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Category: nanotechnology – Page 288

In an attempt to bring the next generation of computers to life, teams around the globe have been working with carbon nanotubes — one of the most conductive materials ever discovered. Now, for the first time ever, scientists made a transistor using carbon nanotubes that beats silicon.

For the first time, scientists have built a transistor out of carbon nanotubes that can run almost twice as fast as its silicon counterparts.

This is big, because for decades, scientists have been trying to figure out how to build the next generation of computers using carbon nanotube components, because their unique properties could form the basis of faster devices that consume way less power.

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No shock to me.

Diamandis claimed that we are gearing towards a future possible of “interface mind-machine, where in human brain’s consciousness could be uploaded to computer and then transferred to a new body—probably a cultured in the lab. He estimates that it will just take 20–30 years to be realized.

The reality of extended life longevity to almost immortality is actually not too hard to believe these days. After all science and technology never failed to amuse us to make the once impossible possible.

TagsHealth, alternative health, life longevity, Nanotechnology, Medical Science, medical nanotechnology.

Continue reading “We Might Be Getting Closer To “Immortality” Through Medical Nanotechnology” | >

A new tool to battle colon cancer.

Edible ginger-derived nano-lipids created from a specific population of ginger nanoparticles show promise for effectively targeting and delivering chemotherapeutic drugs used to treat colon cancer, according to a study by researchers at the Institute for Biomedical Sciences at Georgia State University, the Atlanta Veterans Affairs Medical Center and Wenzhou Medical University and Southwest University in China.

Colorectal cancer is the third most common cancer among men and women in the United States, and the second-leading cause of cancer-related deaths among men and women worldwide. The incidence of colorectal cancer has increased over the last few years, with about one million new cases diagnosed annually. Non-targeted chemotherapy is the most common therapeutic strategy available for colon cancer patients, but this treatment method is unable to distinguish between cancerous and healthy cells, leading to poor therapeutic effects on tumor cells and severe toxic side effects on healthy cells. Enabling chemotherapeutic drugs to target cancer cells would be a major development in the treatment of colon cancer.

In this study, the researchers isolated a specific nanoparticle population from edible ginger (GDNP 2) and reassembled their lipids, naturally occurring molecules that include fats, to form ginger-derived nano-lipids, also known as nanovectors. To achieve accurate targeting of tumor tissues, the researchers modified the nanovectors with folic acid to create FA-modified nanovectors (FA nanovectors). Folic acid shows high-affinity binding to the folate receptors that are highly expressed on many tumors and almost undetectable on non–tumor cells.

Continue reading “Nano-lipid Particles From Edible Ginger Could Improve Drug Delivery for Colon Cancer, Study Finds” | >

Very hopeful — Nano-based masks for a more comfortable radiation treatment.

BOSTON, Sept. 7, 2016 /PRNewswire/ — September 25–28, 2016 – Like every year, Orfit Industries will be present at the ASTRO Annual Meeting in the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center known to be the world’s most important meeting for the radiation oncology community, with more than 11,000 people attending each year. Orfit Industries invites customers, medical specialists and professionals to come to the Orfit booth (no. 2033) and try on the new generation of nano-based masks.

Compared to Efficast® masks used for head and neck immobilization, immobilization masks made from nano-enhanced thermoplastic sheets provide the patient with more comfort through a lower degree of shrinkage and therefore reduced pressure on the face during radiation therapy. The issue of mask tightness is a very common one as medication received during the radiation treatment phase may result in an increase in the volume of the patient.

In its efforts to provide a higher degree of patient comfort, Orfit Industries developed a nano-based thermoplastic material that results in thinner masks with less shrinkage. Orfit engineers have interwoven a natural material (nano clay) in the inner layers of the thermoplastic material, which resulted in a substantial improvement of its mechanical properties. Thermoplastics will shrink when they cool on the patient during the mask making process and therefore have an impact on comfort, in particular when the volume of the patient tends to increase in the course of treatment. In this context, the reduction of shrinkage by means of NANOR® is an important step forward as it provides the degree of comfort required to minimize patient movement during the delivery of the dose.

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A new technique uses the curious physical laws of the nano-scale itself to “program” nanobots. Welcome to the future of nanotechnology.

Nanorobotics has long been touted as one of the most promising “miracle technologies” of the future. But one of the fundamental problems with such extreme miniaturization is how to “program” nanobots—after all, you can’t very well shrink computer circuitry to fit within nanometer-scale technology.

But now, two researchers, Joseph Wang of UC San Diego and Jennifer Balazs of the University of Pittsburgh, may have found an ingenious way to circumvent this problem. Forget computer controls and artificial intelligence programming—let the laws of physics at the nano-scale do all the programming for you.

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For decades, scientists have tried to harness the unique properties of carbon nanotubes to create high-performance electronics that are faster or consume less power — resulting in longer battery life, faster wireless communication and faster processing speeds for devices like smartphones and laptops.

But a number of challenges have impeded the development of high-performance transistors made of carbon nanotubes, tiny cylinders made of carbon just one atom thick. Consequently, their performance has lagged far behind semiconductors such as silicon and gallium arsenide used in computer chips and personal electronics.

Now, for the first time, University of Wisconsin–Madison materials engineers have created carbon nanotube transistors that outperform state-of-the-art silicon transistors.

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Abstract: Columbia Engineers discover that samarium nickelate shows promise for active photonic devices — SmNiO3 could potentially transform optoelectronic technologies, including smart windows, infrared camouflage, and optical communications.

A team led by Nanfang Yu, assistant professor of applied physics at Columbia Engineering, has discovered a new phase-transition optical material and demonstrated novel devices that dynamically control light over a much broader wavelength range and with larger modulation amplitude than what has currently been possible. The team, including researchers from Purdue, Harvard, Drexel, and Brookhaven National Laboratory, found that samarium nickelate (SmNiO3) can be electrically tuned continuously between a transparent and an opaque state over an unprecedented broad range of spectrum from the blue in the visible (wavelength of 400 nm) to the thermal radiation spectrum in the mid-infrared (wavelength of a few tens of micrometers). The study, which is the first investigation of the optical properties of SmNiO3 and the first demonstration of the material in photonic device applications, is published online today in Advanced Materials.

“The performance of SmNiO3 is record-breaking in terms of the magnitude and wavelength range of optical tuning,” Yu says. “There is hardly any other material that offers such a combination of properties that are highly desirable for optoelectronic devices. The reversible tuning between the transparent and opaque states is based on electron doping at room temperature, and potentially very fast, which opens up a wide range of exciting applications, such as ‘smart windows’ for dynamic and complete control of sunlight, variable thermal emissivity coatings for infrared camouflage and radiative temperature control, optical modulators, and optical memory devices.”

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Cancer thrives when mutated cells undergo frequent division. Most anti-cancer drugs work by inserting themselves in between the DNA base pairs that encode our genetic information. This process is known as intercalation, and it can result in subtle changes to the DNA molecule’s geometric shape or tertiary structure. These structural changes interfere with the DNA’s transcription and a cell’s replication process, ultimately resulting in cell death.

While intercalating agents used in chemotherapy drugs are highly effective in fighting cancer, they also may kill important cells in the body and lead to other complications such as heart failure. Therefore, researchers are always searching for faster, cheaper and more accurate tools to aid in the design of next-generation anti-cancer drugs with reduced side effects.

A paper published in ACS Nano, one of the top nanotechnology journals in the world, explores this topic. “Modeling and Analysis of Intercalant Effects on Circular DNA Conformation,” (LINK TO http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acsnano.6b04876) focuses on the effect of the intercalating agent ethidium bromide (a mimic for many chemotherapy drugs) on the tertiary structure of DNA.

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Nantero, Fujitsu Semiconductor and Mie Fujitsu Semiconductor today announced an agreement for Fujitsu and Mie Fujtisu to license that Nantero’s technology for NRAM, non-volatile RAM using carbon nanotubes, and to conduct joint development towards releasing a product based on 55-nm process technology.

Three companies are aiming to develop a product using NRAM non-volatile RAM that achieves several 1000 times faster rewrites and many thousands of times more rewrite cycles than embedded flash memory, making it potentially capable of replacing DRAM with non-volatile memory.

Fujitsu Semiconductor plans to develop an NRAM-embedded custom LSI product by the end of 2018, with the goal of expanding the product line-up into stand-alone NRAM product after that. Mie Fujitsu Semiconductor, which is a pure-play foundry, plans to offer NRAM-based technology to its foundry customers.

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Nice advancement for the nanomaterials space particularly as we look at ways to improve machines, devices, BMI, living buildings or other living structures, etc. Definitely advances efforts around Singularity.

Proteins perform a myriad of functions essential for life. They also make up important and useful biological materials, for example spider silk, which is exceptionally strong but still flexible.

The ability to design completely new proteins would help scientists create nanomaterials that, like spider silk, have a specific microstructure that confers useful properties.

Continue reading “A New Way to Create Synthetic Proteins Could Lead to More Flexible Designs” | >