Due to the tremendous increases in volume of scientific discovery in the integrated fields of nano/bio/cogno/info research, all press releases will be deleted each month. 

Evolution writ small

Rice study measures physical effects of evolution at molecular scale

HOUSTON -- (Aug. 25, 2010) -- A unique experiment at Rice University that forces bacteria into a head-to-head competition for evolutionary dominance has yielded new insights about the way Darwinian selection plays out at the molecular level. An exacting new analysis of the experiment has revealed precisely how specific genetic mutations impart a physical edge in the competition for survival.

The new research, which could lead to more effective strategies to combat antibiotic drug resistance, was the most downloaded article this month in the journal Molecular Systems Biology.

The research builds upon an ingenious 2005 study involving bacteria called "thermophiles," which thrive at high temperatures. Researchers in the laboratory of Rice biochemist Yousif Shamoo "knocked out" a key gene that allowed the thermophiles to make energy at high temperatures. These crippled versions of the bacteria were then grown inside fermentors for several weeks. Each day, the temperature of the fermentors was increased. As a result, the bacteria were forced to either starve or adapt to survive at high temperature.

Of the hundreds of possible mutations, only five proved successful in allowing the cells to adapt and survive at high temperature. Each of these had mutations in a gene that creates a key enzyme that helps make energy at high temperature. Each of the five made a slightly different version of the enzyme.

"One of these five eventually won out entirely and drove all the others to extinction," said Shamoo, associate professor of biochemistry and cell biology and director of Rice's Institute of Biosciences and Bioengineering. "The question is what physical advantage did that particular mutant have? What were the precise physical changes to the enzyme that allowed that strain to outcompete its cousins?"

Finding the answer to that question was painstaking. While the genetic mutations were known from the earlier study, it fell to graduate student Matt Peña to find out how small changes in the DNA structure of the bacteria translated into specific enzymatic changes. He found that adaptation depended critically on simultaneously keeping the enzyme working while also increasing its resistance to inactivation as the temperatures increased.

He found that versions of the enzyme -- which is a specific kind of protein -- that became inactive were also subject to protein misfolding. In humans, an inability to maintain properly folded and active proteins has been linked to several human diseases, including Alzheimer's.

"Studies like this can help us understand the physical basis for these kinds of diseases, and they can give us a better understanding for the molecular basis for adaptation," Shamoo said. "For example, what we learn from these thermophiles carries over into our work on drug-resistant bacteria because the principles of adaptation are the same no matter whether you're studying temperature, pH, antibiotic resistance or whatever," he said.

Shamoo's lab won funding from the National Institutes of Health in 2009 to study how bacteria evolve antibiotic resistance. One of the ultimate goals of the project is to predict how evolution will play out so that drugmakers can head off resistance before it arises.

"With the thermophile study we've shown that it is possible to build a fitness function -- a mathematical expression -- that translates enzyme performance into a specific measure of competitive advantage," Shamoo said. "That's important because if you can't do that for one protein of interest, then there's no way you're going to be able to do it for a more complicated problem like antibiotic resistance, which involves simultaneous mutations to more than one gene."

Co-authors of the new research paper include Milya Davlieva, research scientist; Matthew Bennett, assistant professor of biochemistry and cell biology; and John Olson, the Ralph and Dorothy Looney Professor of Biochemistry and Cell Biology at Rice. The research was funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health and the Welch Foundation.

Postdoctoral Researcher Position

The NSF Center for Nanotechnology in Society (CNS) at the University of California, Santa Barbara seeks a highly qualified postdoctoral scholar who will conduct spatial analysis research on new media and emerging technologies, specifically nanotechnologies.

The successful candidate will join a team investigating social response to emerging nanotechnologies, and will take the lead in spatial analysis of nanotechnology risk (and innovation) coverage in new media, including the blogosphere and Twitter. Applicants should possess a Ph.D. (in hand by start of appointment) in geography or a related discipline with a strong background in visualization, spatial analysis, GIS/cartography, spatial statistics, and/or new media. Background in societal dimensions of nanotechnology is not required. Applicants should have experience in conducting independent research, a record of communicating research results via publications and presentations, and be willing to participate in collaborative, interdisciplinary research while in residence at UCSB.

UCSB has world-class resources in this area of research, and the successful candidate will have access to the expertise of the UCSB Center for Spatial Studies, including its Director Michael Goodchild, and the UCSB Center for Information Technology and Society, directed by Andrew Flanagin.

The position is full time, in residence at UCSB, with a salary of $42,000--$50,000 depending on experience, plus some health benefits and a modest research and travel budget. Preferred start-date for the position is Jan 1,

2011 (negotiable). The initial appointment is for one year, renewable, based on performance and availability of funding. Initial review of applications will begin on 15 October 2010, however the position will remain open until filled.

When applying, a prospective postdoctoral researcher should submit a full C.V., a relevant sample of published or submitted work, and a plan for research to be done while in residence at CNS with the Risk Perception interdisciplinary research group. The applicant should also provide two letters of reference, either with the application or mailed directly to the CNS. All application materials should be sent to:

Barbara Gilkes

CNS Assistant Director

ISBER MC 2150

University of California

Santa Barbara, CA 93106-2150

Email: bgilkes@cns.ucsb.edu

Phone: (805) 893-3995 Fax: (805) 893-7995

The CNS-UCSB (cns.ucsb.edu) conducts collaborative interdisciplinary research on public and expert risk perception; technologies and the public sphere; science policy/public policy; the historical context of emerging technologies; new technology innovation policy and R&D systems; and globalization and technology development issues, including challenges to equitable development. CNS-UCSB research helps policy makers,scientists and engineers, industry, community organizations, and the general public understand the opportunities

and risks that nanotechnology affords.

An Equal Opportunity Employer.

Research Highlight: RTTA 3

  Crafting Research Agendas in Plausibility:

The Plausibility Project Workshop at Arizona State University

Cynthia Selin, Assistant Research Professor

The Center for Nanotechnology in Society at

Arizona State University

Arnim Wiek, Assistant Professor

School of Sustainability

Arizona State University

There are no future facts yet.

At the same time, there is a need to think ahead, to consider consequences, risks, implications of actions, and desirability in the face of uncertainty and indeterminacy.

This predicament gives rise to a question: How do we assess the quality of anticipatory knowledge?

Our normal ways of managing risk and thinking about the future are unsatisfying. Our normal ways of assessing knowledge quality in terms of accuracy, reliability, precision and consistency are problematic. Plausibility arises as a viable—though under-theorized and illusive—concept that moves beyond the search for a ”factual“ encounter with the future.

In November 2009, the Center for Nanotechnology in Society, in collaboration with the Consortium for Science, Policy and Outcomes (Arizona State University) and the Institute for Science, Policy and Innovation (University of Oxford), joined forces with an interdisciplinary group of scenario practitioners, science and society scholars, philosophers and historians to explore the conceptual and methodological underpinnings of plausibility: what is it, why does it matter, where is it evaluated and for whom is it a central value.

Three outcomes emerged:

Identification of the "state of the art" (concepts, empirical studies) regarding plausibility;

An accounting for research and knowledge gaps surrounding plausibility;

Development of a coordinated research agenda.

The Center for Nanotechnology in Society at Arizona State University facilitates the public's involvement in nanoscale research and development, to build new capabilities for understanding and governing the power of nanotechnology to transform society. CNS-ASU is affiliated with the Consortium for Science, Policy & Outcomes (CSPO), in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at ASU.

Royal Celebration for Kavli Prize Laureates

OSLO, Norway, Aug. 20 (AScribe Newswire) -- His Majesty King Harald will present the Kavli Prize in Astrophysics, Nanoscience and Neuroscience to the eight laureates from the U.S., Germany and the UK at a gala performance at Oslo Concert Hall, Norway, on Sept. 7. The laureates will receive a gold medal, a scroll and a share of the one million U.S. dollars awarded in each of the scientific fields. Artist and former Minister of Culture Ase Kleveland, and the American actor, director and writer Alan Alda will host the award ceremony.

       The 2010 Kavli Prize laureates have made discoveries that have dramatically expanded human understanding in the fields of astrophysics, nanoscience and neuroscience. The chairmen of the international prize committees, Oddbjorn Engvold, Arne Skjeltorp and Jon Storm-Mathisen respectively, will introduce the winners and give a brief account of why they were chosen to receive the Kavli Prize.

       KING HARALD PRESENTS THE PRIZES

       King Harald will present the Kavli Prize, awarded by the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, to the laureates. The Kavli Prize is a partnership between The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, The Kavli Foundation (U.S.) and the Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research.

       The Kavli Prize in Astrophysics will be presented to Jerry Earl Nelson, Raymond Neil Wilson and Roger Angel for their contributions to the development of giant telescopes that have allowed us glimpses of ever more distant and ancient objects and events in the remote corners of the Universe.

       The Kavli Prize in Nanoscience will be presented to Donald M. Eigler and Nadrian C. Seeman for their development of unprecedented methods to control matter on the nanoscale.

       The Kavli Prize in Neuroscience will be presented to Thomas C. Sudhof, Richard H. Scheller and James E. Rothman for their work to reveal the precise molecular basis of the transfer of signals between nerve cells in the brain.

       The names of the 2010 Kavli Prize laureates were announced by Nils Christian Stenseth, President of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters on June 3. Professor Stenseth will also give the opening speech at the award ceremony.

       KAVLI PRIZE SCIENCE FORUM

       The Kavli Prize Science Forum, to take place at the University of Oslo on Sept. 6, is a new biennial international forum meeting to facilitate high-level, global discussion of major topics on science and science policy. For the inaugural forum, ten global leaders critical in shaping science policy in the U.S., Europe and Asia will convene to discuss "The Role of International Cooperation in Science." Jonas Gahr Store, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Norway, will make the opening speech. The two keynote speakers are John P. Holdren, Science Advisor to President Barack Obama and Ernst-Ludwig Winnacker, the first Secretary General of the European Research Council and now the Secretary General of the Human Frontier Science Program. This will be followed by a panel discussion chaired by Charles Vest, President, U.S. National Academy of Engineering.

       The panelists are:

       Ralph J. Cicerone, President, National Academy of Science, U.S.

       Herbert Jaeckle, Vice President, Max Planck Society, Germany

       Kristina Johnson, Under Secretary for Energy, U.S. Department of Energy

       Ichiro Kanazawa, President, Science Council of Japan

       Yongxiang Lu, President, Chinese Academy of Sciences

       Martin Rees, President, The Royal Society, United Kingdom

       Nils Christian Stenseth, President, Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters

       KAVLI PRIZE SYMPOSIA AND LECTURES

       As part of the scientific program during the Kavli Prize week there will also be Kavli Prize Symposia in Astrophysics, Nanoscience and Neuroscience in Oslo on Sept. 6. The Kavli Prize laureates will give their lectures at the University of Oslo on Sept. 8. There will also be two lectures by Bill Bryson in Oslo on Sept. 6. The bestselling American author gives a lecture based on his book "A Short History of Nearly Everything".

       For more details about all the events please consult the Kavli Prize web site http://www.kavliprize.no/ 

UNL research funding tops record $139M

By KEVIN ABOUREZK / Lincoln Journal Star | Posted: Thursday, August 19, 2010 10:40 am

Federal stimulus dollars pushed the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's research funding to a record $139.2 million this year, according to the university.

Total research funding, including all external funds awarded for research in the fiscal year that ended June 30, was up nearly 14 percent from $122.5 million last year.

But $21 million of the new funding came from 55 grants awarded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

"UNL faculty and staff worked very hard during the past year preparing research proposals to compete for stimulus funding," said Prem S. Paul, vice chancellor for research and economic development. "In addition, these funds provide critical investments for new facilities in nanoscience and virology."

Paul said he is concerned about the lack of stimulus funding next year but is hopeful UNL researchers will continue to win new grants.

"We are planning to compete, and we plan to win," he said. "The effort is there. The desire is there. We are hungry."

More than $94 million of this year's research funding came from federal sources such as the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health and Department of Defense. UNL's federal funding for research grew more than 12 percent from $83.8 million in 2009.

This year, the university earned $40.2 million in total stimulus funding for sponsored programs, which not only includes external funds for research but funding for public service activities, teaching and student services.

Total external funding for sponsored programs this year climbed 28 percent to a record $246.3 million, up from $192.3 million in fiscal year 2009.

UNL's research funding has grown 180 percent since 2000, when it was $49.6 million.

"The impressive growth in our research in the past decade is the result of hard work and innovative ideas of our faculty," Paul said.

Major grants that contributed to the fiscal year's sponsored programs funding increase included these:

$10 million from the U.S. Department of Education for the nation's only National Center for Research on Rural Education.

$8 million, National Institutes of Health's National Center for Research Resources for a laboratory wing addition to the Ken Morrison Life Sciences Research Center, home to the Nebraska Center for Virology.

$6.9 million, National Institute of Standards and Technology in the U.S. Department of Commerce to help pay for construction of a $14.8 million Nanoscience Metrology Facility.

$2.5 million from the National Science Foundation to expand ANDRILL, the Antarctic Geological Drilling Program. UNL is home to the program's U.S. Science Management Office.

Paul said UNL's success in gaining research funding has created public-private partnerships that will eventually benefit Innovation Campus, the research and development campus being built on the former state fairgrounds.

"This success that our faculty are having is very satisfying," he said. "As a result of that, we will have more opportunities to attract companies."

Reach Kevin Abourezk at 402-473-7225 or kabourezk@journalstar.com.

India-Saudi Arabia ties growing stronger

By KHALED AFTAB

Published: Aug 15, 2010 04:39 Updated: Aug 15, 2010 04:39

INDIA’s ties with the people of the Arabian Peninsula go back several millennia when sailors and merchants from South Asia and the Gulf used to cross the Indian Ocean in boats constructed with teak from Malabar. Our ancestors not only shared merchandise but, through this long and substantial contact, also exchanged ideas on culture, religion and society.

As a result of this rich exchange, today there is a remarkable cultural and social affinity between the people of India and the people of the Arabian Peninsula. These ties have continued to be refreshed and enriched over the centuries.

India used to fulfill most of the requirements of the people in the peninsula, including necessities like foodstuff and textiles, as well as luxury goods such as silk and jewelry, and in return imported dates and pearls.

Relations between India and Saudi Arabia have grown stronger over the centuries due to shared feelings of respect and regard between our peoples. India admired the efforts of King Abdul Aziz to unify the various tribes of the Arabian Peninsula and set up the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Indians also supported the great efforts made by King Abdul Aziz and the later rulers of the Kingdom to improve all aspects of Haj management so that pilgrims from across the world are able to perform their pilgrimage in safety and comfort.

The leaderships of both countries have also shown unwavering commitment to strengthen these historic bonds of friendship. Our high-level engagements commenced when King Saud visited India in 1955, followed, within a year, by the visit of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru to the Kingdom. Later visits were those of then Crown Prince Faisal to India in 1959 and of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1982.

However, it is the visit of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah to India in January 2006, when he was the chief guest at India’s Republic Day, that the foundations of the contemporary relationship were laid.

Through the ”Delhi Declaration“ signed at the end of the visit, the two leaders committed themselves to pursuing a joint strategic vision to promote bilateral relations for mutual benefit as well as for the peace and security of the region as a whole.

Based on the road map set out in the Delhi Declaration, our bilateral relations have been strengthened since then with regular visits at ministerial level and stronger economic ties based on substantial trade relations and investments. Today, Saudi Arabia is India’s fourth largest trade partner, with bilateral trade being valued at over $25 billion.

Indian investments in Saudi Arabia have also increased significantly since King Abdullah’s visit and today there are over 550 small and medium Indian enterprises in the Kingdom with a total value of more than $2.5 billion.

India and Saudi Arabia are witnessing a new and dynamic phase in their bilateral ties. There is increased cooperation in frontier technologies such as information services, biotechnology, nanotechnology and space. India has one of the largest scientific and technical pools of manpower in the world and is known for the excellence of its knowledge-based industries. The development of the knowledge economy promises to be a major joint endeavor.

Read entire article at:

http://arabnews.com/saudiarabia/article102481.ece

Nanotechnology Info Gap Widening: Is Outreach Getting to the Right Audiences?

Dr. Deitram A. Scheufele, John E. Ross Chaired Professor

in Science Communication, College of Agricultural & Life

Sciences, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Dr. Elizabeth A. Corley, Lincoln Professor of

Public Policy, Ethics & Emerging Technologies

Arizona State University College of Public Programs

The gap in nanotechnology knowledge between the least educated and the most educated citizens has widened over the past five years. According to a CNS-ASU study of national survey data published in the January, 2010 The Scientist magazine of the life sciences, Americans with at least a college degree have shown an increased understanding of the new technology since 2004. On the other hand, for those with education levels of less than a high school diploma, knowledge about nanotechnology has declined significantly. These results raise concerns that the group most in need of knowledge and information – those with the lowest levels of formal education – are not being reached by current outreach and education efforts.

Every day that researchers spend not addressing these emerging gaps will create a larger disconnect between scientifically literate audiences and the information poor. There is therefore a real urgency to find ways of communicating effectively with all groups in society. Fortunately, the study also found that the Internet is one of the most effective methods for informing the less educated about nanotechnology. The number of days a week that respondents spent online was significantly related to nanotech knowledge levels. In other words, the Internet may finally live up to its hype as a tool for creating a more informed citizenry by serving as a "leveler" of knowledge gaps about nanotech. The CNS-ASU study offers a clear mandate to researchers to explore the potential of nontraditional ways of connecting with lay audiences.

 Download PDF 

'Tea bag' filter delivers purified water

July 27, 2010 - Combining years of research on water purification, food microbiology and nanotechnology, scientists at South Africa's Stellenbosch University have developed a high-tech "tea bag" filter that fits into the neck of a bottle and turns polluted water into clean water as you drink from it.

It promises to provide easy access to clean drinking water for vulnerable communities, for instance those living near polluted water streams. There are also plans to commercialise the filter bag into a product that can be used by outdoor enthusiasts on hiking or camping trips.

When microbiologist Professor Eugene Cloete became Dean of the Faculty of Science at Stellenbosch University (SU) in January 2009, he picked up on relevant research outside his own field of expertise, which sparked the invention of a high-tech disposable filter that looks like a tea bag and cleans highly polluted water.

Together with researchers from the Department of Microbiology and SU polymer scientists, he recently patented the innovative invention –a portable, easy-to-use, environmentally friendly water filter bag that fits into the neck of a bottle.

"The water is cleaned right then and there when you drink from the bottle," Cloete said in a statement issued by the university last week.

Water provision, sustainability

As a past executive vice-president of the International Water Association and a member of Coca-Cola's worldwide panel of water experts, Cloete believes water provision and sustainability go hand in hand.

"The lack of availability of adequate, safe and affordable water supplies impacts severely on vulnerable groups such as the poor, the elderly, HIV/Aids patients and children," he said.

"More than 90% of all cholera cases are reported in Africa, and 300-million people on our continent do not have access to safe drinking water. Clearly, something has to be done about this."

Cloete believes the "tea bag" filter shows the way forward because it represents decentralised, point-of-use technology. It can help meet the needs of people who live or travel in remote areas, or people whose regular water supply is not being treated to potable standards.

"It is simply impossible to build purification infrastructure at every polluted stream. So we have to take the solution to the people," he said.

Trans-disciplinary initiatives

The invention has become one of the first major projects of the new Stellenbosch University Water Institute, a trans-disciplinary initiative established to intensify the search for lasting solutions to the country and continent's water woes.

Cloete, who is the chairperson of the Water Institute, says he got the idea for the filter on an introductory visit to InnovUS, the university's technology transfer company, some 18 months ago.

"I was shown the electro-spinning technique of spinning ultra-thin fibres on a nanoscale developed by Dr Eugene Smit of the Department of Chemistry and Polymer Science," he said.

"Right away, my mind started churning through the possibilities of how it could be used to clean polluted water."

'Off-the-shelf materials'

A research team was put together and, after various trials and experiments, a filter sachet was developed that not only resembles a tea bag in shape and size, but is made of the same biodegradable material as off-the-shelf rooibos tea bags:

The inside of the tea bag material is coated with a thin film of biocides encapsulated within minute nanofibres, which kills all disease-causing microbes.

The bag is filled not with tea leaves but with active carbon granules that remove all harmful chemicals, for instance endocrine disruptors.

Each "tea bag" filter can clean one litre of the most polluted water to the point where it is 100% safe to drink.

Once used, the bag is thrown away, and a new one is inserted into the bottle neck.

"We tested the filter with water taken from a river here in the Stellenbosch area. The samples were highly polluted with pathogens, but they came out completely clean on the other side," said Dr Michéle de Kwaadsteniet, a postdoctoral fellow working on the project with Cloete and Professor Leon Dicks of the Department of Microbiology.

The "tea bag" filter is currently being tested by the South African Bureau of Standards, after which the team hopes to roll it out to various communities.

"It really is exciting to be part of a potentially life-changing project," said Dr Marelize Botes, postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Microbiology and a member of the water filter bag research team. "It's such an easy-to-use and practical solution to something that’s been a major problem for so long."

HOPE Project

The Stellenbosch University Water Institute and its "tea bag" water filter form part of its HOPE Project, a set of development goals aimed at improving lives in South Africa and the rest of the continent.

"We firmly believe that science should serve the needs of society. By aligning the expertise of our scientists with the national and international development agenda, we want to become more relevant to society," said Professor Russel Botman, rector and vice-chancellor of the University.

SAinfo reporter

To watch video go to:

http://www.southafrica.info/business/trends/innovations/waterpurifier-270710.htm

Nanomaterials poised for big impact in construction

Rice study give pros, cons of nanotech-enhanced building materials

HOUSTON -- (July 28, 2010) -- Nanomaterials are poised for widespread use in the construction industry, where they can offer significant advantages for a variety of applications ranging from making more durable concrete to self-cleaning windows. But widespread use in building materials comes with potential environmental and health risks when those materials are thrown away. Those are the conclusions of a new study published by Rice University engineering researchers this month in ACS Nano.

"The advantages of using nanomaterials in construction are enormous," said study co-author Pedro Alvarez, Rice's George R. Brown Professor and chair of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. "When you consider that 41 percent of all energy use in the U.S. is consumed by commercial and residential buildings, the potential benefits of energy-saving materials alone are vast.

"But there are reasonable concerns about unintended consequences as well," Alvarez said. "The time for responsible lifecycle engineering of man-made nanomaterials in the construction industry is now, before they are introduced in environmentally relevant concentrations."

Alvarez and co-authors Jaesang Lee, a postdoctoral researcher at Rice, and Shaily Mahendra, now an assistant professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, note that nanomaterials will likely have a greater impact on the construction industry than any other sector of the economy, after biomedical and electronics applications. They cite dozens of potential applications. For example, nanomaterials can strengthen both steel and concrete, keep dirt from sticking to windows, kill bacteria on hospital walls, make materials fire-resistant, drastically improve the efficiency of solar panels, boost the efficiency of indoor lighting and even allow bridges and buildings to "feel" the cracks, corrosion and stress that will eventually cause structural failures.

In compiling the report, Lee, Mahendra and Alvarez analyzed more than 140 scientific papers on the benefits and risks of nanomaterials. In addition to the myriad benefits for the construction industry, they also identified potential adverse health and environmental effects. In some cases, the very properties that make the nanomaterials useful can cause potential problems if the material is not disposed of properly. For example, titanium dioxide particles exposed to ultraviolet light can generate molecules called "reactive oxygen species" that prevent bacterial films from forming on windows or solar panels. This same property could endanger beneficial bacteria in the environment.

"There are ways to engineer materials in advance to make them environmentally benign," Alvarez said. "There are also methods that allow us to consider the entire lifecycle of a product and to ensure that it can be recycled or reused rather than thrown away. The key is to understand the specific risks and implications of the product before it it is widely used."

The study is available for download at:

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021%2Fnn100866w

Quantum fractals at the border of magnetism

Study of quantum phase changes reveals surprising relationship

between magnetism and electricity

HOUSTON -- (July 28, 2010) -- U.S., German and Austrian physicists studying the perplexing class of materials that includes high-temperature superconductors are reporting this week the unexpected discovery of a simple "scaling" behavior in the electronic excitations measured in a related material. The experiments, which were conducted on magnetic heavy-fermion metals, offer direct evidence of the large-scale electronic consequences of "quantum critical" effects.

The experimental and theoretical results are reported this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science by physicists at Rice University in Houston; the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids and the Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems, both in Dresden, Germany; and the Vienna University of Technology in Austria.

"High-temperature superconductivity has been referred to as the biggest unsolved puzzle in modern physics, and these results provide further support to the idea that correlated electron effects -- including high-temperature superconductivity -- arise out of quantum critical points," said Rice physicist Qimiao Si, the group's lead theorist.

"Our experiments clearly show that variables from classical physics cannot explain all of the observed macroscopic properties of materials at quantum critical points," said lead experimentalist Frank Steglich, director of the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids.

The experiments by Steglich's group were conducted on a heavy-fermion metal containing ytterbium, rhodium and silicon that is known as YbRh2Si2 (YRS). YRS is one of the best-characterized and most-studied quantum critical materials.

Quantum criticality refers to a phase transition, or tipping point, that marks an abrupt change in the physical properties of a material. The most common example of an everyday phase change would be the melting of ice, which marks the change of water from a solid to a liquid phase. The term "quantum critical matter" refers to any material that undergoes a phase transition due solely to the jittering of subatomic particles as described by Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. Heavy-fermion metals like YRS are one such material class, and considerable evidence exists that high-temperature superconductors are another.

Scientists are keen to better understand high-temperature superconductivity because the technology could revolutionize electric generators, MRI scanners, high-speed trains and other devices.

High temperature superconductivity typically arises at the border of magnetism, and some physicists believe it originates in the fluctuations associated with magnetic quantum criticality. In magnetic systems such as YRS, traditional theories attempt to explain quantum criticality by considering magnetism alone. In this view, electrons – the carriers of electricity – are considered as microscopic details that play no role in quantum criticality.

In 2001, Si and colleagues proposed a new theory based upon a new type of quantum critical point. Their "local quantum criticality" incorporates both magnetism and charged electronic excitations. A key prediction of the theory is that Fermi volume collapses at a quantum critical point.

"Fermi volume" refers to the combined momenta, or wavelengths, of all the electrons in a crystalline solid. It exists because electrons -- part of the family of elementary particles called "fermions" – must occupy different quantum mechanical states.

The newly reported results about YRS are the culmination of more than seven years' worth of research by Si, Steglich and colleagues. In 2004, they reported the first evidence for the collapse of a Fermi volume in a quantum critical matter, and three years later they reported the first telltale signs of a link between the Fermi-volume collapse and thermodynamic properties in YRS.

In YRS, the transition from one quantum phase to another -- the tipping point -- is marked by a flip between magnetic and nonmagnetic states. By cooling YRS to a set temperature near absolute zero, and adjusting the magnetic field applied to the supercooled YRS, Steglich's team can mark the points along the magnetic continuum that mark both the onset and the end of the Fermi-volume collapse.

In the current study, this method was applied systematically, over a broad range of temperature and magnetic-field settings. To rule out the possibility that irregularities in a particular sample were influencing the results, Steglich's team studied two samples of different qualities and applied an identical set of tests to each. For each sample, the researchers measured the "crossover width," the distance between the beginning and ending points of the Fermi-volume change. The extensive experiments established that the Fermi-volume change is robust, or happens roughly the same way even in different types of samples. The experiments also revealed something entirely new.

"After hundreds of experiments, we plotted the crossover width as a function of temperature, and the plot formed a straight line that ran through the origin," Steglich said. "The effect was the same, regardless of differences between samples, so it is clearly not an artifact of the sample preparation."

"The linear dependence of the Fermi-volume crossover width on the temperature reveals particular quantum-critical scaling properties regarding the electronic excitations," said Si, Rice’s Harry C. and Olga K. Wiess Professor of Physics and Astronomy. "It is striking that the electronic scaling is so robust at a magnetic quantum critical point."

Scaling refers to the fact that the mathematics that describes the electronic relationship is similar to the math that describes fractals; the relationships it describes are the same, regardless of whether the scale is large or small. Si said scaling at a quantum critical point is also "dynamical," which means it occurs not only as a function of length scales but also in terms of time scales.

"The experiments provide, for the first time, the evidence for a salient property of local quantum criticality, namely the driving force for dynamical scaling is the Fermi-volume collapse, even though the quantum transition is magnetic," said co-author Silke Paschen, professor and head of the Institute of Solid State Physics at the Vienna University of Technology.

Additional co-authors include Sven Friedmann, Niels Oeschler, Steffen Wirth, Cornelius Krellner and Christoph Geibel, all of the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids, and Stefan Kirchner, a former postdoctoral fellow at Rice University who is now at the Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems. The research was supported by the German Research Foundation, the European Research Council, the National Science Foundation and the Welch Foundation.

NSF grant supports global nanomedicine program

July 27, 2010-Northeastern University has received a five-year, $3.1 million grant from the National Science Foundation to build on the success of its innovative Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) nanomedicine program through the development of new global research and educational partnerships.

The new partners include Harvard Medical School, the University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez, Tuskegee University and universities in Naples, Italy; Sao Paulo, Brazil, York, England; and Delhi.

The program will offer highly competitive fellowships to outstanding doctoral students in science, technology, and mathematics disciplines for research training in nanomedicine.

IGERT fellows from Northeastern and partner universities will have the opportunity to conduct research at Northeastern and Harvard-affiliated hospitals during their fellowship.

Srinivas Sridhar, director of Northeastern's IGERT nanomedicine program, noted that the National Science Foundation (NSF) funds fewer than 5 percent of IGERT program proposals. "The new award is an endorsement of the current nanomedicine program, as well as the vision presented in the new proposal," he said.

Sridhar, a professor of physics at Northeastern, added that "nanomedicine is an emerging field and in this program the fellows will learn how to translate fundamental knowledge in nanoscience and nanotechnology into medical treatments that have the potential to save lives."

Fellows will help develop new nanotechnology-based approaches to deliver drugs for treating cancer, cardiovascular disease, and other illnesses. Fellows can also participate in internships working with scientists in research hospitals, government laboratories and industry.

When Northeastern's first IGERT program in nanomedicine was established in 2005, it included the world's first PhD program in nanomedicine. The new NSF grant will support the development a new standalone PhD program open to non-IGERT students as well as fellows.

Nanomedicine research and education spans seven departments at Northeastern, including biology, chemistry, physics, chemical engineering, mechanical and industrial engineering, electrical and computer engineering and pharmaceutical sciences.

The new program will be under the direction of Sridhar, Mansoor Amiji, professor and chair of the department of pharmaceutical sciences, and Laura Lewis, chair of the department of chemical engineering

Nanotech coatings produce 20 times

more electricity from sewage

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Engineers at Oregon State University have made a significant advance toward producing electricity from sewage, by the use of new coatings on the anodes of microbial electrochemical cells that increased the electricity production about 20 times.

The findings, just published online in Biosensors and Bioelectronics, a professional journal, bring the researchers one step closer to technology that could clean biowaste at the same time it produces useful levels of electricity – a promising new innovation in wastewater treatment and renewable energy.

Engineers found that by coating graphite anodes with a nanoparticle layer of gold, the production of electricity increased 20 times. Coatings with palladium produced an increase, but not nearly as much. And the researchers believe nanoparticle coatings of iron – which would be a lot cheaper than gold – could produce electricity increases similar to that of gold, for at least some types of bacteria.

”This is an important step toward our goal,“ said Frank Chaplen, an associate professor of biological and ecological engineering. ”We still need some improvements in design of the cathode chamber, and a better understanding of the interaction between different microbial species. But the new approach is clearly producing more electricity.“

In this technology, bacteria from biowaste such as sewage are placed in an anode chamber, where they form a biofilm, consume nutrients and grow, in the process releasing electrons. In this context, the sewage is literally the fuel for electricity production.

In related technology, a similar approach may be able to produce hydrogen gas instead of electricity, with the potential to be used in hydrogen fuel cells that may power the automobiles of the future. In either case, the treatment of wastewater could be changed from an energy-consuming technology into one that produces usable energy.

Researchers in the OSU College of Engineering and College of Agricultural Sciences, including Hong Liu, an assistant professor of biological and ecological engineering, are national leaders in development of this technology, which could significantly reduce the cost of wastewater treatment in the United States. It might also find applications in rural areas or developing nations, where the lack of an adequate power supply makes wastewater treatment impractical. It may be possible to create sewage treatment plants that are completely self-sufficient in terms of energy usage.

The technology already works on a laboratory basis, researchers say, but advances are necessary to lower its cost, improve efficiency and electrical output, and identify the lowest cost materials that can be used.

This research has been supported by the National Science Foundation and the Oregon Nanoscience and Microtechnologies Institute.

”Recent advances in nanofabrication provide a unique opportunity to develop efficient electrode materials due to the remarkable structural, electrical and chemical properties of nanomaterials,“ the researchers wrote in their report. ”This study demonstrated that nano-decoration can greatly enhance the performance of microbial anodes.“

About Oregon State University: OSU is one of only two U.S. universities designated a land-, sea-, space- and sun-grant institution. OSU is also Oregon’s only university designated in the Carnegie Foundation’s top tier for research institutions, garnering more than 60 percent of the total federal and private research funding in the Oregon University System. Its enrollment of nearly 22,000 students come from all 50 states and more than 90 nations. OSU programs touch every county within Oregon, and its faculty teach and conduct research on issues of national and global importance.

NIH awards Rice $1.7M for cartilage-regeneration research

Bioengineers explore whether adult stem cells can help heal joints

HOUSTON -- (July 19, 2010) -- Bioengineers from Rice University's BioScience Research Collaborative have won a $1.7 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to develop an injectable mix of polymers and adult stem cells that can spur the growth of new cartilage in injured knees and other joints.

"Millions of people live with pain, limited mobility and arthritis that often result from cartilage injuries, particularly those to the knee," said Rice researcher Kurt Kasper, a principal investigator on the new five-year grant. "By combining just enough of a patient's own stem cells with the proper mix of growth factors and polymers, we hope to allow the body to do something it cannot normally do -- fill in small gaps with healthy, new bone-protecting cartilage."

The research lies at the cutting-edge of basic science and engineering, and Kasper said a human treatment, if it proves feasible, would still be at least a decade away.

In joints like the knee, elbow and shoulder, a thin layer of cartilage covers and protects the bones at the point where they meet and rotate against one another. This "articular" cartilage is one of many types of cartilage found in the body, and it has wondrous material properties. For example, it's so impact-resistant and resilient that no currently available synthetic materials can stand up to the punishment it endures.

Because no synthetics can suitably replace articular cartilage, and because the body has almost no natural ability to repair it, Kasper and other researchers are looking for ways to reinforce and expand upon the healing abilities the body already has.

Rice's research team on the new project includes Kasper, a faculty fellow in the Department of Bioengineering, and Antonios Mikos, the Louis Calder Professor of Bioengineering, professor in chemical and biomolecular engineering and director of Rice's Center for Excellence in Tissue Engineering.

The team will use mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs), a type of stem cell that the body uses naturally to repair broken bones, injured skin and other tissues. Researchers have long known that MSCs can be coaxed into becoming cartilage-generating cells with the right combination of growth factors.

"We aim to find the optimal formulation of MSCs and growth factors for regenerating articular cartilage," Mikos said. "We will deliver that mix in a nontoxic, biodegradable polymer system that can be injected as a liquid and that gels quickly to form a temporary support matrix to guide the growth of the new cartilage."

Kasper said a unique aspect of the study is its focus on developing techniques that will allow the newly formed cartilage to attach naturally to the underlying bone in the joint. To do this, the team hopes to develop a two-layered system where the upper layer of articular cartilage is grown atop a segment of newly formed bone. A different formulation of growth factors and MSCs will be needed in each layer, and tests in animals will be used to determine the optimal mix that might be needed for future clinical translation to humans.

White House Seeks Input on National Nanotech Plan

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) recently issued a request for information (RFI) to gain insight from stakeholders in developing the National Nanotechnology Initiative's (NNI) 2010 strategic plan. OSTP is seeking input about the initiative's goals and objectives, research priorities, investments, coordination and partnerships, evaluation, and policies. The NNI will use these responses to develop a federal common vision for the future use of nanotechnology and to advance the goals outlined in the 2007 under the original NNI strategic plan.

The NNI includes 25 federal agencies working together to discover, develop and deploy nanotechnology towards agency missions and broader national interests. Of the 25 agencies, 15 will have budgets for nanotechnology R&D in 2011. This R&D program is managed within the framework of the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC). The Nanoscale Science, Engineering, and Technology (NSET) Subcommittee coordinates the planning, budgeting, program implementation, and review of the program.

The 2010 strategic plan will build upon and advance the goals identified in the 2007 strategic plan (http://www.nano.gov/NNI_Strategic_Plan_2007.pdf). These goals include:

Advance a world-class nanotechnology research and development program;

Foster the transfer of new technologies into products for commercial and public benefit;

Develop and sustain educational resources, a skilled workforce, and the support infrastructure necessary to advance nanotechnology; and,

Support responsible development of nanotechnology.

OSTP also will stage several online, public events to gain specific input on the strategic plan. Four of these events will be held between July 13 and August 15. To find out more about the events visit the website (http://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/eop/ostp/NNIStrategy/).

Responses must be submitted by August 15, 2010. The new strategic plan will be released in December 2010.

Read the RFI at: http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2010/2010-16273.htm.

Nanotubes pass acid test

Rice researchers' method untangles long tubes, clears hurdle toward armchair quantum wire

HOUSTON – (July 14, 2010) – Rice University scientists have found the "ultimate" solvent for all kinds of carbon nanotubes (CNTs), a breakthrough that brings the creation of a highly conductive quantum nanowire ever closer.

Nanotubes have the frustrating habit of bundling, making them less useful than when they're separated in a solution. Rice scientists led by Matteo Pasquali, a professor in chemical and biomolecular engineering and in chemistry, have been trying to untangle them for years as they look for scalable methods to make exceptionally strong, ultralight, highly conductive materials that could revolutionize power distribution, such as the armchair quantum wire.

The armchair quantum wire -- a macroscopic cable of well-aligned metallic nanotubes -- was envisioned by the late Richard Smalley, a Rice chemist who shared the Nobel Prize for his part in discovering the the family of molecules that includes the carbon nanotube. Rice is celebrating the 25th anniversary of that discovery this year.

Pasquali, primary author Nicholas Parra-Vasquez and their colleagues reported this month in the online journal ACS Nano that chlorosulfonic acid can dissolve half-millimeter-long nanotubes in solution, a critical step in spinning fibers from ultralong nanotubes.

Current methods to dissolve carbon nanotubes, which include surrounding the tubes with soap-like surfactants, doping them with alkali metals or attaching small chemical groups to the sidewalls, disperse nanotubes at relatively low concentrations. These techniques are not ideal for fiber spinning because they damage the properties of the nanotubes, either by attaching small molecules to their surfaces or by shortening them.

A few years ago, the Rice researchers discovered that chlorosulfonic acid, a "superacid," adds positive charges to the surface of the nanotubes without damaging them. This causes the nanotubes to spontaneously separate from each other in their natural bundled form.

This method is ideal for making nanotube solutions for fiber spinning because it produces fluid dopes that closely resemble those used in industrial spinning of high-performance fibers. Until recently, the researchers thought this dissolution method would be effective only for short single-walled nanotubes.

In the new paper, the Rice team reported that the acid dissolution method also works with any type of carbon nanotube, irrespective of length and type, as long as the nanotubes are relatively free of defects.

Parra-Vasquez described the process as "very easy."

"Just adding the nanotubes to chlorosulfonic acid results in dissolution, without even mixing," he said.

While earlier research had focused on single-walled carbon nanotubes, the team discovered chlorosulfonic acid is also adept at dissolving multiwalled nanotubes (MWNTs). "There are many processes that make multiwalled nanotubes at a cheaper cost, and there's a lot of research with them," said Parra-Vasquez, who earned his Rice doctorate last year. "We hope this will open up new areas of research."

They also observed for the first time that long SWNTs dispersed by superacid form liquid crystals. "We already knew that with shorter nanotubes, the liquid-crystalline phase is very different from traditional liquid crystals, so liquid crystals formed from ultralong nanotubes should be interesting to study," he said.

Parra-Vasquez, now a postdoctoral researcher at Centre de Physique Moleculaire Optique et Hertzienne, Universite’ de Bordeaux, Talence, France, came to Rice in 2002 for graduate studies with Pasquali and Smalley.

Study co-author Micah Green, assistant professor of chemical engineering at Texas Tech and a former postdoctoral fellow in Pasquali’s research group, said working with long nanotubes is key to attaining exceptional properties in fibers because both the mechanical and electrical properties depend on the length of the constituent nanotubes. Pasquali said that using long nanotubes in the fibers should improve their properties on the order of one to two magnitudes, and that similar enhanced properties are also expected in thin films of carbon nanotubes being investigated for flexible electronics applications.

An immediate goal for researchers, Parra-Vasquez said, will be to find "large quantities of ultralong single-walled nanotubes with low defects -- and then making that fiber we have been dreaming of making since I arrived at Rice, a dream that Rick Smalley had and that we have all shared since."

Co-authors of the paper are graduate students Natnael Behabtu, Colin Young, Anubha Goyal and Cary Pint; Pulickel Ajayan, the Benjamin M. and Mary Greenwood Anderson Professor in Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science and of chemistry, and Robert Hauge, a distinguished faculty fellow in chemistry, all at Rice; and Judith Schmidt, Ellina Kesselman, Yachin Cohen and Yeshayahu Talmon of the Department of Chemical Engineering, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel.

The Air Force Office of Scientific Research, the Air Force Research Laboratory, the National Science Foundation Division of Materials Research, the Robert A. Welch Foundation, the United States-Israel Binational Science Foundation and the Evans-Attwell Welch Postdoctoral Fellowship funded the research.

Read the abstract at: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/nn100864v

For more about Rice’s 25th anniversary Year of Nano celebrations, visit: http://buckyball.smalley.rice.edu/year_of_nano/

World records by UCLA chemists, Korean colleagues

enhance ability to capture CO2

By Stuart Wolpert July 14, 2010

Crystal structure of MOF-200, in UCLA's blue and goldChemists from UCLA and South Korea report the "ultimate porosity of a nano-material," achieving world records for both porosity and carbon dioxide storage capacity in an important class of materials known as MOFs, or metal–organic frameworks.

MOFs, sometimes described as crystal sponges, have pores — openings on the nanoscale which can store gases that are usually difficult to store and transport. Porosity is crucial for compacting large amounts of gases into small volumes and is an essential property for capturing carbon dioxide.

The research could lead to cleaner energy and the ability to capture heat-trapping carbon dioxide emissions before they reach the atmosphere and contribute to global warming, rising sea levels and the increased acidity of oceans.

The research will be published July 23 in the print edition of the journal Science and is currently available in the journal's advance online edition.

"We are reporting the ultimate porosity of a nano-material; we believe this to be the upper limit or very near the upper limit for porosity in materials," said the paper's senior author, Omar Yaghi, a UCLA professor of chemistry and biochemistry and a member of both the California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI) at UCLA and the UCLA–Department of Energy Institute of Genomics and Proteomics.

"Porosity is a way to do a lot with little," said Yaghi, who holds UCLA's Irving and Jean Stone Chair in Physical Sciences and directs the CNSI's Center for Reticular Chemistry. "Instead of having only the outside surface of a particle, we drill small holes to dramatically increase the surface."

With lead author Hiroyasu (Hiro) Furukawa, co-author Jaheon Kim and colleagues, Yaghi reports on two materials that not only break the porosity record, but do so by an extremely large margin. The materials are MOF-200, made at UCLA by Furukawa, a postdoctoral scholar in Yaghi's laboratory, and MOF-210, made at Seoul's Soongsil University in South Korea by Kim, a chemistry professor and former graduate student in Yaghi's laboratory, and colleagues.

"We have made not just incremental strides with MOFs," said Yaghi, whose research overlaps chemistry, materials science and engineering. "What is special about MOF-200 and MOF-210 is that they are approaching the limit of what you can get in a material. We may be able to design better structures, but they will not be easy to make."

Invented by Yaghi the early 1990s, MOFs are like scaffolds made of linked rods, with nanoscale pores that are the right size to trap carbon dioxide. The components of MOFs can be changed nearly at will, and Yaghi's laboratory has made several hundred MOFs, with a variety of properties and structures.

Since 1999, MOFs have held the record for having the highest porosity of any material. MOFs can be made from low-cost ingredients, such as zinc oxide, a common ingredient in sunscreen, and terephthalate, which is found in plastic soda bottles.

Yaghi discovered the key to making highly porous structures, which he and colleagues reported in the journal Nature in 2004 (MOF-177 broke the previous porosity record, which had been held since 1999 by Yaghi's MOF-5) and in Science in 2005. Since then, chemists have been in a race to make higher and higher surface areas for materials, with the highest porosity.

Now Yaghi, Furukawa and Kim have made MOFs that are twice the porosity of MOF-177, three times the porosity of MOF-5 and 10 times the porosity of the most porous material prior to 1999. This means they can now store twice as much gas as they could in 2004, an enormous increase.

"If I take a gram of MOF-200 and unravel it, it will cover many football fields, and that is the space you have for gases to assemble," Yaghi said. "It's like magic. Forty tons of MOFs is equal to the entire surface area of California.

"This is only the beginning of MOFs," he said, "because now we can see the platform of materials on which we can build. In science, achieving the limit by experiment is magnificent, and now we can test the properties of these materials for various applications. Requirements for making a viable material for carbon dioxide capture are high capacity and high selectivity. We reported before on how to get high selectivity for carbon dioxide; now we are showing how to get high capacity. The industrial applications are being deployed or, in certain cases, are in the process of being developed. Many companies are working on the development of MOFs."

For example, BASF, a global chemical company based in Germany, makes large quantities of MOFs, which are sold by Sigma-Aldrich, a life science and high-technology company.

Yaghi, Furukawa and Kim also report in Science a record for carbon dioxide storage capacity. MOF-200 and MOF-210 take up the highest amount of hydrogen, methane and carbon dioxide, by weight, ever achieved.

On Feb. 12 of this year, Yaghi, UCLA graduate student Hexiang Deng, Furukawa and UCLA colleagues reported in Science their creation of a synthetic "gene" that could capture carbon dioxide emissions.

Carbon dioxide is polluting Earth's atmosphere and damaging coral reefs and marine life —impacts that are irreversible in our lifetime, Yaghi said.

With the new research, it is now possible to develop the synthetic gene with MOF-200 and MOF-210, giving it a much larger surface area.

"MOFs are a class of materials unparalleled by any other," Yaghi said. "MOFs are among the largest class of materials ever made, in number, variety and diversity of composition."

Furukawa, who has worked in Yaghi's laboratory for seven years, earned his Ph.D. from the University of Tokyo.

"Hiro discovered a way of evacuating completely the solvent that otherwise would fill the holes, which allowed access to the porosity," Yaghi said. "That was the magic."

Learning from 'As the World Turns' and 'Three's Company'

When Furukawa came to the United States on a Japanese fellowship, he spoke almost no English.

Yaghi, one of the world's great scientists, recalls without embarrassment how he watched "As the World Turns" and "Days of Our Lives" to learn English when he came to New York from Jordan at age 15.

"When I picked Hiro up," Yaghi said, "I thought, 'He has no clue about the world he is entering' — America or my lab. I said to him, 'I will not talk with you until you buy a small TV and you watch soap operas every day; I want you to learn English.' The way I learned English was to read the newspaper with a dictionary and underline words I didn't understand. Almost every other line had an underlined word that I looked up, but you learn very quickly. I watched soap operas, too. I used to run back to my room from school to watch what happened. The stories don't move very fast; it's almost like doing research."

Furukawa took Yaghi's advice and watched reruns of "Three's Company."

"I couldn't understand it at first," he said, "but later, it was easy to follow."

How does Yaghi decide which students to accept into his laboratory?

"You have to look into their eyes and see whether there is passion and energy," Yaghi said. "Technical ability has to be coupled with the ability to harness your potential and elevate your mind."

Furukawa frequently works until 4 a.m., often on his computer at home.

"When I want to finish something, I like to keep working," he said.

"The best thing I learned from Professor Yaghi," Furukawa said, "is not chemistry but his way of thinking. When I joined his group, I was very surprised because I have never seen a professor who thinks like him in Japan. He publishes only exceptional results. That is why he is the leader of the field. He motivates us to find breakthroughs, new concepts and world records. The experience of working in his laboratory has definitely improved my mind and my thinking process."

The new Science research was funded by BASF, the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Basic Energy Sciences, and South Korea's Hydrogen Energy R&D Center (one of the Korean Ministry of Education, Science and Technology's 21st Century Frontier R&D Programs).

How does Yaghi feel about the achievements reported in Science?

"Ready for the next challenge," he said. "MOFs are a gold mine."

UCLA is California's largest university, with an enrollment of nearly 38,000 undergraduate and graduate students. The UCLA College of Letters and Science and the university's 11 professional schools feature renowned faculty and offer more than 323 degree programs and majors. UCLA is a national and international leader in the breadth and quality of its academic, research, health care, cultural, continuing education and athletic programs. Five alumni and five faculty have been awarded the Nobel Prize.

http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/world-records-by-ucla-chemists-163439.aspx

Turkish scientists carrying nanotechnology to space

Turkish engineers have developed nanotechnology material that provides 100 fold more resistance against high radiation in space than existing materials. 

The new material will be utilized in satellites to be manufactured in Turkey. The new material is part of a space project co-sponsored by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBITAK) and Undersecretariat of Defense Industry (SSM).

The new generation nanotechnology material makes it possible for electronic circuits in satellites to be used for longer periods, thus bringing down costs enormously.

The new nanotechnology material will make it possible to manufacture satellites that are lighter in weight than their predecessors.

Experts want Turkey to be the first country in the world to use such nanotechnology material in space.

Thanks to the new nanotechnology material, satellites will be able to resist radiation much more strongly. Currently, satellites are protected against space radiation by aluminum plates.

The new nanotechnology material will make the manufacturing of satellites less costly and extend the life term of the satellites.

Turkey's Bilkent University and ASELSAN defense corporation have worked together to invent the new nanotechnology material under the project titled "TÜBITAK 2007".

Nanotechnology, shortened to "nanotech", is the study of the controlling of matter on an atomic and molecular scale. Generally nanotechnology deals with structures sized between 1 to 100 nanometer in at least one dimension, and involves developing materials or devices within that size.

Nanotechnology is very diverse, ranging from extensions of conventional device physics to completely new approaches based upon molecular self-assembly, from developing new materials with dimensions on the nanoscale to investigationg whether we can directly control matter on the atomic scale.

There has been much debate on the future implications of nanotechnology. Nanotechnology has the potential to create many new materials and devices with a vast range of applications, such as in medicine, electronics, biomaterials and energy production. On the other hand, nanotechnology raises many of the same issues as with any introduction of new technology, including concerns about the toxicity and environmental impact of nanomaterials, and their potential effects on global economics, as well as speculation about various doomsday scenarios. These concerns have led to a debate among advocacy groups and governments on whether special regulation of nanotechnology is warranted.

13.07.2010 

News 

THE ANATOLIA NEWS AGENCY

http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/news-215911-100-turkish-scientists-carrying-nanotechnology-to-space.html

Webinars on Nanotechnology for a Knowledge Society in Emerging Economies and Developing Countries

An invitation to a series of two unique free online events:

Session 1:

2 September 2010 13.00-15.00 GMT (15.00-17.00 Continental European Summer Time)

Session 2:

7 September 2010 8.45-10.45 GMT (10.45-12.45 Continental European Summer Time)

Join the online debate on contributions nanotechnology may make to a knowledge society in developing countries and emerging economies from your own office with experts on Nanotechnology and Society in the Netherlands, Brazil, South Africa and India. The webinars offer a platform for information exchange on good practices and proposals for international cooperation among governments of the Netherlands, the EU and International Cooperation Partner Countries of the EU (developing countries and emerging economies).

Invited speakers:

Prof Dr Peter Nijkamp, President Committee Societal Dialogue Nanotechnology

www.nanopodium.nl/english/

Dr Malini Balakrishnan of TERI (project Capability, Governance and nanotechnology developments: a focus on India)

www.teriin.org/ResUpdate/nano.php

Prof Dr Arie Rip (University of Twente, Netherlands) www.mb.utwente.nl/steps/people/adjoined/rip/

Prof Dr Julian Kinderlerer (University of Cape Town, South Africa and TU Delft, Netherlands)

www.privatelaw.uct.ac.za/staff/jkinderlerer/

Prof Dr Noela Invernizzi, University of Parana, Brazil, co-coordinator of ReLANS network

www.estudiosdeldesarrollo.net/~webrelans/inicio.html

Ineke Malsch (Malsch TechnoValuation, The Netherlands)

The webinars take place in the framework of the Nanorecht & Vrede project supported by Nanopodium www.nanopodium.nl and ICPC-NanoNet www.icpc-nanonet.org. The outcome of the workshop will be reported to the Dutch Commission for the Societal Dialogue on Nanotechnology who is currently organising a public dialogue on nanotechnology in the Netherlands.

Language: English.

Requirements: PC/laptop with broadband internet connection and headset or speakers.

Workshop participants must be registered users of ICPC-Nanonet

(www.icpc-nanonet.org).

Registration is free. 

http://www.icpc-nanonet.org/

Lessons of Engagement: How Scientists Can Learn from Policy-Makers and the Public

Dr. Jameson Wetmore, Assistant Professor

School of Human Evolution and Social Change, and

The Center for Nanotechnology in Society at Arizona State University 

Scientists are often called to present their work to the public in a way that those with no science background can understand. The argument often is made that if the public could only understand what scientists do, there would be undying support for research. The Center for Nanotechnology in Society at Arizona State University challenges this unidirectional notion of influence. While the ability to explain scientific information in simple terms is an important aspect of public communication, it is not a one-way street. Science as a whole will benefit greatly if it regards its relationship with the public as a two-way conversation.

Some of the world’s most influential scientists gained their status because they listened to and engaged with those outside of science. There are scientists in academia, industry, and government who are able to understand the questions and concerns of both the public and science. These individuals have served as important ambassadors between the two realms—scientists and non-scientists—that are increasingly codependent.

At the American Association for the Advancement of Science Annual Meeting in February, 2010, CNS-ASU hosted a panel discussion with three young scholars who had all participated in engagement projects with policy-makers and/or the general public. They explained not only why they undertook such projects and what they learned through the process, but moreover, how their experiences subsequently shaped their careers and how their scientific work changed as a result.

Troy Benn is a PhD candidate in the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment at Arizona State University. Troy has partnered with CNS-ASU on several projects, including presenting, at the Arizona Science Center, his research on the release into wastewater of nanosilver in consumer products. The experiences have helped him contextualize, communicate, and grapple with the social and political implications of his research, as he has received much attention from policy, regulatory and industrial professionals.

Naveen Sinha, a PhD candidate in Harvard's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, participated in a program at the Museum of Science, Boston. By developing analogies and visual aids to explain his research to a general audience, he better understood what fundamental questions remain unanswered in his field. He also discovered that much science today is so interdisciplinary that he has to be able to explain his own field simply, even for other scientists in other disciplines to understand.

The final panel member was Lekelia Jenkins, a PhD and AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellow working for the National Marine Fisheries Services. Lekelia has learned how to bridge the gap between academic and government scientists in order to address today's increasingly complex science and conservation management challenges.

Share your comments about this highlight on our CNS-ASU Highlights Blog.

 http://cnshighlights.asu.edu/comments/?p=5

The Center for Nanotechnology in Society at Arizona State University facilitates the public's involvement in nanoscale research and development, to build new capabilities for understanding and governing the power of nanotechnology to transform society. CNS-ASU is affiliated with the Consortium for Science, Policy & Outcomes (CSPO), in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at ASU.

Update on Nanomaterials Application Center

at Texas State University, San Marcos, TX.

Texas State University will return ownership of the Nanomaterials Application Center to Advanced Technology Incubator, Inc., effective August 1, 2010.  All functions of the Center will be under control of Advanced Technology Incubator, Inc. management.  In February, 2003, Advanced Technology Incubator, Inc. transferred ownership of the then named "Nanoparticles Applications Center" to Texas State University. Texas State, in collaboration with Applied Nanotech, Inc. and strong support of Winstead, helped manage and grow the Center by promoting solid scientific advancements in technology, disseminating nanotechnology research information, and helping emerging technology companies. 

The University will continue to focus its efforts on the development of nanotechnology breakthroughs in the fields of research through the Departments of Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Technology, and the Ingram School of Engineering.  The University is continuing to work with emerging technology companies and has supported a number of successful ETF awardees.

The Nanomaterials Applications Center has matured to a point where operationally it is more effective to be managed by a dedicated enterprise than a public university. This new dedicated enterprise, Nanotechnology Advancement Center, will be configured as a non-profit organization and is in the process of forming a steering committee that will be comprised of Texas, national and international experts in nanotechnology. The founders' vision for the most important roles of Nanotechnology Advancement Center is:

Texas State University and the present NAC members will continue to partner as appropriate in order to help innovators develop their ideas into successful companies.

New Guide:  What is nanotechnology?

Available to download now from NANO Magazine, this short guide to nanotechnology gives a basic introduction to nanotechnology and its applications, perfect for anyone who is a newcomer to the nanotech world to grasp the basics fast.

The guide looks at new applications of nanotechnology, nano for healthcare, nano for the environment, nanomaterials, nanoparticles, carbon nanotubes, textiles, food and drink, the car industry and how nano can be applied to impart scents and flavours. It also asks the big question ”Are there risks?“.

Download at:  http://bit.ly/whatisnano

1st Adriatic School on Nanoscience

The 1st Adriatic School on Nanoscience – ASON-1 is the result of a common initiative between the University of Jyväskilä, Finland, Joanneum Research, Graz, Austria and the Rudjer Boskovic Institute, Zagreb, Croatia.

http://www.nanopaprika.eu/profiles/blogs/1st-adriatic-school-on

CSEM SA leads a European consortium in revolutionizing infrared chemical sensing

Calculation of light going through a very small slit in a nano-structured metal film

Neuchâtel, 30th June 2010 – The European Union has awarded a grant of 2.8 million Euro to the project PLAISIR (Plasmonic Innovative Sensing in the Infrared) which started 1st January 2010 and will run for three years. The goals of the project are to create ultra-sensitive chemical sensors and smarter, cheaper infrared (IR) photodetectors; these will have a significant impact on the marketplace.

IR technology is starting to flourish in areas from health and the environment through to security and chemical process control. In particular, the mid-IR is also the key region for finger-printing molecules and proteins, so any advances in mid-IR detectors are of fundamental importance.

To identify a specific molecule, spectroscopic chemical sensing (SCS) is used. SCS systems have yet to benefit from recent developments in optical telecommunications and nanotechnology. The goal of the PLAISIR project is to use these developments to enhance SCS systems to help in the detection of CO2, a critical factor in global warming, and glucose, a key diagnostic marker for diabetes in an aging population. In addition, the same advances in technology will help us to develop better IR cameras.

The key to improving both mid-IR detectors and SCS is nanotechnology, which has the ability to confine and control light at both wavelength and sub-wavelength scales through a phenomenon known as plasmonics. While European know-how in plasmonics is amongst the best in the world, it is only now attracting the attention of the SMEs who are dynamic in the mid-IR market. CSEM will be playing a key role in coordinating and facilitating technology transfer between the SMEs and the academic partners.

About PLAISIR EU Consortium

This project includes 3 SMEs (Xenics NV, Belgium, Photon Design Ltd, UK and Vigo System SA, Poland), 3 leading actors in fundamental and applied plasmon research (Queen’s University Belfast, UK, University of Zaragoza, Spain, Technical University of Dresden, Germany) and is lead by CSEM SA.

www.plaisir-project.eu

About CSEM

CSEM – an innovation center

CSEM, Centre Suisse d’Electronique et de Microtechnique SA (Swiss Center for Electronics and Microtechnology), founded in 1984, is a private research and development center specializing in microtechnology, nanotechnology, microelectronics, system engineering and communications technologies. It offers its customers and industry partners tailor-made innovative solutions based on its knowledge of the market and technological expertise derived from applied research. Having founded several start-ups, it contributes to developing Switzerland as an industrial location. To date, a total of 29 such enterprises, with more than 500 employees, have been launched by CSEM.

Approximately 400 highly qualified and specialized employees from various scientific and technical disciplines work for CSEM in Neuchâtel, Zurich, Basel, Alpnach and Landquart. They represent more than 30 nationalities and constitute the basis of the company’s creativity, dynamism and innovation potential.

Further information is available at www.csem.ch.

Off-the-shelf cancer detection

Consumer-grade camera detects cancer cells in real time

HOUSTON -- (June 24, 2010) -- Using an off-the-shelf digital camera, Rice University biomedical engineers and researchers from the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center have created an inexpensive device that is powerful enough to let doctors easily distinguish cancerous cells from healthy cells simply by viewing the LCD monitor on the back of the camera.

The results of the first tests of the camera were published online this week in the open-access journal PLoS ONE.

"Consumer-grade cameras can serve as powerful platforms for diagnostic imaging," said Rice's Rebecca Richards-Kortum, the study's lead author. "Based on portability, performance and cost, you could make a case for using them both to lower health care costs in developed countries and to provide services that simply aren't available in resource-poor countries."

Richards-Kortum is Rice's Stanley C. Moore Professor of Bioengineering, professor of electrical and computer engineering and the founder of Rice's global health initiative, Rice 360°. Her Optical Spectroscopy and Imaging Laboratory specializes in tools for the early detection of cancer and other diseases. Her team has developed fluorescent dyes and targeted nanoparticles that let doctors zero in on the molecular hallmarks of cancer.

In the new study, the team captured images of cells with a small bundle of fiber-optic cables attached to a $400 Olympus E-330 camera. When imaging tissues, Richards-Kortum's team applied a common fluorescent dye that caused cell nuclei in the samples to glow brightly when lighted with the tip of the fiber-optic bundle. Three tissue types were tested: cancer cell cultures that were grown in a lab, tissue samples from newly resected tumors and healthy tissue viewed in the mouths of patients.

Because the nuclei of cancerous and precancerous cells are notably distorted from those of healthy cells, Richards-Kortum said, abnormal cells were easily identifiable, even on the camera's small LCD screen.

"The dyes and visual techniques that we used are the same sort that pathologists have used for many years to distinguish healthy cells from cancerous cells in biopsied tissue," said study co-author Mark Pierce, Rice faculty fellow in bioengineering. "But the tip of the imaging cable is small and rests lightly against the inside the cheek, so the procedure is considerably less painful than a biopsy and the results are available in seconds instead of days."

Richards-Kortum said software could be written that would allow medical professionals who are not pathologists to use the device to distinguish healthy from nonhealthy cells. The device could then be used for routine cancer screening and to help oncologists track how well patients were responding to treatment.

"A portable, battery-powered device like this could be particularly useful for global health," she said. "This could save many lives in countries where conventional diagnostic technology is simply too expensive."

Co-authors of the paper include Dongsuk Shin and Mark Pierce, both of Rice, and Ann Gillenwater and Michelle Williams, both of the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health.

Release of Nano-Silver from Textiles into Human Sweat

Researchers in Thailand have demonstrated that fabrics laced with silver nanoparticles release those particles when the fabric is exposed to artificial human sweat. These finding raise concerns about the potential effects of the release of larger amounts of antibacterially active silver on human skin.

Silver nanoparticles are increasingly being added to clothes to reduce bacterial growth and odor. However, there is increasing concern that exposure to these nanoparticles may cause potential adverse effects to humans and the environment.

This study determined the quantity of silver released from commercially claimed nanosilver and laboratory-prepared silver coated fabrics into various formulations of artificial sweat, each made according to AATCC, ISO and EN standards. For each fabric sample, the initial amount of silver and the antibacterial properties against the model Gram-positive (S. aureus) and Gram-negative (E. coli) bacteria on each fabric was investigated.

The results showed that silver was not detected in some commercial fabrics. Furthermore, antibacterial properties of the fabrics varied, ranging from 0% to greater than 99%. After incubation of the fabrics in artificial sweat, silver was released from the different fabrics to varying extents, ranging from 0 mg/kg to about 322 mg/kg of fabric weight.

The team of researchers tested five fabrics that were treated in the laboratory with a silver nanoparticle solution, and six commercially made shirts sold as containing nanosilver. Fabric samples were incubated in different artificial sweat formulations for 24 hours, after which the sweat was analyzed for silver nanoparticles.

The laboratory-prepared fabrics released up to 322 mg/kg of fabric weight with silver particles ranging in size from 200-500 nanometers. The commercially made shirts released far less, as they contained less silver to begin with - and some of the shirts labeled as "nanosilver" did not actually contain any silver.

Source: Particle and Fibre Toxicology (Open Access)

Liquid method: pure graphene production

Research could yield novel composites, touch-screen displays

HOUSTON -- (June 1, 2010) -- In a development that could lead to novel carbon composites and touch-screen displays, researchers from Rice University and the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology today unveiled a new method for producing bulk quantities of one-atom-thick sheets of carbon called graphene.

The research is available online in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.

When stacked together, graphene sheets make graphite, which has been commonly used as pencil lead for hundreds of years. It wasn't until 2004 that stand-alone sheets of graphene were first characterized with modern nanotechnological instruments. Since then, graphene has come under intense scrutiny from materials scientists, in part because it is both ultrastrong and highly conductive.

"There are high-throughput methods for making graphene oxide, which is not as conductive as graphene, and there are low-throughput methods for making pure graphene," said lead co-author Matteo Pasquali, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering and chemistry at Rice. "Our method yields very pure material, and it is based on bulk fluid-processing techniques that have long been used by the chemical industry."

Pasquali said the research team found it could dissolve graphite in chlorosulphonic acid, a common industrial solvent. The researchers had to devise new methods to measure the aggregation of the dissolved graphene flakes, but at the end the team was pleasantly surprised to find that the individual graphene layers in the graphite peeled apart spontaneously. The team was able to dissolve as much as two grams of graphene per liter of acid to produce solutions at least 10 times more concentrated than existing methods.

The researchers took advantage of novel cryogenic techniques for electron microscopy that allowed them to directly image the graphene sheets in the chlorosulfonic acid.

"We applied new methods that we had developed to directly image carbon nanotubes in acid," said co-author Yeshayahu "Ishi" Talmon, professor of chemical engineering at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology. "This was no small feat considering the nature of the acid and the difficulty of specimen preparation and imaging."

Using the concentrated solutions of dissolved graphene, the scientists made transparent films that were electrically conductive. Such films could be useful in making touch screens that are less expensive than those used in today's smart phones. In addition, the researchers also produced liquid crystals.

"If you can make liquid crystals, you can spin fibers," said study co-author James Tour, Rice's T.T. and W.F. Chao Professor of Chemistry. "In liquid crystals, the individual sheets align themselves into domains, and having some measure of alignment allows you to flow the material through narrow openings to create fibers."

If the method proves useful for making graphene fibers in bulk, it could drive down the cost of the ultrastrong carbon composites used in the aerospace, automotive and construction industries.

The research was funded by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, the Department of Energy, the Air Force Research Laboratory, the Welch Foundation, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the USA-Israel Binational Science Foundation. Co-authors include Natnael Behabtu, Jay Lomeda, Micah Green, Amanda Higgenbotham, Alexander Sinitskii, Dmitry Kosynkin, Dmitri Tsentalovich and Nicholas Parra-Vasquez, all of Rice's Smalley Institute for Nanoscale Science and Technology; and Judith Schmidt, Ellina Kesselman and Yachin Cohen, all of the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology.

Optical Legos: building nanoshell structures

Self-assembly method yields materials with unique optical properties

HOUSTON -- (May 27, 2010) -- Scientists from four U.S. universities have created a way to use Rice University's light-activated nanoshells as building blocks for 2-D and 3-D structures that could find use in chemical sensors, nanolasers and bizarre light-absorbing metamaterials. Much as a child might use Lego blocks to build 3-D models of complex buildings or vehicles, the scientists are using the new chemical self-assembly method to build complex structures that can trap, store and bend light.

The research appears in this week's issue of the journal Science.

"We used the method to make a seven-nanoshell structure that creates a particular type of interference pattern called a Fano resonance," said study co-author Peter Nordlander, professor of physics and astronomy at Rice. "These resonances arise from peculiar light wave interference effects, and they occur only in man-made materials. Because these heptamers are self-assembled, they are relatively easy to make, so this could have significant commercial implications."

Because of the unique nature of Fano resonances, the new materials can trap light, store energy and bend light in bizarre ways that no natural material can. Nordlander said the new materials are ideally suited for making ultrasensitive biological and chemical sensors. He said they may also be useful in nanolasers and potentially in integrated photonic circuits that run off of light rather than electricity.

The research team was led by Harvard University applied physicist Federico Capasso and also included nanoshell inventor Naomi Halas, Rice's Stanley C. Moore Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering and professor of physics, chemistry and biomedical engineering.

Nordlander, the world's leading theorist on nanoparticle plasmonics, had predicted in 2008 that a heptamer of nanoshells would produce Fano resonances. That paper spurred Capasso's efforts to fabricate the structure, Nordlander said.

The new self-assembly method developed by Capasso's team was also used to make magnetic three-nanoshell "trimers." The optical properties of these are described in the Science paper, which also discusses how the self-assembly method could be used to build even more complex 3-D structures.

Nanoshells, the building blocks that were used in the new study, are about 20 times smaller than red blood cells. In form, they resemble malted milk balls, but they are coated with gold instead of chocolate, and their center is a sphere of glass. By varying the size of the glass center and the thickness of the gold shell, Halas can create nanoshells that interact with specific wavelengths of light.

"Nanoshells were already among the most versatile of all plasmonic nanoparticles, and this new self-assembly method for complex 2-D and 3-D structures simply adds to that," said Halas, who has helped develop a number of biological applications for nanoshells, including diagnostic applications and a minimally invasive procedure for treating cancer.

Additional co-authors of the new study include Rice graduate students Kui Bao and Rizia Bardhan; Jonathan Fan and Vinothan Manoharan, both of Harvard; Chihhui Wu and Gennady Shvets, both of the University of Texas at Austin; and Jiming Bao of the University of Houston. The research was supported by the National Science Foundation, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, the Department of Defense, the Robert A. Welch Foundation, the Department of Energy and Harvard University.

Los Alamos-Argonne partnership will aid

understanding of complex materials

LOS ALAMOS, New Mexico, May 27, 2010—An intimate understanding of complex materials that lie at the heart of pharmaceuticals or even nuclear weapons can occur more quickly and efficiently thanks to an agreement between Los Alamos and Argonne national laboratories.

Thomas Proffen of the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center’s Manuel Lujan Jr. Neutron Scattering Center and Peter Chupas and Karena Chapman of Argonne’s Advanced Photo Source have developed an agreement that allows researchers to readily use complementary facilities at both locations. The agreement has created a protocol under which researchers can collect data on the Neutron Powder Diffractometer (NPDF) at the Lujan Center as well as the high-energy X-ray beamline 11-ID-B at Argonne’s APS facility and then use specially developed user-friendly software to combine the high-quality X-ray and neutron scattering data.

Together, the two experiments provide ”total scattering“ data with different scattering weights for each atom type.  This allows materials scientists to peer even deeper into the structure and behavior of materials at the atomic level.

Prior to the agreement between the two institutions, scientists needed to present separate proposals for use of each facility; this sometimes meant that researchers collected data from different samples or gathered information at a second facility years after using the first. Now that the agreement is in place, researchers can get combined access to each machine more quickly and easily.

Perhaps even more significant, the agreement increases collaboration between the staff members at each facility, which may lead to improvements in the modeling software and in the techniques used to capture data.

”Complex materials are all around us,“ said Proffen. ”We find them in cell phones, hard drives, pharmaceuticals, and materials of interest to the weapons community. Total scattering is becoming a powerful new characterization tool that can advance our understanding of these complex materials. This initiative may help us someday develop models that allow us to predict the behavior of materials in extreme or specialized environments, or to design materials with desirable properties such as superconductivity at room temperature or designer medicines.“

Synthetic enzymes could help ID proteins

'Smart' catalysts programmed to recognize specific molecular shape

HOUSTON - Using a rare metal that's not utilized by nature, Rice University chemists have created a synthetic enzyme that could help unlock the identities of thousands of difficult-to-study proteins, including many that play key roles in cancer and other diseases.

The research was published online this week in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

"We have combined the chemical capabilities of rhodium with what biology already knows about recognizing and selecting specific proteins," said study co-author Zachary Ball, assistant professor of chemistry at Rice. "The result is a tool that, in many ways, is more powerful than any biological or chemical approach alone."

Ball began studying dirhodium catalysts more than three years ago. He did not start out trying to create enzymes with them, but he was intrigued by a study that showed dirhodium catalysts could be used to modify tryptophan, one of the 21 amino acids that are the basic building blocks of life.

Catalysts enhance chemical reactions by increasing the rate of reaction without being consumed themselves. In living things, proteins called enzymes serve the same purpose. But unlike many inorganic catalysts, enzymes are very selective. In a process that biologists often liken to a "lock and key," enzymes associate only with molecules that match their shape exactly. This prevents them from spurring extraneous reactions throughout the cell.

Ball and postdoctoral research associate Brian Popp wondered if they could marry the selectivity of enzymatic reactions with a rhodium-based catalyst. They tested the idea by attaching their catalyst to a short segment of protein that can wrap with other proteins, like strands of rope fiber. This "coiled coil" wrapping motif is common in biology, particularly in signaling proteins. Signaling proteins are those that activate or deactivate key processes like apoptosis, the "programmed death" response that's known to play a key role in cancer.

"Signaling pathways are like a trail of dominos," Ball said. "Dozens of proteins can be involved, and they interact one after the other in a cascade. In most cases, the interactions are both fleeting and weak. They are difficult to observe with traditional methods, and as a result we are still in the dark about the roles that key signaling proteins play in health and disease."

Ball said his and Popp's synthetic enzyme strategy might help solve that problem. In their tests, the chemists were able to develop synthetic enzymes that could selectively bind with proteins and attach tags that would allow biologists to identify them.

In addition to tryptophan, the method worked with phenylalanine and tyrosine, two amino acids commonly found in signaling proteins. And recent unpublished studies indicate the researchers' strategy might work for even more amino acids.

Ball said the process must be refined before it can be used in the majority of biology labs, but he and Popp are already working toward realizing broad applications of the strategy.

The research was funded by the Welch Foundation and Rice University.

Drug design: New book introduces fresh approach

Rice professor says drug industry can improve drug safety, lower costs

HOUSTON -- (April 28, 2010) – The pharmaceutical industry can reduce costs, bring new drugs to market more quickly and decrease the dangerous side effects of new medications if it pays closer attention to the latest research regarding the subtle differences between closely related protein targets.

A new book, "Transformative Concepts for Drug Design: Target Wrapping" (Springer) by Rice University bioengineering professor Ariel Fernandez, suggests new methods the industry can use to improve its bottom line today. The same methods could also usher in an era of personalized medicine by allowing drugmakers to identify idiosyncratic differences among individuals and to tailor drugs for patients.

"The industry is at a crossroad," said Fernandez, Rice's Hasselmann Professor of Bioengineering. "The old way of finding therapeutic compounds by trial and error is playing out. Genomics has revealed the protein targets for many major diseases, but current methods of drug discovery are often hopelessly inadequate for the task of attacking these targets."

Fernandez said it takes about a decade and costs about $1 billion to bring a new drug to market, and the lead time and costs for drug development are increasing.

When the human genome was sequenced a decade ago, many believed it would lead to an era of "rational" drug design in which drugmakers would create drugs molecule by molecule. But rational drug design hasn't panned out, largely because scientists still don't understand the fundamental biophysical principles that govern how drug molecules interact with proteins, Fernandez said.

"Proteins come in families, and the members of these families, or paralogs, can be almost identical," he said. "It is very difficult to find a compound that will selectively target one paralog without targeting the others."

For example, blocking the protein called "focal adhesion kinase," or FAK, has been shown to decrease the risk of metastasis of some types of cancer. But a standard structural analysis shows that FAK is nearly identical to the protein that insulin molecules use to dock with cells. Designing a drug that blocks FAK and does not block the insulin receptor signaling on cells has proven extremely difficult.

The similarities between proteins that are linked with diseases and those that are crucial for healthy function in other parts of the body are the underlying cause for the side effects of drugs.

A crucial proof of concept for the innovative remedial approaches proposed in the book came in 2007. At that time, Fernandez and colleagues from the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center used the new methods to re-engineer the powerful anticancer drug imatinib -- best known by its brand name Gleevec -- to more specifically target one type of cancer while curbing a rare life-threatening cardiotoxic side effect.

The redesigned drug is identical to imatinib, save for the addition of four atoms at a key point. Though the change is minimal, it allows the drug to effectively target cancer-related proteins without affecting similar proteins in heart cells.

"Almost all proteins have minor defects or structural deficiencies that leave some of their hydrogen bonds poorly shielded from water," Fernandez said. "These incompletely wrapped bonds, which I termed dehydrons, differ even between closely related protein paralogs, and drugmakers can use them as the basis for re-engineering drugs to be more selective."

Fernandez said many potential drug compounds are effective disease fighters but are dropped during late-stage trials -- and at great cost -- because of toxic side effects. Re-engineering such compounds could save drugmakers a fortune in research and development costs.

"This is not a de novo rational drug design," he said of the re-engineering method. "It extends the tried-and-true drug discovery methods industry is comfortable with, but it does this in a rational way that will save R&D costs, reduce toxic side effects and ultimately increase the safety of molecular targeted therapy."

Source: Rice University

Bizarre matter could find use in quantum computers

Rice physicists: Odd electron mix has fault-tolerant quantum registry

From left, Rice University physicist Rui-Rui Du, graduate students Chi Zhang and Yanhua Dai, and former postdoctoral researcher Tauno Knuuttila (not pictured) have found that odd groupings of ultracold electrons could be useful in making fault-tolerant quantum computers.

PHOTO CREDIT:Jeff Fitlow/Rice University

HOUSTON -- (April 21, 2010) -- There are enticing new findings this week in the worldwide search for materials that support fault-tolerant quantum computing. New results from Rice University and Princeton University indicate that a bizarre state of matter that acts like a particle with one-quarter electron charge also has a "quantum registry" that is immune to information loss from external perturbations.

The research appeared online April 21 in Physical Review Letters. The team of physicists found that ultracold mixes of electrons caught in magnetic traps could have the necessary properties for constructing fault-tolerant quantum computers -- future computers that could be far more powerful than today's computers. The mixes of electrons are dubbed "5/2 quantum Hall liquids" in reference to the unusual quantum properties that describe their makeup.

"The big goal, the whole driving force, besides deep academic curiosity, is to build a quantum computer out of this," said the study's lead author Rui-Rui Du, professor of physics at Rice. "The key for that is whether these 5/2 liquids have 'topological' properties that would render them immune to the sorts of quantum perturbations that could cause information degradation in a quantum computer."

Du said the team's results indicate the 5/2 liquids have the desired properties. In the parlance of condensed-matter physics, they are said to represent a "non-Abelian" state of matter.

Non-Abelian is a mathematical term for a system with "noncommutative" properties. In math, commutative operations, like addition, are those that have the same outcome regardless of the order in which they are carried out. So, one plus two equals three, just as two plus one equals three. In daily life, commutative and noncommutative tasks are commonplace. For example, when doing the laundry, it doesn't matter if the detergent is added before the water or the water before the detergent, but it does matter if the clothes are washed before they're placed in the dryer.

"It will take a while to fully understand the complete implications of our results, but it is clear that we have nailed down the evidence for 'spin polarization,' which is one of the two necessary conditions that must be proved to show that the 5/2 liquids are non-Abelian," Du said. "Other research teams have been tackling the second condition, the one-quarter charge, in previous experiments."

The importance of the noncommutative quantum properties is best understood within the context of fault-tolerant quantum computers, a fundamentally new type of computer that hasn't been built yet.

Computers today are binary. Their electrical circuits, which can be open or closed, represent the ones and zeros in binary bits of information. In quantum computers, scientists hope to use "quantum bits," or qubits. Unlike binary ones and zeros, the qubits can be thought of as little arrows that represent the position of a bit of quantum matter. The arrow might represent a one if it points straight up or a zero if it points straight down, but it could also represent any number in between. In physics parlance, these arrows are called quantum "states." And for certain complex calculations, being able to represent information in many different states would present a great advantage over binary computing.

The upshot of the 5/2 liquids being non-Abelian is that they have a sort of "quantum registry," where information doesn't change due to external quantum perturbations.

"In a way, they have internal memory of their previous state," Du said.

The conditions needed to create the 5/2 liquids are extreme. At Rice, Tauno Knuuttila, a former postdoctoral research scientist in Du's group, spent several years building the "demagnetization refrigerator" needed to cool 5-millimeter squares of ultrapure semiconductors to within one-10,000th of a degree of absolute zero. It took a week for Knuuttila to simply cool the nearly one-ton instrument to the necessary temperature for the Rice experiments.

The gallium arsenide semiconductors used in the tests are the most pure on the planet. They were created by Loren Pfieiffer, Du's longtime collaborator at Princeton and Bell Labs. Rice graduate student Chi Zhang conducted additional tests at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory in Tallahassee, Fla., to verify that the 5/2 liquid was spin- polarized.

Study co-authors include Zhang, Knuuttila, Pfeiffer, Princeton's Ken West and Rice's Yanhua Dai. The research is supported by the Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation and the Keck Foundation.

  Source: Rice University

Rice's Moshe Y. Vardi elected fellow of

American Academy of Arts and Sciences

-HOUSTON -- (April 20, 2010) -- Rice University computer scientist Moshe Y. Vardi has been elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences -- one of the nation's foremost scholarly honors.

Founded in 1780, the academy is among the oldest and most prestigious honorary societies in the country. The society's who's who list of current and former members includes Benjamin Franklin, Albert Einstein and James A. Baker III, honorary chairman of Rice's Baker Institute for Public Policy.

The 2010 class of 211 fellows and 18 foreign honorary members includes Nobel laureates, Pulitzer Prize winners and recipients of Academy and Grammy awards. The class includes actor Denzel Washington, Nobel Prize-winning economist Myron Scholes and CNN international correspondent Christiane Amanpour.

Vardi is Rice's Karen Ostrum George Professor in Computational Engineering and director of the Ken Kennedy Institute for Information Technology. He has won international recognition both for his research on the application of logic to computer science and for his many contributions to the computing research community. A member of the National Academy of Engineering, Vardi recently received both the Association for Computing Machinery's (ACM) 2010 Outstanding Contribution to ACM Award and the Computing Research Association's 2010 Distinguished Service Award.

Vardi earned his doctorate in computer science from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1981 and managed the Mathematics and Related Computer Science Department at IBM's Almaden Research Center prior to joining Rice in 1993. His research interests include database systems, computational-complexity theory, multi-agent systems, and design specification and verification.

The academy's 2010 class of fellows also includes film director Francis Ford Coppola, U.S. special envoy to North Korea Stephen Bosworth, actor Steve Martin, New York Times political columnist David Brooks and Microsoft chief software architect Ray Ozzie. Foreign honorary members elected to the academy this year include playwright Mike Leigh, architect Toyo Ito and Indian industrialist Ratan Tata.

The new class of fellows will be inducted Oct. 9 in Cambridge, Mass.

More information is available at http://www.amacad.org/.

Viruses harnessed to split water

Angela Belcher, the Germeshausen Professor of Materials Science and Engineering and Biological Engineering, demonstrates a virus-templated catalyst solution used in harnessing energy from water.  Photo: Dominick Reuter

MIT team’s biologically based system taps the power of sunlight directly, with the aim of turning water into hydrogen fuel.

David L. Chandler, MIT News Office

April 12, 2010

A team of MIT researchers has found a novel way to mimic the process by which plants use the power of sunlight to split water and make chemical fuel to power their growth. In this case, the team used a modified virus as a kind of biological scaffold that can assemble the nanoscale components needed to split the hydrogen and oxygen atoms of a water molecule.

Splitting water is one way to solve the basic problem of solar energy: It’s only available when the sun shines. By using sunlight to make hydrogen from water, the hydrogen can then be stored and used at any time to generate electricity using a fuel cell, or to make liquid fuels (or be used directly) for cars and trucks.

Other researchers have made systems that use electricity, which can be provided by solar panels, to split water molecules, but the new biologically based system skips the intermediate steps and uses sunlight to power the reaction directly. The advance is described in a paper published on April 11 in Nature Nanotechnology. The Italian energy company Eni supported the research through the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI).

The team, led by Angela Belcher, the Germeshausen Professor of Materials Science and Engineering and Biological Engineering, engineered a common, harmless bacterial virus called M13 so that it would attract and bind with molecules of a catalyst (the team used iridium oxide) and a biological pigment (zinc porphyrins). The viruses became wire-like devices that could very efficiently split the oxygen from water molecules.

Over time, however, the virus-wires would clump together and lose their effectiveness, so the researchers added an extra step: encapsulating them in a microgel matrix, so they maintained their uniform arrangement and kept their stability and efficiency.

While hydrogen obtained from water is the gas that would be used as a fuel, the splitting of oxygen from water is the more technically challenging ”half-reaction“ in the process, Belcher explains, so her team focused on this part. Plants and cyanobacteria (also called blue-green algae), she says, ”have evolved highly organized photosynthetic systems for the efficient oxidation of water.“ Other researchers have tried to use the photosynthetic parts of plants directly for harnessing sunlight, but these materials can have structural stability issues.

Belcher decided that instead of borrowing plants’ components, she would borrow their methods. In plant cells, natural pigments are used to absorb sunlight, while catalysts then promote the water-splitting reaction. That’s the process Belcher and her team, including doctoral student Yoon Sung Nam, the lead author of the new paper, decided to imitate.

In the team’s system, the viruses simply act as a kind of scaffolding, causing the pigments and catalysts to line up with the right kind of spacing to trigger the water-splitting reaction. The role of the pigments is ”to act as an antenna to capture the light,“ Belcher explains, ”and then transfer the energy down the length of the virus, like a wire. The virus is a very efficient harvester of light, with these porphyrins attached.

”We use components people have used before,“ she adds, ”but we use biology to organize them for us, so you get better efficiency.“

Using the virus to make the system assemble itself improves the efficiency of the oxygen production fourfold, Nam says. The researchers hope to find a similar biologically based system to perform the other half of the process, the production of hydrogen. Currently, the hydrogen atoms from the water get split into their component protons and electrons; a second part of the system, now being developed, would combine these back into hydrogen atoms and molecules. The team is also working to find a more commonplace, less-expensive material for the catalyst, to replace the relatively rare and costly iridium used in this proof-of-concept study.

Thomas Mallouk, the DuPont Professor of Materials Chemistry and Physics at Pennsylvania State University, who was not involved in this work, says, ”This is an extremely clever piece of work that addresses one of the most difficult problems in artificial photosynthesis, namely, the nanoscale organization of the components in order to control electron transfer rates.“

He adds: ”There is a daunting combination of problems to be solved before this or any other artificial photosynthetic system could actually be useful for energy conversion.“ To be cost-competitive with other approaches to solar power, he says, the system would need to be at least 10 times more efficient than natural photosynthesis, be able to repeat the reaction a billion times, and use less expensive materials. ”This is unlikely to happen in the near future,“ he says. ”Nevertheless, the design idea illustrated in this paper could ultimately help with an important piece of the puzzle.“

Belcher will not even speculate about how long it might take to develop this into a commercial product, but she says that within two years she expects to have a prototype device that can carry out the whole process of splitting water into oxygen and hydrogen, using a self-sustaining and durable system.

Source: MIT news office

New hope for ultimate clean energy: fusion power

April 12, 2010- Imagine if you could generate electricity using nuclear power that emitted no radioactivity: it would be the answer to the world's dream of finding a clean, sustainable energy source.

That is the great hope raised by researchers who believe they have found a radical new path to the ultimate goal of solving the world's energy crisis through nuclear fusion power, as detailed in a paper published in the journal Energy and Environmental Science.

The international team of researchers - led by Emeritus Professor Heinrich Hora, of the University of New South Wales Department of Theoretical Physics -has shown through computational studies that a special fuel ignited by brief but powerful pulses of energy from new high-energy lasers may be the key to a success that has long eluded physicists.

The intense laser beam would be used to ignite a fuel made of light hydrogen and boron-11. The resulting ignition would be largely free of radioactive emissions and would release more than enough energy to generate electricity.

The amount of radiation released would be even less than that emitted by current power stations that burn coal, which contains trace amounts of uranium. In another plus, the fuel source is plentiful and readily accessible and the waste product of ignition would be clean helium gas.

"This has the potential to be the best route to fusion energy," says Steve Haan, an expert in nuclear fusion at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, in a news report in the Royal Chemical Society's Highlights in Chemical Technology.

Both Haan and Hora caution that the study only demonstrates the potential of the new process and that much work would need to be done to demonstrate it in practice.

The conventional fusion process uses highly compressed spheres of deuterium and tritium as fuel. Hora says the proposed new process overcomes previous objections to hydrogen-boron11 fuel because it would not have to be compressed and therefore need much less energy than previously thought to start the ignition.

"It was a surprise when we used hydrogen-boron instead of deuterium-tritium," says Hora. "It was not 100,000 times more difficult to ignite, as it would be under the usual compression process. It would be only 10 times more difficult, using the latest generation of lasers."

As it happens, a unique new laser capable of producing the required amount of ignition energy is in its early stages of testing in the US at the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Another extraordinarily powerful US laser known as the National Ignition Facility has been built at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory: "It is the largest laser on earth and has cost about US$ 4 billion," he says. "The laser pulse of about few billionths of a second duration produces 500 times more power than all US power stations."

Professor Hora, who founded the UNSW Department of Theoretical Physics in 1975 and has been an Emeritus Professor since 1992, is known for his work on the theory of fusion energy with lasers.

More information: The new paper is here:

http://www.rsc.org/Publishing/Journals/EE/article.asp?doi=b904609g (reference Energy and Environmental Science, Vol. 3, (2010) 479-486).

It builds on a previous publications in the journal Optics Communications, Vol. 282 (2009) p4124, and in Laser and Particle Beams Vol. 27 (2009) p495.

Provided by University of New South Wales

Ultrasensitive imaging method uses gold-silver 'nanocages'

New research findings suggest that an experimental ultrasensitive imaging technique that uses a pulsed laser and tiny metallic "nanocages" might enable both the early detection and treatment of disease. This composite image shows luminous nanocages, which appear like stars against a black background, and a living cell, at upper left. The gold-silver nanocages exhibit a bright "three-photon luminescence" when excited by the ultrafast pulsed laser, with 10-times greater intensity than pure gold or silver nanoparticles. The signal allows live cell imaging with negligible damage from heating. Credit: Purdue University graphic/Ji-Xin Cheng

New research findings suggest that an experimental ultrasensitive medical imaging technique that uses a pulsed laser and tiny metallic "nanocages" might enable both the early detection and treatment of disease.

The system works by shining near-infrared laser pulses through the skin to detect hollow nanocages and solid nanoparticles - made of an alloy of gold and silver - that are injected into the bloodstream.

Unlike previous approaches using tiny metallic nanorods and nanospheres, the new technique does not cause heat damage to tissue being imaged. Another advantage is that it does not produce a background "auto fluorescent" glow of surrounding tissues, which interferes with the imaging and reduces contrast and brightness, said Ji-Xin Cheng (pronounced Gee-Shin), an associate professor of biomedical engineering and chemistry at Purdue University.

"This lack of background fluorescence makes the images much more clear and is very important for disease detection," he said. "It allows us to clearly identify the nanocages and the tissues."

The improved performance could make possible early detection and treatment of cancer. The tiny gold-silver cages also might be used to deliver time-released anticancer drugs to diseased tissue, said Younan Xia, the James M. McKelvey Professor for Advanced Materials in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis. His team fabricated the nanocages and nanoparticles used in the research.

The gold-silver structures yielded images 10 times brighter than other experimental imaging research using gold nanospheres and nanorods. The imaging technology provides brightness and contrast potentially hundreds of times better than conventional fluorescent dyes used for a wide range of biological imaging to study the inner workings of cells and molecules.

Findings were detailed in a research paper published online April 6 in the journal Angewandte Chemie's international edition. The paper was written by Purdue chemistry doctoral student Ling Tong, Washington University graduate student Claire M. Cobley and research assistant professor Jingyi Chen, Xia and Cheng.

The new imaging approach uses a phenomenon called "three-photon luminescence," which provides higher contrast and brighter images than conventional fluorescence imaging methods. Normally, three-photon luminescence is too dim to be used for imaging. However, the presence of gold and silver nanoparticles enhances the brightness, overcoming this obstacle. The ultrafast laser also is thought to possibly play a role by causing "third harmonic generation," which increases the brightness.

Previous research to develop the imaging system has required the use of "plasmons," or clouds of electrons moving in unison, to enhance brightness and contrast. However, using plasmons generates tissue-damaging heat. The new technique does not use plasmon enhancement, eliminating this heating, Cheng said.

The three-photon effect might enable scientists to develop advanced "non-linear optical techniques" that provide better contrast than conventional technologies.

"The three-photon imaging capability will potentially allow us to combine imaging and therapy for better diagnosis and monitoring," Xia said.

Researchers used a laser in the near-infrared range of the spectrum pulsing at the speed of femtoseconds, or quadrillionths of a second. The laser pulses 80 million times per second to illuminate tissues and organs after nanocages have been injected, Cheng said.

The cages and particles are about 40 nanometers wide, or roughly 100 times smaller than a red blood cell.

The researchers intravenously injected the nanocages into mice and then took images of the tiny structures in tissue samples from organs such as the liver and spleen.

More information: Bright Three-photon Luminescence from Au-Ag Alloyed Nanostructures for Bioimaging with Negligible Photothermal Toxicity, Angewandte Chemie, April 6, 2010.

Provided by Purdue University

'Facebook for scientists'

A network visualization of the "Facebook for scientists" project, above, displays how universities using the proposed VIVOweb would network with existing databases like the gene ontology information center GO and UniProt, and protein knowledge database, and its non-redundant archive, UniParc.

Indiana University has received more than $1.8 million from the National Institutes of Health to collaborate on a $12.2 million, seven-university project designed to network researchers around the country.

While the proposed new networking system will contain authentication mechanisms to protect sensitive data and intellectual property, it is being described as a "Facebook for scientists."

IU's portion of the project is led by Katy Börner, Victor H. Yngve Professor of Information Science and director of the Cyberinfrastructure for Network Science Center at IU. Co-investigators with Börner at IU are Ying Ding, an assistant professor of Information Science, and Robert McDonald, associate dean for library technologies at IU and associate director for the Data to Insight Center at the Pervasive Technology Institute.

Börner's team at the Cyberinfrastructure for Network Science Center will conduct research and development on data analysis and visualization, Ding will be responsible for ontology development and McDonald will be responsible for implementation at IU of VIVO, a networking template currently in place at Cornell University that brings together publicly available information on the people, departments, graduate fields, facilities and other resources that collectively make up the research and scholarship environment in all disciplines at Cornell.

Ding explained that ontology is a formally represented community consensus that enables data integration into a form that allows for machine involvement for information understanding and processing.

"One of the major VIVO ontologies models the scholarly activities of research communities, where paper, grant, teaching, research interest, organization and event are interlinked and formally represented," she said. "This could gather all the related information for one researcher into one place and further links to any other related semantic datasets. Linking and formal representation generate great power to realize more intelligent knowledge discovery."

In a recent announcement referencing the importance of the agency's disbursement of 12,000 American Reinvestment and Recovery Act grants that included the $12.2 million VIVO project, NIH director Francis Collins said scientists like Börner, Ding and McDonald were committed to improving the lives of Americans.

"We're investigating new problems with powerful new tools and looking at old problems from entirely new perspectives," he said. "President Obama began his administration by making a strong commitment to 'listening to scientists.' This is not just because he didn't want to hurt our feelings. It's because he sees great opportunities to use science to improve lives, whether it's creating new medicines, developing better prevention strategies, or devising smarter policies to do everything from reducing greenhouse gas emissions to building a more effective health care system."

Success of the VIVO project could translate into enhancing scientific gains in each of those areas noted by Collins, and even more broadly, Börner said.

"There are many sites that extract and serve researcher profiles, plus there are services that aim to help people communicate and connect more efficiently," she said. "Many researchers have profiles and evolving networks on multiple, but incompatible, sites. They try to use Facebook and Google for their research, however, these tools and services do not completely address the needs of scholars."

McDonald said the Cornell VIVO software will offer IU significant opportunities for advancing enhanced data mining capabilities towards discovering semantic relationships among faculty research both within the IU system and in external comparison to other research institutions that also use the software.

"For a multi-faceted area like translational medicine this type of enhanced researcher relationship will strengthen research collaboration as well as provide new insights into the types of research collections that are needed by the libraries to support researchers who work in a multi-disciplinary framework," he noted.

As it is currently envisioned, the system will federate information about faculty and staff from institutional repositories, listings of published articles from academic publishers, and researchers would provide information regarding their own interests. Users will still view the information on what looks like regular Web pages, but VIVO is designed to then collect the facts a researcher wants and then assemble a unique page.

In addition to IU and Cornell, also involved in the project are the University of Florida, Weill Cornell Medical College, Washington University in St. Louis, the Scripps Research Institute and the Ponce School of Medicine in Puerto Rico.

Provided by Indiana University

A brighter idea

Wake Forest receives patent for new fiber solar cells

David Carroll is director of Wake Forest's Center for Nanotechnology and Molecular Materials, which has developed a more efficient and less expensive fiber solar cell.

Wake Forest has received the first patent for a new solar-cell technology that can double the energy production of today’s flat cells at a fraction of the cost.

”It comes at a pretty high price to be green,“ said David Carroll, the director of Wake Forest’s Center for Nanotechnology and Molecular Materials, where the fiber cell was developed. ”This device can make a huge difference.“

The University received the patent for fiber-based photovoltaic, or solar, cells from the European Patent Office; applications to the U.S. Patent Office are pending.

The patent on the technology has been licensed to FiberCell Inc. to develop a way to manufacture the cells. The company, based in the Piedmont Triad Research Park in downtown Winston-Salem, is producing its first large test cells.

The new solar cells are made from millions of miniscule plastic fibers that can collect sunlight at oblique angles – even when the sun is rising and setting. Flat-cell technology captures light primarily when the sun is directly above.

Where a flat cell loses energy when the sun’s rays bounce off its shiny surface, the fiber-based design creates more surface area to confine the sun’s rays, trapping the light in the tiny fiber ”cans“ where it bounces around until it is absorbed almost completely. That means much greater energy production with fiber-based cells: the new fiber cells could produce about twice as many kilowatt hours per day as standard flat cells.

”We’ve been able to show that with a standard absorber we can collect more of the photons than anyone else can,“ Carroll said. ”Because of the way the device works, I get more power.“

To make the cells, the plastic fibers are assembled onto plastic sheets, with a technology similar to that used to create the tops of soft-drink cups. The absorber – either a polymer or a dye – is sprayed on. The plastic makes the cells lightweight and flexible – a manufacturer could roll them up and ship them anywhere cheaply.

Carroll envisions several key uses for fiber cells:

Green building: ”We’ve known how to build the ‘smart house,’ it’s just been too expensive,“ he said. ”The fiber cell can change that.“ Alter the dimensions and dye color, and builders can integrate the cells nearly anywhere in the home’s design. Because fiber cells can collect light at various angles, they no longer have to stay on the roof to work. Partner the cells with devices that could store the power more efficiently, turn off lights and appliances when not in use, and capture and redirect the heat the building radiates at night, and you have a more affordable, energy-efficient structure.

Bringing power to developing countries: Once the primary manufacturer ships the lightweight, plastic fiber cells, satellite plants in poor countries can spray them with the dye and prepare them for installation. Carroll estimates it would cost about $5 million to set up a finishing plant – about $15 million less than it would cost to set up a similar plant for flat cells.

Revolutionizing the power grid: ”What if you didn’t own your roof,“ Carroll asked. ”What if the power company did?“ The fiber cells installed on some homes in each neighborhood would feed the grid, and the power company would monitor energy collection and distribution through a computer network. The homeowner would not maintain the cells; that responsibility would fall to the power company.

http://www.wfu.edu/wowf/2010/20100407.solar.php

Bilbao welcomes ImagineNano - one of the largest 2011 European events in Nanotechnology

Madrid,Spain: April 2010 - Bilbao, Spain, will host one of the largest 2011 European Events in Nanoscience & Nanotechnology from 11th until 14th of April at BEC (Bilbao Exhibition Centre).

The Phantoms Foundation and CIC nanoGUNE, in cooperation with other institutions will bring ImagineNano, a newly Nanoscience & Nanotechnology concept in Europe.

For the first time, ImagineNano will comprise in 15.000 m2 extensive thematic conferences in parallel, a huge industrial exhibition carried out with the latest nanotrends for the future and a social component where everyone can meet and greet Nanotechnology side by side. ImagineNano will therefore gather global nanotechnology community, including researchers, industry policymakers, investors and plans to be a reference in Europe in the next upcoming years.

One place, five conferences in parallel covering hot science trends:

Opportunities are now available for industrial, academic and governmental organizations to share common objectives and drive the commercialization and the know-how of nanotechnology, which has been estimated to value 3.000 trillion Us dollars by 2015.

ImagineNano aims to provide an outlook of the most innovative projects and products in various fields of Nanoscience & Nanotechnology.

About Phantoms Foundation: This Non-Profit organization was established in 2002 (Madrid, Spain) in order to provide high level Management profile to scientific projects. This association plays an important role in the 6th and 7th Framework Programs as a platform for European funded projects (nanoICT, nanomagma & NanoCODE) to spread excellence amongst a wider audience, and to help in forming new networks. This Association is now a key actor in structuring and fostering European Excellence in ”Nanoscience and Nanotechnology“, having a world leading position in organizing conferences, training and dissemination activities in this field.

About CIC nanoGUNE: Is a newly established center created with the mission of addressing basic and applied world-class research in nanoscience and nanotechnology, fostering high-standard training and education of researchers in this field, and promoting the cooperation among the different agents in the Basque Science, Technology, and Innovation Network (Universities and Technological Centers) and between these agents and the industrial sector. CICs are promoted by the Department of Industry, Trade and Tourism of the Basque Government and are designed with the aim of creating an effective framework of collaboration that strengthens interdisciplinary basic and applied world-class research in order to provide technology transfer and promote competitiveness of the Basque Industry in strategic areas.

Carbon Nanostructures—Elixir or Poison?

Los Alamos researchers find a case where size really does matter

LOS ALAMOS, New Mexico, March 31, 2010—A Los Alamos National Laboratory toxicologist and a multidisciplinary team of researchers have documented potential cellular damage from ”fullerenes“—soccer-ball-shaped, cage-like molecules composed of 60 carbon atoms. The team also noted that this particular type of damage might hold hope for treatment of Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, or even cancer.

The research recently appeared in Toxicology and Applied Pharmacology and represents the first-ever observation of this kind for spherical fullerenes, also known as buckyballs, which take their names from the late Buckminster Fuller because they resemble the geodesic dome concept that he popularized.

Engineered carbon nanoparticles, which include fullerenes, are increasing in use worldwide. Each buckyball is a skeletal cage of carbon about the size of a virus. They show potential for creating stronger, lighter structures or acting as tiny delivery mechanisms for designer drugs or antibiotics, among other uses. About four to five tons of carbon nanoparticles are manufactured annually.

”Nanomaterials are the 21st century revolution,“ said Los Alamos toxicologist Rashi Iyer, the principal research lead and coauthor of the paper. ”We are going to have to live with them and deal with them, and the question becomes, ‘How are we going to maximize our use of these materials and minimize their impact on us and the environment?’“

Iyer and lead author Jun Gao, also a Los Alamos toxicologist, exposed cultured human skin cells to several distinct types of buckyballs. The differences in the buckyballs lay in the spatial arrangement of short branches of molecules coming off of the main buckyball structure. One buckyball variation, called the ”tris“ configuration, had three molecular branches off the main structure on one hemisphere; another variation, called the ”hexa“ configuration, had six branches off the main structure in a roughly symmetrical arrangement; the last type was a plain buckyball.

The researchers found that cells exposed to the tris configuration underwent premature senescence—what might be described as a state of suspended animation. In other words, the cells did not die as cells normally should, nor did they divide or grow. This arrest of the natural cellular life cycle after exposure to the tris-configured buckyballs may compromise normal organ development, leading to disease within a living organism. In short, the tris buckyballs were toxic to human skin cells.

Moreover, the cells exposed to the tris arrangement caused unique molecular level responses suggesting that tris-fullerenes may potentially interfere with normal immune responses induced by viruses. The team is now pursuing research to determine if cells exposed to this form of fullerenes may be more susceptible to viral infections.

Ironically, the discovery could also lead to a novel treatment strategy for combating  several debilitating diseases. In diseases like Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s, nerve cells die or degenerate to a nonfunctional state. A mechanism to induce senescence in specific nerve cells could delay or eliminate onset of the diseases. Similarly, a disease like cancer, which spreads and thrives through unregulated replication of cancer cells, might be fought through induced senescence. This strategy could stop the cells from dividing and provide doctors with more time to kill the abnormal cells.

Because of the minute size of nanomaterials, the primary hazard associated with them has been potential inhalation—similar to the concern over asbestos exposure.

”Already, from a toxicological point of view, this research is useful because it shows that if you have the choice to use a tris- or a hexa-arrangement for an application involving buckyballs, the hexa-arrangement is probably the better choice,“ said Iyer. ”These studies may provide guidance for new nanomaterial design and development.“

These results were offshoots from a study (Shreve, Wang, and Iyer) funded to understand the interactions between buckyballs and biological membranes. Los Alamos National Laboratory has taken a proactive role by initiating a nanomaterial bioassessmnet program with the intention of keeping its nanomaterial workers safe while facilitating the discovery of high-function, low-bioimpact nanomaterials with the potential to benefit national security missions. In addition to Gao and Iyer, the LANL program includes Jennifer Hollingsworth, Yi Jiang, Jian Song, Paul Welch, Hsing Lin Wang, Srinivas Iyer, and Gabriel Montano.

Los Alamos National Laboratory researchers will continue to attempt to understand the potential effects of exposure to nanomaterials in much the same way that Los Alamos was a worldwide leader in understanding the effects of radiation during the Lab’s early history. Los Alamos workers using nanomaterials will continue to follow protocols that provide the highest degree of protection from potential exposure.

Meantime, Los Alamos research into nanomaterials provides a cautionary tale for nanomaterial use, as well as early foundations for worker protection. Right now, there are no federal regulations for the use of nanomaterials. Disclosure of use by companies or individuals is voluntary. As nanomaterial use increases, understanding of their potential hazards should also increase.

About Los Alamos National Laboratory : http://www.lanl.gov  

Los Alamos National Laboratory, a multidisciplinary research institution engaged in strategic science on behalf of national security, is operated by Los Alamos National Security, LLC, a team composed of Bechtel National, the University of California, The Babcock & Wilcox Company, and URS for the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration.

Los Alamos enhances national security by ensuring the safety and reliability of the U.S. nuclear stockpile, developing technologies to reduce threats from weapons of mass destruction, and solving problems related to energy, environment, infrastructure, health, and global security concerns.

Arkansas Ambassadors of Education and Commerce

Governor Mike Beebe's weekly column and radio address:

Last week, I welcomed a group of French educators to the Capitol to discuss a new student-exchange program. This program will benefit Arkansas's economy and enhance the way we prepare Arkansans for careers in engineering, science, and technology.

The CESI Group, founded in France in 1958, was created to train engineers in the management skills of manufacturing projects. Today, the school serves more than 17,000 trainees, apprentices, and students a year in France, Spain, and Algeria. All of its programs have an international dimension and require a four-month internship abroad. I'm very pleased that CESI has chosen the University of Arkansas at Little Rock as one of only two U.S. partners, providing its students with access to UALR's world-class facilities and staff.

UALR's Donaghey College of Engineering and Information Technology and the university's Department of Applied Science have each developed international reputations for their high quality of instruction. Dr. Mary Good, dean of the Donaghey College, is among America's most esteemed scientists and educators. She is creating a culture at UALR that values both cutting-edge research as well as the practical training of skilled professionals to fill critical jobs in Arkansas's workforce.

Dr. Alex Biris, who leads the UALR Nanotechnology Center, shares this vision of using science and technology to increase our understanding of the world while generating practical results to create new companies and jobs for Arkansans. Dr. Biris and his colleagues are on the frontiers of science, working to control matter on an atomic scale and create new materials that have never before existed on the Earth. While this may seem like science fiction, the fact is that nano-material research may help create the next generation of great Arkansas companies.

What attracted CESI to Arkansas and UALR was the quality of our programs and a shared philosophy about the role that universities must play in economic development. CESI pioneered the approach that Dr. Good and Dr. Biris are putting to work at UALR. They train scientists and engineers to respond to the industry's needs by exposing students to the specific training needed by real companies.

CESI serves more than 2,000 companies in an expansive range of industries, from aerospace to computer science and from energy to transportation and medicine. These industry connections represent a long-term economic opportunity for Arkansas. A strong relationship with CESI and its students will create ambassadors on behalf of Arkansas with CESI's partner companies. Furthermore, we hope to expand our relationship with CESI to allow Arkansas students to spend a four-month internship in France where they will attend classes and work part-time for French companies.

Our future depends on our ability to cultivate high-tech, high-paying industries in our State by attracting investment from around the world and by cultivating the next generation of Arkansas entrepreneurs. Both approaches require us to develop a workforce with the knowledge and skills to compete on a global scale. The relationship between CESI and UALR is another important step toward that goal.

 http://arkansasmatters.com/content/fulltext/?cid=303782 

Safer Nuclear Reactors Could Result

from Los Alamos Research

‘Loading-unloading’ effect of grain boundaries key to repair of irradiated metal

LOS ALAMOS, New Mexico, March 25, 2010—Self-repairing materials within nuclear reactors may one day become a reality as a result of research by Los Alamos National Laboratory scientists.

In a paper appearing today in the journal Science, Los Alamos researchers report a surprising mechanism that allows nanocrystalline materials to heal themselves after suffering radiation-induced damage. Nanocrystalline materials are those created from nanosized particles, in this case copper particles. A single nanosized particle—called a grain—is the size of a virus or even smaller. Nanocrystalline materials consist of a mixture of grains and the interface between those grains, called grain boundaries.

When designing nuclear reactors or the materials that go into them, one of the key challenges is finding materials that can withstand an outrageously extreme environment. In addition to constant bombardment by radiation, reactor materials may be subjected to extremes in temperature, physical stress, and corrosive conditions. Exposure to high radiation alone produces significant damage at the nanoscale.

Radiation can cause individual atoms or groups of atoms to be jarred out of place. Each vagrant atom becomes known as an interstitial. The empty space left behind by the displaced atom is known as a vacancy. Consequently, every interstitial created also creates one vacancy. As these defects—the interstitials and vacancies—build up over time in a material, effects such as swelling, hardening or embrittlement can manifest in the material and lead to catastrophic failure.

Therefore, designing materials that can withstand radiation-induced damage is very important for improving the reliability, safety and lifespan of nuclear energy systems.

Because nanocrystalline materials contain a large fraction of grain boundaries—which are thought to act as sinks that absorb and remove defects—scientists have expected that these materials should be more radiation tolerant than their larger-grain counterparts. Nevertheless, the ability to predict the performance of nanocrystalline materials in extreme environments has been severely lacking because specific details of what occurs within solids are very complex and difficult to visualize.

Recent computer simulations by the Los Alamos researchers help explain some of those details.

In the Science paper, the researchers describe the never-before-observed phenomenon of a ”loading-unloading“ effect at grain boundaries in nanocrystalline materials. This loading-unloading effect allows for effective self-healing of radiation-induced defects. Using three different computer simulation methods, the researchers looked at the interaction between defects and grain boundaries on time scales ranging from picoseconds to microseconds (one-trillionth of a second to one-millionth of a second).

On the shorter timescales, radiation-damaged materials underwent a ”loading“ process at the grain boundaries, in which interstitial atoms became trapped—or loaded—into the grain boundary. Under these conditions, the subsequent number of accumulated vacancies in the bulk material occurred in amounts much greater than would have occurred in bulk materials in which a boundary didn’t exist. After trapping interstitials, the grain boundary later ”unloaded“ interstitials back into vacancies near the grain boundary. In so doing, the process annihilates both types of defects—healing the material.

This unloading process was totally unexpected because grain boundaries traditionally have been regarded as places that accumulate interstitials, but not as places that release them. Although researchers found that some energy is required for this newly-discovered recombination method to operate, the amount of energy was much lower than the energies required to operate conventional mechanisms—providing an explanation and mechanism for enhanced self-healing of radiation-induced damage.

Modeling of the ”loading-unloading“ role of grain boundaries helps explain previously observed counterintuitive behavior of irradiated nanocrystalline materials compared to their larger-grained counterparts. The insight provided by this work provides new avenues for further examination of the role of grain boundaries and engineered material interfaces in self-healing of radiation-induced defects. Such efforts could eventually assist or accelerate the design of highly radiation-tolerant materials for the next generation of nuclear energy applications.

The Los Alamos National Laboratory research team includes: Xian-Ming Bai, Richard G. Hoagland and Blas P. Uberuaga of the Materials Science and Technology Division; Arthur F. Voter, of the Theoretical Division; and Michael Nastasi of the Materials Physics and Applications Division.

The work was primarily sponsored by the Los Alamos Laboratory-Directed Research and Development (LDRD) program, which, at the discretion of the Laboratory Director, invests a small percentage of the Laboratory’s budget in high-risk, potentially high-payoff projects to help position the Laboratory to anticipate and prepare for emerging national security challenges. The research also received specific funding through the Center for Materials under Irradiation and Mechanical Extremes, an Energy Frontier Research Center funded by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences.

About Los Alamos National Laboratory (www.lanl.gov <http://www.lanl.gov/> )

Los Alamos National Laboratory, a multidisciplinary research institution engaged in strategic science on behalf of national security, is operated by Los Alamos National Security, LLC, a team composed of Bechtel National, the University of California, The Babcock & Wilcox Company, and URS for the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration.

Los Alamos enhances national security by ensuring the safety and reliability of the U.S. nuclear stockpile, developing technologies to reduce threats from weapons of mass destruction, and solving problems related to energy, environment, infrastructure, health, and global security concerns.

From pollutant to profit --

nanoscience turns carbon on its head

March 23rd, 2010 - Three new complementary research projects will turn carbon from a pollutant into useful products that could help both industry and the environment.

Nanotechnology solutions will be used to:

Catalytic reactor

University College London scientists led by Professor Nora De Leeuw will work with Johnson Matthey to mimic biological systems and produce a catalytic reactor that can convert CO2 into useful chemicals for applications such as fuel cells in laptops and mobile phones.

The reactor will use novel nano-catalysts based on compounds formed in warm springs on the ocean floor that are considered to have triggered the emergence of life. The team's design will take inspiration from biological systems that can carry out complex processes to convert CO2 into biological material, and exploit a wide range of computational and experimental chemistry techniques.

Professor De Leeuw says: "If we were able to emulate nature and convert CO2 into useful products without having to use large amounts of energy, the benefits would be enormous. One of the major gases responsible for climate change would become an important raw material for the chemical and pharmaceutical industries."

Artificial leaf

At Imperial College London and University College London a research team led by Dr Charlotte Williams will reduce CO¬2 with hydrogen, electrical energy or photon energy to produce vehicle fuels.

To achieve this, they will develop nanostructured catalysts that operate using solar or other renewable energy inputs. These will be used in a process that mimics CO¬2 activation in nature - an 'artificial leaf' concept - that effectively reverses the polluting process of burning fossil fuels. The team will collaborate with industrial partners Millennium Inorganic Chemicals, Cemex, Johnson Matthey and E.ON.

Dr Williams, of Imperial College London, says: "The key economic issue lies in decreasing the energy required for the processes. We hope to achieve this by developing new, highly active metal/metal oxide nanostructured catalysts, which offer superior performance."

Carbon lock-in

The Universities of Bath, Bristol and the West of England are working together to produce materials that can remove CO¬2 from the atmosphere and lock it into useful products.

At the heart of the project, led by Dr Frank Marken at the University of Bath, will be a one-step process that links catalysts directly with a novel CO2 absorber, and is powered by solar or an alternative renewable energy source. The resulting 'carbon lock-in' products include polymers, carbohydrates or fuels.

Dr Marken says: "Current processes rely on using separate technology to capture and utilise the CO2, which makes the process very inefficient. By combining the processes the efficiency can be improved and the energy required to drive the CO2 reduction is minimised."

The projects are part of Research Councils UK (RCUK) cross-Council programme 'Nanoscience: through Engineering to Application'. www.rcuk.ac.uk/nano

As part of the selection process, researchers were asked to consider potential environmental, health, societal and ethical concerns that may result from the innovation process. Using this responsible innovation approach, the projects all recognise that the solution to one problem should not create another.

The research will benefit a range of UK industries including companies that emit carbon dioxide in significant quantities, such as power suppliers, steel and aluminium manufacturers, fuel companies and fuel users.

The new technologies and materials produced by the research could create a new branch of manufacturing with worldwide distribution of carbon capture devices, and a new mechanism for carbon credit trading.

Last week the Department for Business Innovation and Skills published a cross-departmental strategy, 'UK Nanotechnologies Strategy: Opportunities Ahead', which stated that the global market in nanotechnologies is expected to grow from US$2.3 billion in 2007 to US$81 billion in 2015*.

More information: * Nanomaterials and Markets 2008 - 2015, Nanopost, quoted in Nanoscale Technologies Strategy 2009 - 12, Technology Strategy Board, September 2009

Provided by Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council

Open Access Chinese Nano Research Journal

Makes it into Science Citation Index

Thomson ISI has announced that Nano Research, an English-language journal jointly published by Springer and Tsinghua University Press, is now listed in the Science Citation Index-Expanded (SCI-E). The academic journal, founded in July 2008, has been covered in the index from Volume 1, Issue 1. Nano Research is part of Springer's Chinese Library of Science, a collection comprising more than 90 journals.

Nano Research is an international, interdisciplinary journal which publishes high-quality, peer-reviewed, original research papers and review articles on nanometer scale material and nanotechnology. With an open access publishing model, Nano Research allows readers worldwide to download full articles via the online platform SpringerLink free of charge, thus enhancing rapid access to the journal.

Nano Research, featuring prompt review and timely publication, implements an online submission system. Furthermore, all articles are published electronically via Online First before they appear in print. The journal has gained support from many top scientists in the field of nanoscience and has attracted world-class contributors and reviewers from such renowned universities and research institutes as MIT, Stanford University and the Hong Kong University of Science & Technology. Articles contributed by Chinese mainland scientists account for 20 percent of the total articles published. Editors-in-chief are Dr. Dai Hongjie, professor at Stanford University in the US, and Dr. Xue Qikun, professor at Tsinghua University in China.

Dr. Dai said, "Nano Research is committed to publishing high-quality results and exciting new discoveries in nanoscience in the timeliest manner possible. We are determined to make a difference in publishing in these dynamic times, when nanoscience continues to rapidly develop and expand."

Junfeng Zong, President of Tsinghua University Press, said, "Nano Research was selected for inclusion in the SCI-E shortly after it was launched. This shows that international cooperation is an effective way to publish a new journal, and also demonstrates that Tsinghua publications are recognized globally and that Tsinghua University Press is capable of producing high-level international publications. We are confident that the efforts of the editorial board, combined with the support of many leading scientists all over the world, will result in even greater success for Nano Research in the future."

Peter Hendriks, President of STM Global Publishing and Marketing at Springer, said, "The joint efforts of Tsinghua University Press, Springer, and the editors-in-chief have produced a superior publication. Nano Research is a successful example of state-of-the-art publishing which demonstrates the supportive effect of open access to a newly launched academic journal."

Tsinghua University, under the Ministry of Education of the Republic of China, is a multidisciplinary comprehensive university specializing in science and engineering. It is one of the most important national bases for higher education, scientific research and technological development. Tsinghua University Press, under the charge of the Ministry of Education and sponsored by Tsinghua University, is one of the most respected academic publishing houses in China.

http://www.azom.com/news.asp?NewsID=20976

Study: grass, fungus combination affects ecology

Six-year study examines impacts of fescue and symbiotic fungus

HOUSTON -- (March 15, 2010) -- The popular forage and turf grass called tall fescue covers a vast amount of land in the U.S. -- an area that's estimated to be larger than Virginia and Maryland combined -- and a new study by ecologists at Rice University and Indiana University suggests there is more to fescue than meets the eye.

Results of the six-year study, which are available online in the Journal of Applied Ecology, show that a symbiotic fungus living inside fescue can have far-reaching effects on plant, animal and insect communities.

"Competition and environment have traditionally been seen as the driving forces for community dynamics, so it's significant to see that the composition and diversity of a plant community can be affected by changing a few genes in an invisible fungus inside one species of grass," said study co-author Jennifer Rudgers, Rice's Godwin Assistant Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. "This suggests that cooperative microorganisms should not be overlooked as significant contributors to ecological diversity."

Tall fescue is hearty, low-maintenance and stays green year-round, which makes it a favorite for home lawns, golf courses and highway rights-of-way across the U.S. But fescue, which is native to Europe and North Africa, can also be highly invasive in North America. It can also sicken livestock, thanks to a symbiotic fungus called Neotyphodium coenophialum. The fungus and fescue have a mutually beneficial relationship. The fungus lives inside the plant, where it gets shelter and food, and in return it laces the plant's leaves with toxic alkaloids that are a turnoff to some plant-eating animals.

In 2002, Rudgers and Indiana University ecologist Keith Clay, a study co-author, selected 42 grassland plots, each about 1,000 square feet, at the Indiana University Research and Teaching Preserve north of Bloomington, Ind. The researchers selected two varieties of fescue called Georgia-5 and Jesup, and two varieties of the fungus, called KY-31 and AR-542. KY-31 is a common variety that produces alkaloids that are toxic to mammals, and AR-542 naturally lacks these alkaloids. Additionally, some plots were planted with grass and no fungus.

Over the next six years, the team returned to the plots several times. The investigation was painstaking. In randomly selected areas, the researchers counted individual flowers, cataloged the number and species of every plant and even counted the number of stems of grass that had been gnawed by plant-eating voles.

The investigation offered specific results for conservation managers: Jesup with either fungus works best for maintaining a fescue monoculture; and if a symbiotic fungus is desirable, the combination of Georgia-5 and AR-542 supports maximum plant diversity and minimal invasiveness.

The study also suggested that the ecological effects of plant-microbe symbiosis aren't easy to predict. For example, the researchers found that voles were less likely to eat fescue that contained either fungus, including the AR-542 variety, which lacks mammal-toxic alkaloids.

"That indicates that plant-microbe symbioses have complex ecological effects," said Clay, professor of biology and director of the Indiana University Research and Teaching Preserve. "It signals the need for more investigations of the long-term effects of cooperative symbiosis."

Indiana University undergraduate Susan Fischer also co-authored the study. The research was sponsored by the National Science Foundation and the Indiana University Research and Teaching Preserve.

3-D cell culture: making cells feel right at home

Startup Nano3D Bio's system based on Rice-M.D. Anderson tech

HOUSTON -- (March 15, 2010) -- The film "Avatar" isn't the only 3-D blockbuster making a splash this winter. A team of scientists from Houston's Texas Medical Center this week unveiled a new technique for growing 3-D cell cultures, a technological leap from the flat petri dish that could save millions of dollars in drug-testing costs. The research is reported in Nature Nanotechnology.

The 3-D technique is easy enough for most labs to set up immediately. It uses magnetic forces to levitate cells while they divide and grow. Compared with cell cultures grown on flat surfaces, the 3-D cell cultures tend to form tissues that more closely resemble those inside the body.

"There's a big push right now to find ways to grow cells in 3-D because the body is 3-D, and cultures that more closely resemble native tissue are expected to provide better results for preclinical drug tests," said study co-author Tom Killian, associate professor of physics at Rice. "If you could improve the accuracy of early drug screenings by just 10 percent, it's estimated you could save as much as $100 million per

drug."

For cancer research, the "invisible scaffold" created by the magnetic field goes beyond its potential for producing cell cultures that are more reminiscent of real tumors, which itself would be an important advance, said co-author Wadih Arap, professor in the David H. Koch Center at The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.

To make cells levitate, the research team modified a combination of gold nanoparticles and engineered viral particles called "phage" that was developed in the lab of Arap and Renata Pasqualini, also of the Koch Center. This targeted "nanoshuttle" can deliver payloads to specific organs or tissues.

"A logical next step for us will be to use this additional magnetic property in targeted ways to explore possible applications in the imaging and treatment of tumors," Arap said.

The 3-D modeling raises another interesting long-term possibility. ”This is a step toward building better models of organs in the lab,“ Pasqualini said.

The new technique is an example of the innovation that can result when experts come together from disparate fields. Killian studies ultracold atoms and uses finely tuned magnetic fields to manipulate them. He had been working with Rice bioengineer Robert Raphael for several years on methods to use magnetic fields to manipulate cells. So when Killian's friend Glauco Souza, then an Odyssey Scholar studying with Arap and Pasqualini, mentioned one day that he was developing a gel that could load cancer cells with magnetic nanoparticles, it led to a new idea.

"We wondered if we might be able to use magnetic fields to manipulate the cells after my gels put magnetic nanoparticles into them," said Souza, who left M.D. Anderson in 2009 to co-found Nano3D Biosciences (www.n3dbio.com), a startup that subsequently licensed the technology from Rice and M.D. Anderson.

The nanoparticles in this case are tiny bits of iron oxide. These are added to a gel that contains phage. When cells are added to the gel, the phage causes the particles to be absorbed into cells over a few hours. The gel is then washed away, and the nanoparticle-loaded cells are placed in a petri dish filled with a liquid that promotes cell growth and division.

In the new study, the researchers showed that by placing a coin-sized magnet atop the dish's lid, they could lift the cells off the bottom of the dish, concentrate them and allow them to grow and divide while they were suspended in the liquid.

A key experiment was performed in collaboration with Jennifer Molina, a graduate student in the laboratory of Maria-Magdalena Georgescu, an M.D. Anderson associate professor in neuro-oncology and also a co-author, in which the technique was used on brain tumor cells called glioblastomas. The results showed that cells grown in the 3-D medium produced proteins that were similar to those produced by gliobastoma tumors in mice, while cells grown in 2-D did not show this similarity.

Souza said that Nano3D Biosciences is conducting additional tests to compare how the new method stacks up against existing methods of growing 3-D cell cultures. He said he is hopeful that it will provide results that are just as good, if not better, than longstanding techniques that use 3-D scaffolds.

Raphael, a paper co-author, associate professor in bioengineering and a member of Rice's BioScience Research Collaborative, said, "The beauty of this method is that it allows natural cell-cell interactions to drive assembly of 3-D microtissue structures. The method is fairly simple and should be a good point of entry in 3-D cell culturing for any lab that's interested in drug discovery, stem cell biology, regenerative medicine or biotechnology."

Other co-authors include Daniel Stark and Jeyarama Ananta, both of Rice; Carly Levin of Nano3D Biosciences; and Michael Ozawa, Lawrence Bronk, Jami Mandelin, James Bankson and Juri Gelovani, all of M.D. Anderson.

The research was funded by M.D. Anderson's Odyssey Scholar Program, the Department of Defense's Breast Cancer Research Program, the National Science Foundation, the Packard Foundation, the Gillson-Longenbaugh Foundation, AngelWorks, the National Institutes of Health and the National Cancer Institute.

New analysis of the structure of spider silks

explains paradox of super-strength

March 14, 2010- Spiders and silkworms are masters of materials science, but scientists are finally catching up. Silks are among the toughest materials known, stronger and less brittle, pound for pound, than steel. Now scientists at MIT have unraveled some of their deepest secrets in research that could lead the way to the creation of synthetic materials that duplicate, or even exceed, the extraordinary properties of natural silk.

Markus Buehler, the Esther and Harold E. Edgerton Associate Professor in MIT's Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and his team study fundamental properties of materials and how those materials fail. With silk, that meant using computer models that can simulate not just the structures of the molecules but exactly how they move and interact in relation to each other. The models helped the researchers determine the molecular and atomic mechanisms responsible for the material's remarkable mechanical properties.

Silk's combination of strength and ductility — its ability to bend or stretch without breaking — results from an unusual arrangement of atomic bonds that are inherently very weak, Buehler and his team found. Doctoral student Sinan Keten, postdoctoral associate Zhiping Xu and undergraduate student Britni Ihle are co-authors of a paper on the research to be published on March 14 in the journal Nature Materials.

Silks are made from proteins, including some that form thin, planar crystals called beta-sheets. These sheets are connected to each other through hydrogen bonds — among the weakest types of chemical bonds, unlike, for example, the much stronger covalent bonds found in most organic molecules. Buehler's team carried out a series of atomic-level computer simulations that investigated the molecular failure mechanisms in silk. "Small yet rigid crystals showed the ability to quickly re-form their broken bonds, and as a result fail 'gracefully' — that is, gradually rather than suddenly," graduate student Keten explains.

"In most engineered materials" — ceramics, for instance — "high strength comes with brittleness," Buehler says. "Once ductility is introduced, materials become weak." But not silk, which has high strength despite being built from inherently weak building blocks. It turns out that's because these building blocks — the tiny beta-sheet crystals, as well as filaments that join them — are arranged in a structure that resembles a tall stack of pancakes, but with the crystal structures within each pancake alternating in their orientation. This particular geometry of tiny silk nanocrystals allows hydrogen bonds to work cooperatively, reinforcing adjacent chains against external forces, which leads to the outstanding extensibility and strength of spider silk.

One surprising finding from the new work is that there is a critical dependence of the properties of silk on the exact size of these beta-sheet crystals within the fibers. When the crystal size is about three nanometers, the material has its ultra-strong and ductile characteristics. But let those crystals grow just beyond to five nanometers, and the material becomes weak and brittle.

Buehler says the work has implications far beyond just understanding silk. He notes that the findings could be applied to a broader class of biological materials, such as wood or plant fibers, and bio-inspired materials, such as novel fibers, yarns and fabrics or tissue replacement materials, to produce a variety of useful materials out of simple, commonplace elements. For example, he and his team are looking at the possibility of synthesizing materials that have a similar structure to silk, but using molecules that have inherently greater strength, such as carbon nanotubes.

The long-term impact of this research, Buehler says, will be the development of a new material design paradigm that enables the creation of highly functional materials out of abundant, inexpensive materials. This would be a departure from the current approach, where strong bonds, expensive constituents, and energy intensive processing (at high temperatures) are used to obtain high-performance materials.

Peter Fratzl, professor in the department of biomaterials in the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces in Potsdam, Germany, who was not involved in this work, says that "the strength of this team is their pioneering multi-scale theoretical approach" to analyzing natural materials. He adds that this is "the first evidence from theoretical modeling of how hydrogen bonds, as weak as they might be, can provide high strength and toughness if arranged in a suitable way within the material."

Professor of biomaterials Thomas Scheibel of the University of Bayreuth, Germany, who was also not involved in this work, says Buehler's work is of the "highest caliber," and will stimulate much further research. The MIT team's approach, he says, "will provide a basis for better understanding of certain biological phenomena so far not understood."

More information: "Nanoconfinement controls stiffness, strength and mechanical toughness of beta-sheet crystals in silk," by Sinan Keten, Zhiping Xu, Britni Ihle and Markus J. Buehler, in Nature Materials, March 14, 2010.

Provided by Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Global - Pakistan

Science culture ‘yet to flourish among young people’

Sunday, March 14, 2010-By Noor Aftab - Islamabad-Science culture is yet to flourish, especially among young people, who lag nothing in terms of potential and talent, but only require proper opportunities to excel in the field of science and technology, Director General National Centre for Physics (NCP) Dr. Hamid Saleem said.

In an interview after conclusion of weeklong International Scientific Spring 2010, he said, no one could deny the importance of research in present circumstances because no nation can move in the direction of human progress and development without having an urge to probe and find out the truth.

Describing the main aim of establishment of NCP, he said the basic purpose is to promote research in emerging fields of physics as per international norms of productivity and originality and to act as an entity for acquisition, generation, transmission and dissemination of knowledge in physics for universities and R & D institutions.

He said NCP has various departments that are providing scientific education to students including theoretical physics, nano-sciences, earth study centre, global change impact centre, and experimental high-energy physics.

Replying to a question he said the department of experimental high-energy physics is mainly working in collaboration with CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, founded in 1954.

CERN Laboratory is at France-Swiss Border near Geneva. Its business is fundamental physics, finding out what the universe is made of and how it works. At CERN, the world’s largest and most complex scientific instruments are used to study the basic constituents of matter - the fundamental particles.

Dr Hamid Saleem said that a 8 MV Pelletron Tandem Accelerator facility based on sophisticated state-of-art technology has been installed at Experimental Physics Directorate, NCP, which is functional for research and academic projects.

”The facility extends enormous opportunities for research to the young scientists, engineers and researchers both from national universities and R&D organizations,“ he said. He said global change impact studies centre was established on the initiative of Dr Ashfaq Ahmad in 2002 as a research organization with a focus on climate change and related global issues and in December 2006 it was transferred to National Centre for Physics (NCP) as an autonomous organization.

Dilating upon the main objectives of global change impact studies centre he said it helps keep a track of the current and likely future trends of climate change; develop a national capacity for climate change research; analyse and evaluate its impacts on key sectors e.g. food and water security; and raise public awareness about climate change related issues. NCP is offering basic facilities to conduct research in various fields including centrifuge, accelerator, fission and fusion, coating, medical and pharmaceutical, semiconductor, solar, live stock, plasma sterilization, food processing and packaging.

He said various measures are being taken to produce high quality research papers in international journals and have international collaboration for research in highly technical and advanced areas of physics besides facilitating Pakistani universities in establishing contacts with international institutes to optimise the utilization of available options. ”Industrialists should facilitate NCP to establish a link of basic research being carried out in Pakistan and media should help NCP in its efforts to create awareness among the youth about the importance of science and technology,“ he said.

http://www.thenews.com.pk/print1.asp?id=229011

Immune cells use bungee of death

to kill dangerous cells (w/ Video)

March 8, 2010 - Immune cells ensnare dangerous cells that are on the run with a bungee-like nanotube, according to research published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The study, by researchers from Imperial College London, shows that natural killer (NK) cells use this bungee to destroy cells that could otherwise escape them.

To read article and watch two videos visit:

 http://www.physorg.com/news187282665.html 

Like little golden assassins, 'smart' nanoparticles identify, target and kill cancer cells

Another weapon in the arsenal against cancer: Nanoparticles that identify, target and kill specific cancer cells while leaving healthy cells alone

March 8,2010-Led by Carl Batt, the Liberty Hyde Bailey Professor of Food Science, the researchers synthesized nanoparticles - shaped something like a dumbbell - made of gold sandwiched between two pieces of iron oxide. They then attached antibodies, which target a molecule found only in colorectal cancer cells, to the particles. Once bound, the nanoparticles are engulfed by the cancer cells.

To kill the cells, the researchers use a near-infrared laser, which is a wavelength that doesn't harm normal tissue at the levels used, but the radiation is absorbed by the gold in the nanoparticles. This causes the cancer cells to heat up and die.

"This is a so-called 'smart' therapy," Batt said. "To be a smart therapy, it should be targeted, and it should have some ability to be activated only when it's there and then kills just the cancer cells."

The goal, said lead author and biomedical graduate student Dickson Kirui, is to improve the technology and make it suitable for testing in a human clinical trial. The researchers are now working on a similar experiment targeting prostate cancer cells.

"If, down the line, you could clinically just target the cancer cells, you could then spare the health surrounding cells from being harmed - that is the critical thing," Kirui said.

Gold has potential as a material key to fighting cancer in future smart therapies. It is biocompatible, inert and relatively easy to tweak chemically. By changing the size and shape of the gold particle, Kirui and colleagues can tune them to respond to different wavelengths of energy.

Once taken up by the researchers' gold particles, the cancer cells are destroyed by heat - just a few degrees above normal body temperature - while the surrounding tissue is left unharmed. Such a low-power laser does not have any effect on surrounding cells because that particular wavelength does not heat up cells if they are not loaded up with nanoparticles, the researchers explained.

Using iron oxide - which is basically rust - as the other parts of the particles might one day allow scientists to also track the progress of cancer treatments using magnetic resonance imaging, Kirui said, by taking advantage of the particles' magnetic properties.

More information: The research is reported in the Feb. 15 online edition of the journal Nanotechnology.

Provided by Cornell University

Pedal-Powered Nanofiltration Kits Sent to Haiti

Researchers from the Department of Environmental Science & Engineering at South Korea's Gwangju Institute of Science & Technology (GIST) sent several human-powered nanofiltration (NF) water- treatment systems to the earthquake victims of Haiti in January.

One unit is capable of producing about 13 L/min of safe potable water from untreated water passed through a cartridge pre-filter and then a commercial-sized NF membrane module (2.5 in diameter; 40 in long). Electricity is not required because the pressure needed to pump water is generated by pedaling the device like a bicycle or using a handpump.

This makes them ideal for disaster-stricken and third world countries where electricity is usually inaccessible and water scarcity is a serious threat. Furthermore, the small scale of the devices makes them easy to transport and install. More units were planned for delivery to Haiti within February.

These water treatment systems are already being used in regions where it is difficult to obtain clean water for human consumption. Some of these places include Angkor Wat in Cambodia and the villages of Korr in Nigeria and Agangril in Sudan. GIST will continue to provide these devices to improve water quality and prevent water-borne diseases in a cooperative effort with missionaries, NGOs, other academic institutions and system/component manufacturers.

The spiral-wound NF elements used in the systems have been donated to GIST by Woongjin Chemical Co Ltd, manufacturer of CSM reverse-osmosis (RO) and NF membranes. Alternative designs, where more than one NF or RO element and larger sizes are used, have also been developed.

Source: Desalination & Water Reuse

Big power from tiny wires

A carbon nanotube (shown in illustration) can produce a very rapid wave of power when it is coated by a layer of fuel and ignited, so that heat travels along the tube.

Photo - Graphic: Christine Daniloff New discovery shows carbon nanotubes can produce powerful waves that could be harnessed for new energy systems

David L. Chandler, MIT News Office

March 8, 2010 - A team of scientists at MIT have discovered a previously unknown phenomenon that can cause powerful waves of energy to shoot through minuscule wires known as carbon nanotubes. The discovery could lead to a new way of producing electricity, the researchers say.

The phenomenon, described as thermopower waves, ”opens up a new area of energy research, which is rare,“ says Michael Strano, MIT’s Charles and Hilda Roddey Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering, who was the senior author of a paper describing the new findings that appeared in Nature Materials on March 7. The lead author was Wonjoon Choi, a doctoral student in mechanical engineering.

Like a collection of flotsam propelled along the surface by waves traveling across the ocean, it turns out that a thermal wave — a moving pulse of heat — traveling along a microscopic wire can drive electrons along, creating an electrical current.

The key ingredient in the recipe is carbon nanotubes — submicroscopic hollow tubes made of a chicken-wire-like lattice of carbon atoms. These tubes, just a few billionths of a meter (nanometers) in diameter, are part of a family of novel carbon molecules, including buckyballs and graphene sheets, that have been the subject of intensive worldwide research over the last two decades.

A previously unknown phenomenon

In the new experiments, each of these electrically and thermally conductive nanotubes was coated with a layer of a reactive fuel that can produce heat by decomposing. This fuel was then ignited at one end of the nanotube using either a laser beam or a high-voltage spark, and the result was a fast-moving thermal wave traveling along the length of the carbon nanotube like a flame speeding along the length of a lit fuse. Heat from the fuel goes into the nanotube, where it travels thousands of times faster than in the fuel itself.  As the heat feeds back to the fuel coating, a thermal wave is created that is guided along the nanotube. With a temperature of 3,000 kelvins, this ring of heat speeds along the tube 10,000 times faster than the normal spread of this chemical reaction. The heating produced by that combustion, it turns out, also pushes electrons along the tube, creating a  substantial electrical current.

Combustion waves — like this pulse of heat hurtling along a wire — ”have been studied mathematically for more than 100 years,“ Strano says, but he was the first to  predict that such waves could be guided by a nanotube or nanowire and that this wave of heat could push an electrical current along that wire.

In the group’s initial experiments, Strano says, when they wired up the carbon nanotubes with their fuel coating in order to study the reaction, ”lo and behold, we were really surprised by the size of the resulting voltage peak“ that propagated along the wire.

After further development, the system now puts out energy, in proportion to its weight, about 100 times greater than an equivalent weight of lithium-ion battery.

The amount of power released, he says, is much greater than that predicted by thermoelectric calculations. While many semiconductor materials can produce an electric potential when heated, through something called the Seebeck effect, that effect is very weak in carbon. ”There’s something else happening here,“ he says. ”We call it electron entrainment, since part of the current appears to scale with wave velocity.“

The thermal wave, he explains, appears to be entraining the electrical charge carriers (either electrons or electron holes) just as an ocean wave can pick up and carry a collection of debris along the surface. This important property is responsible for the high power produced by the system, Strano says.

Exploring possible applications

Because this is such a new discovery, he says, it’s hard to predict exactly what the practical applications will be. But he suggests that one possible application would be in enabling new kinds of ultra-small electronic devices — for example, devices the size of  grains of rice, perhaps with sensors or treatment devices that could be injected into the body. Or it could lead to ”environmental sensors that could be scattered like dust in the air,“ he says.

In theory, he says, such devices could maintain their power indefinitely until used, unlike batteries whose charges leak away gradually as they sit unused. And while the individual nanowires are tiny, Strano suggests that they could be made in large arrays to supply significant amounts of power for larger devices.

The researchers also plan to pursue another aspect of their theory: that by using different kinds of reactive materials for the coating, the wave front could oscillate, thus producing an alternating current. That would open up a variety of possibilities, Strano says, because alternating current is the basis for radio waves such as cell phone transmissions, but present energy-storage systems all produce direct current. ”Our theory predicted these oscillations before we began to observe them in our data,“ he says.

Also, the present versions of the system have low efficiency, because a great deal of power is being given off as heat and light. The team plans to work on improving that efficiency.

Ray Baughman, director of the Nanotech Institute at the University of Texas at Dallas, who was not involved in this work, calls the research ”stellar.“

The work, Baughman says, ”started with a seminal initial idea, which some might find crazy, and provided exciting experimental results, the discovery of new phenomena, deep theoretical understanding, and prospects for applications.“ Because it uncovered a previously unknown phenomenon, he says, it could open up ”an exciting new area of investigation.“

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2010/thermopower-waves-0308.html?tmpl=component&print=1 

Nano-foundry technique yields ultra-durable

probes from diamond

When a team of university and industry researchers tried a novel, foundry-style mold-filling technique to make nanoscale devices, they realized they had discovered a gem.

Not only did they pioneer a three-dimensional nanoscale fabrication method, they used the process to make ultra-hard, wear-resistant nanoprobes out of a material similar to diamond.

On a larger scale, materials that look smooth still abrade because of slight irregularities and defects on their surfaces. However, at the nanoscale, atoms rub off one at a time, creating new challenges for researchers who build devices sometimes just tens of atoms wide.

"The effects of friction are important in nanoscale devices and processes, where surface forces such as friction are increasingly dominant due to the high surface-to-volume ratio," says Kumar Sridharan, a distinguished research professor of engineering physics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and member of the research team.

The team, which also included researchers from the University of Pennsylvania and IBM Research-Zurich, published details of its research Jan. 31 in the advance online edition of Nature Nanotechnology.

The advance is key because it demonstrates a method for applying, in a three-dimensional nanoscale application, silicon-containing diamondlike carbon, or Si-DLC. In the study, the researchers showed that Si-DLC, which is prized for its low friction and high wear-resistance at the macroscale, also exhibits similar outstanding wear-resistance at the nanoscale.

"It was not clear that materials that are wear-resistant at the macroscale exhibit the same property at the nanoscale," says lead author Harish Bhaskaran, a former IBM researcher who now is a researcher in the Yale University Department of Electrical Engineering.

Developed by Sridharan, the new "nano foundry" technique easily could scale up for commercial manufacturing.

Using an IBM silicon-on-insulator wafer etched with sharp, pyramid-shaped "molds," Sridharan used Si-DLC to fabricate ultrasharp tips, with a 5 nanometer radius, on standard silicon microcantilevers.

Currently, manufacturers etch the tips out of silicon. However, for the new foundry-style method, Sridharan exploited plasma immersion ion implantation and deposition, a room-temperature process previously used for applying, or "depositing," coatings on implanting ions into other materials. "We've always deposited thin films on materials," he says. "We've looked at it as a two-dimensional surface-modification process."

In three dimensions, the technique works somewhat like the way in which a snowfall blankets the ground. In this case, the "snow" is ionized hexamethyl disiloxane, a liquid precursor to Si-DLC that gasifies in the plasma chamber and ultimately packs neatly into the molds on the IBM wafer. "Our process has allowed us to fill a very sharp tip, very accurately," says Sridharan.

Another advantage is that Si-DLC is an amorphous, rather than crystalline, material. If a crystal is too big, the mold will fill irregularly and limit the tip sharpness. However, an amorphous material can slide atom by atom into the mold, filling it completely, like raindrops into a bucket.

In addition to filling the tip molds completely, Si-DLC also coats the entire wafer. The researchers developed a simple, commercially feasible two-step silicon etching process to release the tip and the integrated cantilever from the wafer.

The tips have applications in atomic-force microscopy, data storage and nanofabrication. In wear tests, in which the researchers slid the tips continuously over a silicon dioxide surface for several days, they found the Si-DLC tips were 3,000 times more wear-resistant than silicon tips. "We've taken a material that's good at the macroscale, we fabricate it at the nanoscale, and we show it's wear-resistant at the nanoscale," says Bhaskaran.

Other authors on the Nature Nanotechnology paper include Bernd Gotsmann, Abu Sebastian, Ute Drechsler, Mark A. Lantz, Michel Despont, Papot Jaroenapibal, Robert W. Carpick, and Yun Chen.

Provided by University of Wisconsin-Madison

CNSI to collaborate with British nanoscience center

The California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI) at UCLA and the Centre for Nanoscience and Quantum Information (NSQI) at England's University of Bristol have entered into an agreement to expand research collaborations and educational exchanges in nanoscience and nanotechnology.

CNSI director Paul Weiss and NSQI director Daniel Robert signed a memorandum of understanding at a March 2 ceremony on the UCLA campus. The MOU forges a link between two of the world's foremost centers for nanoscale research, allowing them to apply their combined resources in nanotechnology to problems of global concern in energy, health and the environment.

"This is a landmark event for CNSI," Weiss said. "It is our first MOU with a European institution and will provide access to advanced instrumentation and new approaches to nanoscale research. The joint research and education efforts of CNSI and NSQI members will provide benefits of worldwide importance."

"Current collaborations between individual members of CNSI and NQSI will be strengthened by this agreement," Robert said. "It raises these partnerships to an institutional level, giving the researchers involved access to the full resources of UCLA and the University of Bristol. The MOU will accelerate the flow of people and ideas between the U.S. and the U.K."

The memorandum is the culmination of a series of research interactions that began with a collaboration between the CNSI's Jim Gimzewski, distinguished professor of chemistry and biochemistry, and NSQI's Mervyn Miles. The University of Bristol was one of two U.K. university participants in a workshop on nanotechnology held at the CNSI in 2009.

Currently, three members of NSQI are spending a week in residence at the CNSI as part of a program funded by the British Research Council to encourage academic exchanges between British and American universities. Weiss will travel to Bristol for the official NSQI opening this September.

The CNSI carries out both basic and applied research, all focused on increasing the understanding of phenomena at the nanoscale and finding applications for nanoscience and nanotechnology in the fields of energy, medicine, communications and the environment. Specific areas of research include renewable energy; cancer care, including diagnostics, therapies and targeted drug delivery; nanotoxicology; biosensors; and graphene production.

Research at the CNSI is based on the assumption that scientific inquiry is borderless, transcending political boundaries, and is advanced through international partnerships and collaborations. The agreement with NSQI continues the efforts of the CNSI to play a leading role in the globalization of science. Over the past three years, the CNSI has created formal links with the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Beijing Nano Center, the University of Tokyo, the University of Kyoto, Kyushu University, Yonsei University, Seoul National University, KAIST and the University of Bristol.

The Bristol Centre for Nanoscience and Quantum Information provides state-of-the-art specialized laboratories whose vibration and acoustic noise levels are among the lowest achieved anywhere. The center also has a unique purpose-designed environment in which a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research community drawn from science, engineering and medicine can be fostered and thrive through stimulating interactions and the exchange of ideas.

The California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA is an integrated research center operating jointly at UCLA and UC Santa Barbara whose mission is to foster interdisciplinary collaborations for discoveries in nanosystems and nanotechnology; train the next generation of scientists, educators and technology leaders; and facilitate partnerships with industry, fueling economic development and the social well-being of California, the United States and the world. The CNSI was established in 2000 with $100 million from the state of California and an additional $250 million in federal research grants and industry funding. At the institute, scientists in the areas of biology, chemistry, biochemistry, physics, mathematics, computational science and engineering are measuring, modifying and manipulating the building blocks of our world — atoms and molecules. These scientists benefit from an integrated laboratory culture enabling them to conduct dynamic research at the nanoscale, leading to significant breakthroughs in the areas of health, energy, the environment and information technology.

Source: University of California

Rice among top 50 for computer game design

Princeton Review, GamePro pick best undergraduate game programs

HOUSTON -- (March 2, 2010) -- Rice University is one of the 50 best undergraduate institutions in the U.S. and Canada at which to study computer game design, according to a new survey released today by The Princeton Review.

The Princeton Review developed the "Top 50 Undergraduate Game Design Programs" list in partnership with GamePro magazine. The list appears at in GamePro’s April issue and at www.princetonreview.com/gamedesign.

"Rice's program is small but growing," said Joe Warren, chair of computer science at Rice, who teaches two game-design courses each year. "We have plans for more course offerings in digital media, and we have strong industry partners. Perhaps the best measure of our success is the fact that several of our graduates are working in the industry, both with local and national companies."

In developing the top 50 list, The Princeton Review and GamePro surveyed roughly 500 programs where students can study game design in the U.S. and Canada. Programs were selected based on a survey of administrators at institutions offering game design coursework and/or degrees. The comprehensive survey, which was conducted in 2009-10, included more than 50 questions and covered areas from academics and faculty credentials to graduates’ employment and career achievements. Criteria included the quality of the curriculum, faculty, facilities and infrastructure. The Princeton Review also looked at data on scholarships, financial aid and career opportunities. The Princeton Review and GamePro ranked the top eight programs and listed the rest of the top 50 alphabetically.

Warren teaches the flagship course in Rice's program, a senior-level design course that teams students from computer science and the visual arts. Teams present and demonstrate their game designs for a jury of industry professionals several times during the yearlong course.

"It's a hands-on experience, and the students walk away with a greater understanding that game design is more than just writing code," Warren said. "You have to think about the business, artistic and technical elements at every step in the process."

For more information on Rice's program in computer game creation, visit http://www.owlnet.rice.edu/~comp160/

IBM donates supercomputer to Rice for biomedical research

IBM’s $7.6 million award aimed at breakthroughs in cancer research

HOUSTON -- (March 2, 2010) -- Rice University and IBM today unveiled a new high-performance computing (HPC) initiative for biomedical and life sciences research that features one of the most powerful supercomputers in the Texas Medical Center. Rice scientists will use the supercomputer in collaboration with researchers from across the medical center to study cancer, AIDS and other complex diseases.

The POWER7-based supercomputer is the centerpiece of a $7.6 million IBM Shared University Research (SUR) award to Rice for advanced biomedical research. The award -- the largest for HPC infrastructure in Rice's history -- also includes HPC software, services and life sciences expertise from IBM. Dubbed "BlueBioU," the HPC project will bring together researchers from Rice, IBM and collaborating partners within the Texas Medical Center.

The supercomputer at Rice is the first system deployed with IBM's new POWER7 microprocessors, which makes it especially attractive for researchers faced with computationally demanding and memory-intensive problems often encountered in biomedical and life sciences research. For example, the system will be particularly useful for genomic sequencing, protein folding, drug modeling and simulations of molecular-level interactions in tissues. In addition, the real-time analytics capabilities of the POWER7 hardware and software are well-suited for mining vast genomic and medical databases for clues to new treatment options and cures for complex diseases. 

Capable of 18.8 teraflops -- or 18.8 trillion floating point calculations per second -- the BlueBioU platform is as powerful as the combined total of Rice's existing supercomputers.

"Our vision is to facilitate collaboration among researchers and among institutions by providing a world-class computing resource that's well-suited to a range of bioscience applications," said Kamran Khan, Rice's vice provost for information technology and one of the Rice co-leaders of the project.

"It's exciting to have the world's first POWER7 clusters here at Rice. The productivity and performance benefits of the POWER7 platform are well-aligned with Rice's future directions for research computing, as well as our ultimate goal of working with the medical center to enhance treatment options and find new cures for patients," said co-leader Vivek Sarkar, Rice's E.D. Butcher Professor of Computer Science and professor of electrical and computer engineering.

The Texas Medical Center is one of the world's largest medical complexes. The medical center's 46 member institutions conduct more than a billion dollars' worth of research and see more than 5 million patients each year.

Baylor College of Medicine (BCM), a Texas Medical Center partner that is collaborating with Rice on the BlueBioU project, is planning to explore the entire spectrum of genomic change in cancer through the application of genome analysis technologies, including large-scale genome sequencing.

"We are unlocking the mysteries of human cancer by analyzing the genomes of 50 patients with ovarian cancer to discover the mutation profile underlying their disease," said BCM's Kim Worley, associate professor of molecular and human genetics. "If successful, we will analyze 1,000 patients with different cancers over the next year. This project will have a huge impact on our understanding of the biology of cancer and may identify potential future treatment avenues."

Largely developed at IBM’s Austin, Texas, research labs, the Linux-based BlueBioU system is uniquely designed for parallel processing, which entails running thousands of programs at the same time. It has 608 POWER7 processors that are capable of simultaneously running 2,432 tasks.

"IBM’s $7.6 million donation is a significant investment in life sciences research in Texas and will help promote Houston as a premier research collaboration center," said Tony Befi, vice president, POWER Systems and IBM senior state executive for Texas. "The POWER7 is ideal for the type of research performed at Rice and the Texas Medical Center and will help make it possible to detect and analyze patterns that may one day lead to important medical breakthroughs and smarter health care."

"We're proud to be working with Rice on a research project that not only supports IBM's worldwide university initiatives but is so important to the advancement of medical science," said Bernie Meyerson, IBM fellow and vice president of innovation and global university programs. "It's exciting that we have technology available today that can help biomedical researchers tackle some of the most challenging and complex diseases we face."

The BlueBioU supercomputer is housed at Rice's $16 million state-of-the-art data center, which supports the new green-enabled technologies available on the POWER7 platform. The energy-efficient features of the POWER7-based supercomputer include the ability to create policies and protocols that optimize the balance between energy usage and performance.

The data center is connected to the Rice campus and to Texas Medical Center partners via a new $22 million network with a multi-gigabit backbone and more than a terabit of aggregate bandwidth. In addition, Rice has a new high-availability storage infrastructure that provides multiple terabytes of data storage in the data center.

Rice's BlueBioU team includes Khan, Sarkar, John Mellor-Crummey, professor of computer science and of electrical and computer engineering; Kim Andrews, manager of academic and research computing; and Chandler Wilkerson, lead system architect. For more information about BlueBioU, visit http://bluebiou.rice.edu/

IBM Shared University Research Awards Program

IBM's Shared University Research awards program strives to connect the research and researchers at universities with IBM Research, IBM Life Sciences, IBM Global Services and IBM's development and product labs. The SUR Awards program is designed to, among other things, increase access to IBM technologies for research and in curriculum. More information about IBM's University Programs is available at www.ibm.com/press/university. For more information on IBM Power Systems, visit http://www.ibm.com/systems/power.

Rice University

Located in Houston, Rice University is consistently ranked one of America's best teaching and research universities. Known for its "unconventional wisdom," Rice is distinguished by its: size -- 3,279 undergraduates and 2,277 graduate students; selectivity -- 12 applicants for each place in the freshman class; resources -- an undergraduate student-to-faculty ratio of 5-to-1; sixth largest endowment per student among American private research universities; residential college system, which builds communities that are both close-knit and diverse; and collaborative culture, which crosses disciplines, integrates teaching and research, and intermingles undergraduate and graduate work. To learn more, visit www.rice.edu

CANEUS International and RACT/IAA Partnership to Develop International Global Aerospace Monitoring System:

MOU Signed at the 47th UN COPUOS Session

Vienna, Austria (20 February, 2010) -- -At the forty-seventh session of the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, CANEUS International Chairman Milind Pimprikar and International Academy of Astronautics (IAA) project manager Prof. Valeriy A. Menshikov, signed an historic "convention - MOU" for joint development and implementation of the International Global Aerospace Monitoring System (IGMASS) Project.

IAA Prof. Valeriy A. Menshikov, CANEUS Int. Chairman Milind Pimprikar sign MOU

The multi-year cooperation programme is designed to encourage mutual understanding and research and development cooperation between CANEUS constituents and IAA/IGMASS, more broadly, help advance issues for international cooperation by investigating optimal mechanisms of collaboration with the existing International organizations and projects such as UN-SPIDER, GEOSS, DMC, Charter of Catastrophes etc. These goals will be achieved by determining efficient methods of onboard satellite processing, data-handling and transmitting, and with the creation of an orbital segment using small satellites.

This MOU also include joint design, research, development and launch of the microsatellite by RACTS and CANEUS International, through International funding mechanisms.

Specific immediate tasks include composition of "International Committee for Project Implementation" through fostering global cooperation with the support of both the UN and IAA, to facilitate inclusive decision making and detailed work-breakdown structure by July 5th 2010, when the project partners are expected to meet in Latvia.

At the afternoon session (725th) on 11 February 2010, a special presentation on "International aerospace system for global monitoring" was made by Project leader Prof. Menshikov.

The UN-COPUOS has offered to confer the International Global Aerospace Monitoring System and CANEUS an Observer Status and the Programme will be implemented by an "International Committee" constituting CANEUS International and other international partners, in close partnership with the IAA Secretariat. Funding for the programme will be established through an international mechanism.

"We very much welcome the official signing of the MOU today, marking the launch of this important initiative. This initiative embodies core principles of the UN, that of promoting international cooperation, global threats protection and solving of general humanitarian issues.. It is an ambitious undertaking that will enhance trust among countries from Americas, Europe, Asia, and Africa, so as to secure a peaceful society for present and future generations in the world", said IIA Project Coordinator, Prof. Menshikov.

For more information visit: www.caneus.org

UN and NATO to Support CANEUS Shared Small Satellites for Collective Safety, Security and Prosperity Initiative

 NURC (NATO Underwater Research Centre) La Spezia, Italy, October 20-22, 2010

Vienna, Austria (20 February, 2010) --- On the occasion of the forty-seventh session of the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, held from 8 to 19 February 2010 at the United Nation Office at Vienna, Austria, CANEUS International Chairman Milind Pimprikar presented the CANEUS Shared Small Satellites for Collective Safety, Security and Prosperity (CSSP) to the UN body.

The core premise of the proposed CANEUS Shared Small Satellite CSSP concept is that a multi-national, shared infrastructure will promote cooperation, trust and interdependence, to the mutual benefit of all partner countries.

Furthermore, complementary skill sets and resources from across nations will be needed to rapidly and cost-effectively transform emerging concepts into this shared communications infrastructure, which is designed to retrieve data collected in unwired regions, with minimum latency, for fusion, analysis, and action.

The representatives from the CANEUS Organization, the ONRG (Office of Naval Research Global), the NRL (Naval Research Laboratory), the NURC (NATO Undersea Research Center), Italian Space Agency, German Space Agency, NASA, and organizations representing the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Africa, will host a focused CANEUS Shared SmallSat CSSP International Workshop at the NURC (NATO Underwater Research Centre in La Spezia, Italy, on October 20-22, 2010,

This Workshop represents a unique and ambitious attempt to bring together the users of ship position and other sensor data, small satellite system developers, space infrastructure, ground support, and services providers, funding communities and policy-makers with stake in collective safety, security and prosperity, from across the world. By convening this broad cross-section of stakeholders, the Workshop will take a practical approach to overcoming technical and programmatic challenges, including: data gathering, data handling, and data distribution concepts, small sat constellation systems and technologies, frequency allocation and bandwidth constraints, legal policies and regulatory considerations, and collaborative framework models.

The Workshop has a unique flow-down format which emphasizes, as its primary deliverables: an international framework to unite potential participants in this cooperative undertaking; the issues, costs and benefits involved; what prospective stakeholders can expect to gain by participation; and a system management model.

The Workshop will develop concepts, timelines and a budget estimate for a low-cost, internationally shared small satellite communications backbone in space with exceptionally low barriers to entry for participating nations. The purpose of this constellation is to make possible data collection from ships at sea and from distributed sensors in locations where conventional communications infrastructure is lacking: the "unwired", and often under-governed, regions of the globe. We estimate that 84% of the globe -- the high seas, the polar regions, jungles, and deserts - are effectively unwired. Data which builds knowledge of activities and conditions in these remote areas underpins responsible control, enhancing safety and security for countries worldwide. For more information visit the website:

http://caneus.org/sharedsmallsats/

Laboratory Fellow Rusty Gray Named President of TMS

Scientist named at annual meeting of the The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society 

LOS ALAMOS, New Mexico, February 24, 2010—Los Alamos National Laboratory Fellow George T. ”Rusty“ Gray III was selected as 2010 president of The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society (TMS) during the society’s annual meeting this month in Seattle, Washington.

During a speech to members at the society’s annual awards banquet, Gray vowed to dedicate his tenure as president to excellence and growth to meet the society’s ever-changing needs.

”During my term as president I hope to positively impact TMS’ value to members in the areas of international liaisons, leadership development and the fine-tuning of our value proposition by meeting the ever-changing needs of our diverse membership,“ Gray said.

The annual change in the executive leadership of TMS occurred during the 139th TMS Annual Meeting & Exhibition earlier this month. Gray, who previously served as the society’s 2009 vice president, has been an active member of TMS since 1986. He said he plans to work with the volunteers, in cooperation with TMS staff, to maximize the value of the society to its membership.

During his first official speech, Gray said that during his tenure as the 54th president, he wants to establish TMS as:

• The preferred source and dissemination venue for leading edge technical information and knowledge for members;

• the home society for the manufacturing, engineering, research and materials education communities and cultures, bridging science and engineering technologies critical to industry, research, and academic needs;

• the society dedicated to excellence and growth in supporting the evolving field of materials science and engineering through education, and the application of materials to benefit ever-changing needs.

To illustrate his goals through example, Gray described how TMS has shaped his own personal career development from his first technical conference presentation at the TMS fall meeting in 1980 to achieving the top executive office today. Gray challenged members to help him build the future of TMS and global progress by focusing on the new blood in the materials science community.

”Seize any opportunity to mentor a new engineer or scientist, promote your field through organizing symposia, volunteer in your local schools promoting science and math, or advocate how materials are serving mankind in your own community,“ he said.

An employee of Los Alamos National Laboratory since 1985, Gray has pursued both fundamental and applied research primarily in the elucidation of the structure and property behavior of materials subjected to dynamic and shock-wave deformation.

At Los Alamos, Gray rose in ranks from staff member to team leader, eventually achieving laboratory fellow status in 2002. He received bachelor’s and master’s degrees from South Dakota School of Mines and a doctorate from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Gray then spent three years conducting research at the Technical University in Hamburg-Harburg, Germany. 

Gray’s involvement in TMS includes service on the programming, titanium, and mechanical behavior committees, as well as two terms on the board of directors – first as chair of the Structural Materials Division, then, as director of publications.-

Gray is a veteran ”key reader“ of the highly respected TMS-ASM journals, Metallurgical and Materials Transactions A and B, and chaired the Board of Key Readers. Of the 26 postdoctoral fellows he’s mentored since 1985, the majority are currently active TMS members who present research at meetings, serve on boards and committees, and organize symposia.

About Los Alamos National Laboratory (www.lanl.gov )

Los Alamos National Laboratory, a multidisciplinary research institution engaged in strategic science on behalf of national security, is operated by Los Alamos National Security, LLC, a team composed of Bechtel National, the University of California, The Babcock & Wilcox Company, and URS for the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration.

Los Alamos enhances national security by ensuring the safety and reliability of the U.S. nuclear stockpile, developing technologies to reduce threats from weapons of mass destruction, and solving problems related to energy, environment, infrastructure, health, and global security concerns.

About TMS (www.tms.org )

TMS is the professional organization encompassing the entire range of materials science and engineering, from minerals processing and primary metals production to basic research and the advanced applications of materials. Included among its professional and student members are metallurgical and materials engineers, scientists, researchers, educators and administrators from more than 70 countries on six continents.

UCLA chemists create synthetic 'gene-like' crystals

for carbon dioxide capture

By Stuart Wolpert February 11, 2010 Category: Research

The research appears in the Feb. 12 issue of the journal Science.

"We created three-dimensional, synthetic DNA-like crystals," said UCLA chemistry and biochemistry professor Omar M. Yaghi, who is a member of the California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI) at UCLA and the UCLA–Department of Energy Institute of Genomics and Proteomics. "We have taken organic and inorganic units and combined them into a synthetic crystal which codes information in a DNA-like manner. It is by no means as sophisticated as DNA, but it is certainly new in chemistry and materials science."

The discovery could lead to cleaner energy, including technology that factories and cars can use to capture carbon dioxide before it reaches the atmosphere.

"What we think this will be important for is potentially getting to a viable carbon dioxide–capture material with ultra-high selectivity," said Yaghi, who holds UCLA's Irving and Jean Stone Chair in Physical Sciences and is director of the CNSI's Center for Reticular Chemistry. "I am optimistic that is within our reach. Potentially, we could create a material that can convert carbon dioxide into a fuel, or a material that can separate carbon dioxide with greater efficiency."

The research was federally funded by the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Basic Energy Sciences. The lead author is Hexiang "DJ" Deng, a UCLA graduate student of chemistry and biochemistry who works in Yaghi's laboratory.

"DNA is a beautiful molecule that has a way to code for information," Yaghi said. "How do you code information in a crystal in the same way that DNA does? DJ and I figured out a way to do this. The sequence of organic functionalities that decorates the pores of the crystals is most certainly a unique code.

"DJ has illustrated that one member of a series of materials he has made has 400 percent better performance in carbon dioxide capture than one that does not have the same code," he said.

In the early 1990s, Yaghi invented a class of materials called metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), sometimes described as crystal sponges, in which he can change the components nearly at will. MOFs have pores — openings on the nanoscale in which Yaghi and his colleagues can store gases that are usually difficult to store and transport. Molecules can go in and out of the pores unobstructed. Yaghi and his research team have made thousands of MOFs.

"We have created crystals of metal-organic frameworks in which the sequence of multiple functionalities of varying kind and ratios acts as a synthetic 'gene,'" Yaghi said. "With these multivariate MOFs, we have figured out a way to incorporate controlled complexity, which biology operates on, in a synthetic crystal — taking synthetic crystals to a new level of performance.

"This can be a boon for energy-related and other industrial applications, such as conversion of gases and liquids like carbon dioxide to fuel, or water to hydrogen, among many others," he said.

Yaghi has been collaborating with his former UCLA chemistry colleague and former CNSI director Sir J. Fraser Stoddart on how to take concepts from biology and incorporate them into a synthetic material.

"We hope the materials we are creating will introduce a new class of structures that have controlled complexity," Yaghi said. "Chemists and materials scientists are now able to ask new questions we have never asked before. Also, new tools for characterizing the sequences and deciphering the codes within the crystals will have to be developed."

Carbon dioxide is polluting Earth's atmosphere and damaging coral reefs and marine life — impacts that are irreversible in our lifetime, Yaghi said.

Co-authors on the study are Christian Doonan and Hiroyasu Furukawa, UCLA postdoctoral scholars in Yaghi's laboratory; Ricardo Ferreira, a UCLA visiting undergraduate; John Towne, a former UCLA undergraduate; Carolyn Knobler, a research associate in Yaghi's laboratory; and Bo Wang, a UCLA postdoctoral scholar in Yaghi's laboratory.

Try 100 times

A few years ago, Yaghi spoke at Shanghai's Fudan University, which is known for having one of the best chemistry departments in China. There, he met Deng, who at the time was an undergraduate student at the university. Deng and his colleagues had tried unsuccessfully to make new MOFs.

"DJ told me, 'Professor, we tried a slight variation to make new MOFs and it did not work,'" Yaghi recalled. "I asked, 'How many times did you try?' He said, 'Two or three times.' I said, 'How about 20 times, 30 times? How about 100 times? If it were that easy, why would it need a smart person like you to do it? Success and excellence do not come that easily.' I said, 'If you really want to learn how to do MOF chemistry, you better come and work with me.' I think that shocked him, but here he is."

How did Deng react to Yaghi's offer?

"Definitely," said Deng, who plans to become a chemistry professor. "And," he added, "the story ends with me trying enough times to get it right. It took me about a hundred more times."

"With MOF chemistry," Yaghi said, "it is not all design; there is a lot of trial and error because we are trying to learn what nature is telling us, and learning that code takes time.

"What is special about DJ and the other students who have worked in my laboratory is that no matter how much you raise the bar, they jump high enough to rise above it," Yaghi said. "It takes a special student to do that, but they are out there, and they need to be inspired. Working with students like DJ that I can challenge in this way is every professor's dream."

UCLA is California's largest university, with an enrollment of nearly 38,000 undergraduate and graduate students. The UCLA College of Letters and Science and the university's 11 professional schools feature renowned faculty and offer more than 323 degree programs and majors. UCLA is a national and international leader in the breadth and quality of its academic, research, health care, cultural, continuing education and athletic programs. Five alumni and five faculty have been awarded the Nobel Prize.

http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/ucla-chemists-create-synthetic-153588.aspx

Gold at Forefront of 'Nanotechnology Revolution'

- World Gold Council Research Paper Demonstrates Important Applications in Development Using Gold Nanoparticles

World Gold Council (WGC)-London, February 11- has today published 'Gold for Good: Gold and nanotechnology in the age of innovation', a research paper detailing new scientific and technological innovations using gold. The report, which was produced in conjunction with Cientifica Ltd, the world's leading source of global business and investor intelligence about nanotechnologies, demonstrates how gold nanoparticles offer the potential to overcome many of the serious issues facing mankind over the coming decades.

Gold nanoparticles exhibit a variety of unique properties which, when harnessed and manipulated effectively, lead to materials whose uses are both far-ranging in their potential and cost effective. This report explores the many different applications that are being developed across the fields of health, environment and technology.

Trevor Keel, Nanotechnology Project Manager at World Gold Council said:

"The opportunities and possibilities identified in this report are just a subset of the amazing scope to use gold in the era of nanotechnology. As a readily available and well understood material, gold nanoparticles are ideal for use in a vast array of applications that improve our lives. WGC is looking to promote and invest in the development of gold-based innovations through Innovations Partnerships, so that the full benefits of gold nanotechnology can be realized."

Tim Harper, founder of Cientifica Ltd, said:

"Over the last decade, almost $50 billion of government funding has been invested into nanotechnologies, and this investment is now starting to bear fruit with a steady stream of commercially viable nanotechnologies which are positively impacting human health, the environment and technology. This paper demonstrates the many varied applications in which gold nanotechnology can improve society's standard of living."

Health: Gold has a long history in the biomedical field stretching back almost five thousand years. However the dawn of the 'nano-age' has really broadened the potential of gold in biomedical applications and today, gold nanoparticles are being employed in entirely novel ways to achieve therapeutic effects.

Tumor targeting technologies which exploit gold's inherent bio-compatibility are being developed to deliver drugs directly into cancerous tumours. Additionally, simple, cost effective and sensitive diagnostic tests are being developed for the early detection of prostate and other cancers.

Environment: Environmental concerns have never been more prominent - energy and clean water scarcity, global warming and pollution are all major issues that need to be addressed. Gold nano-particle based technologies are showing great promise in providing solutions to a number of environmentally important issues from greener production methods of the chemical feedstocks, to pollution control and water purification.

Gold-based catalysts are being developed that can effectively prevent the release of highly toxic forms of mercury into the atmosphere, the reduction of chemicals from green feedstock, and also for water purification and contaminant detection. In addition, gold is being used in meeting the challenge of constructing cost effective and efficient fuel cells, a key 'clean-energy' technology of the future.

Advanced technology: Gold is already a well established material in the electronics industry and the use of gold can only increase as the worlds of electronics and nanotechnology interact further in the future. Gold is being developed for conductive nanoparticle inks for plastic electronics because of its material compatibility, inherent durability and proven track record of reliability. Gold nanotechnologies have also been shown to offer functional benefits for visual display technologies like touch sensitive screens and potentially for use in advanced data storage technologies including advanced flash memory devices.

The full paper can be downloaded from:

http://www.gold.org/assets/file/rs_archive/gold_and_nanotechnology_in_the_age_of_innovation.pdf

http://cientifica.eu/blog/white-papers/gold/

Innovation Partnerships

World Gold Council works directly with partner companies via Innovation Partnerships. These support research and development of new practical applications for the metal, drawing on a genuine commercial market requirement for innovation. Partner organisations include (but are not limited to) precious metal, chemical, electronics, materials and biomedical companies, ranging from small enterprises through to established international businesses. Interested companies are invited to contact World Gold Council for further details.

During 2009-2010 World Gold Council is particularly interested in receiving proposals relating to the following areas:

Companies interested in collaborating with World Gold Council are invited to make contact.

World Gold Council

World Gold Council's mission is to stimulate and sustain the demand for gold and to create enduring value for its stakeholders. It is funded by the world's leading gold mining companies. For further information please visit http://www.gold.org

Cientifica

Cientifica Ltd, based in London, is one of the world's best-respected consultancy companies in the field of emerging technologies and technology commercialization. It provides global business intelligence and strategic consulting servicesto industry, governments and investors worldwide.

http://www.cientifica.eu

SOURCE World Gold Council

Research and innovation: European projects

take pride of place at Neuchâtel

CSEM welcomes the annual conference of the European cluster on the convergence of micro- and nano-technologies for the medicine of tomorrow

Neuchâtel, 11 February 2010 – The fourth Concertation and Consultation Workshop of the MNBS (Micro-Nano-Bio Convergence Systems) Cluster, organized jointly by the European Commission and CSEM, will take place in Neuchâtel on 15th and 16th February 2010. The convergence between computer technologies and biology, biomaterials, biophotonics, micro- and nano-technologies and biocaptors is arousing increasing interest in research circles in responding to the industries and markets for new healthcare technologies. The European Union is currently investing over 250 million euros in research programs (FP6, FP7) for the emergence of new technologies and their implementation in increasingly complex products of the future.

In the medical world, and – by extension – in the healthcare environment, this convergence of technologies brings hope and provides a glimpse of the major clinical and therapeutic prospects. These include: the improvement of the solidity, and above all the tolerance, of implanted prosthetic materials; the development of implanted biocaptors piloting the delivery of medication according to dosages implemented in vivo; the intervention in certain cells to compensate for the lack of a gene, or – on the contrary – to inhibit a gene at the origin of a disease; or the repair and reconstruction of tissues damaged by third-degree burns.

The European Commission has grouped all R&D activities in micro-nano-bio systems into a cluster (MNBS) within the framework of information and communication technology (ICT), with a view to bringing together a critical mass of expert players to identify the main priorities, synergies and opportunities for collaboration and to reinforce the socio-economic impact. The ultimate objective is to create a large-scale European initiative which is durable and competitive, and based on a sound partnership between the public and private sectors.

The objective of this annual conference is to encourage scientific and technical exchange through the sharing of experience and information between the various protagonists in the European projects of the MNBS cluster. The invited speakers, around twenty researchers and scientists, will use the opportunity to share the results of their research with the invited audience.

Among other things, this approach encourages the diffusion and exchange of information, stimulates synergies and potential collaborations, and above all helps to identify R&D areas that could respond to new medical challenges. The subjects addressed focus mainly on the convergence of technologies in laboratory tests – development of lab on chip (LOC) for early screening of cancer or chronic illnesses – and in invasive systems for diagnosis or for surgical treatment, in order to minimize their impact and their interaction in the living organism.

To open up the debate and to witness new prospects for collaboration emerging, this event will not take place behind closed doors. Instead, for the first time, it will be open to all professionals and researchers not involved in the projects stemming from this European research programme. Almost a hundred delegates – doctors, researchers, engineers and manufacturers – are expected in Neuchâtel.

Mario El-Khoury, CEO of CSEM, is looking forward to the event. ”The CSEM is very pleased to welcome this MNBS conference, which has been held each year previously in Brussels, and which is dedicated to one of the most strategic topics for CSEM: micro- and nano-technologies in the service of human beings.“

CSEM – an innovation center

CSEM, Centre Suisse d’ Electronique et de Microtechnique (Swiss Center for Electronics and Microtechnology), founded in 1984, is a private research and development center specializing in microtechnology, nanotechnology, microelectronics, system engineering and communications technologies. It offers its customers and industry partners tailor-made innovative solutions based on its knowledge of the market and technological expertise derived from applied research. Having founded several start-ups, it contributes to developing Switzerland as an industrial location. To date, a total of 29 such enterprises, with more than 500 employees, have been launched by CSEM. In addition, CSEM has acquired an international dimension by establishing a presence in the Arab Emirates in 2005, and in Brazil in 2007, in order to speed up and encourage the transfer of knowledge and new technologies beneficial to the local economy of these countries.

Approximately 400 highly qualified and specialized employees from various scientific and technical disciplines work for CSEM in Neuchâtel, Zurich, Basel, Alpnach and Landquart. They represent more than 30 nationalities and constitute the basis of the company’s creativity, dynamism and innovation potential.

Further information is available at http://www.csem.ch

About the MNBS cluster

MNBS – Micro-Nano-Bio Convergence Systems

The convergence of micro-nano-bio systems is a major research area within the "Microsystems and Smart Systems Integration" activity supported by the European Commission under its information and communication technology (ITC) priority programme. The European Union finances projects for the development of cutting-edge systems integrating the convergence of micro-nano-bio technologies and ITC.

For more information, please visit

http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/ict/micro-nanosystems/home_en.html

New Webcast

Fundamentals of Photonics: Laser Beam Characterization

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Researchers reveal 3-D structure of bullet-shaped virus

with potential to fight cancer, HIV

Study of vesicular stomatitis virus leads to model of viral assembly process

By Jennifer Marcus February 08, 2010

Assembly of bullet-shaped VSV virionVesicular stomatitis virus, or VSV, has long been a model system for studying and understanding the life cycle of negative-strand RNA viruses, which include viruses that cause influenza, measles and rabies.

More importantly, research has shown that VSV has the potential to be genetically modified to serve as an anti-cancer agent, exercising high selectivity in killing cancer cells while sparing healthy cells, and as a potent vaccine against HIV.

For such modifications to occur, however, scientists must have an accurate picture of the virus's structure. While three-dimensional structural information of VSV's characteristic bullet shape and its assembly process has been sought for decades, efforts have been hampered by technological and methodological limitations.

Now, researchers at UCLA's California NanoSystems Institute and the UCLA Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Molecular Genetics and colleagues have not only revealed the 3-D structure of the trunk section of VSV but have further deduced the architectural organization of the entire bullet-shaped virion through cryo-electron microscopy and an integrated use of image-processing methods.

Their research findings appear this month in the journal Science.

"Structures of individual rhabdovirus proteins have been reported in Science and other high-profile journals, but until now, how they are organized into a bullet shape has remained unclear," said study author Z. Hong Zhou, UCLA professor of microbiology, immunology and molecular genetics and a member of the CNSI. "The special shape of VSV — a bullet head with a short, helical trunk — has lent to its evasion from three-dimensional structural studies."

Based on their research into the structure of VSV, the team proposed a model for the assembly of the virus, with its origin at the bullet tip. Their data suggest that VSV assembles through the alternating use of several possible interaction interfaces coded in viral protein sequences to wind its protein and RNA chain into the characteristic bullet shape.

"Our structure provides the first direct visualization of the N and M proteins inside the VSV virion at 10.6-Å resolution. Surprisingly, our data clearly demonstrated that VSV is a highly ordered particle, with the nucleocapsid surrounded by, instead of surrounding, a matrix of M proteins," said lead study author Peng Ge, a visiting graduate student at UCLA from Baylor College of Medicine. "To our amusement, the sequence in assembling viral protein and RNA molecules into the virus appears to rhyme with the first several measures of Mozart's piano sonata in C-Major, K.545."  (This musical correlation is illustrated in the paper's supplementary movie 2.)

The findings could help lead to advances in the development of VSV-based vaccines for HIV and other deadly viruses, according to the researchers.

"Our structure provides some of the first clues for understanding VSV-derived vaccine pseudotypes and for optimizing therapeutic VSV variants," Zhou said. "This work moves our understanding of the biology of this large and medically important class of viruses ahead in a dramatic way. The next stage of research for our team will be to reveal the details of molecular interactions at the atomic scale using advanced imaging instruments now available at CNSI."

The Electron Imaging Center for Nanomachines (EICN) lab at the CNSI has Cryo-EM instrumentation, including the Titan Krios microscope, which makes atomically precise 3-D computer reconstructions of biological samples and produces the highest-resolution images available of viruses, which may lead to better vaccines and new treatments for disease. 

The Science paper is available at www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/327/5966/689

In addition to Z. Hong Zhou and Peng Ge, the research team included colleagues from the laboratory of Ming Luo, professor of microbiology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and Stan Schein, UCLA professor of psychology.

The research was supported by the National Institutes of Health.

The California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA is an integrated research center operating jointly at UCLA and UC Santa Barbara whose mission is to foster interdisciplinary collaborations for discoveries in nanosystems and nanotechnology; train the next generation of scientists, educators and technology leaders; and facilitate partnerships with industry, fueling economic development and the social well-being of California, the United States and the world. The CNSI was established in 2000 with $100 million from the state of California and an additional $250 million in federal research grants and industry funding. At the institute, scientists in the areas of biology, chemistry, biochemistry, physics, mathematics, computational science and engineering are measuring, modifying and manipulating the building blocks of our world — atoms and molecules. These scientists benefit from an integrated laboratory culture enabling them to conduct dynamic research at the nanoscale, leading to significant breakthroughs in the areas of health, energy, the environment and information technology.

Rice physicists kill cancer with 'nanobubbles'

Team finds method of IDing, destroying individual diseased cells

HOUSTON -- (Feb. 4, 2010) -- Using lasers and nanoparticles, scientists at Rice University have discovered a new technique for singling out individual diseased cells and destroying them with tiny explosions. The scientists used lasers to make "nanobubbles" by zapping gold nanoparticles inside cells. In tests on cancer cells, they found they could tune the lasers to create either small, bright bubbles that were visible but harmless or large bubbles that burst the cells.

"Single-cell targeting is one of the most touted advantages of nanomedicine, and our approach delivers on that promise with a localized effect inside an individual cell," said Rice physicist Dmitri Lapotko, the lead researcher on the project. "The idea is to spot and treat unhealthy cells early, before a disease progresses to the point of making people extremely ill."

The research is available online in the journal Nanotechnology.

Nanobubbles are created when gold nanoparticles are struck by short laser pulses. The short-lived bubbles are very bright and can be made smaller or larger by varying the power of the laser. Because they are visible under a microscope, nanobubbles can be used to either diagnose sick cells or to track the explosions that are destroying them.

In laboratory studies published last year, Lapotko and colleagues at the Laboratory for Laser Cytotechnologies at the A.V. Lykov Heat and Mass Transfer Institute in Minsk, Belarus, applied nanobubbles to arterial plaque. They found that they could blast right through the deposits that block arteries.

"The bubbles work like a jackhammer," Lapotko said.

In the current study, Lapotko and Rice colleague Jason Hafner, associate professor of physics and astronomy and of chemistry, tested the approach on leukemia cells and cells from head and neck cancers. They attached antibodies to the nanoparticles so they would target only the cancer cells, and they found the technique was effective at locating and killing the cancer cells.

Lapotko said the nanobubble technology could be used for "theranostics," a single process that combines diagnosis and therapy. In addition, because the cell-bursting nanobubbles also show up on microscopes in real time, Lapotko said the technique can be use for post-therapeutic assessment, or what physicians often refer to as "guidance."

Hafner said, "The mechanical and optical properties of the bubbles offer unique advantages in localizing the biomedical applications to the individual cell level, or perhaps even to work within cells."

The research resulted from collaboration between Rice and the Lykov Institute of the Academy of Science of Belarus, which recently established the US-Belarus Research Lab of Fundamental and Biomedical Nanophotonics.

Co-authors of the Nanotechnology paper include Ehab Hanna of the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center and Ekaterina Lukianova-Hleb of the Lykov Institute. The research was supported by the National Institutes of Health and the Institute of International Education's Scholar Rescue Fund.

Spray-on liquid glass is about to

revolutionize almost everything

The fissure was induced in order present an image which shows the characteristics of the coating. The image shows the SiO2 coating on a filament of a microfibre.

Spray-on liquid glass is transparent, non-toxic, and can protect virtually any surface against almost any damage from hazards such as water, UV radiation, dirt, heat, and bacterial infections. The coating is also flexible and breathable, which makes it suitable for use on an enormous array of products.

The liquid glass spray (technically termed ”SiO2 ultra-thin layering“) consists of almost pure silicon dioxide (silica, the normal compound in glass) extracted from quartz sand. Water or ethanol is added, depending on the type of surface to be coated. There are no additives, and the nano-scale glass coating bonds to the surface because of the quantum forces involved. According to the manufacturers, liquid glass has a long-lasting antibacterial effect because microbes landing on the surface cannot divide or replicate easily.

Liquid glass was invented in Turkey and the patent is held by Nanopool, a family-owned German company. Research on the product was carried out at the Saarbrücken Institute for New Materials. Nanopool is already in negotiations in the UK with a number of companies and with the National Health Service, with a view to its widespread adoption.

The liquid glass spray produces a water-resistant coating only around 100 nanometers (15-30 molecules) thick. On this nanoscale the glass is highly flexible and breathable. The coating is environmentally harmless and non-toxic, and easy to clean using only water or a simple wipe with a damp cloth. It repels bacteria, water and dirt, and resists heat, UV light and even acids. UK project manager with Nanopool, Neil McClelland, said soon almost every product you purchase will be coated with liquid glass.

Food processing companies in Germany have already carried out trials of the spray, and found sterile surfaces that usually needed to be cleaned with strong bleach to keep them sterile needed only a hot water rinse if they were coated with liquid glass. The levels of sterility were higher for the glass-coated surfaces, and the surfaces remained sterile for months.

Other organizations, such as a train company and a hotel chain in the UK, and a hamburger chain in Germany, are also testing liquid glass for a wide range of uses. A year-long trial of the spray in a Lancashire hospital also produced ”very promising“ results for a range of applications including coatings for equipment, medical implants, catheters, sutures and bandages. The war graves association in the UK is investigating using the spray to treat stone monuments and grave stones, since trials have shown the coating protects against weathering and graffiti. Trials in Turkey are testing the product on monuments such as the Ataturk Mausoleum in Ankara.

The liquid glass coating is breathable, which means it can be used on plants and seeds. Trials in vineyards have found spraying vines increases their resistance to fungal diseases, while other tests have shown sprayed seeds germinate and grow faster than untreated seeds, and coated wood is not attacked by termites. Other vineyard applications include coating corks with liquid glass to prevent ”corking“ and contamination of wine. The spray cannot be seen by the naked eye, which means it could also be used to treat clothing and other materials to make them stain-resistant. McClelland said you can ”pour a bottle of wine over an expensive silk shirt and it will come right off“.

In the home, spray-on glass would eliminate the need for scrubbing and make most cleaning products obsolete. Since it is available in both water-based and alcohol-based solutions, it can be used in the oven, in bathrooms, tiles, sinks, and almost every other surface in the home, and one spray is said to last a year.

Liquid glass spray is perhaps the most important nanotechnology product to emerge to date. It will be available in DIY stores in Britain soon, with prices starting at around £5 ($8 US). Other outlets, such as many supermarkets, may be unwilling to stock the products because they make enormous profits from cleaning products that need to be replaced regularly, and liquid glass would make virtually all of them obsolete.

More information: Nanopool: http://www.nanopool.eu/couk/index.htm 

Stopping Bacterial Infections Without Antibiotics 

New research at the A. James Clark School of Engineering could prevent bacterial infections using tiny biochemical machines—nanofactories—that can confuse bacteria and stop them from spreading, without the use of antibiotics.

A paper about the research is featured in the current issue of Nature Nanotechnology. "Engineered biological nanofactories trigger quorum sensing response in targeted bacteria," was authored by Clark School alumnus Rohan Fernandes (Ph.D. '08, bioengineering), graduate student Varnika Roy (molecular and cell biology), graduate student Hsuan-Chen Wu (bioengineering), and their advisor, William Bentley (professor and chair, Fischell Department of Bioengineering).

The group's work is an update on their original nanofactories, first developed in 2007. Those nanofactories made use of tiny magnetic bits to guide them to the infection site.

"This is a completely new, all-biological version," he says. "The new nanofactories are self-guided and targeted. We've demonstrated for the first time that they're capable of finding a specific kind of bacterium and inducing it to communicate, a much finer level of automation and control."

The new nanofactories can tell the difference between bad (pathogenic) and good bacteria. For instance, our digestive tracts contain a certain level of good bacteria to help us digest food. The new nanofactories could target just the bad bacteria, without disrupting the levels of good bacteria in the digestive tract (a common side effect of many antibiotics). Nanofactories target the bacteria directly rather than traveling throughout the body, another advantage over traditional antibiotics.

Bacterial cells talk to each other in a form of cell-to-cell communication known as quorum sensing. When the cells sense that they have reached a certain quantity, an infection could be triggered. The biological nanofactories developed at the Clark School can interrupt this communication, disrupting the actions of the cells and shutting down an infection.

Alternatively, the nanofactories could trick the bacteria into sensing a quorum too early. Doing so would trigger the bacteria to try to form an infection before there are enough bacterial cells to do harm. This would prompt a natural immune system response capable of stopping them without the use of drugs.

Because nanofactories are designed to affect communication instead of trying to kill the bacteria, they could help treat illness in cases where a strain of bacteria has become resistant to antibiotics.

"The work by Dr. Bentley is extremely exciting as he is using the ability of engineering to "build" using nature based components," says Philip Leduc, associate professor in the Departments of Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering and the Lane Center for Computational Biology and Biological Sciences at Carnegie Mellon University. "Understanding the science of cells is wonderful, but then using these components and constructing systems that leverage biological advantages is a huge step forward. His work in this paper uses his synthetic biology approach to build new nanofactories toward new areas of antimicrobials as well as opening new findings in quorum sensing."

The nanofactories' ability to alter cell-to-cell communication isn't limited to fighting infections.

"Quorum sensing and signaling molecules are actually used to accomplish a lot of things," Bentley explains. "Sometimes disease develops because communication is not taking place—a good example is digestive disorders that involve an imbalance of bacteria in the digestive tract. In that case, nanofactories could be used to start or increase communication instead of disrupting it."

More links at:

http://www.eng.umd.edu/news/news_story.php?id=4644

Student-built satellite selected for flight by NASA

A Rubik's Cube-sized communications satellite designed and built by University of Colorado at Boulder undergraduates at the Colorado Space Grant Consortium has been selected for launch by NASA in November 2009. Credit: Colorado Space Grant consortium

A tiny communications satellite designed and built by University of Colorado at Boulder undergraduates has been selected as one of three university research satellites to be launched into orbit in November as part of a NASA space education initiative.

The three satellites, dubbed "CubeSats" because of their shape, were built by CU-Boulder, Montana State University and Kentucky Space, which is a consortium of state universities. CubeSats are roughly four inches on a side, have a volume of about one quart and weigh about 2.2 pounds. The satellites are being flown as part of NASA's Educational Launch of Nanosatellite, or ELaNA, mission, said Chris Koehler, director of the Colorado Space Grant Consortium, or COSGC, which is headquartered at CU-Boulder.

The CU-Boulder satellite, named Hermes, was designed, built and tested by roughly 100 COSGC students on the CU-Boulder campus -- nearly all undergraduates -- over a period of about two and one-half years, said Koehler. The goal of the mission is to improve communications systems in tiny satellites through on-orbit testing of a high data-rate communication system that will allow scientists and engineers to downlink large quantities of information.

"This is great news for the students and for the Colorado Space Grant Consortium," said Koehler. "This is a homegrown CU-Boulder satellite and these students have pushed the capabilities of communication systems by integrating them into a very tiny satellite." Based in the CU-Boulder College of Engineering and Applied Science, COSGC is funded by NASA and is a statewide organization involving 16 colleges, universities and institutions around Colorado.

Koehler said it is challenging to find launch opportunities for student satellites like Hermes. The three student satellites will be attached to a Taurus XL launch vehicle that also will launch NASA's Glory mission to study solar radiation. CU-Boulder's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics designed and built a multimillion dollar solar payload for the Glory mission known as the Total Irradiance Monitor that will measure the total light coming from the sun at all wavelengths to help determine the energy balance of the planet.

CU-Boulder senior Nicole Doyle, project manager for Hermes and an aerospace engineering sciences department major, said the satellite has two communications systems. "One will allow us to 'talk' to the satellite and the other one will be used to test the high-speed communications system. If we are successful, the hopes are it can be used on other satellites."

The three CubeSat satellites will be attached to the Taurus XL rocket in a mechanical system known as a PPOD developed by the California Polytechnic State University in partnership with Stanford University. Once the rocket reaches about 385 miles high, the satellites will be ejected from the PPOD and will spring off into separate orbits, said Doyle.

The CU-Boulder satellite will be in contact with a COSGC ground station atop the Discovery Learning Center at the CU-Boulder engineering college. A second ground station is being built by the COSGC students in Longmont, about 15 miles northeast of Boulder, to monitor the high-speed communications data system, said Doyle.

"We are all really excited for launch," said Doyle. "We are now in our final push to test the communication sequence system and to finish our environmental testing, which includes vibration and vacuum chamber tests to verify that the satellite can survive in orbit."

Doyle said that when she got to CU-Boulder she was surprised to discover undergraduates had regular opportunities to design, build, test and fly spacecraft. "A number of students in my classes were talking about building satellites, so I decided to see what it was all about. That's when I came into the Colorado Space Grant Consortium," she said.

"This has been an incredible experience for me," said Doyle. "We learn from other CU students who are working on other space projects and who have experience in the kinds of research we are doing with Hermes. This is a great opportunity for students like me who want to work in the aerospace industry after college."

COSGC provides Colorado higher education students access to space through innovative courses, real-world, hands-on space hardware and satellite programs. The students interact with engineers and scientists from NASA and aerospace companies to develop, test and fly new space technologies on high-altitude balloons, sounding rockets and orbiting satellites.

Of the 52 space grant consortiums in the United States, Colorado's has been active in designing, building and flying 10 sounding rocket payloads, three space shuttle payloads, a satellite and hundreds of balloon experiments in the past 20 years, Koehler said.

More information: For more information on COSGC visit: http://spacegrant.colorado.edu/

Provided by University of Colorado at Boulder

Gecko's lessons transfer well

Dry printing of nanotube patterns to any surface

could revolutionize microelectronics and more

HOUSTON – (Jan. 25, 2010) – Watch a gecko walk up a wall. It defies gravity as it sticks to the surface no matter how smooth it appears to be.

What's happening isn't magic. The gecko stays put because of the electrical attraction – the van der Waals force – between millions of microscopic hairs on its feet and the surface.

The principle applies to new research at Rice University reported this week in the online version of the journal ACS Nano. But in this case, the hairs figuratively come off the gecko and plant themselves on the wall.

Rice graduate student Cary Pint has come up with a way to transfer forests of strongly aligned, single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) from one surface to another  – any surface – in a matter of minutes. The template used to grow the nanotubes, with its catalyst particles still intact, can be used repeatedly to grow more nanotubes, almost like inking a rubber stamp.

Pint is primary author of the research paper, which also details a way to quickly and easily determine the range of diameters in a batch of nanotubes grown through chemical vapor deposition (CVD). Common spectroscopic techniques are poor at seeing tubes bigger than two nanometers in diameter – or most of the nanotubes in the CVD "supergrowth" process.

"This is important since all of the properties of the nanotubes – electrical, thermal and mechanical – change with diameter," he said. "The best thing is that nearly every university has an FTIR (Fourier transform infrared) spectrometer sitting around that can do these measurements, and that should make the process of synthesis and application development from carbon nanotubes much more precise."

Pint and other students and colleagues of Robert Hauge, a Rice distinguished faculty fellow in chemistry, are also investigating ways to take printed films of SWNTs and make them all-conducting or all-semiconducting – a process Hauge refers to as "Fermi-level engineering" for its ability to manipulate electron movement at the nanoscale.

Combined, the techniques represent a huge step toward a nearly limitless number of practical applications that include sensors, highly efficient solar panels and electronic components.

"A big frontier for the field of nanoscience is in finding ways to make what we can do on the nanoscale impact our everyday activities," Hauge said. "For the use of carbon nanotubes in devices that can change the way we do things, a straightforward and scalable way of patterning aligned carbon nanotubes over any surface and in any pattern is a major advance."

Pint said an afternoon of "experimenting with creative ideas" as a first-year graduate student turned into a project that held his interest through his time at Rice. "I realized early on it may be useful to transfer carbon nanotubes to other surfaces," he said.

"I started playing around with water vapor to clean up the amorphous carbons on the nanotubes. When I pulled out a sample, I noticed the nanotubes actually stuck to the tweezers.

"I thought to myself, 'That's really interesting ...'"

Water turns out to be the key. After growing the nanotubes, Pint etches them with a mix of hydrogen gas and water vapor, which weakens the chemical bonds between the tubes and the metal catalyst. When stamped, the nanotubes lie down and adhere, via van der Waals, to the new surface, leaving all traces of the catalyst behind.

Pint, who hopes to defend his dissertation in August, developed a steady enough hand to deposit nanotubes on a range of surfaces – "anything I could lay my hands on" – in patterns that could easily be replicated and certainly enhanced by industrial processes. A striking example of his work is a crisscross film of nanotubes made by stamping one set of lines onto a surface and then reusing the catalyst to grow more tubes and stamping them again over the first pattern at a 90-degree angle. The process took no more than 15 minutes.

"I'll be honest – that was a little bit of luck, combined with the skill of having done this for a few years," he said of the miniature work of art. "But if I were in industry, I would make a machine to do this for me."

Pint believes industries will take a hard look at the technique, which he said could be scaled up easily, for embedding nanotube circuitry into electronic devices.

His own goal is to develop the process to make a range of highly efficient sensing devices. He's also investigating doping techniques that will take the guesswork out of growing metallic (conducting) or semiconducting SWNTs.

Pint and Hauge co-authored the paper with Junichiro Kono, a Rice professor in electrical and computer engineering and in physics and astronomy; Matteo Pasquali, a professor in chemical and biomolecular engineering; former Rice graduate students Ya-Qiong Xu, now an assistant professor of electrical engineering and physics at Vanderbilt University, and Tonya Cherukuri; graduate students Noe Alvarez and Erik Haroz; undergraduate students Sharief Moghazy and Salma Mahzooni; and Stephen Doorn, a researcher at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

The Rice-based Lockheed Martin LANCER program supported the research.

An electrifying advance toward tomorrow's power suits

Fabrics treated with this new electrically-conductive ink may power a new generation of futuristic clothing that charges iPods, cell phones and other electronics. Credit: American Chemical Society

Could powering an iPod or cell phone become as easy as plugging it into your tee shirt or jeans, and then recharging the clothing overnight? Scientists in California are reporting an advance in that direction with an easier way of changing ordinary cotton and polyester into "conductive energy textiles" -- e-Textiles that double as a rechargeable battery. Their report on the research appears in ACS' Nano Letters.

"Wearable electronics represent a developing new class of materials with an array of novel functionalities, such as flexibility, stretchability, and lightweight, which allow for many applications and designs previously impossible with traditional electronics technology," Yi Cui and colleagues note. "High-performance sportswear, wearable displays, new classes of portable power, and embedded health monitoring systems are examples of these novel applications."

The report describes a new process for making E-textiles that uses "ink" made from single-walled carbon nanotubes — electrically conductive carbon fibers barely 1/50,000 the width of a human hair. When applied to cotton and polyester fabrics, the ink produced e-Textiles with an excellent ability to store electricity. The fabrics retained flexibility and stretchability of regular cotton and polyester, and kept their new e-properties under conditions that simulated repeated laundering.

More information: "Stretchable, Porous, and Conductive Energy Textiles", http://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/nl903949m

Provided by American Chemical Society

Breakthrough Breast Cancer Therapy Reduces Mastectomies; Saves Breast

Heat treatment with chemotherapy kills large tumors; Approved by FDA; Next stage clinical trials start this year at OUHSC

OUHSC Public Affairs

Oklahoma City, OK -- A new treatment developed and tested by University of Oklahoma researchers not only killed large cancer tumors, but reduced the need for mastectomies by almost 90 percent. The latest results appear in an upcoming issue of the Annals of Surgical Oncology.

Building on this success, researchers at the OU Health Sciences Center, plan to start the next phase of clinical trials this year to test the therapy on even larger tumors.

”This therapy is a major advancement for women with later stage breast cancer. Right now, most patients with large tumors lose their breast. With this treatment along with chemotherapy, we were able to kill the cancer and save the breast tissue,“ said William Dooley, M.D., a researcher at the OU Cancer Institute and the director of surgical oncology at OU Medicine.

Dr. Dooley is leading a group of researchers from OU, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute, the Comprehensive Breast Center in Florida and St. Joseph’s Hospital in California.

They are working on a treatment called Focused Microwave Thermotherapy. The technique, which was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, uses a modified version of the microwave technology behind the ”Star Wars“ defense system.

In the most recent study, researchers tested the therapy on tumors that were an inch to an inch and a half in size. These large tumors usually require mastectomies. When researchers used the heating therapy within two hours of patients receiving chemotherapy, the tumor was more susceptible to the chemotherapy and shrunk rapidly. The percentage of patients needing mastectomies was reduced from 75 percent to 7 percent.

”The trial was very successful. We were able to completely reverse those odds,“ Dooley said. ”We redesigned the machine and will begin clinical trials this year to determine whether the therapy works on tumors that are larger than one and a half inches and smaller than 5 inches in size.“

In theory, Dooley said the technique could be used on any organ that could be ”held relatively still.“ Scientists are now working to integrate heat-sensitive nanotechnology that would more precisely target cancer cells. They also plan to study a byproduct of the rapid disintegration of the tumor – a boosted immune system. Dooley said it looks like the rapid release of cancer proteins into the blood stream is causing an immune response that could reduce the chance of cancer recurrence.

Find the latest research results online at springerlink.com/content/g105331202416323/.

As Oklahoma’s only comprehensive academic cancer center, the OU Cancer Institute is raising the standard of cancer treatment in the state through research and education. The center is working toward an application to the National Cancer Institute to be designated as a ”Comprehensive Cancer Center,“ the gold standard of cancer research and care. Later this year, the OU Cancer Institute will move into a new 210,000-square-foot building. The facility will bring all outpatient cancer programs under one roof at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center. For additional Information, visit www.OUCancer.org.

Source: Oklahoma University Cancer Institute

New ‘nanoburrs’ could help fight heart disease

 Targeted nanoparticles can home in on damaged vascular tissue and may be used to deliver drugs that help clear arteries

Anne Trafton, MIT News Office

January 19, 2010

Building on their previous work delivering cancer drugs with nanoparticles, MIT and Harvard researchers have turned their attention to cardiovascular disease, designing new particles that can cling to damaged artery walls and slowly release medicine.

The particles, dubbed ”nanoburrs,“ are coated with tiny protein fragments that allow them to stick to damaged arterial walls. Once stuck, they can release drugs such paclitaxel, which inhibits cell division and helps prevent growth of scar tissue that can clog arteries.

”This is a very exciting example of nanotechnology and cell targeting in action that I hope will have broad ramifications,“ says MIT Institute Professor Langer, senior author of a paper describing the nanoparticles in this week’s issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Langer and Omid Farokhzad, associate professor at Harvard Medical School and another senior author of the paper, have previously developed nanoparticles that seek out and destroy tumors. Their nanoburrs, however, are among the first particles that can zero in on damaged vascular tissue.

Mark Davis, professor of chemical engineering at Caltech, says the work is a promising step towards new treatments for cardiovascular and other diseases. ”If they could do this in patients — target particles to injured areas — that could open up all kinds of new opportunities,“ says Davis, who was not involved in this research.

On target

Currently, one of the standard ways to treat clogged and damaged arteries is by implanting a vascular stent, which holds the artery open and releases drugs such as paclitaxel. The researchers hope that their new nanoburrs could be used alongside such stents — or in lieu of them — to treat damage located in areas not well suited to stents, such as near a fork in the artery.

The nanoburrs are targeted to a structure known as the basement membrane, which lines the arterial walls but is only exposed when those walls are damaged. To build their nanoparticles, the team screened a library of short peptide sequences to find one that binds most effectively to molecules on the surface of the basement membrane. They used the most successful, a seven-amino-acid sequence called C11, to coat the outer layer of their nanoparticles.

The inner core of the 60-nanometer-diameter particles carries the drug, which is bound to a polymer chain called PLA. A middle layer of soybean lecithin, a fatty material, lies between the core and the outer shell, which consists of a polymer called PEG that protects the particles as they travel through the bloodstream.

The drug can only be released when it detaches from the PLA polymer chain, which occurs gradually by a reaction called ester hydrolysis. The longer the polymer chain, the longer this process takes, so the researchers can control the timing of the drug’s release by altering the chain length. So far, they have achieved drug release over 12 days, in tests in cultured cells.

Uday Kompella, professor of pharmaceutical sciences at the University of Colorado, says the nanoburr’s structure could make it easier to manufacture, because the targeted peptides are attached to an outer shell and not directly to the drug-carrying core, which would require a more complicated chemical reaction. The design also reduces the risk of the nanoparticles bursting and releasing drugs prematurely, says Kompella, who was not involved in this research.

Another advantage of the nanoburrs is that they can be injected intravenously at a site distant from the damaged tissue. In tests in rats, the researchers showed that nanoburrs injected near the tail are able to reach their intended target — walls of the injured carotid artery but not normal carotid artery. The burrs bound to the damaged walls at twice the rate of nontargeted nanoparticles.

Because the particles can deliver drugs over a longer period of time, and can be injected intravenously, patients would not have to endure repeated and surgically invasive injections directly into the area that requires treatment, says Juliana Chan, a graduate student in Langer’s lab and lead author of the paper.

The team is now testing the nanoburrs in rats over a two-week period to determine the most effective dose for treating damaged vascular tissue. The particles may also prove useful in delivering drugs to tumors.?? ”This technology could have broad applications across other important diseases, including cancer and inflammatory diseases where vascular permeability or vascular damage is commonly observed," says Farokhzad.

Source: MIT

NAS honors 17 for major contributions to science

WASHINGTON -- The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) will honor 17 individuals with awards in recognition of extraordinary scientific achievements in the areas of biology, chemistry, geology, astronomy, and psychology.

The 2010 recipients are:

JOHN ALROY, associate researcher at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis at the University of California, Santa Barbara, is the recipient of the NAS AWARD FOR SCIENTIFIC REVIEWING. Alroy is being honored for developing the Paleobiology Database, which has produced an extraordinarily extensive synthesis of paleontological data that has been driving the field of paleobiology forward in ways that would have been previously impossible. The prize of $10,000 -- given this year in the field of geosciences -- recognizes excellence in scientific reviewing. The award is supported by ANNUAL REVIEWS, Thomson Reuters, and THE SCIENTIST in honor of J. Murray Luck.

NORMAN R. AUGUSTINE, retired chairman and CEO of Lockheed Martin Corp., is the recipient of the NAS AWARD IN AERONAUTICAL ENGINEERING. Augustine is being honored for his service to the nation as a dedicated aeronautical engineer, a leader in the aerospace defense industry, a public servant, a civic leader, and a thought leader in the engineering profession. The award, established by Dr. and Mrs. J.C. Hunsaker, comes with a $15,000 prize and recognizes distinguished contributions to aeronautical engineering.

LOUIS E. BRUS, Samuel Latham Mitchill Professor of Chemistry at Columbia University, is the recipient of the NAS AWARD IN CHEMICAL SCIENCES. Brus is being honored for his leading role in the development of a fundamental building block for nanoscience, colloidal semiconductor nanocrystals, and for his contributions to our understanding of the quantum effects that control their optical properties. Supported by the Merck Company Foundation, the award -- consisting of a medal and prize of $15,000 -- honors innovative research in the chemical sciences that contributes to a better understanding of the natural sciences and to the benefit of humanity.

SALLIE W. CHISHOLM, Lee and Geraldine Martin Professor of Environmental Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is the recipient of the ALEXANDER AGASSIZ MEDAL. Chisholm is being honored for pioneering studies of the dominant photosynthetic organisms in the sea and for integrating her results into a new understanding of the global ocean. The award, which consists of a medal and $15,000 prize, recognizes original contribution in the science of oceanography.

ANDRE K. GEIM, Langworthy and Royal Society 2010 Anniversary Research Professor of Physics at the University of Manchester, is the recipient of the JOHN J. CARTY AWARD FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. Geim is being honored for his experimental realization and investigation of graphene, the two-dimensional form of carbon. Established by the American Telephone and Telegraph Co., the Carty Award -- a medal and $25,000 prize recognizing noteworthy and distinguished accomplishment in any field of science -- is being presented in the area of physics in 2010.

MARGARET J. GELLER, senior scientist at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, is the recipient of the JAMES CRAIG WATSON MEDAL. Geller is being honored for her role in critical discoveries concerning the large-scale structure of the universe, for her insightful analyses of galaxies in groups and clusters, and for her being a model in mentoring young scientists. The award -- consisting of a medal, a $25,000 prize, and a gift of $25,000 to an institution of the recipient's choosing -- recognizes contributions in astronomy.

ALAN D. HOWARD, professor in the department of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia, is the recipient of the G.K. WARREN PRIZE. Howard is being honored for his seminal contributions on the theory of fluvial erosion, sedimentation, and landscape evolution. Established by Emily B. Warren in memory of her father, the award honors noteworthy and distinguished accomplishment to fluviatile morphology and closely related aspects of the geological sciences and is accompanied by a $10,000 prize.

GERALD F. JOYCE, professor in the departments of chemistry and molecular biology at the Scripps Research Institute, will receive the first STANLEY MILLER MEDAL OF THE NAS AWARD FOR EARLY EARTH AND LIFE SCIENCES. Joyce is being honored for his pioneering experiments on the self-sustained replication and evolution of RNA enzymes (ribozymes), which illuminate key conceptual steps in the origin of life. The NAS Award for Early Earth and Life Sciences was established by the NAS Council by combining two awards -- the Charles Doolittle Walcott Award and the Stanley Miller Medal. The Stanley Miller Medal recognizes outstanding research on the early Earth and comes with a medal and a $10,000 prize.

MICHAEL J. KAHANA, professor in the department of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, and FRANK TONG, associate professor in the department of psychology at Vanderbilt University, will each receive a TROLAND RESEARCH AWARD. Kahana is being honored for innovative experimental, theoretical, and computational work leading to new insights regarding the dynamics of human episodic memory. Tong is being honored for pioneering the use of neural decoding techniques to explore mechanisms in the human brain mediating perception, attention, and object recognition. The Troland Research Awards of $50,000 each are given annually to young investigators to recognize unusual achievement and to further empirical research within the broad spectrum of experimental psychology.

JEANNIE T. LEE, Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator and a professor of genetics and pathology at the Harvard Medical School at Massachusetts General Hospital, is the recipient of the NAS AWARD IN MOLECULAR BIOLOGY. By using X-chromosome inactivation as a model system, Lee has made unique contributions to our understanding of epigenetic regulation on a global scale, including the role of long, non-coding RNAs, interchromosomal interactions, and nuclear compartmentalization. Sponsored by Pfizer Inc, the award -- consisting of a medal and prize of $25,000 -- recognizes a recent notable discovery in molecular biology by a young scientist.

MARCIA NEUGEBAUER, adjunct research scientist at the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory of the University of Arizona, is the recipient of the ARCTOWSKI MEDAL. Neugebauer is being honored for definitively establishing the existence of the solar wind, critical to understanding the physics of the heliosphere, and for elucidating many of its key properties. The award -- consisting of a medal, a $20,000 prize, and a gift of $60,000 to an institution of the recipient's choosing -- recognizes outstanding contributions to the study of solar physics and solar-terrestrial relationships.

ROGER A. NICOLL, professor in the departments of cellular and molecular pharmacology and physiology at the University of California, San Francisco, is the recipient of the NAS AWARD IN THE NEUROSCIENCES. Nicoll is being honored for his seminal discoveries elucidating cellular and molecular bases for synaptic plasticity in the brain. The award recognizes extraordinary contributions to progress in neuroscience and comes with a $25,000 prize.

JANET D. ROWLEY, Blum-Riese Distinguished Service Professor of Medicine, Molecular Genetics and Cell Biology, and Human Genetics at the University of Chicago, is the recipient of the JESSIE STEVENSON KOVALENKO MEDAL. Rowley is being honored for her discovery of recurring chromosome translocations that characterize specific hematological malignancies, a landmark event that caused a major shift in the paradigms relating to cancer biology in the 1970s and paved the way for development of specific treatment for two leukemias. The award, consisting of a medal and a prize of $25,000, recognizes important contributions to the medical sciences.

MARK TYGERT, assistant professor in the department of mathematics at New York University's Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, is the recipient of the NAS AWARD FOR INITIATIVES IN RESEARCH. Tygert is being honored for his development of fast algorithms in mathematical physics, operator compression, and linear algebra, using deep, innovative ideas based on randomization and harmonic analysis. The prize of $15,000 is awarded to recognize innovative young scientists and encourages research likely to lead toward new capabilities for human benefit. The award -- established by AT&T Bell Laboratories in honor of William O. Baker and supported by Alcatel-Lucent -- is being presented in 2010 in the field of numerical methods.

WATT W. WEBB, professor of applied physics and S.B. Eckert Professor in Engineering at Cornell University, is the recipient of the ALEXANDER HOLLAENDER AWARD IN BIOPHYSICS. Webb is being honored for pioneering the applications of rigorous physical principles to the development of optical tools that have broadly impacted our ability to examine biological systems. The award, consisting of a prize of $20,000, recognizes contributions from an outstanding biophysicist.

An awards ceremony for the recipients will take place on April 25 during the Academy's annual meeting. Also to be honored is EUGENIE C. SCOTT, executive director of the National Center for Science Education (NCSE), who was chosen to receive the Academy's PUBLIC WELFARE MEDAL. Scott is being honored for championing the teaching of evolution in the United States and for providing leadership to the NCSE. The medal was established to recognize distinguished contributions in the application of science to the public welfare and has been presented since 1914.

About National Academy of Sciences

The National Academy of Sciences is a private, nonprofit honorific society of distinguished scholars engaged in scientific and engineering research, dedicated to the furtherance of science and technology and to their use for the general welfare. Since 1863, the National Academy of Sciences has served to "investigate, examine, experiment, and report upon any subject of science or art" whenever called upon to do so by any department of the government.

Source: National Academy of Sciences

MOLECULAR GENEALOGY IN THE ARCTIC SEDIMENT

Molecular biologists on the move: An unusual place to find heat-loving microorganisms. How they found their way to Spitsbergen is the subject of research by an international team supported by the FWF.

Heat-loving bacteria found in the Arctic seabed have their origins in oil springs and the depths of the Earth's crust. This is the finding of a project supported by the Austrian Science Fund FWF, which used molecular biology to study "misplaced" bacteria such as these. The possibility that molecular biology could also help track down oil fields gives the project an interesting economic twist.

They were discovered over 50 years ago but their origins have remained a mystery. Living in the sediment of the Arctic seabed around Spitsbergen are bacteria that only really thrive in temperatures above 50 degrees Celsius. In fact, the term "living" can only be applied in the loosest of terms, as the bacteria found here exhibit little in the way of metabolic activity and spend their existence as dormant spores. But it is their metabolism that is of most interest, since some of them are "sulphate-reducing microorganisms" (SRMs) and as such are capable of breaking down organic material in the absence of oxygen and the presence of sulphate. It is precisely this capability that gave the first indications of where these microbial migrants could originate from.

FROM THE DEPTHS

"While we would describe conditions in certain parts of our planet as inhospitable, others feel right at home there. Thermophilic SRMs love environments where temperatures exceed 50 degrees Celsius and where there is a distinct lack of oxygen. In conditions such as these, these microorganisms are able to break down organic material," explains Project Leader Dr. Alexander Loy from the Department of Microbial Ecology at the University of Vienna, adding: "Underwater oil springs and ecosystems deep in the Earth's crust offer just such conditions and were our first thought when trying to pin down the origins of thermophilic SRMs in Arctic sediment."

To test out this hypothesis, Dr. Loy and his team first used appropriate molecular biological methods to determine the relationships of the thermophilic bacteria. This work, which was supported by the Austrian Science Fund FWF, focused on 16S rRNA, a component of bacterial "protein factories". Due to the essential nature of 16S rRNA for all living beings, it has changed relatively little over the course of evolution. And these few changes enable scientists to draw conclusions about relationships between bacteria. If two species have some of these changes in common, it can be assumed that they are closely related.

RELATIONSHIPS IN PERCENTAGES

The work quickly yielded results and, in September 2009, initial findings from Dr. Loy's team and data from colleagues at the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen (Germany), and the Universities of North Carolina (USA) and Aarhus (Denmark) were published in SCIENCE. Dr. Loy on the results of this "family history" research: "The closest relatives of the thermophilic bacteria in the Arctic come from oil fields in the North Sea. Up to 96 percent of the 16S rRNA in these species is identical to that of the species found in Arctic sediment." These results provided the first indications of where the bacteria could come from.

Further evidence came from an analysis of the number of endospores present in the Arctic seabed, which was conducted by Dr. Loy's international colleagues. Based on the numbers detected, it has been calculated that 100 million bacterial spores are deposited for each square metre, each year. This was the second key indication of the origin of these bacteria. It is evident that a big enough population must exist to ensure a continuous supply. Only oil fields and ecosystems in the Earth's crust, where high temperatures provide ideal conditions for heat-loving bacteria, could be responsible for such numbers.

If the thermophilic SRMs in Arctic waters do originate from underwater oil springs, the methods used could also have applications in oil exploration. Although this particular aspect was not a focal point of Dr. Loy's FWF project, it could have a very practical side effect.

Original article:

"A Constant Flux of Diverse Thermophilic Bacteria into the Cold Arctic Seabed" C. Hubert, A. Loy, M. Nickel, C. Arnosti, C. Baranyi, V. Brüchert, T. Ferdelman, K. Finster, F. M. Christensen, J. R. de Rezende, V. Vandieken, and B. B. Jørgensen. Science, 18th September 2009, VOL 325, doi: 10.1126/science.1174012

LANL Announces Top 10 Science Stories of 2009

Los Alamos achievements from supercomputing to biofuels

LOS ALAMOS, New Mexico, January 8, 2010-Los Alamos National Laboratory has identified the Top 10 Laboratory science stories of 2009 based on global viewership of online media content and major programmatic milestones.

"Often our top breakthroughs in terms of scientific impact are also the ones that garner the most attention in the media," said Terry Wallace, Laboratory principal associate director of science, technology, and engineering.  "This was certainly the case for Roadrunner and for the Ardi discovery.  Sometimes, the best measure of impact is programmatic, such as the successful DARHT two-axis hydrotest, or our teams using nanotechnology for energy breakthroughs.  In combination, this collection of advances points to the diverse capabilities at Los Alamos that we harness for national security science."  Much of the science and technology at Los Alamos stems from or benefits the Lab's key national security mission performed for the National Nuclear Security Administration.

The Top 10 LANL Science Stories for 2009 are:

#1)  Roadrunner:  The Roadrunner supercomputer at Los Alamos is the first computing system in the world to reach a petaflop, computer jargon for 1 million billion calculations per second, a record that stood for a year and a half.  But the real accomplishment is that Roadrunner reached that goal using an entirely new computing architecture.  The secret to its record-breaking performance is a unique hybrid design.  The full system consists of 278 server racks containing 6,562 AMD Opteron� dual-core processors and 12,240 PowerXCell 8i� Cell processors, a special IBM-developed variant of the Cell processor used in the Sony PlayStation®3. The node-attached Cell accelerators are what make Roadrunner completely different than typical computing "clusters."  Roadrunner also is one of the most energy efficient supercomputers.  Using approximately 3 megawatts of power at sustained petaflop performance, the system produces about 500 megaflops per watt, more than twice the efficiency of the average supercomputer.

#2)  Ardi:  A Los Alamos National Laboratory geologist is part of an international research team responsible for discovering the oldest nearly intact skeleton of Ardipithecus ramidus, who lived 4.4 million years ago.  The discovery reveals the biology of the first stage of human evolution better than anything seen to date.  The fossil, nicknamed "Ardi," is the earliest skeleton known from the human branch of the primate family tree. The discovery provides new insights about how hominids-the family of "great apes" comprising humans, chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans-may have emerged from an ancestral ape.  The discovery and associated research were named Science magazine's Breakthrough of the Year for 2009 and selected by Time magazine as the #1 science story of 2009.

#3)  Climate modeling & monitoring: LANL innovations in high-resolution climate modeling and monitoring led to new insights into the impacts of climate change at global and regional scales.

The changing conditions in the ocean due to increased acidity from increased CO2 is one of the unknowns in future climate change projections.  LANL's Climate, Ocean, and Sea Ice Modeling effort for DOE and the National Science Foundation develops the highest-resolution dynamic models of the world's oceans and polar icecaps. Although up to 80 percent of the world's oxygen is generated by photosynthetic processes in ocean phytoplankton and other sea plants, the effects of this photosynthesis on removing CO2 from the atmosphere have not been included previously because of the lack of available computing power.  Harnessing the petaflop capacity of LANL's Roadrunner supercomputer (see #1 above), Lab researchers recently examined the effect of mesoscale ocean eddies (a few miles in size) on the transport of nutrients crucial for the growth of phytoplankton.  These eddies cause vertical transport of nutrients, which is crucial for the growth of phytoplankton.  The model can then calculate surface chlorophyll concentrations, and compare to satellite images.  This model is dramatically better than the previous state of the art in resolution and its ability to capture biological complexity.

The regional effects of global climate change on western U.S. forests also are important to understanding future impacts, especially as forests comprise an important CO2 sink.  The widespread die-off of piñon trees in the southwest is now being followed by a larger-scale pine mortality in the mountain west.  LANL scientists documented a new mechanism for this mortality, called carbon starvation.  It has been widely presumed that trees die of hydraulic failure (drying out).   Instead, they die from closure of the tiny pores on the surfaces of leaves that permit the exchange of gases between the atmosphere and the leaf.  When the pores are closed (to prevent water loss during extreme drought), the photosynthetic uptake of carbon also stops, starving the trees.  This type of mortality has been documented on all six vegetated continents and is increasing, with climate change, across all biomes (forest, desert, grasslands, tundra, and aquatic ecosystems).  This work is an enormous step forward in demonstrating that regional climate change drives a global-scale response of vegetation mortality.  Massive forest die-offs can change vegetated areas from carbon sinks to carbon sources.

#4)  MagViz:  LANL's MagViz team pioneered the use of modified magnetic resonance imagery (MRI) technology to distinguish and alert airport security staff to potentially dangerous liquids and gels in airport carry-on baggage.  Using extremely low magnetic fields and high-powered computer analysis, the MagViz equipment was demonstrated for its Department of Homeland Security sponsors and potential Transportation Safety Administration users at the Albuquerque International Sunport (http://www.youtube.com/LosAlamosNationalLab#p/a/u/4/xT2zncrtU-s).   A new area of development is a bottled-liquid scanner system based on the same technology.

#5)  First dual-axis hydrodynamic test:  LANL scientists and engineers fired the first-ever double-viewpoint, multiframe hydrodynamic test at DARHT, the Laboratory's Dual Axis Radiographic Hydrodynamic Test facility - leading to future experiments at LANL and across the nation's nuclear security enterprise, supporting the stockpile stewardship and weapons assurance mission.  "Initial data return was excellent," said the hydrodynamic experiments division leader, David Funk.  "The baseline experiment captured five time-dependent X-ray images and a variety of data from other diagnostics of pressure, temperature, and timing.  This data provides the nation with one of the most rigorous tests of our capability to predict weapons performance."

#6)  Hurricane prediction:  A system of sensors developed by Los Alamos National Laboratory for the National Nuclear Security Administration's nonproliferation mission has also begun to give meteorologists their most detailed view of the relationship between hurricanes and lightning.  By examining the rate and nature of lightning in the hurricane's eye wall, scientists may begin to be able to predict the potential strengthening of these destructive storms.

#7)  Fuel from plants:  Los Alamos National Laboratory has teamed with Solix Biofuels, Inc. to use an award-winning LANL sound-wave technology to optimize production of algae-based fuel in a cost-effective, scalable, and environmentally benign fashion.  Acoustic focusing-the novel use of sound waves at the heart of the Los Alamos Acoustic Flow Cytometer, a 2007 R&D 100 Award-winning technology-is being commercialized in partnership with Solix to harvest biocrude, or "green gold," an alternative to crude oil that can be refined into biodiesel, gasoline, or even jet fuel.  The technology is to be deployed in 2010 to Solix's Coyote Gulch Demonstration Facility near Durango, Colorado, for real-world production of lower-cost biofuel.

In addition, research breakthroughs using the LANL Protein Crystallography Station (part of the Lab's LANSCE facility) to probe the structure of cellulose are making the prospect of affordable, efficient production of cellulosic fuels closer to reality. The Protein Crystallography Station is the only resource of its kind in the United States and the first protein crystallography beam line to be built at a spallation neutron source.

#8)  IBEX:  The invisible structures of space are becoming less so, as scientists look out to the far edges of the solar wind bubble that separates our solar system from the interstellar cloud through which it flies.  Using the High Energy Neutral Atom Imager, led by LANL, the NASA Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) mission (http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/ibex/index.html) has sent back data that indicates a "noodle soup" of solar material has accumulated at the outer fringes of the heliosphere bubble.  The Los Alamos camera detects particles that are heated and stream away from that boundary, specifically the density and temperature of atoms that form the core of that layer.

#9)  Laser-particle acceleration for cancer therapy:  Laser-particle acceleration is an emerging area of physics expected to enable significant future advances in cancer radiotherapy.  An international team of physicists led by LANL has accelerated protons to world-record high energies that otherwise only achievable with large accelerator facilities.  Proton radiation at the achieved energy range can be used, for example, to treat eye cancer.  The new record-proton-acceleration energies were demonstrated at LANL's Trident facility-the world's highest-contrast, high-intensity, high-energy laser.  Physicists bombarded specially designed thin films created using nanotechnology with short bursts of laser energy. The electric fields generated from this bombardment were used to accelerate protons to energies higher than ever before achieved-capable of destroying cancer cells.

#10)  Nanotechnology for Energy Frontiers:  Two LANL teams were awarded lead roles as DOE Energy Frontier Research Centers to develop new materials for energy.

The Center for Advanced Solar Photophysics will capitalize on recent advances in the science of how nanoparticles interact with light to design highly efficient materials for the conversion of sunlight into electricity.  The purpose of this EFRC is to develop novel physics, materials, and architectures for harvesting solar light and converting it into electrical charges with efficiencies above equilibrium thermodynamic limits.  Such materials can boost the efficiency of solar-energy conversion.

The Center for Extreme Environment-Tolerant Materials has as its objective to understand, at the atomic scale, the behavior of materials subject to extreme radiation doses and mechanical stress in order to synthesize new materials that can tolerate such conditions.  This EFRC will develop a fundamental understanding of how atomic structure and interfaces contribute to defect and damage evolution in materials, with such potential applications as structural materials, fuel cladding, and waste forms in the next generation of nuclear power reactors and structural materials in transportation, energy, and defense.

About Los Alamos National Laboratory (www.lanl.gov)

Los Alamos National Laboratory, a multidisciplinary research institution engaged in strategic science on behalf of national security, is operated by Los Alamos National Security, LLC, a team composed of Bechtel National, the University of California, The Babcock & Wilcox Company, and the Washington Division of URS for the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration.

Study: Quantum fluctuations are key in superconductors

First direct evidence of quantum critical point in iron-based 'pnictides'

HOUSTON -- (Jan. 8, 2010) -- New experiments on a recently discovered class of iron-based superconductors suggest that the ability of their electrons to conduct electricity without resistance is directly connected with the magnetic properties of those electrons.

Results of the experiments appear in the Jan. 8 issue of Physical Review Letters. The tests, which were carried out by a team of U.S. and Chinese physicists, shed light on the fundamental nature of high-temperature superconductivity, said Rice physicist Qimiao Si, a co-author on the study.

If better understood, high-temperature superconductors could be used to revolutionize electric generators, MRI scanners, high-speed trains and other devices.

In the study, scientists from Rice University, the University of Tennessee, Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Institute of Physics and Renmin University in Beijing examined several iron-arsenide compounds. These are the "undoped" parents of the iron "pnictides" (pronounced: NICK-tides), a class of materials that were found to be high-temperature superconductors in 2008.

The experiments set out to test theoretical predictions that Si and collaborators published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences last March. They predicted that varying the size of some atoms in the parent compounds could allow physicists to tune the material's quantum fluctuations. These types of fluctuations can create tipping points called magnetic "quantum critical points," a state that exists when a material is at the cusp of transitioning from one quantum phase to another.

Using neutron-scattering facilities at NIST and ORNL, the team bombarded the materials with neutrons to decipher their structural and magnetic properties. The tests, which supported Si's theoretical predictions, determined that the strength of magnetic order in the materials was reduced when arsenic atoms were replaced with slightly smaller phosphorus atoms.

"We found the first direct evidence that a magnetic quantum critical point exists in these materials," Si said.

The results were made possible by the efforts of Nanlin Wang, a physicist from the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Physics, and his research group. They created a series of samples with varying amounts of phosphorous substituting for arsenic.

The discovery of high-temperature superconductivity in copper-oxide ceramics in 1986 led physicists to realize that quantum effects in electronic materials were far more complex than anticipated. One of these effects is quantum criticality. Criticality occurs near a tipping point that a material goes through when it changes phases. Many phase changes -- like ice melting into water -- occur because of thermal fluctuations. But quantum criticalities and quantum phase changes arise solely from quantum fluctuations.

"Our finding of a quantum critical point in iron pnictides opens the door for new avenues of research into this important class of materials," said University of Tennessee/ORNL physicist Pengcheng Dai, a neutron scattering specialist.

Si said, "The evidence from this study bolsters the hypothesis that high-temperature superconductivity in the iron pnictides originates from electronic magnetism. This should be contrasted to conventional low-temperature superconductivity, which is caused by ionic vibrations."

The Rice research was supported by the National Science Foundation and the Robert A. Welch Foundation.

Global - Thailand

Thailand nanotech plan moves ahead

Pratchaya W., 5 January 2010

Nanotechnology research: Thailand is going full steam ahead

[BANGKOK] Thailand is expanding its nanotechnology strategy into the energy and agriculture sectors after reporting success in the first phase of its national nanotechnology policy.

Developments such as nano-based solar cells and batteries, and nano-plastic packaging to enhance food quality, could be in the pipeline according to Sirirurg Songsivilai, executive director of the state-run National Nanotechnology Center (Nanotec).

Speaking on the sidelines of the third Thailand Nanotechnology Conference last month (21–22 December), Songsivilai claimed a national strategic plan for nanotechnology, launched in 2007, had been a success initially in the textile, chemical and medical sectors. Among new products are fabrics and Thai herbal medicines that are both 'nano-coated', he said.

Under the plan, 300 million Thai baht (about US$9 million) will be spent on nanotechnology by the government each year.

The move into energy and agriculture, which started late last year, is in line with world trends, added Songsivilai.

"Energy and the environment have gained more and more attention, and this is well-matched to what we are pushing forward. The farming sector is also our main economic base and should be developed further."

The strategic plan calls for nano-products to account for as much as one per cent of the country's GDP by 2013 — equivalent to US$3 billion. It also aims to raise health and environmental standards to international levels with the use of nanotechnology, and to lead the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in nano-based education and research and development.

Songsivilai said Nanotec had set up seven associate centres in universities nationwide, with about 400 researchers in total. To attract new researchers — the strategic plan aims for 100 a year up until 2013 — the centre has so far awarded about 100 scholarships to students to study up to PhD level overseas, and 200 more in the country.

He said the main challenge for capacity building is how to recruit researchers who have critical and holistic thinking.

Joydeep Dutta, director of the Center of Excellence in Nanotechnology at Thailand's Asian Institute of Technology, said the country's nanotechnology development was far behind other countries — ten years, at least.

But he believes that Thailand can catch up with others, particularly by creating a concrete policy to put nanotechnology on school curriculums. He said the sector is on the right track by targeting agriculture and energy.

"It's just the beginning," he said. "We need extensive capacity building and, more importantly, we need critical thinking in the field."

http://www.scidev.net/en/news/thailand-nanotech-plan-moves-ahead.html

Global - Turkey

University makes leap with nanotechnology

ISTANBUL - Hürriyet - Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Sabanci University in Istanbul has obtained a prominent figure for its nanotechnology department from Irvine Sensors Corp., one of the world’s leading firms in nanotechnology.

Volkan Özgüz, known for his studies in the field of electronic miniaturization, has been nominated as the director of Sabanci University’s Nanotechnology Research and Application Center, or SUNUM.

Announcing the transfer at a press meeting on Tuesday, Güler Sabanci, chairperson of Sabanci University’s Board of Trustees, said the university now has the proper climate for research and development as well as applied research.

”The climate is proper and the gate of opportunities seems ready. We see that it is the proper time for Turkey. Our university’s 10-year experience already makes it ready for a leap. I hope we will be able to make this leap.“

Product development

”Comparatively, Sabanci University has an advantage. We do not have departments but an interdisciplinary infrastructure. We see this research infrastructure is a significant advantage in nanotechnology research,“ said Sabanci. Özgüz has returned to Turkey with 20 years of experience, she also said.

”SUNUM will try to develop products proper to rapid industry use. It makes me excited to hear from scientists that Turkey has a significant opportunity ahead. I stress that research is not the only important factor but that the word application should also be focused on. Product and speed will display the actual success of the successful nanotechnology center.“

SUNUM was established last year with an investment of 50 million Turkish Liras and the support of the State Planning Organization. ”The volume of the world’s nanotechnology market is 2.5 billion euros. Between 2014 and 2018, the foreign-funded nanotechnology projects at our university are expected to total 55 million liras,“ said Sabanci University Rector Professor Nihat Berker.

SUNUM will firstly prioritize agriculture as well as water and environmental cleanliness, said Özgüz. ”The construction sector may also be interesting. There are also studies in medicine.“

”Many experts agree that nanotechnology is the most important technology among the ones to leave its mark on the 21st century,“ Özgüz said. ”The countries to convert their R&D studies rapidly into products in terms of health, security and living quality will affect their citizens’ life significantly.“

Özgüz expressed the goal to make SUNUM’s infrastructure operational within one year. ”Our aim is to become among the world’s top 10 nanotechnology centers within three years,“ he said.

Source: © 2009 Hurriyet Daily News

URL: www.hurriyetdailynews.com/n.php?n=university-makes-leap-with-nanotechnology-2010-01-06

Global - The Netherlands

We invite the submission of abstracts for the workshop --

Ethics on the laboratory floor; Explorations for a methodology

Date: June 1-2, 2010

Location: University of Twente, Enschede, the Netherlands

Organization: Centre for Philosophy of Technology and Engineering Sciences

These last years, there has been a growing interest in the engagement of ethicists in the context of scientific engineering research, with the aim to anticipate the ambiguous impacts that technological innovations have on the quality of human life. In this way, ethicists are thought to be able to contribute to the constitution of the technological product at a stage when it is still malleable.

Several scholars have developed views on how an ethicist in this context should work, but there is not yet a detailed ‘method’. With this workshop, we want to contribute to the development of such a method. We want to focus especially on the themes of reflection and deliberation, for the enhancement of ‘reflection’ and the broadening of ‘deliberation’ is often understood to be the primary aim of the work of an ethicist in the scientific research context. Yet it remains unclear what this involves.

Questions are raised such as: what is reflection/deliberation? How should ethicists enhance reflection? What are the consequences of such an enhancement of reflection on the deliberation about research choices? How much should this deliberation be broadened? And what is the specific input of an ethicist in this deliberation?

This workshop aims to act as a platform to discuss and critically engage with these questions. Confirmed invited participants are Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent, Rosalyn Berne, Ulrike Felt, Armin Grunwald, Alfred Nordmann and Arie Rip.

We invite abstracts (500-1000 words) from philosophers and social scientists. Theoretical philosophical papers about deliberation, reflection and moral linguistics are welcome, but also descriptions and analyses of concrete joint deliberation processes on the laboratory floor about ethical issues. Sub-themes are:

Reflection/deliberation

Future scenarios

Ethical language and communication

The institutional context

For more information about these sub-themes and related questions, please look at our workshop website

http://www.utwente.nl/ceptes/ceptes_activities/deliberation_engineering/

The deadline for submission is March 1, 2010.

The authors of selected papers will be notified by email.

Abstracts should be sent to: ceptes-workshop@gw.utwente.nl

How to spur energy storage innovations

December 17th, 2009-Imagine flying all the way from coast to coast, completely guilt-free, in an airplane that doesn’t emit a single particle of greenhouse gas or air pollutants. That could happen someday, perhaps brought to reality thanks to the incentive of a $10 million prize that has been proposed by a team of MIT students.

Ever since the first privately financed piloted rocket was launched into space in 2004, spurred by the $10-million Ansari X-Prize, the foundation that established that prize has been creating similar awards to encourage other technological leaps. Follow-up prizes have been offered for the creation of a practical 100-mile-per-gallon car, and for a privately funded robotic lunar mission, among others.

The foundation is always looking for new ideas to promote advances in areas that need an extra boost because they are not attracting enough commercial research and development effort. The X-Prize Lab@MIT, a collaboration between the Institute and the X-Prize Foundation aimed at creating concepts for new prizes, led by instructor Erika Wagner of the Deshpande Center for Technological Innovation, just completed its third semester-long class devoted to developing new prize ideas. This time, the subject was energy storage, and the final presentations by the four teams of students in the class were held on Friday, Dec. 11.

Graduate students Daniel Codd (mechanical engineering), Wendelin Michel (AeroAstro), and Paul Tu (MIT Sloan School of Management) proposed the ”Clean Aviation“ X-Prize. The concept, they explained, would be to hold a race from California to New York, in which all the competing planes would have to be powered entirely by electricity and produce no emissions. The planes would be allowed two stops during the journey, which would have to be completed within 24 hours. The first to cross the finish line would get a $7.5 million prize, while the plane that covered the longest distance on a single leg of the flight would win $2.5 million.

”World aviation burns 200 million gallons of fuel per day,“ explained Tu in his team’s presentation. ”That’s equivalent to one Olympic-size pool every minute.“ That situation is unlikely to change without an outside impetus, he said, because of the expense of developing alternatives and ”the entrenched interests of major aviation companies and petroleum companies.“

Michel explained that while this is not the first proposal for a green-aviation challenge, it’s the only one requiring an all-electric, emissions-free system. The plan calls for holding the race three years after the contest is announced, and then if no team is able to complete the challenge, holding a second contest two years later for a reduced prize. ”It would be open to all possible entrants, from people working in a garage to Boeing.“

That plan, with its coast-to-coast race, would likely produce the most visually interesting, media-appealing contest, but the other three teams also came up with concepts for interesting challenges that could lead to technological advances with potentially widespread applications. One team, for example, proposed a prize for the creation of a small (miniature refrigerator-sized), mass-producible power storage module suitable for use in individual homes, as a way of offsetting the peak loads that dominate electric utilities’ needs for new power plants. The goal would be to have the units priced at $100 each, to spur widespread adoption, and the prize would include an initial order for 50,000 units to be installed in a single area of a city.

Widespread adoption of such a technology, the team said, could eliminate the need for half of all power plants, since half of the nation’s generating capacity is in place just to meet peak loads. Once developed, said team member Tim Grejtak, a junior in mechanical engineering, ”we anticipate this would be an entirely market-driven approach,“ with units being sold in typical big-box consumer outlets.

The other proposals were for similar kinds of self-contained storage systems, but at different scales and aimed at different applications. One team proposed a prize for units capable of storing enough electricity to be usable by the electric utilities themselves as load-leveling systems. They propose a prize for a 25-megawatt unit, able to deliver its power over a six-hour period. The other team suggested a device suitable for use in villages in the developing world, where they could power computers in a school, for example. The devices, which would deliver 5 kilowatts of electricity for up to 10 hours, would be a way to help bring power to the 1.6 billion people around the world who currently lack access to reliable electric power.

Ultimately, the decision about which, if any, of these proposals will be launched as X-Prize competitions rests with the X-Prize Foundation itself. The foundation was created and is run by Peter Diamandis ’83, SM ’88, who initially set it up to administer the first X-Prize, which led to back-to-back flights into space by the one-person rocket called SpaceShipOne, in 2004. The successor to that craft, the eight-person SpaceShipTwo, was unveiled last week and is expected to begin carrying ordinary citizens (and quite a few celebrities) into space in about two years, ushering in a new era in space transportation.

At least one of the expert judges, who rated the different plans that were presented last week, thinks these proposals deserve to move forward. Robert Metcalfe ‘69, co-inventor of Ethernet and founder of 3Com, mentioned that at the foundation’s headquarters in Playa Vista, Calif., there is a large whiteboard on the wall that lists all the ideas currently under consideration as future X-Prizes. ”You have never seen anything so exciting“ as that listing of potential prizes, he said. The four new ideas presented by the MIT students, he said, are ”not yet up on that board, but will surely get there.“

Source: MIT

Tracking newcancer-killing particles with MRI

Nanoparticle could allow diagnosis, treatment in one visit

HOUSTON -- (Dec. 14, 2009) -- Researchers at Rice University and Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) have created a single nanoparticle that can be tracked in real time with MRI as it homes in on cancer cells, tags them with a fluorescent dye and kills them with heat. The all-in-one particle is one of the first examples from a growing field called "theranostics" that develops technologies physicians can use to diagnose and treat diseases in a single procedure.

The research is available online in the journal Advanced Functional Materials. Tests so far involve laboratory cell cultures, but the researchers said MRI tracking will be particularly advantageous as they move toward tests in animals and people.

"Some of the most essential questions in nanomedicine today are about biodistribution -- where particles go inside the body and how they get there," said study co-author Naomi Halas. "Noninvasive tests for biodistribution will be enormously useful on the path to FDA approval, and this technique -- adding MRI functionality to the particle you're testing and using for therapy -- is a very promising way of doing this."

Halas, Rice's Stanley C. Moore Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering and professor of chemistry and biomedical engineering, is a pioneer in nanomedicine. The all-in-one particles are based on nanoshells -- particles she invented in the 1990s that are currently in human clinical trials for cancer treatment. Nanoshells harvest laser light that would normally pass harmlessly through the body and convert it into tumor-killing heat.

In designing the new particle, Halas partnered with Amit Joshi, assistant professor in BCM's Division of Molecular Imaging, to modify nanoshells by adding a fluorescent dye that glows when struck by near-infrared (NIR) light. NIR light is invisible and harmless, so NIR imaging could provide doctors with a means of diagnosing diseases without surgery.

In studying ways to attach the dye, Halas' graduate student, Rizia Bardhan, found that dye molecules emitted 40-50 times more light if a tiny gap was left between them and the surface of the nanoshell. The gap was just a few nanometers wide, but rather than waste the space, Bardhan inserted a layer of iron oxide that would be detectable with MRI. The researchers also attached an antibody that lets the particles bind to the surface of breast and ovarian cancer cells.

In the lab, the team tracked the fluorescent particles and confirmed that they targeted cancer cells and destroyed them with heat. Joshi said the next step will be to destroy whole tumors in live animals. He estimates that testing in humans is at least two years away, but the ultimate goal is a system where a patient gets a shot containing nanoparticles with antibodies that are tailored for the patient's cancer. Using NIR imaging, MRI or a combination of the two, doctors would observe the particles' progress through the body, identify areas where tumors exist and then kill them with heat.

"This particle provides four options -- two for imaging and two for therapy," Joshi said. "We envision this as a platform technology that will present practitioners with a choice of options for directed treatment."

Eventually, Joshi said, he hopes to develop specific versions of the particles that can attack cancer at different stages, particularly early stage cancer, which is difficult to diagnose and treat with current technology. The researchers also expect to use different antibody labels to target specific forms of the disease. Halas said the team has been careful to choose components that are either already approved for medical use or are already in clinical trials.

"What's nice is that every single component of this has been approved or is on a path toward FDA approval," Halas said. "We're putting together components that all have good, proven track records."

Bardhan and BCM postdoctoral researcher Wenxue Chen are co-primary authors of the paper. Additional Rice co-authors include Emilia Morosan, assistant professor of physics and astronomy, and graduate students Ryan Huschka and Liang Zhao. Additional BCM co-authors include Robia Pautler, assistant professor of neuroscience and radiology, postdoctoral researcher Marc Bartels and graduate student Carlos Perez-Torres.

The research was sponsored by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, the Welch Foundation and the Department of Defense's Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative.

View the paper at http://tinyurl.com/nanocomplex.

Source: Rice University

Rice physicists find reappearing quantum trios

Study of ultracold atoms proves theory about universal quantum mechanism

HOUSTON -- (Dec. 11, 2009) -- Using atoms at temperatures colder than deep space, Rice University physicists have delivered overwhelming proof for a once-scoffed-at theory that's become a hotbed for research some 40 years after it first appeared. In a paper available online in Science, Rice's team offers experimental evidence for a universal quantum mechanism that allows trios of particles to appear and reappear at higher energy levels in an infinite progression. The triplets, often called trimers, form in special cases where pairs cannot.

"It's such a remarkable phenomena," said team leader Randy Hulet. "There are examples, like the Borromean rings (see below), where having a third component is crucial. Any two of the rings will unbind if the third is removed, and these trimers are similar. The particles want to bind, but no two can do it. They need the third one to make it happen."

The trimers were first predicted almost 40 years ago by theoretical physicist Vitaly Efimov. The most striking feature of Efimov's prediction was that the effect was both universal and repeating. That meant that the trimers could form from anything, be it as large as an atom or as small as a quark. And it also meant that Efimov's trimers would form repeatedly, up and down the energy scale in a stepwise fashion. Efimov, now at the University of Washington, even predicted the spacing in energy of the trimers; he said they would appear every time the binding energy increased by a factor of 22.7.

"A lot of people didn't believe him," said Hulet, Rice's Fayez Sarofim Professor of Physics and Astronomy. "That's partly because physicists can handle two-body problems quite well and many-body problems fairly well, but when there are just a few objects, like the three bodies in these Efimov trimers, there are just too many variables."

As Hulet points out, there is still no general mathematical solution for the most classic of all "three-body" problems -- the sun-Earth-moon problem.

"You can do a numerical calculation, of course," he said. "You can calculate to arbitrary precision what the sun, Earth and moon are doing relative to one another at any given time, but you cannot write out a formula for that on paper. There is no general solution for that or any other three-body problem."

What Efimov offered in 1970 was not a general solution for the three-body problem, but it was the next-best thing -- a universal relationship that would hold true for any particle but only under a particular set of circumstances.

Hulet said nuclear physicists tried for decades to find experimental evidence of Efimov trimers using nuclear particles, but they found that there wasn't a strong enough attractive interaction between the particles to satisfy the conditions laid out by Efimov.

In the 1980s, physicists began using a combination of powerful lasers and magnetic fields to trap and cool atoms to ultracold temperatures. As thermodynamic heat is driven from the atoms, they move slower and slower. That let physicists study atoms in a new way, and as the techniques progressed, physicists were eventually able to remove so much thermodynamic energy from these trapped atoms that they began to manifest the effects of quantum physics.

Efimov trimers are one manifestation of quantum physics, and Hulet said a number of research groups worldwide have been racing to study them for several years. The first Efimov trimer was observed in 2006, and the first set of two connected trimers was observed in early 2009.

In their experiments, Hulet, postdoctoral researcher Scott Pollack and graduate student Dan Dries designed a test for Efimov's prediction about universal scaling -- the notion that trimers emerged again and again in a stepwise fashion. The team used a property of ultracold atoms called a "Feshbach resonance" to tune the interactions between lithium atoms. As they dialed up and down the energy scale, they saw Efimov's trimers appear and reappear again and again. The team confirmed another Efimov prediction as well by finding four-body "tetramers" in close proximity to each trimer. In all, Hulet, Pollack and Dries found 11 different signatures for trimers and tetramers, each exactly where Efimov and others had predicted.

Efimov was in the room when Hulet presented the first results of the tests at a scientific meeting in Rome.

"He was so excited that he came up and gave me a high five after the talk," Hulet said. "In his original paper, he had a figure that looked just like what we had found. It was such an amazing prediction, and to see it borne out like this is very special."

Hulet's research is sponsored by the National Science Foundation, the Office of Naval Research, the Keck Foundation and the Welch Foundation.

Source: Rice University

Nanomedicine: ending 'hit and miss' design

Rice, TMC team wins stimulus funds for nanoparticle standardization

HOUSTON -- (Dec. 10, 2009) -- One of the promises of nanomedicine is the design of tiny particles that can home in on diseased cells and get inside them. Nanoparticles can carry drugs into cells and tag cells for MRI and other diagnostic tests; and they may eventually even enter a cell's nucleus to repair damaged genes. Unfortunately, designing them involves as much luck as engineering.

"Everything in nanomedicine right now is hit-and-miss as far as the biological fate of nanoparticles," said Rice University bioengineering researcher Jennifer West. "There's no systematic understanding of how to design a particle to accomplish a certain goal in terms of where it goes in a cell or if it even goes into a cell."

West's lab and 11 others in the Texas Medical Center -- including three at Rice's BioScience Research Collaborative -- are hoping to change that, thanks to a $3 million Grand Opportunity (GO) grant from the National Institutes of Health. NIH established the GO grant program with funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).

One problem facing scientists today is that nanoparticles come in many shapes and sizes and can be made of very different materials. Some nanoparticles are spherical. Others are long and thin. Some are made of biodegradable plastic and others of gold, carbon or semiconducting metals. And sometimes size -- rather than shape or material -- is all-important.

West demonstrates this using a video on her computer that was created by Rice GO grant investigator Junghae Suh. The movie was created by snapping an image with a microscope every few seconds. In the video, dozens of particles move about inside a cell. Half of the particles are tagged with a red fluorescent dye and move very slowly. The rest are green and zip from place to place.

"These are made of the same material and have the same chemistry," said West, Rice's Isabel C. Cameron Professor and department chair of Bioengineering. "They are just different sizes. Yet you can see the profound differences in how they are moving in the cell. As we start to explore out further in the range of sizes and in altering the chemistry of the particles, we think we're likely to see even bigger impacts on where things go inside the cell."

The job of determining whether that's the case falls to Suh, assistant professor in bioengineering at Rice. Unlike other studies in the field, which rely on snapshots of dead cells, Suh's method lets researchers track single particles in living cells. Her lab will use the method in side-by-side comparisons of particles provided by the other 11 laboratories in the study.

In all, eight classes of nanoparticles will be studied. These include long, thin tubes of pure carbon called fullerenes, tiny specks of semiconductors called quantum dots, pure gold rods and spheres, as well as nanoshells -- nanoparticles invented at Rice that consist of a glass core covered by a thin gold shell. In addition, Suh's lab will examine organic particles made of polyethylene glycol and of chitosan.

"We will use a method called single-particle tracking to capture the dynamics of nanoparticle movement in live cells," Suh said. "Using confocal microscopy, we first create movies of the particles as they transit the cells. Then, we use image-processing software to extract information about how fast they move, what regions they're attracted to, etc. By comparing the movement and fate of the various nanoparticles designed by the multiple research laboratories, we hope to identify correlations between a nanoparticle’s physicochemical properties and their intracellular behavior."

At the end of the two-year study, the team hopes to have a database that charts the expected response of particles of a given size, type and chemistry. Ultimately, the hope is to provide researchers with a tool that will help predict how a particular particle is likely to behave. That, in turn, could help researchers speed the development of new treatments for disease.

"We want to understand where the particles go inside the cell, what organelles they associate with, whether or not they associate with any of the cytoskeletal structures and how they move inside the cell," Suh said. "For different applications, you're going to want your particles going to different places. We need to know where they go and how they behave so we can design the right particle for a particular job."

"We are thrilled to get the opportunity to really join forces to study this," Suh said. "It's just the sort of problem that requires the kind of support NIH is providing with ARRA funding. It's a problem that really requires a multidisciplinary, interinstitutional approach.“

The project’s other principal investigators include Rebekah Drezek and Lon Wilson, both of Rice; Mauro Ferrari, Paolo Decuzzi, David Gorenstein, Jim Klostergaard, Chun Li, Gabriel Lopez-Berestein and Anil Sood, all of the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston; and Wah Chiu of Baylor College of Medicine.

GO grant funding is provided by the NIH's National Institute of General Medical Sciences. NIH established the GO grant program to support projects that address large, specific research endeavors that are likely to deliver near-term growth and investment in biomedical research and development, public health and health care delivery.

Source: Rice University

At Stanford, nanotubes + ink + paper = equal instant battery (w/ Video)

Bing Hu, a post-doctoral fellow, prepares a small square of ordinary paper to with an ink that will deposit nanotubes on the surface that can then be charged with energy to create a battery.

Stanford scientists are harnessing nanotechnology to quickly produce ultra-lightweight, bendable batteries and supercapacitors in the form of everyday paper.

Simply coating a sheet of paper with ink made of carbon nanotubes and silver nanowires makes a highly conductive storage device, said Yi Cui, assistant professor of materials science and engineering.

"Society really needs a low-cost, high-performance energy storage device, such as batteries and simple supercapacitors," he said.

Like batteries, capacitors hold an electric charge, but for a shorter period of time. However, capacitors can store and discharge electricity much more rapidly than a battery.

Cui's work is reported in the paper "Highly Conductive Paper for Energy Storage Devices," published online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Dip an ordinary piece of paper into ink infused with carbon nanotubes and silver nanowires, and it turns into a battery or supercapacitor. Crumple the piece of paper, and it still works. Stanford researcher Yi Cui sees many uses for this new way of storing electricity. : Jack Hubbard, Stanford News Service.

"These nanomaterials are special," Cui said. "They're a one-dimensional structure with very small diameters." The small diameter helps the nanomaterial ink stick strongly to the fibrous paper, making the battery and supercapacitor very durable. The paper supercapacitor may last through 40,000 charge-discharge cycles - at least an order of magnitude more than lithium batteries. The nanomaterials also make ideal conductors because they move electricity along much more efficiently than ordinary conductors, Cui said.

Cui had previously created nanomaterial energy storage devices using plastics. His new research shows that a paper battery is more durable because the ink adheres more strongly to paper (answering the question, "Paper or plastic?"). What's more, you can crumple or fold the paper battery, or even soak it in acidic or basic solutions, and the performance does not degrade. "We just haven't tested what happens when you burn it," he said.

The flexibility of paper allows for many clever applications. "If I want to paint my wall with a conducting energy storage device," Cui said, "I can use a brush." In his lab, he demonstrated the battery to a visitor by connecting it to an LED (light-emitting diode), which glowed brightly.

A paper supercapacitor may be especially useful for applications like electric or hybrid cars, which depend on the quick transfer of electricity. The paper supercapacitor's high surface-to-volume ratio gives it an advantage.

"This technology has potential to be commercialized within a short time," said Peidong Yang, professor of chemistry at the University of California-Berkeley. "I don't think it will be limited to just energy storage devices," he said. "This is potentially a very nice, low-cost, flexible electrode for any electrical device."

Cui predicts the biggest impact may be in large-scale storage of electricity on the distribution grid. Excess electricity generated at night, for example, could be saved for peak-use periods during the day. Wind farms and solar energy systems also may require storage.

"The most important part of this paper is how a simple thing in daily life - paper - can be used as a substrate to make functional conductive electrodes by a simple process," Yang said. "It's nanotechnology related to daily life, essentially."

Cui's research team includes postdoctoral scholars Liangbing Hu and JangWook Choi, and graduate student Yuan Yang.

Provided by Stanford University

Global - Egypt

Egypt: Nanotechnology comes to AUC

Bikya Masr Staff

  8 December 2009 in Egypt, News, Tech

CAIRO: Scientists at The American University in Cairo (AUC) are currently engaged in what the university called ”ground-breaking research“ in nanoscience and technology-oriented fields that are expected to change the way the world lives in the near future. Through the Yousef Jameel Science and Technology Research Center (YJSTRC) at the university, using state-of-the-art equipment in the physical sciences, engineering, nanotechnology and bionanotechnology, AUC is conducting cutting-edge research in these fields.

In a press statement, AUC said the new research includes ”the development of novel diagnostic tests for sensitive detection of the hepatitis C virus; detection of cancer biomarkers, as well as creating a new generation of nanodevices that include smart bricks with tiny sensors, which can analyze building safety and warn of fires and earthquakes.“

Accordingly, the hope is that these new sensors will be able to be mounted in and around cars in order to assist airbags in deploying properly, warn of low tire pressure and sense objects around the vehicle. They are hopeful that the devices will be invisible and consume a minute amount of power.

Nanotechnology is the science of the very small, dealing with atoms and molecules, and with dimensions varying from 100nm down to 1nm.

”One has to visualize how small a nanometer is. It is 1x 10-9 meters or one one-billionth of a meter long. They are incredibly small and professors working on the nanoscale are looking at a world most people simply would not recognize,“ Sherif Sedky, physics professor and associate director of YJSTRC said, adding that AUC professors are constructing miniaturized devices.

These devices are commonly referred to as microelectromechanical (MEMS) and nanoelectromechanical (NEMS) systems, which are used in a broad range of applications which includes, but is not limited to, imaging, communication systems, blood pressure regulation, muscle stimulators, high density storage media and lab on chip.

”The field is only 15 years old, but nearly every system you can think of has some MEMS component in it, from pharmaceuticals and mobile phones to the wing of an airplane and the fabric of stain-resistant shirts,“ Sedky added.

Recently, Sedky and the microfabrication group that he heads at the YJSTRC have been a patent jointly owned with the Interuniversity Microelectronics Center (IMEC) in Belgium for their development of new techniques that control the physical properties of thin films. These will be suitable for a broad range of miniaturized devices that can be integrated with driving and control electronics.

”We are also working on developing energy harvesters that could convert wasted energy into a useful one, which could then be used to charge devices implemented inside the human body, as well as developing miniaturized antennas and high precision motion systems that are suitable for space applications,“ he explained.

Leading the research efforts in the field of bionanotechnology at the YJSTRC, Professor Hassan Azzazy, chair of AUC’s chemistry department, constructs and utilizes a variety of nanoparticles including gold nanoparticles and nanocrystals to develop unique diagnostic tests for sensitive detection of the hepatitis C virus.

”Nanoparticles are also used in different test configurations to develop experiments for the detection of cancer biomarkers such as alpha-fetoprotein, a marker of hepatocellular carcinoma (liver cancer),“ said Azzazy in the AUC press statement, adding that these nanoparticle-based tests are cheaper and generate results in a shorter time compared to their commercial counterparts.

”We are also working on designing nano-carriers for controlled simultaneous delivery of therapeutic drugs and genetic materials into liver cells using built-in nano-switches,“ he explained.

The projects are being funded by grants from YJSTRC and the Arab Science the Technology Foundation in the United Arab Emirates.

http://bikyamasr.com/?p=6469

Global-Czech Republic

Czech Republic Launches New Nanotechnology Research Initiative with EU Support

Toxicology, mechanical engineering, nanoscience and veterinary medicine are the subjects of four major new EU-funded research initiatives launched recently in the Czech Republic. The projects, which will share over CZK 2 billion (EUR 77 million), are financed under the Operational Programme Research and Development for Innovation (OP R+DI), which receives EU support through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).

The aim of the OP R&DI is to strengthen research, development and innovation in the Czech Republic with a view to enhancing the country's economic growth and competitiveness, and to make the Czech regions attractive locations for research and related activities.

One grant recipient is Masaryk University in Brno, which has been allocated CZK 544 million (EUR 21 million) for its CETOCOEN ('Centre for the study of toxic substances') project. The money will allow the university to build a new pavilion for the centre and put together a research team comprising both Czech and foreign scientists with expertise in environmental science.

The project will focus on the development of new chemical and toxicological tools to monitor environmental quality, assess the impacts of man-made and natural toxins in the environment on human health, and model the behaviour of these compounds. The team will create an open access environmental database and link it up to other epidemiological databases. They will also work closely with regional authorities and support regional development through the organisation of an international conference or workshop and annual summer schools.

Another project is the NETME ('New technology for mechanical engineering') Centre at Brno University of Technology. As its name suggests, the NETME Centre's work focuses on research into advanced technologies for mechanical engineering. The CZK 768 million (EUR 30 million) grant will help the centre significantly enhance its research activities by allowing it to invest in state-of-the-art infrastructure and equipment. In addition, the new equipment will help the centre improve its education programmes and ensure its research is applied in practice.

Elsewhere, the Technical University of Liberec has been allocated CZK 800 million (EUR 31 million) for the Centre for Nanomaterials, Advanced Technologies and Innovation. The funds will go towards the purchase of new equipment and devices to allow the centre's researchers to carry out top-level experiments in the fields of material research (with a focus on nanomaterials) and competitive engineering (notably in the areas of robotics, mobile devices and safe engineering subjects).

Finally, CZK 365 million (EUR 14 million) will go to the Centre for Advanced Microbiology and Immunology Research in Veterinary Medicine Research at the Institute of Veterinary Medicine in Brno. The main activities of this initiative will be the development of veterinary vaccines, the study of vaccination procedures and the immune response after vaccination, the development of diagnostic kits for the detection of contaminants in samples of biological origin, and the monitoring of the causes of infections in farm animals with a view to creating techniques to prevent them and control their spread.

The work will include the reconstruction of a number of the institute's buildings in order to make them more suitable for research and experimental work involving animals. The project will also fund the purchase of new equipment and enable the training of the team's workers.

The OP R&DI is managed by the Czech Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports and has a total budget of EUR 2,436 billion. It received 44 applications in its first round of calls for proposals. The ministry is expected to release details of a further four projects slated for funding shortly; they are currently finalising these projects' budgets. The projects were selected following a stringent evaluation process involving both Czech and international experts.

http://www.azonano.com/news.asp?newsID=14952 

Combining Nanotubes and Antibodies for Breast Cancer ‘Search and Destroy’ Missions

Photomicrographs demonstrate the dramatic impact of using nanotubes to selectively locate and destroy HER2 breast cancer tumors. Tumor cells on the left were treated only with antibodies against the HER2 protein and then irradiated with near-infrared light. Those on the right were treated with a complex of antibodies and nanotubes and then irradiated. Both cultures then were stained with fluorescent dye—green color indicates live cells while red marks areas where cells have been killed. Credit: NIST

Single-walled nanotubes—cylinders of carbon about a nanometer in diameter—have been highly touted for potential applications such as ultrastrong fibers, electrical wires in molecular devices, or hydrogen storage components for fuel cells. Thanks to a new development by researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and five partners, you can add one more application to the list: detection and destruction of an aggressive form of breast cancer.

HER2 is one of a family of genes that help regulate the growth and proliferation of human cells. Normal cells have two copies of HER2, but about 20 to 25 percent of breast cancer cells have multiple copies of the gene, resulting in the overproduction of a HER2-encoded protein (called HER2 and designated in Roman type versus italics for the gene) that is associated with particularly fast growing and difficult to treat tumors. About 40,000 women in the United States are diagnosed annually with this form of breast cancer.

In a recently published paper in BMC Cancer,* the NIST-led research team bonded an antibody that has been created to attack the HER2 protein, chicken immunoglobulin Y (IgY), to short nanotubes (about 90 nanometers long, or 5,000 times shorter than an amoeba). Both halves of the special combination—the antibody and the nanotube—have critical roles to play in selectively hunting down the HER2 tumor cells and eliminating them.

First, the broad genetic differences between avian and human species means that the chicken IgY antibody to HER2 reacts strongly with the target protein expressed on tumor cells while ignoring normal cells with other human proteins. The carbon nanotubes attached to the antibodies also become linked to the HER2 tumors.

Two unique optical properties of carbon nanotubes allow this link to be exploited for improved detection and destruction of HER2 breast cancer cells. Near-infrared laser light at a wavelength of 785 nanometers reflects intensely off the nanotubes, and this strong signal is easily detected by a technique called Raman spectroscopy. Increase the laser light’s wavelength to 808, nanometers and it will be absorbed by the nanotubes, incinerating them and anything to which they’re attached—in this case, the HER2 tumor cells.

The experiment described in the BMC Cancer paper was conducted in laboratory cell cultures. Using the HER2 IgY-nanotube complex to selectively identify and target HER2 tumors resulted in a nearly 100 percent eradication of the cancer cells while nearby normal cells remained unharmed. In comparison, there only was a slight reduction in cancer cells for cultures treated with anti-HER2 antibody alone.

The next step for the research team is to conduct mouse trials of the HER2 IgY-nanotube complex to see if the dramatic cancer-killing ability works in animals as well as it does in the lab. In a separate but related project, the team hopes to use a nanotube-antibody combination against another tumor cell protein, MUC4, to treat pancreatic cancer.

The research was funded under an interagency agreement between NIST and the National Cancer Institute (NCI), and in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation. Along with scientists from NIST, the research team included members from Rutgers University, Cornell University, the New Jersey Institute of Technology, NCI and Translabion, a private company located in Clarksburg, Md.

* Y. Xiao, X. Gao, O. Taratula, S. Treado, A. Urbas, R.D. Holbrook, R.E. Cavicchi, C.T. Avedisian, S. Mitra, R. Savla, P.D. Wagner, S. Srivastava and H. He. Anti-HER2 IgY antibody-functionalized single-walled carbon nanotubes for detection and selective destruction of breast cancer cells. BMC Cancer, Vol. 9, No. 351, published online Oct. 2, 2009.

Source: NIST

LST builds first global nanotech regulation database 

A global database of government documents on nanotechnology is being launched today by three

law professors at Arizona State University who, with their colleagues in Australia and

Belgium, have corralled and organized a massive number of regulatory documents dealing with

the rapidly advancing technology.

The Nanotech Regulatory Document Archive, (http://nanotech.law.asu.edu/), is a free resource

built and maintained by the Center for the Study of Law, Science, & Technology at the Sandra

Day O'Connor College of Law. Over the past year, Gary Marchant, the Center's Executive

Director, and Center Faculty Fellows Douglas Sylvester and Kenneth Abbott, developed the

database as part of a multiyear grant from the U.S. Department of Energy's Genomic Science

Program.

The project is a natural fit for the Center, which is housed in the first U.S. law school to

offer a regular course in nanotechnology, has several faculty members who actively publish

in the area and has amassed a cluster of law student researchers in the emerging technology,

Marchant said.

The archive will enable government regulators, industry officials, public-interest groups,

educators, students and the public to search for a variety of documents from every country

in the world, and from every level of government. Its creation comes at a time when the

worldwide regulation of nanotechnology is expected to ramp up considerably, in an attempt to

keep pace with the science, Marchant said.

"There's going to be a lot of activity in this area, and it's very important for people to

be able to keep up," he said. "Every country is in the same place, going through the same

steps, starting to put into place regulatory programs. We need to promote harmonization

among these countries, and one way to do that is to have access in other jurisdictions, and

to see what other people are doing."

Sylvester expects the Web site will become an essential resource for the latest news on

nanotechnology regulation and a great tool for researching and comparing regulatory

approaches around the world. "As the pace and scope of nano regulation grows, the need for

international collaboration in projects like these also will grow," he said.

The value of the database extends even beyond nanotechnology, Abbott added. "Biotechnology,

cognitive science and other technologies are developing just as rapidly, and will have

equally significant social impacts," he said. "We need to learn how countries can and do

respond to innovations like these."

The Center was assisted by the Centre of Regulatory Studies at Monash University Law School

in Australia and the Institute of Environmental and Energy Law at K.U. Leuven in Belgium.

Diana Bowman, a Senior Research Fellow in the Monash Centre, said the archive is a much

needed resource that will become a hub for those interested in exploring the evolving

debates and understanding nanotechnology policy and regulatory developments.

"While scientists and industry have been increasingly focused on manipulating matter at the

nanoscale in order to produce increasingly sophisticated and novel applications,

governments, academics, civil society and other key stakeholders have dedicated significant

time and resources to considering the broad implications of the technology," Bowman said.

"The speed of these debates has moved swiftly, resulting in an overwhelming volume of

literature. And this is only the beginning."

Geert Van Calster, co-director of K.U. Leuven's Institute, pointed out the paradox in the

nanotechnology regulatory debate, in that there are few regulations on the books, yet a

plethora of analysis, opinions, government resolutions and other information exist.

"This archive will allow the user quickly to find the trees of the debate, and subsequently

to dig for the sources that will give you the forest for the trees - a tour de force, and

one that is very timely," Van Calster said.

In the database, each entry provides a direct link and/or an attached copy of a specific

document, an abstract of that document prepared for the database, and a listing of other

pertinent information including author, date and document type. Documents for a specific

jurisdiction can be accessed by clicking on a map or on a region, nation or entity.

"The Web site is intended to operate as an edited Wiki, and we urge users from around the

globe to edit, add, delete and comment on the Web site," Sylvester said. "It's a great tool,

but it will require users to keep it up to date."

http://www.aw.asu.edu/?id=2122l

Global-Mexico

World-Class Center for Biomedical and Nanomedical Research to be Built by Mexico City Government

The government of Mexico City today announced it will build a world-class center for biomedical and nanomedical research, called Campus Biometropolis. The center for medical research and development will be integrated with the National Autonomous University of Mexico, the top Spanish speaking university in the world. The research complex, scheduled to begin construction in 2010, has been designed by the internationally-acclaimed architectural firm, Foster + Partners, whose previous works include the Hearst Tower in New York City and Berlin's Reichstag building. Campus Biometropolis, which will attract significant investment over the next several years, will become an engine for the transformation of Mexico's economy. Mexico has first-class human resources and considerable infrastructure to position itself as the leading knowledge center for Latin America. It will attract medical tourism, deliver multiple medical services for the US economy and become a platform for world-class clinical research.

This state-of-the-art research and development cluster will look to attract pharmaceutical and biomedical companies and organizations from around the world. Given its close proximity to corporate laboratories, start-ups and public research institutions, it will provide fertile ground for R&D, and offer an environment to accelerate product development and commercialization. As one of the world's leading financial capitals, Mexico City is an ideal location for companies looking to access Spanish-speaking markets.

"Mexico City's Campus Biometropolis is the cornerstone of a broader vision to transform Mexico City into a knowledge capital," said Mexico City Mayor Marcelo Ebrard. "This is a critical investment in the future of Mexico City, taking us a step further toward becoming a global hub of scientific and technological excellence."

Mayor Ebrard continued, "As one of the most vibrant cities in the world, Mexico City is the ideal location for pharmaceutical and biomedical companies and organizations looking for new development opportunities and access to new markets."  Campus Biometropolis will be sustainably designed and built, and will be composed of hospitals, laboratories and medical universities, as well as residential and retail areas.

In addition, the complex will include a natural reserve and will become a model for green buildings and water conservation. This project is in accordance with Mayor Ebrard's plan to transform the city into one of the most environmentally-conscience and sustainable cities in the world.

The medical hub is at the core of Mayor Ebrard's General Development Plan, which was designed to convert Mexico City into Latin America's premier knowledge economy. The five-year plan, launched in 2007, aims to create more equity for Mexico City's inhabitants by building a sustainable and inclusive city, promoting equality through better health, education and technology and improving the competitiveness of the Mexican capital.

Source: Gobierno del Distrito Federal

The First Live Targeting of Tumors with

RNA-Based Technology 

Finding and treating a tumor without disturbing normal tissue presents challenges -- sometimes the most effective therapies can be invasive and harsh. Researchers at Duke University Medical Center have devised a way they might deliver the right therapy directly to tumors using special molecules, called aptamers, which specifically bind to living tumor tissue.

They screened a large pool of aptamers in a rodent with liver cancer until they found the best molecule to bind to a tumor protein.

"We are already exploring attaching chemicals to the aptamers, so the aptamer molecules could deliver tumor-killing agents where they are needed, which is the next phase of our research," said senior author Bryan Clary, MD, chief of the Division of Hepatopancreatobiliary and Oncologic Surgery.

The study was published in Nature Chemical Biology online on Nov. 29. Aptamers are small pieces of RNA that bind to a specific target molecule, usually a protein.

They offer ease of use because they can be easily regenerated and modified and therefore have increased stability over some other agents, such as protein-based antibodies.

Notably, they have a very low chance of immune-system interference, making them greatcandidates for tumor diagnosis and therapy.

"Most importantly, it's not necessary to have detailed knowledge of protein changes in the disease before the selection process," said lead author Jing Mi, MD, PhD, assistant professor in the Duke Department of Surgery.

"This greatly simplifies the process of molecular probe development. The selected aptamers can be used to discover proteins not previously linked with the disease in question, which could speed up the search for effective therapies."

The researchers used a large pool of RNA strands and applied them to a rodent with a liver tumor, the type of metastatic tumor that often results from a colon cancer tumor.

"We hypothesized that the RNA molecules that bind to normal cellular elements would be filtered out, and this happened," said Clary, who treats colon cancer patients. "In this way, we found the RNA molecules that went specifically to the tumor."

The researchers removed the tumor, extracted the specific RNA in the tumor, amplified these pieces of RNA to create a greater amount, and reinjected the molecules to learn which bound most tightly to the tumor. They repeated this process 14 times to find a good candidate.

The team found a tumor-targeting RNA aptamer that specifically bound to RNA helicase p68, a nuclear protein produced in colorectal tumors.

"This aptamer not only binds to p68 protein in cell culture, but also preferentially binds to cancer deposits in a living animal," Mi said. "The nice thing about this aptamer approach is that it could be used to discover the molecular signatures of many other diseases."

Clary said the process could be repeated with different types of tumors. For example, a scientist might take a breast cancer line and grow it in the lung as a metastasis model and then perform in vivo selection to identify RNAs specifically binding to the lung tumor.

"This would work, theoretically," Clary said. "The idea of selecting molecules targeting a tumor growing in a body that results in a useful reagent for biologic exploration and therapy delivery in tumors is exciting."

In fact, based on earlier research done with proteins called peptides, the researchers expected that the aptamer process would find proteins in the blood vessels feeding the liver tumor, but instead they found the p68 target inside of tumor cells.

"We think this is a valuable target because delivering to the sites inside of cells may make it easier to treat an entire tumor with drugs that are 'escorted' by the aptamer," Clary said.

He said that repeating the selection and amplification process with the same liver tumor could lead to development of other aptamers that bind well to proteins in tumor tissue besides p68. The team focused its initial efforts on developing an escort for p68 because this protein was known to be overexpressed in colon cancer.

Other authors include Yingmiao Liu, Johannes Urban and Bruce A. Sullenger of the Duke Department of Surgery, Zahid N. Rabbani of the Duke Department of Radiation Oncology, and Zhongguang Yang of the Moses Cone Memorial Hospital Department of Internal Medicine.

The study was funded by the Elsa U. Pardee Foundation, an American Cancer Society pilot award, and National Institutes of Health grants.

Source: Duke University

Global-Africa

Zimbabwe: President Caps 393 CUT Graduates

The Chinhoyi University of Technology (CUT), Zimbabwe, graduated 393 students this past week, the fifth such ceremony for the university. Speaking at the ceremony, Vice chancellor Professor David Simbi said the university was making efforts to stem the "brain drain", or loss of educated citizens to other countries, by developing synergies with local and regional universities for staff exchange programs and collaborative research.

One such program, with the University of Cape Town's Centre for Materials Engineering in South Africa, focuses on the development of platinum alloy catalysts using nanotechnology. According to Simbi, "[T]hese [catalysts] will be used in hydrogen fuel cell development research activities to further facilitate, through value addition, the exploitation of our platinum group metal mineral resource." Simbi also urged the government to review incentives and salaries for staff to safeguard the quality of education. The article can be viewed online at the link below.

Source:allAfrica.com

Author:Walter Nyamukondiwa

http://allafrica.com/stories/200911300032.html

Global-Ireland

Nanotech discovery could bring about

the end of animal testing

30.11.2009

Toxichip, a new nano-biotechnology solution developed at the Tyndall Institute in Cork, has the potential to replace animal testing used in toxicity screening.

The discovery, unveiled by the Minister for Education and Science Batt O’Keefe today to market the beginning of Nanoweek is a sensing system that monitors the effects toxicants have on human and animal cells.

For example, it is capable of monitoring how cells behave and interact with drugs, chemical pollutants in the environment and toxic substances in food and beverages. Cell-based biosensors, developed and fabricated at Tyndall, integrated in the Toxichip platform also have the potential to replace animal testing now used in toxicity screening.

The funding for the project was from the FP6 European programme and included several European academic and industry partners.

Nanotechnology's importance to Ireland

”Nanotechnology is growing ever more important to Ireland’s future competitiveness,“ Prof Roger Whatmore, CEO, Tyndall National Institute explained.

”Through Government and industry funding, we now have a world-leading infrastructure in place with the Competence Centre for Applied Nanotechnology (CCAN), the Tyndall National Institute and CRANN based in TCD where over 600 researchers are now working in nanoscience. This infrastructure gives us the means to continue building on the expertise we have developed over the past number of years in nano and continue to develop and produce ground-breaking solutions like Toxichip.“

Leonard Hobbs of Intel Ireland noted that the recent establishment of the Competence Centre for Applied Nanotechnology is critical to the development of the nanoscience ecosystem in Ireland.

”The CCAN was established by companies coming together to define their common research interests, which will have a strategic impact on their business area in the coming years. Centres the calibre of the CCAN are essential if we are to be at the forefront of new technology research, making the most of synergies between academia and industry to establish Ireland as a global centre of excellence for nanoscience.“

Toxichip sparks interest

Many companies from diverse industries have already expressed a strong interest in Toxichip. There is considerable demand from pharmaceutical, cosmetics and chemical companies for more sensitive and reliable in-vitro test methods and technologies.

Companies are also committed to introducing in-vitro toxicity testing earlier in their discovery and development processes to contain costs and to reduce the attrition rates of pre-clinical and clinical testing due to toxicity concerns.

Launching the Toxichip, O'Keeffe said: ”The creation of a strong research, innovation and commercialisation ecosystem is a core part of the Government’s vision for a Smart Economy.

”The Toxichip is a wonderful example of that Smart Economy in action. The development demonstrates our capacity to create highly innovative new products when the supports are put in place to allow academia and industry to collaborate. We now have over 600 researchers working in nanotechnology and 300 students undertaking PhD programmes related to nanoscience.“

By John Kennedy

http://www.siliconrepublic.com/news/article/14552/randd/nanotech-discovery-could-bring-about-the-end-of-animal-testing

Fast, easy, and highly sensitive arsenic detection

with gold nanoparticles

November 25th, 2009- Mention of arsenic poisoning usually brings to mind underhanded murder. However, the danger of arsenic poisoning from contaminated drinking water is far greater. Low concentrations of arsenic are found in nearly all soils and thus also in ground water. About 140 million people worldwide possibly drink water that contains arsenic concentrations above the WHO-recommended limit of 10 ppb (parts per billion).

Researchers at Jackson State University (MS, USA) have now developed a new approach for a rapid, easy, and highly sensitive arsenic test. As Paresh Chandra Ray’s team reports in the journal Angewandte Chemie, their method is based on the aggregation of gold nanoparticles, and it selectively detects arsenic in drinking water down to concentrations of 3 ppt (parts per trillion).

Countries like India, Bangladesh, and Thailand are primarily affected by ground water with high arsenic concentrations. However, high concentrations of arsenic have also been found in some areas of North and South America. Once detected, the problem can fairly easily be addressed. Current analytical techniques are time-consuming and require a series of enrichment steps.

The new process could now speed up and simplify arsenic analysis. The scientists working with Ray have attached special organic molecules to the surfaces of gold nanoparticles. These molecules act as ”ligands“ for arsenic, meaning that they form a complex with it. Each arsenic ion can bind to three ligands, which allows it to link together up to three gold particles. The higher the arsenic concentration in the sample, the more strongly the gold particles clump together and the number of bigger aggregates increases. The color of gold nanoparticles in a liquid depends on their size. Whereas the arsenic-free gold nanoparticles appear red, arsenic-induced aggregation causes the color to change to blue. Concentrations down to 1 ppb can be detected with the naked eye by means of the color change. Arsenic binds to the ligands much more strongly than other metals; the researchers were able to increase this selectivity by attaching three different ligands to the gold.

One very precise method for detecting minimal changes in particle size is dynamic light scattering (DLS), in which laser light scattered by the particles is analyzed. By using DLS, Ray and his co-workers were able to detect and quantify arsenic concentrations as low as 3 ppt. In samples of well water from Bangladesh, the team found 28 ppb arsenic; in water from taps in Jackson (Mississippi, USA) they found 380 ppt.

More information: Paresh Chandra Ray, Use of Gold Nanoparticles in a Simple Colorimetric and Ultrasensitive Dynamic Light Scattering Assay: Selective Detection of Arsenic in Groundwater, Angewandte Chemie International Edition 2009, 48, No. 51, 9668-9671, doi: 10.1002/anie.200903958

Provided by Wiley (news : web)

Registration for Online Workshops:

'Nanotechnology for Water Purification'

The ICPC-NanoNet project, an European Union (EU) funded project that brings together partners from the EU, China, India, Russia and Africa with the goal of providing wider access to published nanoscience research and opportunities for collaboration, has announced an online workshop, "Nanotechnology for Water Purification".

The workshop is designed to bring together experts in the field who are interested in cooperating with their peers in Europe, Africa, Asia, Latin America and other parts of the world. The scientific and technical state of nanotechnology and water purification will be highlighted as well as relevant calls for proposals.

The series of three workshops will be held from 12:45pm to 3:15pm (GMT) on December 2, 8, and 15, 2009. Pre-registration is required. The article, and pre-registration information, can be viewed online at the link below.

http://www.icpc-nanonet.org/OnlineWorkshop/index.html

Lookman and Moore Named 2009 LANL Fellows Prize Recipients

Prizes signify exemplary science research and leadership

LOS ALAMOS, New Mexico, November 23, 2009-Commendations for exemplary scientific research and leadership have been bestowed upon Los Alamos National Laboratory researchers Turab Lookman and David S. Moore by the Laboratory Fellows organization.

Lookman and Moore are the 2009 recipients of the Laboratory's Fellows Prizes for research and leadership, respectively. They were selected by a committee of five Laboratory Fellows. The Fellows organization includes some of the Laboratory's most prominent scientists. A Laboratory Fellow cannot be a recipient of a Fellows Prize.

The Fellows Prize for Outstanding Research in Science or Engineering commends individuals for exemplary research performed at the Laboratory within the past 10 years that has had a significant impact on a scientific discipline or program. The committee selected Lookman for "his wide ranging contributions to the understanding of intrinsic inhomogeneity in functional materials." Lookman's work has described for the first time the coupling of elasticity to material functionality such as magnetism and charge polarization. His research provides a potential foundation for new methods of fabricating materials that might be technologically important for new-generation energy research. His work also is important to fundamental materials physics research.

The Fellows Prize for Outstanding Leadership in Science or Engineering commends individuals who stimulate the research interests of talented younger Laboratory staff members and who encourage junior researchers to make the personal sacrifices necessary to become effective leaders. The committee selected Moore for "his inspirational technical leadership in the fields of shock physics and the science of explosives detection." Moore has worked to develop the next generation of scientists in this field by mentoring students at all levels, from high school to graduate- and post-graduate institutions. Many of these students have become Laboratory staff members. Additionally, according to the prize committee, Moore is a nationally recognized leader in explosives detection and "is an exemplary citizen to the Laboratory, to the international scientific community, and to the nation."

An awards reception honoring the 2009 Fellows Prize winners will be held at a later date.

About Los Alamos National Laboratory (www.lanl.gov)

Los Alamos National Laboratory, a multidisciplinary research institution engaged in strategic science on behalf of national security, is operated by Los Alamos National Security, LLC, a team composed of Bechtel National, the University of California, The Babcock & Wilcox Company, and the Washington Division of URS for the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration.

Los Alamos enhances national security by ensuring the safety and reliability of the U.S. nuclear stockpile, developing technologies to reduce threats from weapons of mass destruction, and solving problems related to energy, environment, infrastructure, health, and global security concerns.

Global-Africa

UNISWA Foundation submits E32m project proposal in Kuwait

By Teetee Zwane

The University of Swaziland (UNISWA) Foundation has submitted a proposal to potential investors in Kuwait for funding of about E32 million (US $4 241 472) for a strategic project; the Swaziland Water Quality Management Centre (SWAQMAC) initiated by the university’s Faculty of Science.

Through the project, the institution aims to strengthen the capacity of the Department of Chemistry in addressing clean water scarcity and related national priority issues such as poverty, health (malaria, tuberculosis, HIV and AIDS), nanotechnology innovation, education, renewable energy, gender inequality, institutional infrastructure, environmental degradation (pollution and climate change), import and exports, food insecurity, agriculture, research and development.

In addition, SWAQMAC attempts to build capacity in human resource development through building collaboration and research and development networks locally and regionally.

In essence, SWAQMAC envisages to strengthen and advance the capacity of local communities in Swaziland to access clean water and also to transform science and technology ideas into useable products that will add value to the economic development of Swaziland.

It is anticipated that through national and international partnerships forged through the UNISWA Foundation, a world class facility with modern equipment for water quality assessment; making innovative and cheap purification systems from locally available materials and rural water supply assessment and management will be established.

The facility will have a community outreach programme for provision of service for analysis of water and other products of economic significance in Swaziland including products from the Swaziland Standards Authority (SWASA) and the agricultural, environmental and industrial sectors. This outreach programme will help maintain and sustain the activities of the institute for future generations to come.

The university identified a need for this project, citing the fact that the country does not have research institutions on science, technology and development issues.

It says because of this, industries in Swaziland and government depend on South African Research Institutions for research and development initiatives which tend to be cost ineffective and also deprives the country of opportunities of capacity building.  ”The country is, therefore, in dire need of service for research and development initiatives.

These include initiatives in water quality and supply, quality assessment, environmental monitoring, energy from water, health (indigenous medicinal plants), water purification materials (nanotechnology) and water for agriculture and food security,“ states the proposal.

Water and sanitation needs

The university found that insufficient or unsafe water and poor sanitation have been reported to be responsible for diseases among households including death among children from diarrhoea and infectious diseases.

The institution notes that public agencies that are involved in the provision of water include the Ministry of Agriculture, Rural Water Board, Swaziland Water Services Corporation and NGOs (non - governmental organisations) while agencies like the European Union have seen 60 water earth dams being built for irrigation and livestock. However, due to lack of clean water this resource is being used for drinking by rural communities.

Sanitation has been noted to be a serious problem in rural communities and health statistics reflect high mortality rates for infants and children due to water-borne diseases. According to Demographic and Household survey, 47 % of urban households had flush toilets, 50 % use pit latrines and 2.5 % used informal disposal methods.

”There is thus and dire needs for water quality assessment from surface and ground water (boreholes). There is also need for cheaper water purification systems that could be used by rural folks,“ the institution argues.

”The SWAQMAC, thus proposed in this document seeks to establish water quality analysis facility within its facilities with modern fast and efficient analysis methods for the improvement of quality of water supplies.“

Read full article at:

 http://www.observer.org.sz/index.php?news=8957

Turning heat to electricity

MIT research points to a much more efficient way of harvesting electrical power

from what would otherwise be wasted heat.

David L. Chandler, MIT News Office

November 18, 2009

In everything from computer processor chips to car engines to electric powerplants, the need to get rid of excess heat creates a major source of inefficiency. But new research points the way to a technology that might make it possible to harvest much of that wasted heat and turn it into usable electricity.

That kind of waste-energy harvesting might, for example, lead to cellphones with double the talk time, laptop computers that can operate twice as long before needing to be plugged in, or power plants that put out more electricity for a given amount of fuel, says Peter Hagelstein, co-author of a paper on the new concept appearing this month in the Journal of Applied Physics.

Hagelstein, an associate professor of electrical engineering at MIT, says existing solid-state devices to convert heat into electricity are not very efficient. The new research, carried out with graduate student Dennis Wu as part of his doctoral thesis, aimed to find how close realistic technology could come to achieving the theoretical limits for the efficiency of such conversion.

Theory says that such energy conversion can never exceed a specific value called the Carnot Limit, based on a 19th-century formula for determining the maximum efficiency that any device can achieve in converting heat into work. But current commercial thermoelectric devices only achieve about one-tenth of that limit, Hagelstein says. In experiments involving a different new technology, thermal diodes, Hagelstein worked with Yan Kucherov, now a consultant for the Naval Research Laboratory, and coworkers to demonstrate efficiency as high as 40 percent of the Carnot Limit. Moreover, the calculations show that this new kind of system could ultimately reach as much as 90 percent of that ceiling.

Hagelstein, Wu and others started from scratch rather than trying to improve the performance of existing devices. They carried out their analysis using a very simple system in which power was generated by a single quantum-dot device — a type of semiconductor in which the electrons and holes, which carry the electrical charges in the device, are very tightly confined in all three dimensions. By controlling all aspects of the device, they hoped to better understand how to design the ideal thermal-to-electric converter.

Hagelstein says that with present systems it’s possible to efficiently convert heat into electricity, but with very little power. It’s also possible to get plenty of electrical power — what is known as high-throughput power — from a less efficient, and therefore larger and more expensive system. ”It’s a tradeoff. You either get high efficiency or high throughput,“ says Hagelstein. But the team found that using their new system, it would be possible to get both at once, he says.

A key to the improved throughput was reducing the separation between the hot surface and the conversion device. A recent paper by MIT professor Gang Chen reported on an analysis showing that heat transfer could take place between very closely spaced surfaces at a rate that is orders of magnitude higher than predicted by theory.  The new report takes that finding a step further, showing how the heat can not only be transferred, but converted into electricity so that it can be harnessed.

A company called MTPV Corp. (for Micron-gap Thermal Photo-Voltaics), founded by Robert DiMatteo SM ’96, MBA ‘06, is already working on the development of ”a new technology closely related to the work described in this paper,“ Hagelstein says.

DiMatteo says he hopes eventually to commercialize Hagelstein’s new idea. In the meantime, he says the technology now being developed by his company, which he expects to have on the market next year, could produce a tenfold improvement in throughput power over existing photovoltaic devices, while the further advance described in this new paper could make an additional tenfold or greater improvement possible. The work described in this paper ”is potentially a  major finding,“ he says.

DiMatteo says that worldwide, about 60 percent of all the energy produced by burning fuels or generated in powerplants is wasted, mostly as excess heat, and that this technology could ”make it possible to reclaim a significant fraction of that wasted energy.“

When this work began around 2002, Hagelstein says, such devices  ”clearly could not be built. We started this as purely a theoretical exercise.“ But developments since then have brought it much closer to reality.

While it may take a few years for the necessary technology for building affordable quantum-dot devices to reach commercialization, Hagelstein says, ”there’s no reason, in principle, you couldn’t get another order of magnitude or more“ improvement in throughput power, as well as an improvement in efficiency.

”There’s a gold mine in waste heat, if you could convert it,“ he says. The first applications are likely to be in high-value systems such as computer chips, he says, but ultimately it could be useful in a wide variety of applications, including cars, planes and boats. ”A lot of heat is generated to go places, and a lot is lost. If you could recover that, your transportation technology is going to work better.“

Source: MIT

Presented by the Vice President of the Federal Council Doris Leuthard

THE BALZAN PRIZES FOR CULTURE AND THE SCIENCES

MICHAEL GRÄTZEL HONOURED WITH THE BALZAN PRIZE

FOR NEW MATERIALS

Berne - 20 November, 2009 - An appeal to encourage education, training and research, and the recognition for the activity carried out by the International Balzan Foundation in this area were the themes addressed by the Vice President of the Federal Council and Head of the Federal Department for Economic Affairs, Doris Leuthard, on the occasion of the awards ceremony for the 2009 Balzan Prizes, which took place today in Berne in the Federal Council Hall.

The 2009 Balzan Prizes were awarded to Michael Grätzel (Switzerland/Germany, EPFL Lausanne) for the Science of New Materials, Terence Cave (UK, St John s College, Oxford) for Literature since 1500, Brenda Milner (Canada/UK, McGill University, Montreal) for Cognitive Neurosciences and Paolo Rossi (Italy, University of Florence) for the History of Science. This year, too, each prize has the value of one million Swiss francs. The prizewinners must set aside half of this sum to finance research projects preferably carried out by young scholars or scientists.

The head of the Federal Department for Economic Affairs observed that it would be an error to try to save money in such a vital sector for the future: recalling John F. Kennedy, Federal Councillor Leuthard stated that "only one thing is more costly than education: no education. If we want to meet the greatest challenges of the twenty-first century, like climate change, the aging of society, the development of ecological technology and the scarcity of resources - she concluded - then a special effort is indispensable for education and research."

The President of the National Council, Chiara Simoneschi-Cortesi, gave a welcome speech to the 250 exponents from the world of politics, culture and the sciences who took part in the ceremony. The Chairmen of the International Balzan Foundation "Fund", Achille Casanova, and "Prize", Bruno Bottai, emphasized the Italian-Swiss nature of the Balzan Foundation, which stands as proof of the good relations between these two countries.

Salvatore Veca, Chairman of the General Prize Committee, which is composed of twenty personalities from ten European countries, delivered the laudatio for each of the four 2009 Balzan Prizewinners, who in their acceptance speeches stressed the importance and prestige of the recognition granted to them, as well as their satisfaction at being able to finance, with half of the prize, research projects in favour of young scholars.

The Balzan Prize was awarded to Michael Grätzel (the Science of New Materials) "for his many contributions to the Science of New Materials, and in particular for his invention and development of a new type of photovoltaic solar cell, the Dye Sensitized Cell, commonly known as the Grätzel Cell"; to Terence Cave (Literature since 1500) "for his outstanding contributions to a new understanding of Renaissance literature and of the influence of Aristotelian poetics in modern European literature"; to Brenda Milner (Cognitive Neurosciences): "for her pioneering studies of the role of the hippocampus in the formation of memory and her identification of different kinds of memory system"; and to Paolo Rossi (the History of Science) "for his major contributions to the study of the intellectual foundations of science from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment".

On the previous day, Thursday, the Balzan Prizewinners Interdisciplinary Forum, organized in cooperation with the Swiss Academies of Arts and Sciences, was held in the Swiss National Fund for Scientific Research. The Forum was also attended by previous Balzan Prizewinners, by several members of the Balzan General Prize Committee and members of the Swiss Academy of Arts and Sciences, with Chairman Peter Suter.

The subject areas change every year and the awards ceremony alternates between Berne and Rome. In 2010, the prizes for one million Swiss Francs will be awarded in European History, 1400-1700 including the British Isles; the History of Theatre in all its Aspects, Stem-cells: Biology and potential applications, Mathematics pure or applied. Unlike other prizes, the Balzan favour new lines of study and innovative research, choosing special, interdisciplinary subjects that go beyond the boundaries of traditional subjects, both in the humanities (literature, the moral sciences and the arts) as well as the sciences (physical, mathematical, natural sciences and medicine).

UCLA researchers create 'fly paper' to capture

circulating cancer cells

New method may help improve diagnosis, prognosis and treatment monitoring

By Rachel Champeau November 18, 2009

Images show more cancer cells were captured by UCLA's nanopillar chip (SiNW) than a currently used flat substrate.Just as fly paper captures insects, an innovative new device with nano-sized features developed by researchers at UCLA is able to grab cancer cells in the blood that have broken off from a tumor.

These cells, known as circulating tumor cells, or CTCs, can provide critical information for examining and diagnosing cancer metastasis, determining patient prognosis, and monitoring the effectiveness of therapies.

Metastasis — the most common cause of cancer-related death in patients with solid tumors — is caused by marauding tumor cells that leave the primary tumor site and ride in the bloodstream to set up colonies in other parts of the body.

The current gold standard for examining the disease status of tumors is an analysis of metastatic solid biopsy samples, but in the early stages of metastasis, it is often difficult to identify a biopsy site. By capturing CTCs, doctors can essentially perform a "liquid" biopsy, allowing for early detection and diagnosis, as well as improved treatment monitoring.

To date, several methods have been developed to track these cells, but the UCLA team's novel "fly paper" approach may be faster and cheaper than others — and it appears to capture far more CTCs.

In a study published this month in the journal Angewandte Chemie, the UCLA team developed a 1-by-2-centimeter silicon chip that is covered with densely packed nanopillars and looks like a shag carpet. To test cell-capture performance, researchers incubated the nanopillar chip in a culture medium with breast cancer cells. As a control, they performed a parallel experiment with a cell-capture method that uses a chip with a flat surface. Both structures were coated with anti-EpCAM, an antibody protein that can help recognize and capture tumor cells.

The researchers found that the cell-capture yields for the UCLA nanopillar chip were significantly higher; the device captured 45 to 65 percent of the cancer cells in the medium, compared with only 4 to 14 percent for the flat device.

"The nanopillar chip captured more than 10 times the amount of cells captured by the currently used flat structure," said lead study author Dr. Shutao Wang, a postdoctoral researcher at both the Crump Institute for Molecular Imaging at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and the California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA. 

Wang noted that the nano-size scale and the unique surface topography of the UCLA nanopillar chip may help it interact with nano-size components on cellular surfaces in the blood, enhancing capture efficiency.

The time required for CTC detection using CellSearch, a technology currently approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, is upwards of three to four hours, according to study author Dr. Hao Wang, a postdoctoral researcher at the Crump Institute and the California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA. The UCLA study found an optimal detection time of only two hours using nanopillar chips.  

The nanopillar chip uses a common chamber slide, which fits into standard laboratory cell incubators. After the chip has been incubated and immunofluorescence-stained, an automated fluorescence microscope is used to identify and count the CTCs. The very simple device setting on the chamber slide allows multiple CTC detections to occur at the same time.

"We hope that this platform can provide a convenient and cost-efficient alternative to CTC sorting by using mostly standard lab equipment," said senior study author Dr. Hsian-Rong Tseng, associate professor of molecular and medical pharmacology at the Crump Institute and the California NanoSystems Institute.

The next step is more clinical research and possible studies with "break-away" cancer cells in patients' blood, as well as in other body fluids, such as urine and abdominal fluids, according to Tseng, who is also a researcher at UCLA's Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center.

The study was funded by the National Cancer Institute's Centers of Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence and the NanoSystems Biology Cancer Center. 

Study collaborators included Dr. Hong Wu, of the UCLA Department of Molecular and Medical Pharmacology; Dr. Allan Pantuck, Dr. Robert Reiter, Dr. Matthew Rettig and Dr. David Finley, of the UCLA Department of Urology; and Dr. Jiaoti Huang and Dr. David Seligson, of the UCLA Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine.

Additional study authors included Dr. Jing Jiao, Kuan-Ju Chen, Gwen E. Owens, Dr. Ken-ichiro Kamei, Dr. Jing Sun, Dr. David J. Sherman and Christian P. Behrenbruch, of UCLA's Crump Institute for Molecular Imaging, Institute of Molecular Medicine and California NanoSystems Institute.

Visit website to view video:

http://www.newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/ucla-researchers-create-fly-paper-112652.aspx

Source: UCLA

19 Nov 2009: NIEHS Awards Recovery Act Funds to Focus More Research on Health and Safety of Nanomaterials

The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), part of the National Institutes of Health, is increasing its investment in understanding the potential health, safety and environmental issues related to tiny particles that are used in many everyday products such as sunscreens, cosmetics and electronics. The NIEHS will award about $13 million over a two-year period, through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, to bolster the NIEHS’s ongoing research portfolio in the area of engineered nanomaterials (ENMs).

Engineered nanomaterials are very tiny materials about 100,000 times smaller than a single strand of hair. They represent a significant breakthrough in material design and development for industry and consumer products, including stain-resistant clothing, pesticides, tires, and electronics, as well as in medicine for purposes of diagnosis, imaging and drug delivery.

"We currently know very little about nanoscale materials' effect on human health and the environment," said Linda Birnbaum, Ph.D., director of the NIEHS and the National Toxicology Program (NTP), an interagency program for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. "Nanomaterials come in so many shapes and sizes, with each one having different chemical properties and physical and surface characteristics. They are tricky materials to get a handle on. The same properties that make nanomaterials so potentially beneficial in drug delivery and product development are some of the same reasons we need to be cautious about their presence in the environment."

The NIEHS has awarded 13 new two-year grants through the Recovery Act to develop better methods to assess exposure and health effects associated with nanomaterials. Ten of the grants were awarded through the NIH Grand Opportunities program announced in March 2009 http://www.niehs.nih.gov/recovery/nanomaterial-go.cfm, and three were funded from the NIH Challenge Grants program. All 13 are aimed at developing reliable tools and approaches to determine the impact on biological systems and health outcomes of engineered materials.

The new awards focus on ensuring that we have reliable and reproducible methods and models to assess exposure, exposure metrics, and biological response to nanomaterials. This research is also essential for the harmonization of research results and forming a scientifically sound basis for hazard assessment, as well as the safe design and development of ENMs.

"There are inconsistencies in the biological effects of ENMs reported in the scientific literature, and a major reason for this is lack of detailed characterization of the physical and chemical properties of the ENMs used in these studies," said Sri Nadadur, Ph.D., program administrator at the NIEHS. "One of our goals is to identify three or four reliable and reproducible test methods using the same ENMs by investigators across different labs."

To accomplish this, the NIEHS brought 36 investigators together on Oct. 20, 2009 in North Carolina, where the NIEHS is headquartered, to identify ENMs, assays and test systems to be utilized in these investigations in a more coordinated and integrated effort.

The NIEHS is establishing an integrated program that will narrow its focus to identify the best methods to evaluate the health effects of nanomaterials through use of cell cultures and animal systems. After the initial meeting, grantees will meet face-to-face twice a year to share information, evaluate progress and determine next steps.

"Recovery Act funds have allowed us to expand our efforts in this important area," said Sally Tinkle, Ph.D., senior science sdvisor at the NIEHS. "We want to be sure that we come away with some better tools to assess the health and safety of nanomaterials." This NIEHS effort focused on nanomaterials supports the goals identified by the National Nanotechnology Initiative Strategy for Nanotechnology-related Environmental, Health, and Safety Research.

In addition to Recovery Act funding, the NIEHS supports grantees across the country working on issues related to nanotechnology. The NIEHS extramural activities are focused on three main areas:

The application of nanotechnologies in environmental health research through use of nanomaterials to improve measurements of exposure to other environmental factors, enabling research into the biological effects of exposures and improving therapeutic strategies to reverse the harmful effects of environmental exposures.

Understanding the risks associated with accidental or intentional exposure to nanomaterials.

Through the Superfund Research Program which authorizes NIH to fund university-based research to conduct the science needed for human health risk assessment and decision-making for remediation of hazardous waste sites, researchers across the country are looking at both the application of nanomaterials for environmental monitoring and remediation, and the health implications associated with their application.

On November 4, 2009, the NIEHS announced a new funding opportunity to address the potential health implications of ENMs. The Request for Applications entitled Engineered Nanomaterials: Linking Physical and Chemical Properties to Biology can be found at http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/rfa-files/RFA-ES-09-011.html .

The NIEHS also administers the National Toxicology Program, which is researching the potential human health hazards associated with the manufacture and use of nanomaterials.

The 10 Recovery Act NIH Grand Opportunities grants focusing on engineered nanomaterial safety have been awarded to:

James Christopher Bonner, North Carolina State University, Raleigh

Edward David Crandall, University of Southern California, Los Angeles

Alison Cory Pearson Elder and Gunter Oberdorster, University of Rochester, N.Y.

Andrij Holian, University of Montana, Missoula

Andre Elias Nel, University of California, Los Angeles

Galya Orr, Battelle Pacific Northwest Laboratories, Richland, Wash.

Christopher D. Vulpe, University of California, Berkeley

Paul K. Westerhoff, Arizona State University, Tempe

Frank A. Witzmann and Somenath Mitra, Indiana University, Indianapolis

Robert M. Worden, Michigan State University, East Lansing

The three Recovery Act Nanotechnology NIH Challenge Grants have been awarded to:

Kent E. Pinkerton, University of California, Davis

Timothy R. Nurkiewicz, West Virginia University, Morgantown

Wynne K. Schiffer, Feinstein Institute for Medical Research, Manhasset, N.Y.

The NIEHS also used Recovery Act funds to support efforts under its Superfund Research Program to determine ways to apply nanotechnology to better detect and evaluate effects on human health, and clean up Superfund chemicals in the environment. The Superfund Worker Education Training Program also provided Recovery Act funding targeting health and safety training.

More information about the NIH Recovery Act grant funding opportunities can be found at http://grants.nih.gov/recovery/ . To track the progress of HHS activities funded through the Recovery Act, visit www.hhs.gov/recovery . To track all federal funds provided through the Recovery Act, visit www.recovery.gov .

The NIEHS supports research to understand the effects of the environment on human health and is part of NIH. For more information on environmental health topics, visit our Web site at http://www.niehs.nih.gov.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) — The Nation's Medical Research Agency — includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. It is the primary federal agency for conducting and supporting basic, clinical and translational medical research, and it investigates the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit www.nih.gov.

The NIEHS supports research to understand the effects of the environment on human health and is part of NIH. For more information on environmental health topics, visit our Web site at http://www.niehs.nih.gov.

Computer Based on Insights From The Brain Moves

Closer to Reality

BlueMatter, a new algorithm created in collaboration with Stanford University, exploits the Blue Gene supercomputing architecture in order to noninvasively measure and map the connections between all cortical and sub-cortical locations within the human brain using magnetic resonance diffusion weighted imaging. Mapping the wiring diagram of the brain is crucial to untangling its vast communication network and understanding how it represents and processes information.

November 18, 2009-- Today at SC 09, the supercomputing conference, IBM announced significant progress toward creating a computer system that simulates and emulates the brain's abilities for sensation, perception, action, interaction and cognition, while rivaling the brain's low power and energy consumption and compact size.

The cognitive computing team, led by IBM Research, has achieved significant advances in large-scale cortical simulation and a new algorithm that synthesizes neurological data -- two major milestones that indicate the feasibility of building a cognitive computing chip.

Scientists, at IBM Research - Almaden, in collaboration with colleagues from Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, have performed the first near real-time cortical simulation of the brain that exceeds the scale of a cat cortex and contains 1 billion spiking neurons and 10 trillion individual learning synapses.

Additionally, in collaboration with researchers from Stanford University, IBM scientists have developed an algorithm that exploits the Blue Gene® supercomputing architecture in order to noninvasively measure and map the connections between all cortical and sub-cortical locations within the human brain using magnetic resonance diffusion weighted imaging. Mapping the wiring diagram of the brain is crucial to untangling its vast communication network and understanding how it represents and processes information.

These advancements will provide a unique workbench for exploring the computational dynamics of the brain, and stand to move the team closer to its goal of building a compact, low-power synaptronic chip using nanotechnology and advances in phase change memory and magnetic tunnel junctions. The team’s work stands to break the mold of conventional von Neumann computing, in order to meet the system requirements of the instrumented and interconnected world of tomorrow.

As the amount of digital data that we create continues to grow massively and the world becomes more instrumented and interconnected, there is a need for new kinds of computing systems - imbued with a new intelligence that can spot hard-to-find patterns in vastly varied kinds of data, both digital and sensory; analyze and integrate information real-time in a context-dependent way; and deal with the ambiguity found in complex, real-world environments.

Businesses will simultaneously need to monitor, prioritize, adapt and make rapid decisions based on ever-growing streams of critical data and information. A cognitive computer could quickly and accurately put together the disparate pieces of this complex puzzle, while taking into account context and previous experience, to help business decision makers come to a logical response.  

”Learning from the brain is an attractive way to overcome power and density challenges faced in computing today,“ said Josephine Cheng, IBM Fellow and lab director of IBM Research - Almaden. ”As the digital and physical worlds continue to merge and computing becomes more embedded in the fabric of our daily lives, it’s imperative that we create a more intelligent computing system that can help us make sense the vast amount of information that's increasingly available to us, much the way our brains can quickly interpret and act on complex tasks.“

To perform the first near real-time cortical simulation of the brain that exceed the scale of the cat cortex, the team built a cortical simulator that incorporates a number of innovations in computation, memory, and communication as well as sophisticated biological details from neurophysiology and neuroanatomy. This scientific tool, akin to a linear accelerator or an electron microscope, is a critical instrument used to test hypotheses of brain structure, dynamics and function. The simulation was performed using the cortical simulator on Lawrence Livermore National Lab’s Dawn Blue Gene/P supercomputer with 147,456 CPUs and 144 terabytes of main memory.

The algorithm, when combined with the cortical simulator, allows scientists to experiment with various mathematical hypotheses of brain function and structure of how structure affects function as they work toward discovering the brain’s core computational micro and macro circuits.

After the successful completion of Phase 0, IBM and its university partners were recently awarded $16.1M in additional funding from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) for Phase 1 of DARPA’s Systems of Neuromorphic Adaptive Plastic Scalable Electronics (SyNAPSE) initiative. This phase of research will focus on the components, brain-like architecture and simulations to build a prototype chip. The long-term mission of IBM’s cognitive computing initiative is to discover and demonstrate the algorithms of the brain and deliver low-power, compact cognitive computers that approach mammalian-scale intelligence and use significantly less energy than today’s computing systems. The world-class team includes researchers from several of IBM’s worldwide research labs and scientists from Stanford University, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Cornell University, Columbia University Medical Center and University of California- Merced.

”The goal of the SyNAPSE program is to create new electronics hardware and architecture that can understand, adapt and respond to an informative environment in ways that extend traditional computation to include fundamentally different capabilities found in biological brains,“ said DARPA program manager Todd Hylton, Ph.D.

Modern computing is based on a stored program model, which has traditionally been implemented in digital, synchronous, serial, centralized, fast, hardwired, general-purpose circuits with explicit memory addressing that indiscriminately over-write data and impose a dichotomy between computation and data. In stark contrast, cognitive computing - like the brain - will use replicated computational units, neurons and synapses that are implemented in mixed-mode analog-digital, asynchronous, parallel, distributed, slow, reconfigurable, specialized and fault-tolerant biological substrates with implicit memory addressing that only update state when information changes, blurring the boundary between computation and data.

More information: Technical insight and more details on the SyNAPSE project and recent milestones can be found on the Cognitive Computing blog at http://modha.org/ .

Source: IBM

MEASURING ELECTRON ORBITALS

For the first time, it has been possible to measure electron density in individual molecular states using what is known as the photoelectric effect. Now published in SCIENCE, this method represents a key building block in the development of organic semiconductor elements. Supported by the Austrian Science Fund FWF, the success of this project rested on the mathematical transformation of the measured data. This made it possible to interpret the distribution of the electrons and draw conclusions about the potential properties of organic semiconductor elements.

Ultra-thin films made of organic molecules form the basis of future semiconductor technologies. Because organic molecules are extremely flexible, they can be used in a whole new range of applications, making it equally possible to create pliable screens and cost-effective solar cells. However, apart from these everyday applications for organic semiconductors, the most important task is to gain a better understanding of the interactions between organic materials and inorganic carrier substances. A team from the Universities of Graz and Leoben has now succeeded in developing a means of doing just that.

TIGHTLY PACKED

"The properties of an organic molecule are defined to a large extent by specific electron states", explains Dr. Peter Puschnig of the Chair of Atomistic Modelling and Design of Materials at the University of Leoben, who led the research. He adds: "If we can determine their distribution within the molecule accurately, then we will be able to better understand how organic semiconductor components work and thus increase their efficiency." Until now, there has been a lack of effective methods of measuring this electron distribution. Dr. Puschnig and his team have therefore succeeded in making significant progress.

The team's achievement is based on the use of the photoelectric effect. This enables individual electrons to be "knocked out" of organic molecules. As part of this project, an organic molecule was exposed to ultraviolet light that emitted sufficient energy to separate individual electrons from the molecules. The direction and speed of the electrons thus released were then measured using highly-sensitive detectors, generating the basic data required to calculate the electron distribution within the molecule. As part of this process, Prof. Michael Ramsay and his team from the University of Graz used a hexaphenyl film just one molecule thick that had been applied to a copper surface. The team from Graz carried out the actual measurements at the Berliner Elektronen-Speicherring Gesellschaft für Synchrotronstrahlung (BESSY, Berlin Electron Storage Ring Society for Synchrotron Radiation).

A CALCULATED RESULT

Commenting on the evaluation of this data, Dr. Puschnig says: "It revealed a quite characteristic distribution of the electrons emitted. However, it initially proved difficult to interpret this distribution and it seemed it would be impossible to link the measured data to the original electron distribution in the molecule." It was only by using special mathematical transformations (Fourier Transformation) that the team was able to establish that the measured electron distribution matched that of the molecule. As the distribution was in this instance already known from calculations carried out as part of the density functional theory, it was possible to test and confirm the viability of the new method.

This new method is particularly valuable as it means measuring the behaviour of electrons at the interfaces between organic semiconductors and metals is now relatively easy and highly accurate. The study "Interface controlled and functionalised organic thin films" supported by the FWF as part of the National Research Network (NFN) is thus making a fundamental contribution to future applications of organic semiconductors.

Image and text will be available online from Monday, 16th November 2009, 09.00 a.m. CET onwards:

http://www.fwf.ac.at/en/public_relations/press/pv200911-en.html

Original publication: Reconstruction of Molecular Orbital Densities from Photoemission Data, P. Puschnig, S. Berkebile, A. J. Fleming, G. Koller, K. Emtsev, T. Seyller, J. D. Riley, C. Ambrosch­Draxl, F. P. Netzer, M. G. Ramsey: Science 326, 702 (2009).

NANOICT COORDINATION ACTION ORGANISES A BIOICT SESSION AT THE ”BIOINSPIRED NANOSYSTEMS AND NANOMATERIALS“ NANOSWEC WORKSHOP IN BORDEAUX, FRANCE

Madrid (Spain): November 11, 2009

Over the last decades, tremendous progresses have been achieved in our capability to do work at the nm scale. Design and fabrication of new nano-objects, ingenious and sophisticated experimental set up dedicated to characterize, manipulate and organize matter at nanoscale. Nanosystems and nanoobjects open new area with a dominant role of interface properties increasing the level of complexity. Nanosciences and nanotechnology have a great deal to learn from bioscience, but it might also be the other way around: ”unless you can build it yourself, you don’t understand it“. In other words, by trying to build nanostructures and nanomachines, our understanding of natural complex architectures will greatly increase and generate new insights for the extraordinary complexity we see in Nature.

To achieve such formidable tasks, biologists, bio-chemists, chemists, physicists and mathematicians must work together. While obviously a pressing need, somehow this goal appears as an ideal one given the fragmentation these disciplines must sometimes endure.

The ”Bioinspired nanosystems and nanomaterials“ NanoSWEC (Nano South-West European Conference ) Workshop aimed at gathering all these disciplines involved in bio inspired and bio mimetic approaches to conceive new systems and materials. The NanoSWEC Workshop took place in Bordeaux (France): November 2-4, 2009.

During the event, the EU funded Coordination Action ”nanoICT“ co-organised a specific session on BioICT issues including the following invited talks:

Jean-Jacques Toulmé (IECB, Bordeaux): Aptamer scaffolds for nanodevices

Igor Nabiev (CIC nanoGUNE Consolider, Spain): Resonance Energy Transfer from Semiconductor Quantum Dots Improves Biological Function of Bacteriorhodopsin within the ”Bacteriorhodopsin-Quantum Dot“ Hybrid Material

Dek Woolfson (School of Chemistry, University of Bristol, UK): Rational Peptide Design in Nanoscience and Synthetic Biology

Principal aims of these specific sessions are to define future research directions for the physical realisation of ICT, actively promote and disseminate the results of ICT-FET initiatives and increase the impact of the NanoICT FET proactive initiative on the innovation potential of Europe.

More info:

NanoICT project http://www.nanoict.org

Nano South-West European Conference, NanoSWEC: http://www.u-bordeaux1.fr/cnano/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=184&Itemid=154

Contact Information:

Questions regarding the nanoICT project, please contact:

Dr. Antonio Correia (Project Coordinator): antonio(at)phantomsnet.net

About Phantoms Foundation: This Non-Profit organisation was established on November 26, 2002 (Madrid, Spain) in order to provide high level Management profile to scientific projects. This association plays an important role in the 7th Framework Programme as a platform for European funded projects (nanoICT, nanomagma, nanoCODE) to spread excellence amongst a wider audience, and to help in forming new networks.  This Association is now a key actor in structuring and fostering European Excellencand dissemination activities in this field.

WEB site: http://www.phantomsnet.net in ”Nanoscience and Nanotechnology“, having a world leading position in organising conferences, training

Questions regarding the NanoICT EU-FET proactive program please contact:

Dr. David Guedj (Project officer): david.guedj(at)ec.europa.eu

ICT Future and Emerging Technologies (FET) – NanoICT Proactive Initiative

European Commission

DG Information Society and Media, Office BU-25 5/38, B-1049 Brussels

WEB site: http://cordis.europa.eu/fp7/ict/fet-proactive/nanoict_en.html

BMVIT'S NANO INITIATIVE A GREAT SUCCESS -

EVENT FULLY BOOKED

Vienna, 11 November 2009 (BMVIT). The "NANO: Wissenschaft. Wirtschaft. Wirkung. 09" event, the exhibition for the Austrian NANO Initiative of the BMVIT (Austrian Federal Ministry for Transport, Innovation and Technology) on Monday at Tech Gate Vienna, was a resounding success. A great many interested visitors from across the globe including private individuals and representatives from companies, research organisations, educational establishments, ministries and embassies gained a comprehensive insight into the present status and future prospects of nanotechnology in Austria. They concluded that it was highly competitive and could look forward to a successful future.

Federal Minister of Transport, Innovation and Technology Doris Bures was delighted with experts' excellent response to her department's showcase. "The keen interest shown by the worlds of science and business in the results of the NANO Initiative proves that linking research and industry has been a great success. We have been able to make direct use of the excellent research results in business, creating economic growth and more jobs", she said. With around 200 participants, the event at Tech Gate Vienna was fully subscribed. Representatives came from a total of more than 35 companies, close to 30 research and business organisations, 15 educational establishments, numerous ministries and even embassies.

PATENTS, PROTOTYPES AND PRODUCTS

All eight project clusters in the NANO Initiative showcased their research results, patents and product developments. Just five years after the initiative was launched in 2004, there have been over 480 scientific publications, while more than 30 patents and inventions have been filed. Surface cleaners and high-quality nano-coated tools are among the new products that have already been launched on the market as a direct result of the NANO Initiative. These achievements have been made possible thanks to the 50 million euros invested in high-calibre research and commercially oriented development work by the BMVIT since 2004, and yesterday visitors were able to get "hands-on" experience of just what had been achieved.

Interesting lectures, exhibits, poster presentations and intensive discussions all combined to provide an excellent insight into the NANO Initiative, highlighting the truly multidisciplinary nature of nanotechnology. Health, food technology, material sciences and electronics are just a few of the sectors represented in the project clusters. The diversity of the audience and the companies attending the event also reflected the fact that nanotechnology is, or will soon become, important in a great many industries.

PROMOTING PROGRESS

The success of the NANO Initiative is down to close cooperation between the worlds of science and business, something that is specifically supported by the FFG. "The aim of the Austrian Research Promotion Agency under the NANO Initiative and in all other programmes is to generate strong momentum for the Austrian economy through transparent promotion formats", stressed Emmanuel Glenck, Head of the Thematic Programmes Division at the FFG. Michael Wiesmüller, Deputy Head of Department at the BMVIT, also stressed that the NANO Initiative had played a major part in this. He explained that, for five years, the initiative had been clearly focussed on future technology, thereby tangibly boosting Austria's competitiveness in the international arena.

As Alex Dommann, CTO of the Centre Suisse d'Electronique et de Microtechnique (CSEM) in Neuchâtel, underlined with reference to developments in Switzerland, large companies are by no means the only ones to be offered enormous benefits by nanotechnology. This technology will also enable small and medium-sized companies to optimise their traditional strengths of customer proximity and flexibility. A further highlight of the event was the concluding discussion lounge at which experts discussed the rapid development of nanotechnology and the need to handle new discoveries in a responsible manner. Alex Dommann from the CSEM, Arno Köpf from Böhlerit GmbH & Co. KG, Wolfgang Knoll, Director of the Austrian Institute of Technology GmbH, Michael Nentwich, Director of the Institute of Technology Assessment of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, and Alexander Pogany from BMVIT took part in the discussion. Issues addressed included recommendations on handling nanoparticles in a responsible manner and the question of whether there was a case for some applications not being developed.

All those involved agreed that detailed discussion will be necessary in future to clearly differentiate between those nanotechnology applications that are safe and those that incorporate possible risks. However, there was no mistaking the experts clear recommendation continuity, continuity, continuity. As a new future technology, nanotechnology requires continuity in the medium to long term through investment in research. Access to international research groups and infrastructures also needs to be ensured. Ultimately, the fact that universities are seeing higher student numbers in technical and scientific subjects where research also includes nanotechnology is down to its interdisciplinary appeal.

Overall, the programme demonstrated an impressive scope of innovation for industry and initial applications for consumers. This rapid progress from research to innovation provides impressive proof of the success of the targeted, commercially oriented promotion of research, which also triggered additional investment in research by project partners to the tune of 20 million euros.

For photos of the event, go to: www.nanoinitiative.at/press

For further information, go to: www.nanoinitiative.at and www.ffg.at

New funds for Rice, M.D. Anderson program

HHMI announces four-year grant for innovative biomedical training 

HOUSTON -- (Nov. 17, 2009) -- The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) today committed four years' worth of funding for an innovative biomedical training program between Rice University and the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.

The unique program -- founded with a 2006 HHMI grant -- capitalizes on the strengths of Rice's top-10-ranked bioengineering program and M.D. Anderson's internationally renowned clinical programs. The training gives incoming graduate students an early opportunity to see how laboratory research is translated into clinical practice. HHMI today pledged $700,000 to renew the program for four years, bringing its total commitment to just over $1.5 million.

"We've developed a summer 'boot camp' for Rice's incoming bioengineering students," said Rebecca Richards-Kortum, the program's principal investigator and the Stanley C. Moore Professor of Bioengineering at Rice. "They spend the summer before graduate school taking a course in anatomy and pathology, and going on clinical rounds in different specialties at M.D. Anderson. They get a firsthand look at what it's like to do translational research in a medical center, and they choose co-advisers for their own translational research thesis."

Richards-Kortum, an investigator in Rice’s new BioScience Research Collaborative, said the HHMI funding renewal will allow Rice and M.D. Anderson to continue the existing program and to expand it to include students from M.D. Anderson's Department of Imaging Physics.

"We are very excited about continuing this program with our colleagues at Rice. These students are truly exceptional and this program provides them a head start on getting involved in translational research," said John Hazle, chairman of Imaging Physics at M. D. Anderson. "Expanding this program to include students from our world-class graduate program in medical physics with the Rice students combines our expertise in engineering and natural science to address translational research questions together."

The program addresses a growing awareness of the need to better translate scientific discoveries from laboratories into clinical applications that benefit patients.

HHMI’s "Med to Grad" initiative is designed to address this disconnect by supporting innovative graduate programs that introduce Ph.D. students to the world of clinical medicine.

Rice and M.D. Anderson's program, "Translational Bioengineering for Cancer Diagnostics and Therapeutics," was one of 13 programs HHMI funded under its initial round of "Med to Grad" grants in 2006. HHMI announced 23 new awards for the program this week. The Rice-M.D. Anderson program was one of 11 programs to earn a renewal.

Rice wins NIH funding for oral-cancer test

Grand Opportunity grant funds rapid saliva test using lab-on-a-chip

HOUSTON -- (Nov. 5, 2009) -- The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded researchers in Rice University's new BioScience Research Collaborative (BRC) a $2 million Grand Opportunity (GO) grant to develop a fast, inexpensive test for oral cancer that a dentist could perform simply by using a brush to collect a small sample of cells from a patient's mouth.

"We want to provide an accurate diagnosis for oral cancer in less than 30 minutes using a minimally invasive test that requires no scalpels or off-site lab tests," said principal investigator John McDevitt, Rice's Brown-Wiess Professor in Bioengineering and Chemistry. "The payoff for this could be tremendous because oral cancers today are typically diagnosed much too late in their development."

NIH established the GO grant program to support projects that address large, specific research endeavors that are likely to deliver near-term growth and investment in biomedical research and development, public health and health care delivery. GO grant funding was provided by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

If oral cancer is detected early, the prognosis for patients is excellent, with a five-year survival rate of more than 90 percent. Unfortunately, the actual five-year survival rate for oral squamous cell carcinoma is only about 50 percent, among the lowest rates for all major cancers. Oral squamous cell carcinoma affects about 300,000 people per year worldwide, and most cases are diagnosed in their late stages.

The new test is possible because of a novel microchip invented in McDevitt's lab. This "lab-on-a-chip" uses the latest techniques in microchip design, nanotechnology, microfluidics, image analysis, pattern recognition and biotechnology to shrink many of the main functions of a state-of-the-art clinical pathology laboratory onto a microchip the size of a postage stamp.

The microchips are mounted on disposable, plastic cards that are slotted into a battery-powered analyzer. A brush-biopsy sample is placed on the card and microfluidic circuits wash cells from the sample into a reaction chamber. The cells pass through mini-fluidic channels about the size of small veins and come in contact with "biomarkers" that react only with specific types of diseased cells. The machine uses two LEDs, or light-emitting diodes, to light up various regions of the cells and cell compartments. Healthy and diseased cells can be distinguished from one another by the way they glow in response to the LEDs.

The oral-cancer test will be developed in collaboration with scientists at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio and the University of Sheffield in the United Kingdom. In addition to cancer, McDevitt's lab is developing tests for heart attacks and HIV, and it is developing a process to produce the disposable cards for pennies apiece.

"An affordable oral-cancer test that can be performed painlessly and quickly in either a regular visit at the doctor or dentist's office benefits patients and clinicians by detecting cancer earlier and lowering health care costs," McDevitt said.

The analyzers used in the test are made by Austin-based startup LabNow, a company McDevitt launched while at the University of Texas at Austin. McDevitt moved his lab from UT-Austin to Rice in July 2009 to be in the BRC, a state-of-the-art research facility that's within walking distance of the major research institutions of the Texas Medical Center (TMC). McDevitt's lab is slated to begin trials of a lab-on-a-chip saliva test for heart attacks with the TMC's Baylor College of Medicine in January. In addition, LabNow is preparing for tests next spring in Africa of a lab-on-a-chip test for HIV immune function.

A Snapshot Profile of Nanotechnology Degree Programs in the United States

  Dr. Aaron R. Fichtner, Director of Research and Evaluation, John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development,

Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

Dr, Carl Van Horn, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

Jennifer Cleary, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

Leela Hebbar, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

One way post-secondary institutions respond to labor needs for emerging technologies is by creating new degree programs. CNS-ASU recently collaborated with the Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University to profile U.S. degree programs created in response to nanotechnology. The study defined nanotechnology degree programs as associate's, bachelor's, master's and doctoral programs that use the term "nano" in the formal degree title. This definition excluded certificates, minors, tracks, informal education and concentrations in nanotechnology. Sources used to identify nanotechnology degree programs included national databases, structured Web searches, a review of scholarly literature on nanotechnology education, and expert referrals.

Although there is no consensus yet on the best way to educate future nanotechnology workers, many scientists, employers and educators agree that the field requires interdisciplinary skills and knowledge across multiple science and engineering disciplines. The study therefore broadly examined how institutions approached the issue of interdisciplinarity within their degree programs.

The total number of formal nanotechnology degree programs is small, with 49 programs identified at 38 post-secondary institutions. These institutions are not concentrated in areas of high nanotechnology publication and patent activity, but rather are clustered in response to state and federal investments. For example, the NSF-supported Nano-Link involves a set of six associate's degree programs linked across five Midwestern states, and Pennsylvania's Nanofabrication Manufacturing Technology Network links 18 degrees across 16 institutions. Both programs require a capstone semester at a four-year college to complete an associate's degree program from a two-year school, thus partnering two- and four-year colleges.

The motivation behind degree program development  varied by degree type. For associate's degrees, workforce and economic development were key motivators. Direct employer involvement in associate's programs was common, as nearly  all were designed to train nanotechnology technicians. On the other hand, student attraction and faculty motivation to  establish interdisciplinary education in nanotechnology were common themes in program development at the graduate level. Employer involvement at higher levels of education was less common, the major exception being the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering in New York, where six graduate degree programs involve high levels of industry partnership.

Approaches to the interdisciplinary aspects of nanotechnology varied among programs. At all program levels, students are required to take courses from a variety of traditional core disciplines. Several institutions feature more intensive faculty collaboration across departments/schools, to create—and sometimes co-teach—nanotechnology-specific courses and lab work. Many faculty members stressed the importance of students maintaining a strong link to a core, traditional discipline. These faculty expressed concern about "diluting" the rigor of core disciplines. Not surprisingly, then, many degree requirements continue to be related to traditional disciplines.

Finally, at this time little is known about the employment outcomes of nanotechnology degree program graduates.

The Center for Nanotechnology in Society at Arizona State University facilitates the public's involvement in nanoscale research and development, to build new capabilities for understanding and goerning the power of nanotechnology to transform society. CNS-ASU is affiliated with the Consortium for Science, Policy & Outcomes (CSPO), in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at ASU.

Successful Kick-off for the Swiss Information

& Learning Platform

On Wednesday, 21 October 2009 the kick-off event of the "Swiss Nano-Cube" project took place at the headquarter of the Innovation Society in St.Gallen. Swiss Nano-Cube is the national information, learning and teaching platform dedicated to the topics of micro- and nanotechnologies (M&NT) for secondary schools, companies and industry associations.

The platform will offer education modules and information materials from the area of M&NT to teachers, students as well as vocational experts from industry. The platform is jointly developed by the Innovation Society (St.Gallen) and the Swiss educational Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (Zollikofen).

25 members of the "Swiss Nano-Cube" supporting group accepted the invitation and used the opportunity to gather information about the project constitution, the status quo and the ongoing project development. In addition, there was time to discuss open questions as well as ideas and suggestions of the support group.

Companies, professional organisations as well as other persons interested in partnership or sponsoring are cordially invited to contact us. You may find further information regarding the "Swiss Nano-Cube" project on the webpage www.swissnanocube.ch.

Breakthrough in industrial-scale nanotube processing

Rice pioneers method for processing carbon nanotubes in bulk fluids

HOUSTON -- (Nov. 2, 2009) -- Rice University scientists today unveiled a method for the industrial-scale processing of pure carbon-nanotube fibers that could lead to revolutionary advances in materials science, power distribution and nanoelectronics. The result of a nine-year program, the method builds upon tried-and-true processes that chemical firms have used for decades to produce plastics. The research is available online in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.

"Plastics is a $300 billion U.S. industry because of the massive throughput that's possible with fluid processing," said Rice's Matteo Pasquali, a paper co-author and professor in chemical and biomolecular engineering and in chemistry. "The reason grocery stores use plastic bags instead of paper and the reason polyester shirts are cheaper than cotton is that polymers can be melted or dissolved and processed as fluids by the train-car load. Processing nanotubes as fluids opens up all of the fluid-processing technology that has been developed for polymers."

The report was co-authored by an 18-member team of scientists from Rice's Richard E. Smalley Institute for Nanoscale Science and Technology, the University of Pennsylvania and the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology. Co-authors include Smalley Institute namesake Rick Smalley, the late Nobel laureate chemist who developed the first high-throughput method for producing high-quality carbon nanotubes, as well as Virginia Davis, a former doctoral student of Pasquali's and Smalley's who is now a professor at Auburn University, and Micah Green, a former postdoctoral researcher of Pasquali’s who is now a professor at Texas Tech University.

The new process builds upon the 2003 Rice discovery of a way to dissolve large amounts of pure nanotubes in strong acidic solvents like sulfuric acid. The research team subsequently found that nanotubes in these solutions aligned themselves, like spaghetti in a package, to form liquid crystals that could be spun into monofilament fibers about the size of a human hair.

"That research established an industrially relevant process for nanotubes that was analogous to the methods used to create Kevlar from rodlike polymers, except for the acid not being a true solvent," said Wade Adams, director of the Smalley Institute and co-author of the new paper. "The current research shows that we have a true solvent for nanotubes -- chlorosulfonic acid -- which is what we set out to find when we started this project nine years ago."

Following the 2003 breakthrough with acid solvents, the team methodically studied how nanotubes behaved in different types and concentrations of acids. By comparing and contrasting the behavior of nanotubes in acids with the literature on polymers and rodlike colloids, the team developed both the theoretical and practical tools that chemical firms will need to process nanotubes in bulk.

"Ishi Talmon and his colleagues at Technion did the critical work required to help get direct proof that nanotubes were dissolving spontaneously in chlorosulfonic acid," Pasquali said. "To do this, they had to develop new experimental techniques for direct imaging of vitrified fast-frozen acid solutions."

Talmon said, "This was a very difficult study. Matteo's team not only had to pioneer new experimental techniques to achieve this, they also had to make significant extensions to the classical theories that were used to describe solutions of rods. The Technion team had to develop a new methodology to enable us to produce high-resolution images of the nanotubes dispersed in chlorosulfonic acid, a very corrosive fluid, by state-of-the-art electron microscopy at cryogenic temperatures."

Co-author Nicholas Parra-Vasquez, a Rice graduate student advised by Pasquali who is now working in France, said, "In looking at the project when I started, I had no idea where it was going to end up and how much work needed to be done. The project encompassed many students and professors, as well as collaborations with other schools. Because of this, it was a slow process but one that left no avenue unchecked. Looking on it now, I can't believe how big it became -- how much effort was put into every point found."

Few technological breakthroughs have been hyped as much as carbon nanotubes. Since their discovery in 1991, nanotubes have been touted as everything from a cure for cancer to a solution for the world's energy crisis. The hype is all the more remarkable given that nanotubes are notoriously difficult to work with and that chemists worldwide struggled for years even to make them.

So why the hype? Put simply, carbon nanotubes are remarkable. While they are roughly the same size and shape as some rodlike polymer molecules, nanotubes can conduct electricity as well as copper, and they can be either metals or semiconductors. They can be tagged with antibodies to diagnose diseases or heated with radio waves to destroy cancer. They've been used to make transistors far smaller than those in today's finest microchips. Nanotubes also weigh about one-sixth as much as steel but can be up to 100 times stronger.

"Kevlar, the polymer fiber used in bulletproof vests, is about five to 10 times stronger than our strongest nanotube fibers today, but in principle we should be able to make our fibers about 100 times stronger," Pasquali said. "If we can realize even 20 percent of our potential, we will have a great material, perhaps the strongest ever known.

"The electrical conductivity is already pretty good," he said. "It's about the same of the best-conducting carbon-carbon fibers, and that could be improved 200 times if better production methods for metallic nanotubes can be found."

The new research appears just as the Smalley Institute prepares for a 10th anniversary celebration Nov. 5 of the creation of Smalley's "HiPco" reactor, the first system capable of producing high-quality nanotubes in bulk. HiPco, short for high-pressure carbon monoxide process, broke the logjam on nanotube production and cleared the way for more scientific study and for industry to begin using them in some materials. Industrial nanotube reactors today generate several tons of low-quality carbon nanotubes per year, and the worldwide market for nanotubes is expected to top $2 billion annually within the next decade.

But a final breakthrough remains before the true potential of high-quality carbon nanotubes can be realized. That's because HiPco and all other methods of making high-end, "single-walled" nanotubes generate a hodgepodge of nanotubes with different diameters, lengths and molecular structures. Scientists worldwide are scrambling to find a process that will generate just one kind of nanotube in bulk, like the best-conducting metallic varieties, for instance.

"One good thing about the process that we have right now is that if anybody could give us one gram of pure metallic nanotubes, we could give them one gram of fiber within a few days," Pasquali said.

The research was funded by the Office of Naval Research, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, the Air Force Research Laboratory, the National Science Foundation, the USA-Israel Binational Science Foundation and the Welch Foundation. The other co-authors are the Smalley Institute's Pradeep Rai, Natnael Behabtu, Valentin Prieto, Richard Booker, Hua Fan and Robert Hauge; the University of Pennsylvania's Wei Zhou and John Fischer; and the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology's Judith Schmidt, Ellina Kesselman and Yachin Cohen.

Scientists Use World's Fastest Computer to Model

How Materials Behave Under Extreme Conditions

Multibillion-atom molecular dynamics simulations of how extreme shock waves break materials into pieces

LOS ALAMOS, New Mexico, October 30, 2009- The long-established and reliable SPaSM (Scalable Parallel Short-range Molecular dynamics) code, adapted to run on the world's fastest supercomputer, Roadrunner, is being used to study the physics of how materials break up, called "spall," and how pieces fly off, called "ejecta," from thin sheets of copper as shock waves force the material break apart at the atomic scale.

Because of Roadrunner's unique capability, materials scientists are for the first time attempting to create atomic-scale models that describe how voids are created, grow, and merge; how materials may swell or shrink under stress; and how once broken bonds might reattach, and they're doing it at size and time scales that approach those of actual experiments, so that the models can be validated experimentally.

"One of the interests we have had is looking at shock waves in metals and how the metals deform, they may melt under shock loading or change their crystalline structure," said Tim Germann of the Physics and Chemistry of Materials (T-1) group.  "Our multibillion-atom molecular dynamics code is providing unprecedented insight into the nature of the critical event controlling the strength of materials, a fundamental long-standing problem in materials science."

In the past, there has been a distinct gap between the microscopic, ultrafast processes that could be studied by molecular dynamics simulations, and the usual engineering-scale behavior of shock experiments.

For instance, gas gun experiments launch a "flyer plate" impactor at a target sample whose thickness is typically several millimeters, while simulations struggled to reach hundreds of nanometers, 4 orders of magnitude smaller in size. (And similarly in time; the corresponding shock transit times in such experiments are microseconds, and tens to hundreds of picoseconds in simulations.)

Some phenomena, such as the nucleation, growth, and coalescence of voids following shock compression and release, which can lead to "spall failure" as the material breaks apart, take place at precisely the time and length scales which were inaccessible to both simulation and experiment, and thus have typically been described by "trial and error" models which could never be directly verified.

However, steady advances by both experimental techniques, including laser-driven shock waves in thin metal foils using ultrafast X-ray diffraction to monitor structural changes, and in simulation techniques and supercomputer performance, culminating with Roadrunner, have closed this gap and are now enabling both simulations and experiments to probe shock deformation at similar length, 1-10 microns, and nanosecond time scales.

Spall failure and the ejection of material from shocked metal surfaces are problems that have attracted increased attention both experimentally and theoretically at Los Alamos.   Models are required that can predict both when a material will fail, and the amount of mass ejected from a shocked interface with a given surface finish and strength.

"We've already created simulations with quasi-two dimensional geometries that have

helped explain the production of ejecta in the first nanosecond after a shock," said Germann.  "The Roadrunner simulations are aimed at understanding later effects like jet breakup and three dimensional droplet formation, including the resultant particle sizes, velocities and the relationship between the two."

About Roadrunner, the world's fastest supercomputer, first to break the petaflop barrier

On Memorial Day, May 26, 2008, the "Roadrunner" supercomputer exceeded a sustained speed of 1 petaflop/s, or 1 million billion calculations per second.  "Petaflop/s" is computer jargon-peta signifying the number 1 followed by 15 zeros (sometimes called a quadrillion) and flop/s meaning "floating point operation per second."  Shortly after that it was named the world's fastest supercomputer by the TOP500 organization at the June 2008 International Supercomputing Conference in Dresden Germany.

The Roadrunner supercomputer, developed by IBM in partnership with the Laboratory and the National Nuclear Security Administration, will be used to perform advanced physics and predictive simulations in a classified mode to assure the safety, security, and reliability of the U.S. nuclear deterrent.  The system will be used by scientists at the NNSA's Los Alamos, Sandia, and Lawrence Livermore national laboratories.

The secret to its record-breaking performance is a unique hybrid design. Each compute node in this cluster consists of two AMD Opteron� dual-core processors plus four PowerXCell 8i� processors used as computational accelerators. The accelerators used in Roadrunner are a special IBM-developed variant of the Cell processor used in the Sony PlayStation 3®. The node-attached Cell accelerators are what make Roadrunner different than typical clusters.

Roadrunner is still currently the world's fastest with a speed of 1.105 petaflop/s per second, according to the TOP500 announcement at the November 2008 Supercomputing Conference in Austin,Texas, and it again  retained the #1 position at the June ISC09 conference

About Los Alamos National Laboratory (www.lanl.gov)

Los Alamos National Laboratory, a multidisciplinary research institution engaged in strategic science on behalf of national security, is operated by Los Alamos National Security, LLC, a team composed of Bechtel National, the University of California, The Babcock & Wilcox Company, and the Washington Division of URS for the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration.

Los Alamos enhances national security by ensuring the safety and reliability of the U.S. nuclear stockpile, developing technologies to reduce threats from weapons of mass destruction, and solving problems related to energy, environment, infrastructure, health, and global security concerns.

Global-Kuala Lumpur

Government To Establish National Innovation Centre, Says Najib

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 29 (Bernama) -- The government will establish a National Innovation Centre and a network of Centres of Innovation Excellence as a step towards accelerating national innovation and commercialisation activities, said Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak.

He said this after chairing the fourth meeting of the National Innovation Council here on Thursday.

"The establishment of both these centres will ensure that the measures towards innovation will be further strengthened and streamlined, leading quickly to products which can be commercialised.

Najib said in making innovation a part of the key national agenda, it is very important that the approach towards it, penetrates all segments of society.

"The innovation that we hope to implement embodies the quality of total innovation.

"In another sense, it is innovation which is not limited to the field of science and technology but encompasses innovation as a whole," he said.

Examples are, innovation in management, innovation in the community, innovation in towns and villages, corporate innovation, industrial innovation, innovation in education, healthcare, transport, social security network and branding innovation.

Najib also announced that from next year, the National Quality Day implemented at the level of Ministries in the public sector, will be replaced by the National Innovation Day.

According to Najib, any ministry or government agency which introduces creative and innovative solutions which lead to improvements in terms of efficiency in management and the delivery system for the people, will be given suitable incentives and awards.

He also disclosed that there was a proposal to establish an iconic National Innovation Centre of the same standing as the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC).

"Whether this proposal is possible and suitable to be implemented from the point of viability, needs to be studied by the government through the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation," he said.

On human capital, related ministries have been asked to take follow-up action to encourage and make innovation the culture, through the country's education system.

"It was also decided at the meetin