Molecular switch

Frankly, some researchers didn't think what we were attempting was possible because standard descriptions in physics, for example the Stokes equation for viscosity indicated that the system might not work. But viscous forces do not apply at the nano-scale," says Dr Keith Firman, Reader in Molecular Biotechnology at Portsmouth University and coordinator of the Mol-Switch project, funded under the European Commission’s FET (Future and Emerging Technologies) initiative of the IST programme. "However, we got our molecular switch to work."

Team develops DNA switch to interface living organisms with computers from PhysOrg.com

Researchers at the University of Portsmouth, UK, have developed an electronic switch based on DNA - a world-first bio-nanotechnology breakthrough that provides the foundation for the interface between living organisms and the computer world.

But the DNA switch has immediate practical application in toxin detection, and could be used in a biodefence role as a biological sensor to detect airborne pathogens.
[...]

Nanotechnology could promote hydrogen economy

Say "nanotechnology" and people are likely to think of micro machines or zippy computer chips. But scientists are using nanotechnology in chemical reactions that could provide hydrogen for tomorrow's fuel-cell powered clean energy vehicles. Now researchers describe how they make a finely textured surface of the metal iridium that can be used to extract hydrogen from ammonia, then captured and fed to a fuel cell. The metal's surface consists of pyramids with facets five nanometers across, onto which ammonia molecules can nestle like matching puzzle pieces. This sets up the molecules to undergo complete and efficient decomposition.

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National Chemistry Week 2006: Building for the Future

A broad range of affordable semi-synthetic penicillins and chephalosporins have been made possible by the use of the intermediate 6-aminopenicillanic acid (6-APA).


You probably are not aware of it, but from the moment you wake up in the morning and step onto your bedroom floor virtually everything you see and touch and use in your home is part of the world of chemistry. Read more...

Don't worry, be happy!

Contrast Priciple

Scientists have long demonstrated this contrast principle with a neat trick. Take three buckets of water—one hot, one cold, and one room temperature. Start by putting your left hand in the hot and your right hand in the cold for 30 seconds. Then put them both into the room temperature water. The one that was in the hot water will feel cold and the one in the cold will now feel hot. Einstein it’s not. Relativity it is.

We like control

“The whole universe is change, and life itself is but what you deem it.” So said Roman ruler Marcus Aurelius. And centuries later Shakespeare wrote in Hamlet, “for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”

The value of silence

As the cliché goes, there’s a reason we have two ears and only one mouth. Its interesting that Pythagoras in 500 BC and Leonard Da Vinci were separated by a millennium but had the same idea. The former said, “It is better wither to be silent, or to say things of more value than silence. Sooner throw a pearl at hazard than an idle or useless word; and do not say a little in many words, but a great deal in a few.” The latter invoking much the same imagery said, “Oysters open completely when the moon is full; and when the crab sees one it throws a piece of stone or seaweed into it and the oyster cannot close again so that it serves the crab for meat. Such is the fate of him who opens his mouth too much and thereby puts himself at the mercy of the listener.”

Where is nanotechnology?
...An insider's blog on the science, markets, and undiscovered trends of nanotech

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