Phase III – Stealth Is.

A radical group that opposes nanotechnology has has claimed responsibility for at least two bombing attacks on researchers in Mexico and it praises the “Unabomber,” whose mail-bombs killed three people and injured 23 in the United States.

“When these modified viruses affect the way we live through a nano-bacteriological war, unleashed by some laboratory error or by the explosion of nano-pollution that affects the air, food, water, transport, in short the entire world, then all of those who defend nanotechnology and don’t think it is a threat will realize that it was a grave error to let it grow out of control,” according to statement.

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Scientists at MIT mimic plant processes to build solar cells that renew themselves like living beings.

Living things don’t have that many advantages over machines. We’re not as quick, or as precise, and we don’t have as good a memory. Moreover, while they are made of tough stuff, we are mostly composed of things that go squish. One of the limited advantages we have is that when we go squish, we have built-in repair shops. When they go crunch, they’re crunched.

Self-renewal has been a goal of many different technology manufacturers, but especially the makers of solar cells. For years scientists have looked resentfully at their solar cells, the components of which wear out or break, and envied plants, which have a built-in systems that take apart and renew any worn-out bits.

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The complexes are made up of light-harvesting proteins, single-walled nanotubes and disc-shaped lipids. The proteins (which are isolated from a purple bacterium, Rhodobacter sphaeroides) contain a light reaction centre (carried by the lipids) comprising bacteriochlorophylls and other molecules. . . . The nanotubes also serve to align the lipid discs in neat rows, ensuring that the reaction centres are uniformly exposed to sunlight.

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Cotton impregnated with silver nanowires and carbon nanotubes (CNTs) could provide a cheap and effective method of purifying water in remote locations.

Analyzing the fabric with a scanning electron microscope reveals that the CNTs stick to the individual cotton fibers, while the slightly larger silver nanowires form a mesh between the fibers. The nanoparticles enable the fabric to conduct electricity, so a weak electric current can run across it. This helps kill bacteria by damaging their outer membranes, while the silver nanowires’ anti-bacterial properties do the rest.

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UCLA researchers have fabricated the fastest graphene transistor to date, using a new fabrication process with a nanowire as a self-aligned gate.

Self-aligned gates are a key element in modern transistors, which are semiconductor devices used to amplify and switch electronic signals. Gates are used to switch the transistor between various states, and self-aligned gates were developed to deal with problems of misalignment encountered because of the shrinking scale of electronics.

“This new strategy overcomes two limitations previously encountered in graphene transistors,” professor of chemistry and biochemistry Xiangfeng Duan said. “First, it doesn’t produce any appreciable defects in the graphene during fabrication, so the high carrier mobility is retained. Second, by using a self-aligned approach with a nanowire as the gate, the group was able to overcome alignment difficulties previously encountered and fabricate very short-channel devices with unprecedented performance.”

These advances allowed the team to demonstrate the highest speed graphene transistors to date, with a cutoff frequency up to 300 GHz — comparable to the very best transistors from high-electron mobility materials such gallium arsenide or indium phosphide.

“This new strategy overcomes two limitations previously encountered in graphene transistors,” professor of chemistry and biochemistry Xiangfeng Duan said. “First, it doesn’t produce any appreciable defects in the graphene during fabrication, so the high carrier mobility is retained. Second, by using a self-aligned approach with a nanowire as the gate, the group was able to overcome alignment difficulties previously encountered and fabricate very short-channel devices with unprecedented performance.”

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A new “tea bag” uses nano-fibers to suck contaminants and bacteria out of water, providing a desperately-needed, cheap solution for the billions of people without clean drinking water. Researchers at South Africa’s Stellenbosch University made the device from the same material used for the bags of the country’s popular rooibos tea. Inside the sachets are two tiny destroyers of all things unsafe: ultra-thin nanoscale fibers, which filter harmful contaminants, and bacteria-killing grains of carbon.

To use the device, a person simply has to place the bag in the neck of a water bottle, and the bag cleans the water as he or she drinks. A single bag can filter up to a liter of even the most heavily polluted water. The bags are thrown away once used.

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By emulating nature’s design principles, a team at Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, Harvard Medical School and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute has created nanodevices made of DNA that self-assemble and can be programmed to move and change shape on demand. In contrast to existing nanotechnologies, these programmable nanodevices are highly suitable for medical applications because DNA is both biocompatible and biodegradable.

Built at the scale of one billionth of a meter, each device is made of a circular, single-stranded DNA molecule that, once it has been mixed together with many short pieces of complementary DNA, self-assembles into a predetermined 3D structure. Double helices fold up into larger, rigid linear struts that connect by intervening single-stranded DNA. These single strands of DNA pull the struts up into a 3D form—much like tethers pull tent poles up to form a tent. The structure’s strength and stability result from the way it distributes and balances the counteracting forces of tension and compression.

This architectural principle—known as tensegrity—has been the focus of artists and architects for many years, but it also exists throughout nature. In the human body, for example, bones serve as compression struts, with muscles, tendons and ligaments acting as tension bearers that enable us to stand up against gravity. The same principle governs how cells control their shape at the microscale.

“This new self-assembly based nanofabrication technology could lead to nanoscale medical devices and drug delivery systems, such as virus mimics that introduce drugs directly into diseased cells,” said co-investigator and Wyss Institute director Don Ingber. A nanodevice that can spring open in response to a chemical or mechanical signal could ensure that drugs not only arrive at the intended target but are also released when and where desired.

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“These little Swiss Army knives can help us make all kinds of things that could be useful for advanced drug delivery and regenerative medicine,” said lead investigator William Shih, Wyss core faculty member and associate professor of biological chemistry and molecular pharmacology at HMS and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. “We also have a handy biological DNA Xerox machine that nature evolved for us,” making these devices easy to manufacture.

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In fact, researchers have been changing the nanostructure of food for years, for example by adding emulsifiers to improve the texture of ice cream. It’s the emergence of technologies such as atomic force microscopy that has changed the game by finally opening a window on the nanoworld.

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“We know that the food industry is looking at encapsulating certain ingredients like omega-3 fatty acids, vitamins or minerals,” says Frans Kampers, who researches bionanotechnologies at Wageningen University and Research Centre in the Netherlands. The idea is an attractive one. Oil-soluble nutrients can be poorly absorbed in the watery environment of the gut, with a proportion passing right through the body. Nano-encapsulation converts them to a dispersed form that is more easily taken up. Wrapping them in nano packages also extends their shelf life, masks any unpleasant tastes and, in the case of nano-emulsions, makes them invisible to the naked eye so that they don’t affect a food’s appearance.

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In November 2008, the European Food Safety Authority rejected a request to approve nanosilver products for sale in the European Union, because of a lack of safety data. It is “persistent” nanoparticles like silver and silica, which don’t break down in the body, that are causing the greatest safety concerns among food researchers, says Morris.

Micrometre-sized persistent particles of silica and titanium dioxide have been used as food additives for decades, for example as whiteners in products like chewing gum, with no apparent ill effects. Make the particles smaller, and things are different: some nanoparticles seem able to penetrate the cells lining the gut, and so have the potential to travel around the body. Last December, a team led by Roel Schins at the Environmental Health Research Institute (IUF) in Düsseldorf, Germany, published research suggesting that some nanoparticles, including silica and titanium dioxide, can induce DNA damage in human intestinal cells

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Gonna try and do one of these monthly for about a year or so. Will mostly be Nanotech oriented, may leak over into neuroscience developments from time to time.

So, How close are we to grey-gooing ourselves? Let’s try to find out together, shall we?

Digging deep into diamonds – “The new device offers a bright, stable source of single photons at room temperature, an essential element in making fast and secure computing with light practical.

The finding could lead to a new class of nanostructured diamond devices suitable for quantum communication and computing, as well as advance areas ranging from biological and chemical sensing to scientific imaging.”

A Stellar, Metal-Free Way to Make Carbon Nanotubes – Meteorite’s containing naturally formed space-Carbon Nanotubes could help us in their design and possibly shed a bit of light on the way carbon is seeded on planets

You live in a very unhealthy world and probably don’t take steps to reduce your risk of health problems, but have no fear – Medibots could be fixing your damaged equipment before you know it.

Artificial Skin will use Quantum Tunneling – so now your sexbots will actually feel your love through non-local entanglement sensors? Kind of:

“Peratech makes an electrically conductive material called quantum tunneling composite (QTC). When the material is compressed electrons jump between two conductors separated by polymer insulating layer covered with metallic nanoparticles.

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QTC robot skin could perhaps let a robot know precisely where it has been touched, and with how much pressure. It could also be helpful in designing machines that have better grasping capabilities, and for developing more natural ways for machines to interact with humans.”

Organic Transistor Paves Way for New Generations of Neuro-Inspired Computers – “For the first time, CNRS and CEA researchers have developed a transistor that can mimic the main functionality of a synapse. This organic transistor, based on pentacene and gold nanoparticles and known as a NOMFET (Nanoparticle Organic Memory Field-Effect Transistor), has opened the way to new generations of neuro-inspired computers, capable of responding in a manner similar to the nervous system.”

Them gold nanoparticles sure have been worth all the years of failed alchemist looking for their philospher’s stone. See:NanoGold used in Cancer Treatment.

Of course, everyone’s been wigging out about the emerging actualization of William Gibson‘s Nanofaxes via “3D printing” which is actually tech that’s been in development for several years, mostly aimed at organ tissue printing.

The Self-Assembling Nanoparticles into Complex Nanostructures article over at H+ Magazine discusses the issue: “These parts, in turn, can be assembled by positioning mechanisms of assorted sizes to build macroscopic (visible) but still atomically-precise products. The concept is that a functioning nanofactory will create virtually any product at the cost of only the input raw material and energy.”

and the idea receives further fanfare with a different perspective via Can Open Source Manufacturing Save Humanity?:

While this technology is very promising, consider that your governments are passing measures to stop you from trading purely digital information on the basis of copyright. Given their investment in production, don’t you think they will attempt to lockdown this developing science in one way or another?

KNOW YOUR FUTURE BETTER.

So, what’d we miss?

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