researchers from the State University of Pennsylvania (USA) and the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (UAM) have developed a technique to replicate biological structures, such as butterfly wings, on a nano scale. The resulting biomaterial could be used to make optically active structures, such as optical [...]

This scanning-electron-microscope image shows a stress-triggered transistor in cross section.
Nanoscale sensors have many potential applications, from detecting disease molecules in blood to sensing sound within an artificial ear. But nanosensors typically have to be integrated with bulky power sources and integrated circuits. Now researchers at Georgia Tech have demonstrated a nanoscale sensor that doesn’t need [...]

Researchers at Stanford have created a kind of inexpensive sensor based on carbon nanotubes (these things are so useful!) that can detect traces of TNT and the nerve agent Sarin in water. This can be useful to detect terrorist attacks on the water supply or leaching from munition making or storage facilities, but I bet [...]

The carbon nanotube at center is connected to several electrodes and acts as a superefficient photovoltaic cell.
Today’s solar cells lose much of the energy in light to heat. Now researchers at Cornell University have made a photovoltaic cell out of a single carbon nanotube that can take advantage of more of the energy in light [...]

Carbon nanotube-based photodiode
Cornell researchers fabricated, tested and measured a simple solar cell called a photodiode, formed from an individual carbon nanotube.  Using a carbon nanotube instead of traditional silicon, Cornell researchers have created the basic elements of a solar cell that hopefully will lead to much more efficient ways of converting light to electricity than [...]

Ferromagnetic graphone sheet
An international team of researchers has designed a new graphite-based, magnetic nano-material that acts as a semiconductor and could help material scientists create the next generation of electronic devices like microchips.
 

Six Millon Dollar Man here we come
A MONKEY sits on a bench, wires running from its head and wrist into a small box of electronics. At first the wrist lies limp, but within 10 minutes the monkey begins to flex its muscles and move its hand from side to side. The movements are clumsy, but [...]

Nano-ink could replace standard method of manufacturing solar cells
This is one powerful idea that would do away with massive solar panels. Solar cells could soon be spray painted onto the sides of buildings or rooftops with nanoparticles.
 

University of California Santa Barbara researcher Erkki Ruoslahti
Scientists at UC Santa Barbara have discovered a potential new drug delivery system. The finding is a biological mechanism for delivery of nanoparticles into tissue. The results are published in this week’s Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
 

Carbon nanowires coated with silicon (bottom) produces a material that can store six times as much charge
Lithium ion has become the battery of choice for electric vehicles, driving researchers to improve the technology’s performance, longevity, and reliability. A new type of nanowire electrode developed by materials science and engineering professor Yi Cui at Stanford is [...]

 
In 2003, Dr. Andrew von Eschenbach, then director of the National Cancer Institute outlined his goal to eliminate suffering and death from cancer by 2015. “This prediction does not mean that we will eliminate cancer by then,” he said, “I don’t know when that will happen. But the challenge is to understand the disease and [...]

International Business Machines Corp is looking to the building blocks of our bodies — DNA — to be the structure of next-generation microchips.
 

Researchers have created the tiniest laser since its invention nearly 50 years ago
Developed by a consortium of researchers, dubbed the “spaser”, it is the thinnest laser ever developed. About 44 nanometers in diameter and about 10 times smaller than the wavelength of light, the nanolaser could pave way for superfast computers, which use light to [...]