Tag: nano

Biofilms

Biofilms are extremely tough to get rid of, so this is very welcome news.

A solution for biofilms — a scourge of infections in hospitals and kitchens formed by bacteria that stick to each other on living tissue and medical instruments — has been developed: Injecting iron oxide nanoparticles into the biofilms, and using an applied magnetic field to heat them, triggering them into dispersing.

2017-09-15: Physics of biofilms

Bacteria are extremely adept at building biofilm cities, often in places humans don’t want them: catheters, sewer lines, and our teeth, to name a few. Now scientists are working to unlock the structural mysteries in order to eradicate unwanted bacterial buildup. The first biofilm researchers focused more on the chemical environments of these microbial communities rather than the physical forces that also governed their existence. In the past 10 years, advances in microscale engineering and high-resolution microscopy have allowed scientists to measure physical forces acting on individual cells and replicate a range of environmental conditions in the lab that have enabled scientists to begin to track the formation of a biofilm, cell by cell.

Molecular scale electronics

Constructing a device where the active elements are only a single molecule which has been the ‘holy grail’ of molecular electronics, represents the ultimate in functional miniaturization that can be achieved for an electronic device.

5 kinds of nano

drexler, the coiner of nanotech, points out that the term is now nearly meaningless, creating more confusion than understanding.

Nanomotors inside living cells

nanomotors were placed inside live human cells, propelled with ultrasonic waves, and steered magnetically.

World’s smallest guitar

The guitar has 6 strings, each string 50 nanometers wide. If plucked the strings would resonate, but at inaudible frequencies.

old, i know, but: so metal.

Cellulose nanocrystals

This is a material that is showing really amazing properties. It is abundant, renewable and produced as waste in the paper industry.

Radical Abundance

an update from the coiner of nanotech. unfortunately he whispers the key points, like 1M fold increased manufacturing capacity.

Towards Utility Fog

Gershenfeld created a new 3D interlock structure — which is made from tiny, identical, interlocking parts — to chainmail. The parts form a structure that is 10x stiffer for a given weight than existing ultralight materials. But this new structure can also be disassembled and reassembled easily — such as to repair damage, or to recycle the parts into a different configuration.

A boy and his Atom

Just to be clear, this involved moving 100s of atoms, individually, on the 0.1 nanometer scale. making of at Moving Atoms: Making The World’s Smallest Movie

Pyramid cells

Living cells captured in pyramid cages

this is amazing. i suspect that as our skills in the nano realm increase, our designs will look more like the cell and less like platonic solids.