Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your nanogarden grow? Harvard engineer Wim Noorduin has a green thumb. Only his thumb is only a few microns wide. By carefully controlling gradients of chemicals, he guided the construction of flower-like crystal structures to match their larger biological forms. It’s certainly art, but it also demonstrates a masterful manipulation of chemistry on the nano scale. Just how small are they? As NPR reports, these flowers could fit in the lapel of the tiny Abraham Lincoln statue on the back of a penny (back when pennies had the Lincoln Memorial on them, anyway). These electron microscope images are false colored to recreate fantastic flowers, and these manipulations will one day help control the construction of useful microstructures.  If you’re seriously engineering-inclined, here’s the original research as it appears in Science.
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Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your nanogarden grow? Harvard engineer Wim Noorduin has a green thumb. Only his thumb is only a few microns wide. By carefully controlling gradients of chemicals, he guided the construction of flower-like crystal structures to match their larger biological forms. It’s certainly art, but it also demonstrates a masterful manipulation of chemistry on the nano scale. Just how small are they? As NPR reports, these flowers could fit in the lapel of the tiny Abraham Lincoln statue on the back of a penny (back when pennies had the Lincoln Memorial on them, anyway). These electron microscope images are false colored to recreate fantastic flowers, and these manipulations will one day help control the construction of useful microstructures.  If you’re seriously engineering-inclined, here’s the original research as it appears in Science.
Zoom Info
Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your nanogarden grow? Harvard engineer Wim Noorduin has a green thumb. Only his thumb is only a few microns wide. By carefully controlling gradients of chemicals, he guided the construction of flower-like crystal structures to match their larger biological forms. It’s certainly art, but it also demonstrates a masterful manipulation of chemistry on the nano scale. Just how small are they? As NPR reports, these flowers could fit in the lapel of the tiny Abraham Lincoln statue on the back of a penny (back when pennies had the Lincoln Memorial on them, anyway). These electron microscope images are false colored to recreate fantastic flowers, and these manipulations will one day help control the construction of useful microstructures.  If you’re seriously engineering-inclined, here’s the original research as it appears in Science.
Zoom Info
Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your nanogarden grow? Harvard engineer Wim Noorduin has a green thumb. Only his thumb is only a few microns wide. By carefully controlling gradients of chemicals, he guided the construction of flower-like crystal structures to match their larger biological forms. It’s certainly art, but it also demonstrates a masterful manipulation of chemistry on the nano scale. Just how small are they? As NPR reports, these flowers could fit in the lapel of the tiny Abraham Lincoln statue on the back of a penny (back when pennies had the Lincoln Memorial on them, anyway). These electron microscope images are false colored to recreate fantastic flowers, and these manipulations will one day help control the construction of useful microstructures.  If you’re seriously engineering-inclined, here’s the original research as it appears in Science.
Zoom Info
Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your nanogarden grow? Harvard engineer Wim Noorduin has a green thumb. Only his thumb is only a few microns wide. By carefully controlling gradients of chemicals, he guided the construction of flower-like crystal structures to match their larger biological forms. It’s certainly art, but it also demonstrates a masterful manipulation of chemistry on the nano scale. Just how small are they? As NPR reports, these flowers could fit in the lapel of the tiny Abraham Lincoln statue on the back of a penny (back when pennies had the Lincoln Memorial on them, anyway). These electron microscope images are false colored to recreate fantastic flowers, and these manipulations will one day help control the construction of useful microstructures.  If you’re seriously engineering-inclined, here’s the original research as it appears in Science.
Zoom Info

Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your nanogarden grow?

Harvard engineer Wim Noorduin has a green thumb. Only his thumb is only a few microns wide. By carefully controlling gradients of chemicals, he guided the construction of flower-like crystal structures to match their larger biological forms. It’s certainly art, but it also demonstrates a masterful manipulation of chemistry on the nano scale.

Just how small are they? As NPR reports, these flowers could fit in the lapel of the tiny Abraham Lincoln statue on the back of a penny (back when pennies had the Lincoln Memorial on them, anyway). These electron microscope images are false colored to recreate fantastic flowers, and these manipulations will one day help control the construction of useful microstructures. 

If you’re seriously engineering-inclined, here’s the original research as it appears in Science.

comaniddy: There I go with the science in the underwear again =)Did you get to see last week’s episode of Coma Niddy University? We learn about the anti-microbial properties of silver and it’s possible applications. These applications include hospital surfaces, contraceptives, and your undies. Coma Niddy University http://www.youtube.com/comaniddy Nano-silver underwear sounds like something that Superman would wear. And he’d probably smell very fresh.
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comaniddy: There I go with the science in the underwear again =)Did you get to see last week’s episode of Coma Niddy University? We learn about the anti-microbial properties of silver and it’s possible applications. These applications include hospital surfaces, contraceptives, and your undies. Coma Niddy University http://www.youtube.com/comaniddy Nano-silver underwear sounds like something that Superman would wear. And he’d probably smell very fresh.
Zoom Info
comaniddy: There I go with the science in the underwear again =)Did you get to see last week’s episode of Coma Niddy University? We learn about the anti-microbial properties of silver and it’s possible applications. These applications include hospital surfaces, contraceptives, and your undies. Coma Niddy University http://www.youtube.com/comaniddy Nano-silver underwear sounds like something that Superman would wear. And he’d probably smell very fresh.
Zoom Info
comaniddy: There I go with the science in the underwear again =)Did you get to see last week’s episode of Coma Niddy University? We learn about the anti-microbial properties of silver and it’s possible applications. These applications include hospital surfaces, contraceptives, and your undies. Coma Niddy University http://www.youtube.com/comaniddy Nano-silver underwear sounds like something that Superman would wear. And he’d probably smell very fresh.
Zoom Info

comaniddy:

There I go with the science in the underwear again =)

Did you get to see last week’s episode of Coma Niddy University? We learn about the anti-microbial properties of silver and it’s possible applications. These applications include hospital surfaces, contraceptives, and your undies.

Coma Niddy University
http://www.youtube.com/comaniddy

Nano-silver underwear sounds like something that Superman would wear. And he’d probably smell very fresh.

What DNA Actually Looks Like So cool! Italian scientists have “seen” a double helix (or really, a few of them) in higher resolution than ever before. But wait a sec, didn’t Rosalind Franklin do that half a century ago? Here’s the deal: DNA is smaller than the wavelength of visible light. It is, by definition, invisible to us. But by using wavelengths that are even smaller than visible light, like X-rays, we have been able to discern some of the chemical structure of DNA and other molecules. That X-ray technique gave us Rosalind Franklin’s iconic X-in-an-O image that led to the discovery of the double helix. But when we use X-rays, we are really looking at a sort of reflection pattern (or more accurately, “diffraction”) of the rays bouncing off of the atoms that make up DNA, not the DNA itself. It’s like trying to figure out the shape of a hand by looking at shadow puppets. The Italian scientists imaged DNA closer than ever before by dehydrating the double helix onto microscopic silicon pillars, and then shooting it with a beam of electrons. Where the electrons hit the DNA, we see its shape, like a normal camera, just using electrons instead of visible light. What you’re looking at above is not a single double-helix, but rather a thread made of seven double helices stacked together like threads inside yarn. We are looking at the edge of one of those helices.  You can even see the fuzzy little notches of the helical turns and stacked bases! (Read more about it at The Atlantic. I originally wrote that this was a single helix, which it is not. It is a thread of seven and we are looking at the edge of one in that thread.)
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What DNA Actually Looks Like

So cool! Italian scientists have “seen” a double helix (or really, a few of them) in higher resolution than ever before. But wait a sec, didn’t Rosalind Franklin do that half a century ago? Here’s the deal:

DNA is smaller than the wavelength of visible light. It is, by definition, invisible to us. But by using wavelengths that are even smaller than visible light, like X-rays, we have been able to discern some of the chemical structure of DNA and other molecules. That X-ray technique gave us Rosalind Franklin’s iconic X-in-an-O image that led to the discovery of the double helix.

But when we use X-rays, we are really looking at a sort of reflection pattern (or more accurately, “diffraction”) of the rays bouncing off of the atoms that make up DNA, not the DNA itself. It’s like trying to figure out the shape of a hand by looking at shadow puppets.

The Italian scientists imaged DNA closer than ever before by dehydrating the double helix onto microscopic silicon pillars, and then shooting it with a beam of electrons. Where the electrons hit the DNA, we see its shape, like a normal camera, just using electrons instead of visible light. What you’re looking at above is not a single double-helix, but rather a thread made of seven double helices stacked together like threads inside yarn. We are looking at the edge of one of those helices. 

You can even see the fuzzy little notches of the helical turns and stacked bases!

(Read more about it at The Atlantic. I originally wrote that this was a single helix, which it is not. It is a thread of seven and we are looking at the edge of one in that thread.)

Source: The Atlantic

Transparent Solar Cells: Clearly Amazing Imagine a skyscraper, gleaming with polished glass, that was generating electricity with every square inch of window space. Thanks to these UCLA nanochemists, that is a pretty realistic image. By impregnating plastic with silver nanowires (atomic-scale conductors) that are small enough to be invisible, and absorbing infrared light while allowing visible light to pass through, these solar cells (right, above) are 70% transparent. They take a slight hit in efficiency compared to traditional solar, but can be deployed almost anywhere. Within a decade, we could have buildings supplying their own electricity via building materials!  (via latimes.com)
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Transparent Solar Cells: Clearly Amazing

Imagine a skyscraper, gleaming with polished glass, that was generating electricity with every square inch of window space. Thanks to these UCLA nanochemists, that is a pretty realistic image.

By impregnating plastic with silver nanowires (atomic-scale conductors) that are small enough to be invisible, and absorbing infrared light while allowing visible light to pass through, these solar cells (right, above) are 70% transparent.

They take a slight hit in efficiency compared to traditional solar, but can be deployed almost anywhere. Within a decade, we could have buildings supplying their own electricity via building materials! 

(via latimes.com)

Source: Los Angeles Times

Written In DNA I mean that quite literally. Harvard nanosculptors have developed a technique to stack “bricks” of DNA (essentially small sequence blocks) into defined shapes. By altering which DNA tiles go into a mix, different complex forms can be assembled, including these letters, numbers and characters! Check out Ed Yong’s full post written in the genotypeface, and his full piece at Nature News. (via Not Exactly Rocket Science)
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Written In DNA

I mean that quite literally. Harvard nanosculptors have developed a technique to stack “bricks” of DNA (essentially small sequence blocks) into defined shapes. By altering which DNA tiles go into a mix, different complex forms can be assembled, including these letters, numbers and characters!

Check out Ed Yong’s full post written in the genotypeface, and his full piece at Nature News.


(via Not Exactly Rocket Science)

Source: blogs.discovermagazine.com

Nanotechnology and Chocolate Sauce - The Battle Escalates

Water is a cruel moistress. On one hand, we’re mostly made of the stuff. Our biology depends on it, and most of Earth’s chemistry takes place in aqueous environments. It’s water all the way down.

On the other hand it can really ruin your day. Corrosion, contamination, stains, dead iPhones … they can all be attributed to the fact that water sticks to stuff, and stuff sticks to water. But hydrophobic surfaces repel water. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could make say, a pair of nice expensive shoes, completely hydrophobic?

A cool product called NeverWet looks like it can do just that. By coating surfaces with special nanoparticles, they become superhydrophobic. Water just falls right off, as does oil, ketchup and mud. Or anything else.

The video above is pretty amazing. Here it is on clothes. And here’s what your finger would look like if it was superhydrophobic.

(via NeverWet)

Source: neverwet.com

laboratoryequipment:

Technique Enables Fast Mass-Production of Microbots

A new technique inspired by elegant pop-up books and origami will soon allow clones of robotic insects to be mass-produced by the sheet. Devised by engineers at Harvard, the ingenious layering and folding process enables the rapid fabrication of not just microrobots, but a broad range of electromechanical devices.

Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news-Technique-Enables-Fast-Mass-Production-of-Microbots-022112.aspx

I, for one, welcome our new pop-up microrobot overlords.

Also check out these DNA nanobots that target cancer cells and this awesome collection of computational origami.

(via thenextweb)

Source: laboratoryequipment

But is it true? Scientific American decided to dig a little deeper into the “Elephant on a pencil on graphene” thought experiment. Here’s what they found.  This is a funny piece illustrating some pretty awesome science. I especially liked this line: You might get away with this stunt using an Asian elephant, but I’d stay away from trying to get an African elephant onto a pencil, especially a bull African elephant. He might not be able to break the graphene pencil, but he’ll almost certainly destroy the lab in his zeal to avoid being balanced on it. Spoiler alert: The graphene pencil impales the elephant. (via SciAm and The QI Elves)
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But is it true?

Scientific American decided to dig a little deeper into the “Elephant on a pencil on graphene” thought experiment. Here’s what they found. 

This is a funny piece illustrating some pretty awesome science. I especially liked this line:

You might get away with this stunt using an Asian elephant, but I’d stay away from trying to get an African elephant onto a pencil, especially a bull African elephant. He might not be able to break the graphene pencil, but he’ll almost certainly destroy the lab in his zeal to avoid being balanced on it.

Spoiler alert: The graphene pencil impales the elephant.

(via SciAm and The QI Elves)