A research team has created an energy storage device that is highly flexible and stretchy.
How long would your battery last if your phone was always awake and processing data? Would the battery last three hours? One hour? The next generation of electronics will require that kind of always-on energy consumption, but our current batteries are far from powerful enough to accommodate that.
Continue reading… “Graphene supercapacitors could provide energy for flexible electronics”
Space elevator
The Japanese construction giant Obayashi has announced they will have a space elevator up and running by the year 2050. If successful it would revolutionize space travel and potentially transform the global economy. (Video)
Continue reading… “Japanese company Obayashi plans to have a space elevator up and running by 2050”
Diamond nanothread visualization
Scientists have discovered how to produce ultra-thin “diamond nanothreads” that promise extraordinary properties, including strength and stiffness greater than that of today’s strongest nanotubes and polymers.
Continue reading… “Scientists create ultra-thin ‘diamond nanothreads,’ world’s strongest material”
Blood cleansing machine.
A new device developed by bioengineers at Harvard’s Wyss Institute uses magnetism to rid the bloodstream of pathogens that are the source of deadly infections.
Continue reading… “Sticky nanobeads strip bacteria and viruses from blood”
Small weaponized robots, swarm into the human body, hunt down malignant tumors and destroy them.
An army of tiny weaponized robots traveling around a human body, hunting down malignant tumors and destroying them from within sounds like a scene from a science fiction novel. But research in Nature Communications today from the University of California Davis Cancer Center shows the prospect of that being a realistic scenario may not be far off.
Continue reading… “New nanobots hunt down and destroy cancerous tumors”
Nanotechnology might be outside your window at this very moment in the form of a gecko-like human scaling a self-cleaning, nano-enhanced solar window.
A pair of hand-held, gecko-inspired paddles that can help you ascend a 25-foot sheet of glass might not seem like the most impressive use of nanotechnology but this real-world advance aptly demonstrates how quickly the field of nanotechnology is climbing into our lives. Below are ten additional examples of how nanotechnology is already changing the world, followed by 10 ways it may help society scale even greater heights in the near future.
Continue reading… “Top 10 ways nanotechnology is transforming the world around us”
Each chip on this wafer has 10,000 nanotube transistors on it.
For more than ten years, engineers have been worrying that they are running out of tricks for continuing to shrink silicon transistors. Intel’s latest chips have transistors with features as small as 14 nanometers, but it is unclear how the industry can keep scaling down silicon transistors much further or what might replace them.
Continue reading… “Commercial nanotube transistors could be ready by 2020”
Graphene and carbon nanotubes can generate intense surface plasmons for use in nanoelectronics and cancer therapy.
Engineers at Monash University Department of Electrical and Computer Systems Engineering (ECSE) have modeled the world’s first “spaser” (surface plasmon amplification by stimulated emission of radiation) to be made completely out of carbon.
Continue reading… “Smartphones in the future could be printed on your clothes”
As much computing power as a 8-bit computer.
Nano-sized entities made of DNA that are able to perform the same kind of logic operations as a silicon-based computer have been introduced into a living animal. A computer inside a cockroach.
Continue reading… “DNA computers deliver drugs inside cockroaches”
Researchers embedded carbon nanotubes in the chloroplasts of the plants to create “artificial antennae.”
Plants make life possible. Chloroplasts are the tiny organelles with a plant’s leaves. The chloroplasts use incoming sunlight to split water molecules and then knit together the energy-rich carbon and hydrogen compounds found in everything from food to fossil fuels. The leftover “waste” is the oxygen that we and the rest of the animal kingdom depend on to survive and thrive.
Continue reading… “Bionic plants use nanotechnology to boost photosynthesis”
A nanomotor inside a HeLa Cell.
A Pennsylvania State University team has discovered that nanomotors made from tiny metal rods can be manipulated by sound waves and magnets, giving them precise control over their actions inside of cells.
Continue reading… “Tiny motors that fit inside human cells could one day treat diseases”
A new wrinkle in the control of waves.
Flexible, layered materials textured with nanoscale wrinkles could provide a new way of controlling the wavelengths and distribution of waves, whether of sound or light. The new method, developed by researchers at MIT, could eventually find applications from nondestructive testing of materials to sound suppression, and could also provide new insights into soft biological systems and possibly lead to new diagnostic tools.
Continue reading… “Flexible materials could provide new ways to control sound and light”
By delving into the futuring techniques of Futurist Thomas Frey, you’ll embark on an enlightening journey.
Learn More about this exciting program.