We hit double digits. Champagne all around!
In this episode: A timelapse video of the U.S.'s carbon footprint, a plan to turn pollution into DVDs (and fleece Al Gore?), a warning against nanotoxic socks, and a duel between two green-tech press releases.
Created, written & designed by John Pavlus / Screencasts produced by Smashcut Media / Music by Jeff Alvarez
Okay, once you start smashing or pulling atoms apart, they get pretty exciting, but IBM has just published its finding on just how little force it takes to move an atom: about one-130-millionth of an ounce of force (210 piconewtons) to push a cobalt atom across platinum or only one-1,600-millionth (17 piconewtons) of an ounce of force to shove at across copper.
It takes about 30 billion piconewtons to pick up a penny.
Geeks across the world rejoiced, now able to finish every work out (or gaming session) with a shout of "I hold the power of 130 million cobalt atoms in my hand! What type of guns are these? Yeah, atom-pushing guns."
Anyone? No? Okay, just me.
Is there no end to the wonder that is a carbon nanotube? The things can be used to make really black bulletproof objects and slow, tiny computers!
Those computers are hard to make, though. Nanotubes are, well, small and sometimes hard to work with, resulting in a lot of failure. IBM has a different take, though. Instead of arranging the nanotubes to replace traditional circuits by hand (or, more likely, traditional tools), Big Blue is stringing them together with DNA molecules. Once it's all put together, you slip the DNA out, and--ta dah!--you've got a grid of nanotubes
Continue reading 'IBM builds nanotube chips out of DNA; HAL waves hello to Deep Blue' >
Actually they're red blood cells treated with an antibiotic. But isn't my description just so much more delicious?
via Wired
Stanford engineers have produced a silicon chip built on carbon nanotube wires that conduct digital information at the speed of commercial computers.
"This is the first time anyone has been able to show digital signals going through nanotubes at 1 gigahertz [a billion times a second]," Stanford professor of electrical engineering H.-S. Philip Wong said in a statement "There had been a lot of expectations that nanotubes could do this, but no experimental proof so far."
I know, I know, my old, decrepit work computer is already chugging along at 3.2Ghz and I still can't stand it. So what's the big deal?
Well, for starters, they're really, really black.
Continue reading 'Nanotube wires run at speed of slowish, everyday computers' >
In the words of the iconic, now-beleaguered Wesley Snipes, "always bet on black:" Scientists at Rice University have created the darkest substance known to man thus far. Pulickel M. Ajayan and his team of engineers created a carpet of carbon nanotubes that reflects only 0.045 percent of all light shined on it. It's four times darker than the former darkest substance, and its over 100 times darker than the black paint job on my Yugo.
Pure carbon is one of the darkest substances in the world, but Ajayan and team added a rough forest of nanotubes standing on end to further scatter light. Each nanotube is less than one-hundredth of an inch long.
Continue reading 'None more black: The darkest substance on earth' >
The "Technology Roadmap for Productive Nanosystems" was finally released last week after a long effort that began in 2005. Just in time for Christmas, the Battelle Memorial Institute-led report offers a wish list for how to move nanotechnology forward to lead the world in "addressing grand challenges in energy, health care, and other fields." The two main technologies the group asks for are for the U.S. to "1.Develop atomically precise technologies that provide clean energy supplies and a cost-effective energy infrastructure. 2. Develop atomically precise technologies that produce new nanomedicines and multifunctional in vivo and in vitro therapeutic and diagnostic devices to improve human health."
That's right: Peace on earth and good will towards men through tiny, tiny robots.
Continue reading 'Nanotechnology roadmap released: Tiny map for tiny bots' >
Today's 60 Second Science Podcast is brought to you by The California Cryobank:
Full transcript after the jump...
It seems like most technological innovations are met with optimism from the scientific community and trepidation from the public. Science said, "Let's work with nuclear power!" The public said, "I'm still a little worried about this whole 'igniting the atmosphere' thing." Not so with nanotechnology. In a new report surveying American households and a sampling of 363 leading U.S. nanotechnology scientists and engineers, scientists are consistently more worried about the unknown effects of nanotech than the public.
Continue reading 'Scientists worry about health effects of nanotechnology while public shrugs' >
Today's 60 Second Science podcast is brought to you by soon-to-be-obsolete kevlar:
Nanotubes may make best bulletproof vest
Full transcript after the jump...
Continue reading 'Nanotubes may make best bulletproof vest' >
Today the L.A. Times publishes a fascinating article on John Kanzius, a leukemia sufferer and radio man who, after spending years both experiencing grueling chemotherapy treatments and watching it in others, applied his talent for building radios to create a possible alternate treatment method. Kanzius had worked as a radio and television engineer and co-owned stations in the Erie, Pa. area, but he had no medical background — he didn't even have a bachelor's degree.
Kanzius knew how to send radio wave signals around the world. If he could transmit them into cancer cells, he wondered, could he then direct the radio waves to destroy tumors, while leaving healthy cells intact? For months, Kanzius tinkered, using the pie pans to create an electronic circuit, often waking Marianne with his clanging. By day, he sent her out with supply lists: mineral mixtures, metals, wires. His early-morning experiments would lead him to one of the nation's top cancer researcher centers, and earn the support of a Nobel Prize winner.
Continue reading 'Fighting cancer with radio waves, DIY-style' >
Earlier this month you may have noticed all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light. Actually you wouldn't have, because while a group of students and faculty at North Carolina State's PULSTAR nuclear reactor fired the most powerful antimatter beam ever created earlier this month--deep breaths everybody--they only made one of them.
