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• Vibrations keep water out of lotus leaves
  (The New York Times)

  
  Credit: Fg2, Wikimedia Commons

  The surface of a lotus leaf is all nooks, crannies and tiny hairs. Researchers have known for decades that this highly textured surface is the key to the leaf’s superhydrophobicity, or extreme water repellency: droplets are kept off the surface, in effect, by all the air trapped within the cavities. Scientists have mimicked the lotus leaf, creating textured materials and coatings that are highly water repellent. But those materials don’t work so well if rather than falling on the surface, water condenses directly within the nooks and crannies. That makes the surface sticky. In a laboratory setting, even the lotus leaf can be affected by condensation. In nature, though, dew that appears on lotus leaves at night is gone by morning. The secret, according to a new study, lies in how the large leaves vibrate on their thin, long stems thereby making the droplets to literally bounce up out of the surface. The findings suggest that water-repellent materials could be created that make use of other naturally occurring vibrations, like the 60-hertz hum produced by electrical current.
  [Restoring Superhydrophobicity of Lotus Leaves with Vibration-Induced Dewetting, Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 174502 (2009)]
  (October 27, 2009)

• Building a bridge of (and to) the future
  (The New York Times)

  
  Credit: The New York Times

  The Neal Bridge is barely a bump in the road for motorists roaring down Route 100 south of this central Maine town. It’s a modest bit of the nation’s infrastructure — two lanes wide and 34 feet long, enough to span a small stream. The bridge is newer than most, as suggested by the still-black asphalt and the fresh galvanized gleam of the guardrails. But it’s what is underneath that really makes the bridge stand out. Rather than steel or concrete beams, the structure consists of 23 graceful arches of carbon- and glass-fiber fabric. These are 12-inch-diameter tubes that have been inflated, bent to the proper shape and stiffened with a plastic resin, then installed side by side and stuffed with concrete, like giant manicotti. Covered with composite decking and compacted soil, the arches support a standard gravel-and-asphalt roadway.
  (October 13, 2009)

• DNA sequencing in a holey new way
  (BBC)

  
  Credit: IBM

  IBM announced how it intends to hold DNA molecules in nanoscale holes in silicon in an effort to decode their genetic secrets letter by letter. Their microelectronic approach solves one of two long-standing problems in "nanopore" DNA sequencing: how to stop it flying through too quickly. The aim is to speed up DNA sequencing in a push toward personalised medicine. While sequencing the genomes of humans and animals has become relatively routine in a laboratory setting, the ability to quickly and cheaply sequence genomes of individuals remains out of reach. That widely available genetic information will help bring about the era of "personalised medicine" - in which preventative or therapeutic approaches can be tailored to individuals based on their specific genetic makeup.
  (October 7, 2009)

• Quietest room in the world opens its doors
  (Telegraph.co.uk)

  
  Credit: Telegraph

  The world's 'quietest' room opened its doors for the study of nanotechnology in Bristol, UK.

  The ''ultra-low vibration suite'', which cost £11million, allows scientists to manipulate atoms and molecules without the interference of environmental vibrations interrupting their work. There is virtually no air movement inside the cutting edge laboratory, which is anchored to the rock foundation in the basement of the Nanoscience and Quantum Information Centre in Bristol. The building's architecture prevents the penetration of echo and sound waves inside the building, despite its location in the Bristol city center. Meanwhile, its exterior panels are made from 'self-cleaning' glass, that uses nano-particles to break down dirt.
  (September 15, 2009)

• After the transistor, a leap into the microcosm
  (The New York Times)

  
  Credit: The New York Times

  Gaze into the electron microscope display in Frances Ross’s laboratory here and it is possible to persuade yourself that Dr. Ross, a 21st-century materials scientist, is actually a farmer in some Lilliputian silicon world. Dr. Ross, an I.B.M. researcher, is growing a crop of mushroom-shaped silicon nanowires that may one day become a basic building block for a new kind of electronics. Nanowires are just one example, although one of the most promising, of a transformation now taking place in the material sciences as researchers push to create the next generation of switching devices smaller, faster and more powerful than today’s transistors. The reason that many computer scientists are pursuing this goal is that the shrinking of the transistor has approached fundamental physical limits. Increasingly, transistor manufacturers grapple with subatomic effects, like the tendency for electrons to “leak” across material boundaries. The leaking electrons make it more difficult to know when a transistor is in an on or off state, the information that makes electronic computing possible. They have also led to excess heat, the bane of the fastest computer chips.
  (September 1, 2009)

• Gravity governs the strong grip of a gecko
  (Washington Post)

  
  Credit: M. Moffett/Washington Post

  Put a gecko on a level piece of glass and it might slip all over the place. Tilt that glass about 10 degrees and it will stay in place. This is because the gecko's grip is triggered by gravity, according to a recent discovery. Geckos are known for their ability to scale the walls and ceilings of almost all surfaces. But unlike most animal adhesion systems, which involve claws or sticky residue, the gecko's adhesion system uses a reversible molecular attraction, according to an earlier study. The gecko species studied by scientists have pads on each of their toes. The pads are made of hundreds of thousands of setae, which are hair-like structures that elongate and are invisible to the naked eye. When activated on a surface, their adhesion is extremely strong. Body orientation rather than any interaction with the surface is what triggers when this system is switched on. There are advantages for the lizard to not use its adhesive system on level surfaces, mainly to run faster. The study of the gecko's grip could lead to the development of various applications, including gloves and shoes that could adhere to a variety of surfaces and allow people to scale walls, as well as surgical applications to close wounds and picture hangers that would not require a sticky residue.
  [A new angle on clinging in geckos: incline, not substrate, triggers the deployment of the adhesive system, Proceedings B of the Royal Society, 2009, DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2009.0946]
  (August 25, 2009)

• Intense X-ray laser turns solid aluminum transparent
  (New Scientist)

  
  Credit: Everett Collection/Rex Features

  Transparent aluminium, a science fiction material brought to 20th century Earth by the crew of The Enterprise in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, turns out to exist after all - if you see in X-rays. To create this exotic state of matter, researchers took a thin piece of aluminium foil and blasted it with an X-ray laser that can generate about 10 million gigawatts of power per square centimetre. At standard temperature and pressure, solid aluminium is a lattice of ions, with a sea of free electrons in between. The beam had enough energy to knock an electron out of each ion and set it free, while the photon got absorbed in the process. Normally in a solid metal, another electron will instantly take the place of the missing one. The beam is so powerful that it can rip an electron out of every atom before others have a chance to replace them. With one electron removed, the remaining electrons around each ion settle into a different configuration, becoming too tightly bound for the laser to remove. That means the X-ray photons can't be easily absorbed, and they fly straight through the material, making the previously opaque aluminium transparent to X-rays.
  [Turning solid aluminium transparent by intense soft X-ray photoionization, Nature Physics Published online: 26 July 2009 | doi:10.1038/nphys1341]
  (July 29, 2009)

• With help of DNA, nanotubes may become a bigger force
  (Philadelphia Inquirer)

  
  Credit: RON TARVER Philadelphia Inquirer

  In his neatly ordered lab at DuPont, chemist Ming Zheng slides open a glass cabinet and removes a flask of soot that could have been swept from someone's fireplace. "These are carbon nanotubes," he said, referring to the novel form of carbon discovered in the 1990s to much fanfare. These wonder materials promised new kinds of computer chips, batteries, sensors, and other devices. Nanotubes haven't lived up to the hype, but that may change after Zheng announced this month that he and his colleagues had overcome a long-standing hurdle limiting their use. The problem goes back to the soot.

  It's all really a disorganized collection of invisibly small cylinders - each one a lattice of carbon atoms rolled up in a tube. Mixed up in that flask are hundreds of types with slightly different properties. Some conduct electricity, while others conduct light, for example. With particles so small, you can't reach into the soot and pull out the type you want to use. Zheng found a way to essentially tag the different types of nanotubes with DNA, enabling them to be selected and used.
  (July 27, 2009)

• New element named copernicium
  (BBC)

  Discovered 13 years ago, and officially added to the periodic table just weeks ago, element 112 finally has a name. It will be called "copernicium", with the symbol Cp, in honour of the astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus. Copernicus deduced that the planets revolved around the Sun, and finally refuted the belief that the Earth was the centre of the Universe. The team of scientists who discovered the element chose the name to honour the man who "changed our world view". Scientists from the Centre for Heavy Ion Research in Germany, led by Professor Sigurd Hofmann, discovered copernicium in fusion experiments in 1996. The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) will officially endorse the new element's name in six months' time in order to give the scientific community "time to discuss the suggestion".
  (July 17, 2009)

• Electric cars: Juiced up and ready to go
  (New Scientist)

  
  Credit: New Scientist

  Picture the scene: in downtown New York City, all-electric cars glide through streets in a zero-emission transport revolution. Polluting, inefficient gasoline and diesel vehicles are nowhere to be seen - or heard. The only things getting in the way of these smooth, noiseless vehicles are the horse-drawn trams.

  That's right, we're talking about the past. The electric car had its heyday over a century ago. Its brief reign came to an end in 1912, when gasoline-powered Cadillacs began to come fitted with starter motors. That did away with the inconvenient crank handle needed to get their engines going, and they could run for 100 miles or more on a tank on fuel. The all-electric car's battery would run out before you reached the city limits. It was no contest.

  Now, in the first decade of the 21st century, history is about to go into reverse. The climate crisis is prompting thoughts of an all-electric economy, of which electric cars will be a vital part. The idea has been taking shape in engineering labs and on the roads for a while, and now fresh impetus is finally coming from on high. "Our dependency on oil is dangerous and short-sighted," US energy secretary Stephen Chu wrote in Newsweek in April. "We must... move toward running new vehicles on electricity and to generating that electricity from clean, renewable sources like solar and wind power."

  There's just one rather large obstacle remaining - and it's the same one that stalled the electric car 100 years ago. "In the end, it all comes down to the lowly battery," says Donald Sadoway, who studies materials chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Though batteries have been around for more than 200 years (see time line), precious little research effort has gone into improving them. That's changing fast.
  (July 15, 2009)

• As Unbreakable as ... Glass?
  (The New York Times)

  
  Credit: The New York Times

  Engineers, architects and fabricators, aided by materials scientists and software designers, are building soaring facades, arching canopies and delicate cubes, footbridges and staircases, almost entirely of glass. They’re laminating glass with polymers to make beams and other components stronger and safer — each of the Sears Tower sheets is a five-layer sandwich — and analyzing every square inch of a design to make sure the stresses are within precise limits. And they are experimenting with new materials and methods that could someday lead to glass structures that are unmarked by metal or other materials.
  (July 7, 2009)

• Solar Tech: Not just on the roof anymore
  (The New York Times)

  
  Credit: The New York Times

  Photovoltaic cells are already a familiar sight on rooftops. But one day, miniature cells may also be found in more unconventional places: power-generating windows, car sunroofs or even awnings. The new technology is the work of a researcher and his colleagues who developed a way to print ultrathin, semitransparent and flexible cells on plastic, cloth and other materials. If the technology succeeds, it may provide the solar industry with alternatives to the fixed installations that are common today: cells may be printed on plastic rolls that could be unfurled for dozens of uses, or stamped onto fabric for T-shirts or other clothes that collect energy while worn. They use a standard printing technique to create solar cells that are a tenth the thickness of conventional semiconductor cells, or even thinner. The cells are so flexible that dense arrays of them can be rolled tightly around a pencil.
  (April 30, 2009)

• Bone, a masterpiece of elastic strength
  (The New York Times)

  Although bone may seem like stone, it is tirelessly, ambitiously alive. In many ways, bone is more animate than the muscles and fat draped over it or the quivering visceral organs it protectively encages. It certainly can be more attuned to its surroundings. Researchers have discovered that an impressive raft of metabolic and reproductive hormones will activate bone tissue. Healthy bone is disciplined bone, with a structure enviably organized at every scale yet probed, from the caliper calibrations of femurs and phalanges down to the nano dimensions of bone’s constituent atoms.
  (April 28, 2009)

• Concrete is remixed with environment in mind
  (The New York Times)

  
  Credit: Bill Alkofer for The New York Times

  Soaring above the Mississippi River just east of downtown Minneapolis is one remarkable concrete job. There on Interstate 35W, the St. Anthony Falls Bridge carries 10 lanes of traffic on box girders borne by massive arching piers, which are supported, in turn, by footings and deep pilings. The bridge, built to replace one that collapsed in 2007, killing 13 people, is constructed almost entirely of concrete embedded with steel reinforcing bars, or rebar. But it is hardly a monolithic structure: the components are made from different concrete mixes, the recipes tweaked, as a chef would, for specific strength and durability requirements and to reduce the impact on the environment. One mix, incorporated in wavy sculptures at both ends of the bridge, is designed to stay gleaming white by scrubbing stain-causing pollutants from the air. It is a prime example of major changes in concrete production and use — changes that make use of basic research and are grounded, in part, in the need to reduce concrete’s carbon footprint.

  All that concrete may seem the same. And the basic product did remain relatively unchanged since the invention of Portland cement in the early 1800s. (The ancient Romans made concrete, too, but from volcanic ash.) Producers have always tinkered with the mix to find the right proportions of concrete’s basic ingredients, but the recipe never varied much. Now the experimentation is more elaborate, designed to tailor the concrete to the need. Increasingly, that need includes the environment.
  [See related blog posting on the Materials for Energy blog]
  (April 1, 2009)

• Polymer coating heals itself
  (The New York Times)

  
  Credit: Science

  Researchers have tried for years to develop self-healing polymer coatings for various uses. Recent efforts have incorporated microspheres containing bonding chemicals. In another approach described in a new study, what breaks is not a sphere, but a ring-shaped chemical, oxetane, that is incorporated in the polyurethane polymer. Another compound in the polymer, chitosan, forms cross-links at the places where the oxetane breaks, healing the scratch. What makes the method potentially very useful is what causes the cross-links to form: exposure to ultraviolet light. That means that a damaged coating could heal itself in a matter of minutes or hours by being exposed to sunlight, which contains plenty of UV rays.
  [Self-Repairing Oxetane-Substituted Chitosan Polyurethane Networks, Science 13 March 2009: Vol. 323. no. 5920, pp. 1458 - 1460 DOI: 10.1126/science.1167391 ]
  (March 16, 2009)

• Theory and experiment meet, and a new form of boron is found
  (The New York Times)

  
  Credit: Artem R. Oganov, Stony Brook University

  Boron is a simple atom: five protons, five or six neutrons, five electrons. It is not as ubiquitous as hydrogen. Yet it remains an element of mystery. Now researchers have found a form of boron that is nearly as hard as diamond. This discovery even illustrates the power of the idea of evolution, using a so-called genetic algorithm to decipher the structure of the new boron crystal. The new form of boron is stable at super-high pressures — more than 100,000 times the normal atmospheric pressure of 14.7 pounds per square inch — and consists of two substructures. One is a spherical shape of 12 boron atoms. The other is a dumbbell shape of a pair of boron atoms. These two sub-substructures stack together in the same way that table salt (sodium chloride) does. When the high pressures were eased, the boron remained in the new configuration. Subsequent experiments confirmed that the material had the properties predicted by the algorithm.
  [Ionic high-pressure form of elemental boron, Nature 457, 863-867 (12 February 2009) | doi:10.1038/nature07736]
  (February 19, 2009)

• Seeing a virus in three dimensions
  (The New York Times)

  
  Credit: The New York Times

  For the first time, researchers have captured a three-dimensional image of a virus. They used a new technique, magnetic resonance force microscopy, or M.R.F.M., which has some similarity to magnetic resonance imaging, or M.R.I., now routinely used. The results were 100 million times better in terms of resolution. They were able to capture a 3-D image of a tobacco mosaic virus with a spatial resolution down to four nanometers.
  [Nanoscale magnetic resonance imaging, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci., Published online before print January 12, 2009, doi: 10.1073/pnas.0812068106]
  (January 13, 2009)

• A new flexibility with thin solar cells
  (New York Times/Nature Materials)

  Manipulating photovoltaic cells, typically made of semiconductor materials, and incorporating them into different panel designs is not easy. A research group has now come up with a novel method for creating extremely thin solar cells that can be combined in flexible, even partially transparent, arrays. It could be called the rubber-stamp approach. The technique involves creating a series of precisely spaced “microbars” on a block of single-crystal silicon. These bars, which have a thickness of a few micrometers, have doped regions that create p-n junctions, the main feature of most photovoltaic cells.
  [Ultrathin silicon solar microcells for semitransparent, mechanically flexible and microconcentrator module designs, Nature Materials, Published online: 5 October 2008 | doi:10.1038/nmat2287]
  (October 7, 2008)

• Air-purifying stained glass windows early use of nanotechnology
  (e! Science News)

  Stained glass windows that are painted with gold purify the air when they are lit up by sunlight, according to a new study. Numerous church windows across Europe were decorated with glass coloured in gold nanoparticles. Glaziers in medieval forges were thus early nanotechnologists who produced colors with gold nanoparticles of different sizes, suggest the researchers involved in the study. The tiny particles of gold, energized by the sun, are able to destroy air-borne pollutants like volatile organic chemicals which often come from new furniture, carpets and paint.
  (August 25, 2008)

• A building of bubbles
  (Science News)

  
  Credit: Beijing 2008

  The swim center for the Olympics, which looks like it formed out of froth, was designed using the mathematics of foam. The National Aquatics Center in Beijing, newly built for the Olympics, is a glowing cube of bubbles. The walls, roof and ceiling of the “Water Cube” are covered — indeed, made from — enormous bubbles that seem to have drifted into place randomly, as if floating on the surface of a pool. But of course, those bubbles hardly skittered there of their own free will. Creating this frothy confection took a lot of steel, a lot of manpower, and not least, a lot of fancy mathematics.
  (July 21, 2008)

• The Keepers of the Moon
  (New York Times)

  In the lab, the Moon rocks look nondescript — dark gray basalt, a whitish mineral called anorthosite and mixtures of the two with crystals thrown in. Yet nearly 40 years after the Apollo astronauts brought the first rocks back to Earth, these pieces of the Moon are still providing scientists with new secrets from another world.
  (July 9, 2007)

• In Weak Rivets, a Possible Key to Titanic’s Doom
  (The New York Times)

  Researchers have discovered that the builder of the ship Titanic struggled for years to obtain enough good rivets and riveters and ultimately settled on faulty materials that doomed the ship, which sank 96 years ago. The builder’s own archives, two scientists say, harbor evidence of a deadly mix of low quality rivets and lofty ambition as the builder labored to construct the three biggest ships in the world at once — the Titanic and two sisters, the Olympic and the Britannic. For a decade, the scientists have argued that the storied liner went down fast after hitting an iceberg because the ship’s builder used substandard rivets that popped their heads and let tons of icy seawater rush in. More than 1,500 people died. Now, historians say new evidence uncovered in the archive of the builder, Harland and Wolff, in Belfast, Northern Ireland, settles the argument and finally solves the riddle of one of the most famous sinkings of all time. The company says the findings are deeply flawed.
  [What Really Sank the Titanic: New Forensic Discoveries, Citadel; 1 edition (March 1, 2008)]
  (April 17, 2008)

• Is zirconia a jet engine's best friend?
  (Scientific American)

  Grains of sand traveling at high velocity can have a devastating effect on aircraft and industrial gas-turbine engines. The granules eat into the zirconium dioxide ceramic thermal-barrier coatings that insulate and protect engine components from extremely high temperatures. In an effort to protect these coatings and ensure that turbine engines continue to operate properly, a research team has come up with a new formulation of zirconium dioxide, more commonly known as zirconia, by adding aluminum and titanium to the zirconia crystals. The aluminum and titanium turns molten glass formed from the glass into a stable crystal that poses no danger to the underlying ceramic surface.
  [Novel thermal barrier coatings that are resistant to high-temperature attack by glassy deposits, Acta Materialia, Volume 55, Issue 20, December 2007, Pages 6734-6745; doi:10.1016/j.actamat.2007.08.028]
  (April 2, 2008)

• Sea cucumber inspires polymer nanocomposite
  (Cosmic Log, MSNBC)

  
  Credit: Fred Carpenter

  A sea cucumber can activate its body armor in a matter of seconds, by secreting chemicals that stiffen its soft skin. Now researchers are adapting that trick to create plastics beefed up with nanomaterials that can switch from hard to soft, or vice versa, with the flick of a signal. The sea cucumber's skin has rigid collagen nanofibers embedded in soft connective tissue. When the creature senses a threat, it secretes chemicals that cause the nanofibers to bind together, hardening the skin into more of a shell. To mimic the sea cucumber's skin, the researchers substituted cellulose nanofibers for the collagen, and embedded them in a rubbery, porous polymer. The nanofibers were specially treated so that they would stick together in a matrix when dry, but would separate when exposed to a hydrogen-bond-forming solvent - like water, for example. The resulting material is as hard as the plastic in a CD case when it's dry - but goes limp and floppy like soft rubber when it's immersed in water. When the material dries out, it gets hard again.
  [Stimuli-Responsive Polymer Nanocomposites Inspired by the Sea Cucumber Dermis, Science 7 March 2008: Vol. 319. no. 5868, pp. 1370 - 1374, DOI: 10.1126/science.1153307]
  (March 7, 2008)

• X-rays reveal mystery of sand castles
  (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

  Using X-ray microtomography, researchers have shown why one can sculpt structures from almost any type of sand, as long as it is not bone dry. It was found that that the water was forming lots of small bridges that connect right across the structure. Although those water bridges became thinner as the water concentration dropped, their strength was found to be almost independent from how wet the sand was.
  [Morphological clues to wet granular pile stability, Nature Materials, Published online: 10 February 2008 | doi:10.1038/nmat2117]
  (February 12, 2008)

• World's darkest material created using carbon nanotubes (Audio)
  (National Public Radio)

  The "darkest ever" substance known to science has been created from carbon nanotubes. The researchers involved said it is the closest thing yet to the ideal black material, which absorbs light perfectly at all angles and over all wavelengths. The discovery is expected to have applications in the fields of electronics and solar energy. The material is made of an array of vertically aligned, low-density carbon nanotubes.
  [Experimental Observation of an Extremely Dark Material Made By a Low-Density Nanotube Array, Nano Lett., ASAP Article 10.1021/nl072369t S1530-6984(07)02369-7, Web Release Date: January 9, 2008 ]
  (January 17, 2008)

• When superconductivity became clear (to some)
  (New York Times)

  Superconductivity, the flow of electricity without resistance, was once as confounding to physicists as it is to everyone else. For almost 50 years, the heavyweights of physics brooded over the puzzle. Then, 50 years ago last month, the answer appeared in the journal Physical Review. It was titled, simply, “Theory of Superconductivity.”
  (January 8, 2008)

• Diamonds unlock secrets of early Earth
  (CNN)

  

  Diamonds more than 4 billion years old -- nearly as old as the Earth itself -- have been discovered in Western Australia, giving scientists vital clues about the early history of the planet. Found trapped in zircon crystals in the Jack Hills region, the small gems are the oldest identified fragments of the Earth's crust and their existence suggests the Earth may have cooled faster than previously thought.
  (August 28, 2007)

• Antique engines inspire nano chip
  (BBC News)

  

  The blueprint for a tiny, ultra-robust mechanical computer has been outlined by US researchers. The energy-efficient nano computer is inspired by ideas about computing first put forward nearly 200 years ago. They have proposed a new type of computing architecture that is only based on nano mechanical elements.
  (July 24, 2007)

• The science behind Harry's magic tricks
  (Independent.ie, Ireland)
  
  Can the magic of Harry Potter ever be reconciled with the rational laws of science? Harry's magical world casts a fascinating light on some of the most interesting issues now engaging researchers, including metamaterials for cloaking and anti-gravity devices.
  (July 17, 2007)
  
  
• Scientists develop artificial blood
  (University of Sheffield)

  Researchers are developing an artificial `plastic blood´, which could act as a substitute for real blood in emergency situations. The artificial blood is made of plastic molecules that hold an iron atom at their core, just like haemoglobin, that can bind oxygen and could transport it around the body. The small plastic molecules join together in a tree-like branching structure, with a size and shape very similar to that of natural haemoglobin molecules. This creates the right environment for the iron to bind oxygen in the lungs and release it in the body.
  (May 14, 2007)

• Scientists look to spiders for the goods on silk
  (Science News)

  

  To illustrate the amazing properties of spider silk, Nikola Kojic offers an arresting example. Imagine a circular web with a diameter of 100 meters—about the length of a football field—spun from a silk thread about a centimeter thick. Concentric circles 4 cm apart attach to the web's spokes, also 4 cm apart. This larger-than-life web "could stop a jumbo jet in midflight," says Kojic. the scenario demonstrates what scientists covet most about spider silk: its exceptional capacity to absorb kinetic energy. Scientists would like to exploit that property in items ranging from bulletproof vests to suspension cables for bridges.
  (April 23, 2007)
  
  

• 'Self-healing' house in Greece will dare to defy nature
  (Eurekalert/Univ. Leeds)
  A high-tech villa designed to resist earthquakes by ‘self-healing’ cracks in its own walls and monitoring vibrations through an intelligent sensor network will be built on a Greek mountainside. Special walls will be developed for the house that contain nano polymer particles - these will turn into a liquid when squeezed under pressure, flow into the cracks, and then harden to form a solid material, thereby imparting self-healing properties to the walls.
  (April 3, 2007)
  
  
• Self-cleaning, fog-free windshields
  (Technology Review)
  A new coating that changes its structure depending on whether it's in contact with oil or water could prevent windshields from fogging up or accumulating oily deposits. Drop water on a surface treated with the coating, and it rapidly spreads out, creating a thin film. This action prevents the formation of the tiny water droplets that make up fog. Add oil, however, and the surface responds the opposite way, repelling oil and causing it to bead up. Any oil that doesn't run off on its own would be easily wiped away with water.
  (April 2, 2007)
  
  
• Physicists remember when superconductors were hot
  (New York Times)
  Twenty years ago this month, nearly 2,000 physicists crammed into a New York Hilton ballroom to hear about a breakthrough class of materials called high-temperature superconductors, which promised amazing new technologies like magnetically levitated trains. Many of the participants from the 1987 session reconvened yesterday at an American Physical Society meeting in Denver, partly to reminisce and partly to take stock of what has happened since then and what has not.
  (March 6, 2007)
  
  
• The 'new age' of super materials
  (BBC News)
  In 1987, Ronald Reagan declared that the US was about to enter an incredible new era of technology. Levitating high-speed trains, super-efficient power generators and ultra-powerful supercomputers would become commonplace thanks to a new breed of materials known as high temperature superconductors (HTSC). "The breakthroughs in superconductivity bring us to the threshold of a new age," said the president. "It's our task to herald in that new age with a rush." But 20 years on, the new world does not seem to have arrived. So what happened?
  (March 5, 2007)
  
  
• Less elbow grease, more science
  (Royal Society of Chemistry)

  
  Credit: Chemical Science

  Kitchen surfaces that require hardly any cleaning might sound like a pipedream, but UK-based scientists have made surface coatings that could mean just that. Scientists have developed a way to make surfaces that stay dry and clean, just like the lotus leaf. A lotus plant's leaf never gets wet, even after a rainfall. Instead the water beads up and rolls off the leaf's surface, taking any dirt away with it.
  (January 17, 2007)
  
  
• Scientists create world's largest novelty atom
  Satire from the Onion
  Scientists have long been labeled as overly serious, narrowly focused individuals who don't have time for fun. But two University of Chicago atomic physicists proved that even the most buttoned-down professionals are capable of enjoying a good laugh every now and then. Last week, Drs. Marcus Hurley and Thom Fredericks unveiled what they are calling their "most hilarious work to date": an oversize novelty atom that measures "a ridiculously huge" 8.2 x 10-10 meters in diameter.
  (January 11, 2006)
  
• Diamonds from Outer Space: Origin of Earth's Mysterious Black Diamonds
  (National Science Foundation)

  
  Credit: National Science Foundation

  Scientists have claimed an extraterrestrial origin for unique black diamonds, also called carbonado diamonds. Infrared synchrotron radiation was used to discover the diamonds' source. The term carbonado was coined by the Portuguese in Brazil in the mid-18th century; it's derived from its visual similarity to porous charcoal. Black diamonds are found only in Brazil and the Central African Republic.
  (January 10, 2007)
  

• Spying on the Invisible
  (The Columbus Dispatch)
  
  
  
  Electron microscopes open new world of scientific discovery
  (October 18, 2006)
  
  
• Tarantulas spin silk from their feet
  (Nature)

  
  Credit S. Niederegger and S. Gorb, Max Planck Society

  Most spiders rely on their tiny claws and hairy feet to scurry up walls and cling to ceilings, but it seems that heavier spiders need an extra bit of sticking power. Researchers have found that tarantulas secrete gluey silk from their feet for this purpose. The silk is made of tiny fibers about one micrometer in diameter, 100 times thinner than a strand of hair, which were discarded from the spider's feet as it moved along. They seem to be made of the same protein as the silk spiders spin to make webs.
  [Nature 443, 407(28 September 2006)]
  (September 28, 2006)
  

• Artificial cornea is in sight
  (Photonics.com)

  
  Credit: David Myung, Stanford University

  A novel biomimetic material -- a hydrogel or polymer that holds a lot of water -- is finding its way into artificial corneas. Called Duoptix, the material can swell to a water content of 80 percent -- about the same as biological tissues. It's made of two interwoven networks of hydrogels. One network, made of polyethylene glycol molecules, resists the accumulation of surface proteins and inflammation. The other network is made of molecules of polyacrylic acid, a relative of the superabsorbent material in diapers.
  (September 21, 2006)
  

• Listening for breaking bones
  (New Scientist)
  A technique used to pinpoint the origin of an earthquake could be adapted to warn of an impending injury to dancers, athletes and even racehorses. Just as earthquakes produce detectable seismic waves at the Earth's surface, the tiny cracks that appear in stressed bones emit ultrasound. A wearable device has now been built that can detect this telltale ultrasound and warns athletes before a series of small cracks turns into a full-blown fracture.
  (September 21, 2006)
  
  
• Butterfly wings may inspire new flat panel displays
  (New Scientist)

  

  Copying the way butterflies create the extraordinary metallic colouring on their wings could lead to new kinds of dyes, cosmetics and even flat panel displays. Furthermore, the materials could be grown, potentially making them less expensive than manufactured alternatives. Reseaerchers have, for the first time, measured the structure and optical characteristics of the photonic crystals that occur naturally in the wings of the butterfly Cyanophrys remus .
  (September 8, 2006)
  

• Smart fabrics are back in fashion
  (BBC News)

  
  BBC News

  The Italian town of Prato has been built on cloth. There is even a museum there dedicated to its history, so there is no better place to weave together traditional Italian know-how with digital technology and come up with the next generation of cloth, what they are calling "smart fabric".
  (August 28, 2006)
  

• Microbes gobble corn and spit out electricity
  (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
  A Penn State scientist has developed technology that uses corn stover -- cornstalks, leaves and other leftovers after the corn is picked -- to produce electricity. All it requires is engineering expertise and some hungry bacteria.
  (August 2, 2006)
  
  
• Silk could help repair nerves
  (BBC News)

  
  BBC News

  A type of silk may be able to help repair damaged nerves. Nerve cells have been shown to grow along bundles of a special fiber, which has properties similar to spider silk. The material may be able encourage cell re-growth across severed nerves. The fiber, dubbed Spidrex, comes from silk worms that have been modified to give the fibres special properties that help cells to bind.
  (July 13, 2006)
  

• A new way to power artificial muscles may lead to lifelike machines
  (Science News)
  In a Texas laboratory, a toy mechanical arm just the length of an index finger perches, folded up, at the edge of an empty glass bowl. A young man in a lab coat squirts a volatile fluid, methanol, into the bowl. Moments later, the arm jerks and then hesitantly reaches forward. Although clumsy and slow, the gesture is a remarkable one never previously achieved in any lab: The arm moves when parts of its structure contract in response to reactions triggered by local chemical fuel—much as our own limbs do.
  (July 5, 2006)
  
  
• Device with electronic noses records smells
  (New Scientist)
  Engineers have reported the development of a device that can record a smell and then play it back later, similar to sounds or images. It uses 15 electronic noses (chemical-sensing microchips), to pick up a broad range of aromas. These are then used to create a digital recipe from a set of 96 chemicals that can be chosen according to the purpose of each individual gadget.
  (June 29, 2006)
  
  
• Using Ceramics, Brakes Are Light but Cost Is Heavy
  (New York Times)
  Ceramic brakes are now an option in many cars including Ferraris, Audis and Porches. Why replace metal discs, which have served well for many years and are easy to make? Using a ceramic composite takes advantage of a material with outstanding hardness (and potentially long life) and an ability to retain its strength and shape at temperatures that would melt conventional iron brake material into a glowing puddle.
  (June 20, 2006)
  
  
• Conventional lightbulbs may soon be obsolete
  
  
  (Science News)
  electric illumination is poised to undergo a dramatic metamorphosis from a "bulb culture" to a society that sees by the "digital light" of semiconductors.
  (May 22, 2006)
  
  
• Impressive new tricks of light, all within the laws of physics
  (New York Times)
  In the latest example of logic-defying tricks that physicists can now perform with light, researchers have demonstrated an optical fiber — a glass strand that transmits pulses of light — with a couple of odd characteristics: A pulse of light shot into the fiber departs before it enters. Within the fiber, the pulse travels backward — and faster than the speed of light.
  (May 17, 2006)
  
  
• Nanotech produces world's tiniest corks
  (The Guardian, UK)
  Scientists have been working on minuscule nanotechnology test tubes for a long time - tiny little packets of chemicals that can be injected into the body, before pouring out to react with other substances like cancers. Now scientists have found the answer, in the form of an amino chemical that can plug the hole, until the time when the chemicals are ready for release.
  (May 12, 2006)
  
  
• The Slipperiest Solid Substance on Earth
  (MRS Bulletin)
  The accidental discovery of Teflon.
  (May 10, 2006)
  
  
• Switchable lenses improve vision
  
  
  Credit: Guoqiang Li et al./Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
  
  (Science News)
  Some people have the impression that wearing eyeglasses can make you look smarter. Someday, your glasses themselves might actually be smarter. Scientists are developing "smart" lenses that sense where your eyes are looking and automatically focus to help you see more clearly.
  (May 1, 2006)
  
  
• Bacterium makes Nature's strongest glue
  (Nature News)
  Researchers have discovered a bacterium that makes the stickiest glue yet found. The adhesive made by Caulobacter crescentus is so secure that the bacterium can cling to a surface even when subjected to a force equivalent to four cars balanced on a coin. The glue is made out of polysaccharides, long sugar-based molecules.
  [Proc Natl Acad. Sci. USA, 103. 5764 - 5768 (2006)]
  (Apr. 11, 2006)
  
  
• Truly micro electronics in a single molecule
  (New York Times)
  Researchers have succeeded in fashioning an electronic circuit around a single carbon nanotube molecule. This is the first time that a single carbon nanotube has been used to make an integrated electronic circuit.
  [Science 24 March 2006: 1735]
  (Mar. 24, 2006)
  
  
• New plastic could rival silicon
  
  
  (BBC)
  A new plastic that could rival silicon as the material of choice for some electronic devices has been developed. The invention could eventually slash the cost of flat panel screens and bring electronic paper into common use. The new material can also be laid down using simple printing techniques rather than the expensive and elaborate methods used to process silicon.
  (Mar. 21, 2006)
  
  
• Nanotech helps blind hamsters see
  
  
  
  Nanotechnology has been used to restore the sight of blind hamsters. Researchers injected the blind hamsters at the site of their brain injury with a solution containing synthetically made peptides - miniscule molecules measuring just five nanometres long. Once inside the hamster's brain, the peptides spontaneously arranged into a scaffold-like criss-cross of nanofibres, which bridged the gap between the severed nerves.
  (Mar. 16, 2006)
  
  
• ‘Crystal sponge’ could be hydrogen breakthrough
  
  
  Credit Taner Yildirim / NIST
  
  A “crystal sponge” material (a metal organic framework) that can store nearly three times more hydrogen than any other known substance has been developed. This could be crucial for the path towards a hydrogen economy. The scientists claim their material is the first to achieve the kind of storage capacities required to make hydrogen fuel practical.
  (Mar. 13, 2006)
  
  
• Ice hockey stick incorporates nanotubes
  (NanotechWeb)
  A Finnish company has incorporated multiwalled carbon nanotubes into its ice hockey sticks. The ice hockey sticks have 60–70% better impact resistance than those made from traditional composites. They contain carbon nanotubes with a diameter of 5–20 nm in the shaft of the stick, which increases flexibility over that of a carbon fiber composite.
  (Mar. 9, 2006)
  
  
• High-tech paint can block cell phone calls
  (NewsDay)
  A way to use nanotechnology to blend particles of copper into paint that can be brushed onto walls and effectively deflect radio signals has been developed. Copper nanoparticles are inserted into nanotubes, and a medium has been developed to suspend the signal-blocking metal throughout a can of paint without significantly changing the way the paint adheres to a surface.
  (Posted Mar. 1, 2006)
  
  
• Explaining Ice: The Answers Are Slippery
  (The New York Times)
  Why is ice slippery? Though the question may seem to be a simple one, physicists are still searching for a simple answer. The explanation once commonly dispensed in textbooks turns out to be wrong. And slipperiness is just one of the unanswered puzzles about ice.
  (Posted Feb. 23, 2006)
  
  
• Electron microscopy on the runway
  (The Scientist)
  Electron microscopist Eve Reaven has been making scarves and ties based on subcellular structures such as mitochondria, Golgi bodies, the endoplasmic reticulum, hormone secretory granules, actin filaments, and centrioles since 1999. Reaven’s scarves and ties, with names such as Energy, Passages, Motility, Fluidity, Divisions, and Modulators, are sold at scientific meetings, such as the recent American Society of Cell Biology (ASCB) meeting in San Francisco as well as on her website.
  (Posted Feb. 17, 2006)
  
  
• A bathroom that cleans itself
  (University of New South Wales)
  Cleaning bathrooms may become a thing of the past with new coatings that will do the job for you. Researchers are exploring the use of titanium dioxide nanoparticles which work by absorbing ultraviolet light below a certain wavelength, exciting electrons and giving the particles an oxidising quality stronger than any commercial bleach. In addition, the particles are 'superhydrophilic' -- meaning droplets do not form -- and water runs straight off the surface, washing as it goes.
  (Feb. 7, 2006)
  
  
• Nanodiamonds oberved in space
  
  
  Courtesy Hubble Space Telescope, H. Van Winckel, Martin Cohen, NASA and ESA
  
  (Physics News Update)
  Extended Red Emission, or ERE, a mysterious astronomical effect in which regions of diffuse red light are observed in planetary nebulae and in the galactic halo have been observed. Researchers now suggest that the source for ERE could be nanodiamonds in space.
  (Jan. 13, 2006)
  
  
• Butterfly wing scales channel fluorescent light
  (Nature News)
  African butterflies have light-emitting wings that share a trick with high-tech light-emitting diodes (LEDs) according to researchers. They have bands of blue spots composed of fluorescent scales. In addition, the brightness of this emission is boosted by the structure of the wing scales, which channels the fluorescent light in a single direction away from the wing.
  [Science, 310. 1151 (2005)]
  (11.22.2005)
  
  
• Crumbling of spaghetti helps in understanding of brittle fragmentation
  (Science News)
  Recently, scientists were able to solve the mystery of how spaghetti crumbles. New studies now have taken this a step further and are beginning to address fragmentation - how brittle rods fragment and shatter.
  (11.14.2005)
  
  
• Bioelectronic sensor detects bad breathe very sensitively
  (Nature News)
  A sensor that can deliver precise readings of a sulphurous chemical called methyl mercaptan, a major cause of bad breath, has been developed.
  (10.24.2005)
  
  
• New techniques developed for detecting hidden radioactive nuclear materials
  (New Scientist)
  Several new techniques are under advanced stages of development to detect hidden or smuggled radioactive nuclear materials in ship containers, for example.
  (10.21.2005)
  
  
• First molecular car moves on fullerene wheels
  (Chemical & Engineering News)
  A molecular "car" has been built from an oligo(phenylene ethynylene) chassis and axle covalently mounted to four fullerene wheels. The nanocar could be driven around on a gold surface using the tip of a scanning tunneling microscope (STM)
  [Nano Lett., published online Oct. 13, dx.doi.org/10.1021/nl051915k]
  (10.19.2005)
  
  
• Making Iron The Old-Fashioned Way Is A Tricky Business
  Experimental archaeology explores bloomery furnaces that were used to make iron and steel in Europe and the United States up until about 200 years ago. These furnaces also have a long history in many cultures, stretching back more than 2,000 years. (Science Daily)
  (10.17.2005)
  
  
• Artificial grass is made of polypropylene
  In Silver Spring, Maryland, an acre-wide park has been covered with SoftLawn, an artificial lawn material made of polypropylene.
  
  
• Liquid drop takes big nano step
  
  
  
  Scientists have made a small blob of liquid move across a surface by shining a light in front of it. The trick is in tiny molecules or "machines" about a millionth of a millimetre in size that coat the surface and propel the drop.
  BBC
  
  
• Electronic skin gives robots human-like touch
  [From New Scientist]
  A flexible electronic skin that can sense when something is too hot to handle or is being squeezed too hard is being developed and could give robots an almost-human sense of touch.