For nanotechnology watchers who are experiencing nanotube fatigue, Scientific American recaps a newer nanotech material capturing the imagination: Called graphene, it is essentially a nanotube unrolled—a single layer of atoms arranged like a honeycomb. The difference may sound cosmetic, but when the goal is manipulating things that are a few ...

Since the concept of nanosystems first arose, people have asked “how will these things be powered?” Now there’s another answer from Z.L. Wang at Georgia Tech, in a paper published April 6 in Science. Extremetech explains: The generators use a series of vertically aligned zinc oxide nanowires that move inside a zigzag plate ...

We are only in the very early stages of nanotechnology bringing new abilities to DNA reading, but the latest such nanotech advance comes from New Mexico Tech profs Peng Zhang and Snezna Rogelj, described in an article by George Zamora: NM Tech Researchers Develop Nanomaterial Bio-sensor New Mexico Tech researchers have developed a highly ...

The benefits to energy and space applications of advanced nanotechnology will be huge, but nearer-term we are already seeing some very promising results from simple aluminum nanoparticles. From University of Wisconsin on the work of engineering prof Pradeep Rohatgi, via Foresight Senior Associate Brian Wang: The newest class of MMCs [metal ...

It would be nice if we could physically rearrange the nanotech components on a computer chip after it is made. From Nanotechweb.org: One generally promising approach for electromechanical manipulation at the nanoscale and microscale is “dielectrophoresis” - the net force experienced by a neutral dielectric object in a non-uniform ...

One of the top four nanotech articles highlighted in the first issue of Nature Nanotechnology is “Making Molecular Machines Work” by Wesley Browne and Ben Feringa. Full text of the article is free, at least for now. From the conclusions: The exquisite solutions nature has found to control molecular motion, evident in the ...

John Faith and Billy Harvey bring our attention to progress in Dip Pen Lithography nanotech reported at Phys.org.com: Ever since the invention of the first scanning probe microscope in 1981, researchers have believed the powerful tool would someday be used for the nanofabrication and nanopatterning of surfaces in a molecule-by-molecule, ...

From Webwire, news of an increased commitment by Israel to keep pace in nanotech: The Israeli government will increase funding for Israeli universities over the next 5 years to $82 million in order to strengthen their advanced research centers in nanoscience and nanotechnology, it was announced today… “We found that multiple donation ...

John Faith brings our attention to an item at PhysicsWeb on how to overcome friction in nanosized mechanical devices: Friction is a big problem in nanosized devices because they have huge surface-to-volume ratios, which means that their surfaces quickly wear out and seize up. Traditional lubricants are useless in such machines because they ...

John Brandon at PC Magazine does a close-up on the NanoRobotics Laboratory at Carnegie Mellon: Tiny robots will someday crawl up your spine—literally. These microscopic critters, currently in a development phase at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, are biomimetic (that is, based on biological principles), have bacteria motors attached ...