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Nanotechnology

Radical Abundance by K. Eric Drexler (2013) – Book Review
http://hplusmagazine.com/2013/11/26/rad ... ok-review/
By: Harry J. Bentham
Published: November 26, 2013

Radical Abundance: How a Revolution in Nanotechnology Will Change Civilization, a work authored by the founding father of nanotechnology K. Eric Drexler, posits some stimulating questions about the impact of atomically precise manufacturing (APM) on civilization. This includes clarifying just what APM really is, and then addressing the kind of social and economic consequences.

The message of Radical Abundance is especially useful in that its questions are just as relevant to other emerging technologies such as biotechnology and 3D printing. We ought to see these as being similarly “disruptive” to the norms of the professions and international relations that let the world work in its present form.

In the foreword, Drexler’s book asks us to “imagine a world where the gadgets and goods that run our society are produced not in far-flung supply chains of industrial facilities, but in compact, even desktop-scale, machines.” Unfortunately, this realist interpretation of nanotechnology finds itself popularly marginalized by science fiction, uninformed guesses, “Impossibly high expectations”, and the confusion of terminology (p. ix-xiv, 30-33, 194-212, 273-281).

The main purpose of Drexler’s book is simply to clear away distractions and ask the more important questions about this technology’s possibilities. In my own view, by changing or altogether negating the current global division of labor as specified by Drexler, emerging manufacturing technologies like APM can at least begin to overcome the severe disparities of power and wealth in the world. These disparities have historically been legitimized and kept in place by the very nature of factories, aggressive supply chain management, and unequal exchange between advantaged and disadvantaged countries. Hence it is reasonable to expect “desktop-scale” manufacturing to threaten these disparities and usher new guarantees of dignity for every person or country, no matter how small.

In some ways, nanotechnology has seemed to elude public understanding. To bring nanotechnology out of the science fiction realm and down to Earth, the book points out that atomically precise instruments are already in a state of revolution and have helped in biotechnology. Nanotechnology is progressing in the lab, and its research successes are recognized in engineering fields. As the public are not really connected to these fields, however, there is an unfortunate tendency towards unrealistic expectations, hype or paranoia that may make people perceive nanotechnology as some obscure futuristic project that is struggling to materialize (p. 177-212). In other words, the current tradeoffs of nanotechnology research are great – but great in a way that advances science rather than leading to incredible changes in manufacturing yet.

Drexler helps the reader to understand what nanotechnology represents without being carried away by science fiction promises. To do this, he provides an analogy to an already well-known technology in business and daily life: information technology. These technologies are directly analogous. As Drexler explains, “digital information processing technologies employ nanoscale electronic devices that operate at high frequencies and produce patterns of bits.” By analogy, “APM-based materials processing technologies employ nanoscale mechanical devices that operate at high frequencies and produce patterns of atoms” (p. 7).

In addition to what has already been quoted, Drexler points out that chemistry and molecular biology also qualify as “building things with atomic precision” (22-30, 72-73), and APM only aims to do something on that same scale but mechanical in nature. Further parts of the book describe APM in vivid detail (p. 147-158). This allows the reader to visualize what is really meant by APM machines, rather than leaving these machines to be anticipated as sinister nebulas or pixie dust (p. 55-71). Biological molecular “machines” (p. 80-82) and chemical synthesis (p 82-84) are further compared with APM systems to give the reader an understanding of the plausibility of advanced nanomachines.

A fascinating philosophical point is made by Drexler when he states that universal laws have already determined every technology that exists, will exist or could exist. This realm of the possible is called “possibility space” by Drexler (p. 90-92). This is an especially beautiful point to make, because it sums up why it is noble for scientists to pursue an understanding of all that is possible within the universe. The confirmation of what can be done is the best work to enhance the potential and survivability of the species. To achieve this, the pursuit of all that can be known or done deserves to be encouraged on both nano and macro scales. APM can broaden the human reach into the “possibility space” of civilization, expanding the region of the possible (p. 105-106).

The Club of Rome’s Limits to Growth influenced Drexler, depicting the Earth as a closed system where overconsumption would lead to the depletion of resources and civilizational collapse. Drexler saw “space development” as a new frontier to beat this pessimistic end (p. 13-21). As such, his interpretation has been that the present form of civilization can sustain itself by overcoming the most hostile and resource-scarce environments with the help of APM technology.

However, nanotechnology will also lead to profound social change away from the current model of civilization because it will affect the mode of production. The resulting social change will be as significant as the agricultural, industrial and information revolutions before the APM revolution (p. 39-54). According to Drexler, 3D printing and the RepRap community already offer glimpses into “what APM systems will enable and a hint of how human communities may share information that can be translated into physical, functional forms.” Hence, APM and 3D printing guarantee even more social impacts than the information revolution because these are set to reshape the material basis of society (p. 76-77).

Among the most important points in Radical Abundance, Drexler writes:



“Producing patterns of atoms using APM-based technologies once again resembles producing patterns of bits using information technologies. Rapid production based on multipurpose, scalable platforms; independence from long, specialized supply chains; the potential for rapid decentralization; the pivotal role of software and online data; new products without costly new physical capital; low marginal costs of production and distribution; the potential for rapid, global deployment of new products” (p. 225-226).



Construction, transportation, water and agriculture should all become easier and more beneficial to the greatest number globally as a result of the APM revolution (p. 228-232). Not only would APM slash the level of carbon emissions and waste industrial byproducts massively by the very nature of its efficiency, but it would also allow for more effective cleanup of existing waste in the environment (p. 233-234).

Because of the potential acceleration of atomically precise manufacturing technologies, it is important to think about how to manage the change now (p. 213-220). The democratization of products and technologies due to the emergence of desktop-scale factories, while good for answering human needs in the long term, would nevertheless lead to disruptive trade problems that may result in “suffering and scarcity in the midst of abundance” (p. 34-35.) Is has to be agreed, therefore, that the economic disruptions caused by emerging technologies of abundance (including but not limited to APM) should be mitigated by very prudent political frameworks to ease the international community into a new kind of economy. In Drexler’s own prediction, these frameworks must mitigate disruptions in supply chains, trade, dependence, and the revaluation of assets (p. 240-258). The disruptions that should be anticipated are “falling demand for conventional labor, resources, and capital in physical production, with the potential for cascading disruptive effects throughout the global economy” (p. 282).

Screen Shot 2013-11-25 at 6.49.18 PM

In addition to the economic disruptions caused by APM, security disruptions are also likely. These include a massive increase in surveillance capabilities (p. 235) and the threat of a potential APM arms race (p. 260-261). An arms race is a very real possibility. Imagine if states gain the ability to exponentially boost their weapon stockpiles in secret. Fearing that others have already started, it is possible that the major military powers (US, China and Russia) will exponentially stockpile drones and other automated weapons platforms as soon as they find that the difficulty and cost of manufacturing these devices has plummeted. This could soon unfold using 3D printers, if fleets of drones can be printed at low cost in decentralized facilities. The APM arms race may not begin in the US or Russia. Iran has also shown an intense interest in drone manufacturing, and would not balk at the chance to obtain new conveyors to make even more of them.

Drexler writes that non-lethal force might become more and more applicable by states, as a result of APM systems being able to cheaply manufacture non-lethal weapons and munitions in vast quantities (p. 261-262), but his reasoning for this is not very convincing. Drexler sees the use of lethal force by armies as a choice determined by cost, with it being normally cheaper to apply lethal force than non-lethal force. In his opinion, cheaper availability of nonlethal weapons will make them the preferred weapons of war. His logic may apply in future security and policing operations in some tamer parts of the world, but not in modern warfare or Middle Eastern insurgencies. Consider that the lethal force in modern warfare is deliberate and aimed at incapacitating an organized and armed political adversary as quickly as possible. If you do not use lethal force, this organized enemy will simply have less life-threatening wounds to divert resources towards healing, and they will also have fewer reasons to be suppressed or retreat under fire. As a result, a determined adversary would only exploit his enemy’s non-lethal weapons as a weakness. Non-lethal warfare would also entail personnel endangering their lives on the ground and getting mired as they try to take targets into custody – a situation avoided by inflicting lethal injuries on targets instead.

In another political prediction, Drexler sees nation-states having less need to compete as a result of APM, meaning they can use their resources better (p. 266-269). Contrasting with this, I would instead predict that the nation-state may come to be seen as malignant if there is no longer any need to compete for resources and trade, and if with APM individual households become sufficient to thrive and survive without the need for myths of national security. Hence delegitimization of the nation-state could be unavoidable. Because of this likely consequence, I would anticipate that states will someday react to APM with fear and a desire to prevent it from empowering people’s lives – as with the internet.

APM could be one of several catalysts for the transition from the current “capitalist” mode of production – that is, a mode of production dictated by the exclusive priority of the endless accumulation of capital – towards a more egalitarian and democratic mode of production. A lot of chaos and threats to the legitimacy of nation-states ought to be expected as a political consequence. Nation-states, we must remember, are simply exclusive vessels designed to cope with scarcity by privileging citizens and rejecting outsiders. Such regimes would inevitably come to be seen as corrupt and arbitrary in a world of abundance, where borders need not exist and small communities are rendered sovereign by the new dignity supplied to them by democratic emerging technologies.

The conclusion of Drexler’s book is excellent, stating “as perceptions change, possibilities and politics change with them, while new media are transforming the discourse that shapes those perceptions.” What we are witnessing can be called the “quickening rapids of history” (p. 286-287), as the social and technological changes occurring at our juncture of modern history are taking place faster and more pervasively than anything preceding them and our input is more consequential than ever in the past.

###

Learn more:

http://hplusmagazine.com/2013/06/04/vid ... ts-meetup/

http://hplusmagazine.com/2011/11/30/exp ... c-drexler/



Eric Drexler lecture & debate: “Radical Abundance” – Nanotechnology Science Cafe | KennisCafé Nanotechnologie from De Balie on Vimeo.

http://vimeo.com/74876270
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What could possibly go wrong? Triffids!

Bionic plants: Synthetic nanoparticles enhance photosynthetic activity of plants
March 16th, 2014 in Nanotechnology / Nanophysics

Nanomaterials can enable plants with novel and augmented functions. This Arabidopsis plant with carbon nanotubes inside its leaves has augmented light energy capture and could act as a photonic biochemical detector. Credit: Juan Pablo Giraldo

Plants have many valuable functions: They provide food and fuel, release the oxygen that we breathe, and add beauty to our surroundings. Now, a team of MIT researchers wants to make plants even more useful by augmenting them with nanomaterials that could enhance their energy production and give them completely new functions, such as monitoring environmental pollutants.

In a new Nature Materials paper, the researchers report boosting plants' ability to capture light energy by 30 percent by embedding carbon nanotubes in the chloroplast, the plant organelle where photosynthesis takes place. Using another type of carbon nanotube, they also modified plants to detect the gas nitric oxide.

Together, these represent the first steps in launching a scientific field the researchers have dubbed "plant nanobionics."

"Plants are very attractive as a technology platform," says Michael Strano, the Carbon P. Dubbs Professor of Chemical Engineering and leader of the MIT research team. "They repair themselves, they're environmentally stable outside, they survive in harsh environments, and they provide their own power source and water distribution."

Strano and the paper's lead author, postdoc and plant biologist Juan Pablo Giraldo, envision turning plants into self-powered, photonic devices such as detectors for explosives or chemical weapons. The researchers are also working on incorporating electronic devices into plants. "The potential is really endless," Strano says.

Supercharged photosynthesis

The idea for nanobionic plants grew out of a project in Strano's lab to build self-repairing solar cells modeled on plant cells. As a next step, the researchers wanted to try enhancing the photosynthetic function of chloroplasts isolated from plants, for possible use in solar cells.

Chloroplasts host all of the machinery needed for photosynthesis, which occurs in two stages. During the first stage, pigments such as chlorophyll absorb light, which excites electrons that flow through the thylakoid membranes of the chloroplast. The plant captures this electrical energy and uses it to power the second stage of photosynthesis—building sugars.

Bionic plants
Near infrared fluorescence of carbon nanotubes (orange) infiltrated inside leaves (green) could boost photosynthesis and enable the detection of biochemicals and pollutants. Credit: Juan Pablo Giraldo and Nicole M. Iverson

Chloroplasts can still perform these reactions when removed from plants, but after a few hours, they start to break down because light and oxygen damage the photosynthetic proteins. Usually plants can completely repair this kind of damage, but extracted chloroplasts can't do it on their own.

To prolong the chloroplasts' productivity, the researchers embedded them with cerium oxide nanoparticles, also known as nanoceria. These particles are very strong antioxidants that scavenge oxygen radicals and other highly reactive molecules produced by light and oxygen, protecting the chloroplasts from damage.

The researchers delivered nanoceria into the chloroplasts using a new technique they developed called lipid exchange envelope penetration, or LEEP. Wrapping the particles in polyacrylic acid, a highly charged molecule, allows the particles to penetrate the fatty, hydrophobic membranes that surrounds chloroplasts. In these chloroplasts, levels of damaging molecules dropped dramatically.

Using the same delivery technique, the researchers also embedded semiconducting carbon nanotubes, coated in negatively charged DNA, into the chloroplasts. Plants typically make use of only about 10 percent of the sunlight available to them, but carbon nanotubes could act as artificial antennae that allow chloroplasts to capture wavelengths of light not in their normal range, such as ultraviolet, green, and near-infrared.

With carbon nanotubes appearing to act as a "prosthetic photoabsorber," photosynthetic activity—measured by the rate of electron flow through the thylakoid membranes—was 49 percent greater than that in isolated chloroplasts without embedded nanotubes. When nanoceria and carbon nanotubes were delivered together, the chloroplasts remained active for a few extra hours.

The researchers then turned to living plants and used a technique called vascular infusion to deliver nanoparticles into Arabidopsis thaliana, a small flowering plant. Using this method, the researchers applied a solution of nanoparticles to the underside of the leaf, where it penetrated tiny pores known as stomata, which normally allow carbon dioxide to flow in and oxygen to flow out. In these plants, the nanotubes moved into the chloroplast and boosted photosynthetic electron flow by about 30 percent.

Yet to be discovered is how that extra electron flow influences the plants' sugar production. "This is a question that we are still trying to answer in the lab: What is the impact of nanoparticles on the production of chemical fuels like glucose?" Giraldo says.

Bionic plants
Imaging the fluorescence of carbon nanotubes inside leaves of an Arabidopsis plant using a single particle near infrared microscope. Credit: Bryce Vickmark

Lean green machines

The researchers also showed that they could turn Arabidopsis thaliana plants into chemical sensors by delivering carbon nanotubes that detect the gas nitric oxide, an environmental pollutant produced by combustion.

Strano's lab has previously developed carbon nanotube sensors for many different chemicals, including hydrogen peroxide, the explosive TNT, and the nerve gas sarin. When the target molecule binds to a polymer wrapped around the nanotube, it alters the tube's fluorescence.

"We could someday use these carbon nanotubes to make sensors that detect in real time, at the single-particle level, free radicals or signaling molecules that are at very low-concentration and difficult to detect," Giraldo says.

By adapting the sensors to different targets, the researchers hope to develop plants that could be used to monitor environmental pollution, pesticides, fungal infections, or exposure to bacterial toxins. They are also working on incorporating electronic nanomaterials, such as graphene, into plants.

"Right now, almost no one is working in this emerging field," Giraldo says. "It's an opportunity for people from plant biology and the chemical engineering nanotechnology community to work together in an area that has a large potential."

More information: Research paper: dx.doi.org/10.1038/nmat3890

Provided by Massachusetts Institute of Technology

"Bionic plants: Synthetic nanoparticles enhance photosynthetic activity of plants." March 16th, 2014. http://phys.org/news/2014-03-bionic-syn ... hetic.html
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About time we had something new about nanos to worry about. Full text at link.

Are Nanoparticles From Packaging Getting Into Your Food?
—By Tom Philpott| Wed Jun. 11, 2014 6:00 AM EDT

A while back, I wrote about the US regulatory system's strange attitude toward nanotechnology and food.

On the one hand, the Food and Drug Administration is on record stating that nanoparticles—which are microscopically tiny pieces of common materials like silver and clay—pose unique safety concerns. The particles, which measure in at a tiny fraction of the width of a human hair, "can have significantly altered bioavailability and may, therefore, raise new safety issues that have not been seen in their traditionally manufactured counterparts," the FDA wrote in a 2012 draft proposal for regulating nanoparticles in food. On the other hand, its solution—that the food industry conduct safety testing that is "as rigorous as possible" and geared specifically to nano-materials before releasing nano-containing products onto the market—will be voluntary.

But what about packaging—the wrappers and bags and whatnot that hold food to keep it fresh? Nano-sized silver has powerful antimicrobial properties and can be embedded in plastic to keep food fresh longer; and nanoparticles of clay can help bottles and other packaging block out air and moisture from penetrating, preventing spoilage. Yet research has suggested (see here and here) that nanoparticles can migrate from packaging to food, potentially exposing consumers.

One list of packaging that could contain nanoparticles includes beer-bottles, aluminum foil, sandwich bags, and even a salad bowl.
So how widely is nanotech used in the containers that contact our food? Back in 2010, the Environmental Protection Agency released a "State of the Science Literature Review" on nanosilver (PDF; warning: 221 pages). The report confirms that nano-materials, including silver, are being used in food packaging, but shows why it's hard to get a grip on how just widely. "Current labeling regulations do not require that the nanomaterial be listed as an ingredient," neither in food or in food packaging, the EPA report states. And "manufacture of nanosilver-containing products is shifting to the Far East, especially China, South Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam," making it even harder to track nano-containing products that come in from abroad.

The Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies (PEN)—a joint venture of Virginia Tech and the Wilson Center—keeps a running inventory of "nanotechnology-based consumer products introduced on the market." A PEN spokesperson stressed to me that its list isn't comprehensive—it by no means captures every nano-associated item, and some products on the list may no longer contain nanotech. That said, the database includes 20 products in the "food and beverage storage" category, including a couple of beer bottles, aluminum foil, sandwich bags, and even a salad bowl. ...
http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott ... ig-problem
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I've see these sort of promises before; lets hope it delivers.

Nanomedicine
From bioimaging to drug delivery and therapeutics, nanotechnology is poised to change the way doctors practice medicine.

By Weihong Tan, Lei Mei, and Guizhi Zhu | August 1, 2014

In a 1959 lecture at Caltech famously dubbed “There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom,” American physicist and Nobel laureate–to-be Richard Feynman discussed the idea of manipulating structures at the atomic level. Although the applications he discussed were theoretical at the time, his insights prophesied the discovery of many new properties at the nanometer scale that are not observed in materials at larger scales, paving the way for the ever-expanding field of nanomedicine. These days, the use of nanosize materials, comparable in dimension to some proteins, DNA, RNA, and oligosaccharides, is making waves in diverse biomedical fields, including biosensing, imaging, drug delivery, and even surgery.

Nanomaterials typically have high surface area–to-volume ratios, generating a relatively large substrate for chemical attachment. Scientists have been able to create new surface characteristics for nanomaterials and have manipulated coating molecules to fine-tune the particles’ behaviors. Most nanomaterials can also penetrate living cells, providing the basis for nanocarrier delivery of biosensors or therapeutics. When systemically administered, nanomaterials are small enough that they don’t clog blood vessels, but are larger than many small-molecule drugs, facilitating prolonged retention time in the circulatory system. With the ability to engineer synthetic DNA, scientists can now design and assemble nanostructures that take advantage of ?Watson-Crick base pairing to improve target detection and drug delivery.

Both the academic community and the pharmaceutical industry are making increasing investments of time and money in nanotherapeutics. Nearly 50 biomedical products incorporating nanoparticles are already on the market, and many more are moving through the pipeline, with dozens in Phase 2 or Phase 3 clinical trials. Drugmakers are well on their way to realizing the prediction of Christopher Guiffre, chief business officer at the Cambridge, Massachusetts–based nanotherapeutics company Cerulean Pharma, who last November forecast, “Five years from now every pharma will have a nano program.”

Nano-sight

Technologies that enable improved cancer detection are constantly racing against the diseases they aim to diagnose, and when survival depends on early intervention, losing this race can be fatal. While detecting cancer biomarkers is the key to early diagnosis, the number of bona fide biomarkers that reliably reveal the presence of cancerous cells is low. To overcome this challenge, researchers are developing functional nanomaterials for more sensitive detection of intracellular metabolites, tumor cell–membrane proteins, and even cancer cells that are circulating in the bloodstream. (See “Fighting Cancer with Nanomedicine,” The Scientist, April 2014.)

The extreme brightness, excellent photostability, and ready modulation of silica nanopar­ticles, along with other advantages, make them particularly useful for molecular imaging and ultrasensitive detection.

Silica nanoparticles are one promising material for detecting specific molecular targets. Dye-doped silica nanoparticles contain a large quantity of dye molecules housed inside a silica matrix, giving an intense fluorescence signal that is up to 10,000 times greater than that of a single organic fluorophore. Taking advantage of Förster Resonance Energy Transfer (FRET), in which a photon emitted by one fluorophore can excite another nearby fluorophore, researchers can synthesize fluorescent silica nanoparticles with emission wavelengths that span a wide spectrum by simply modulating the ratio of the different dyes—the donor chromophore and the acceptor chromophore. The extreme brightness, excellent photostability, and ready modulation of silica nanoparticles, along with other advantages, make them particularly useful for molecular imaging and ultrasensitive detection. ...

http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles. ... omedicine/
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Scientists in South Korea used the Zinc Finger protein to develop a new manufacturing technique for size-controllable magnetic Nanoparticle Clusters.

Professor Hak-Sung Kim of the Department of Biological Sciences at Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) and Yiseul Ryu, a doctoral candidate, used the Zinc Finger protein that specifically binds to target DNA sequence to develop a new manufacturing technique for size-controllable magnetic Nanoparticle Clusters (NPCs). Their research results were published in Angewandte Chemie International Edition online on 25 November 2014.

NPCs are structures consisting of magnetic nanoparticles, gold nanoparticles, and quantum dots, each of which are smaller than 100 nm (10 [-9m]). NPCs have a distinctive property of collectivity not seen in single nanoparticles.

Specifically NPCS differ in physical and optical properties such as Plasmon coupling absorbance, energy transfers between particles, electron transfers, and conductivity. Therefore, NPCs can be employed in biological and medical research as well as the development of nanoelectric and nanoplasmon devices. ...

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 175130.htm
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New nanogel for drug delivery: Self-healing gel can be injected into the body and act as a long-term drug depot
Date:
February 19, 2015

Source:
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Summary:
Chemical engineers have designed a new type of self-healing hydrogel that could be injected through a syringe. Scientists are interested in using gels to deliver drugs because they can be molded into specific shapes and designed to release their payload over a specified time period.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/02/150219141340.htm
 
As nanotechnology makes possible a world of machines too tiny to see, researchers are finding ways to combine living organisms with nonliving machinery to solve a variety of problems.

Like other first-generation bio-robots, the new nanobot engineered at the University of Illinois at Chicago is a far cry from Robocop. It's a robotic germ.

UIC researchers created an electromechanical device--a humidity sensor--on a bacterial spore. They call it NERD, for Nano-Electro-Robotic Device. The report is online at Scientific Reports, a Nature open access journal.

"We've taken a spore from a bacteria, and put graphene quantum dots on its surface--and then attached two electrodes on either side of the spore," said Vikas Berry, UIC associate professor of chemical engineering and principal investigator on the study. ...

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-03/uoia-tbi032415.php
 
A team led by researchers at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science has developed nanostructures made from a compound of three metals that increases the efficiency and durability of fuel cells while lowering the cost to produce them. Their solution addresses vexing problems that have stalled the adoption of this technology.

Yu Huang, a UCLA associate professor of materials science and engineering, was the principal investigator of the research, which was published in the June 12 issue of Science.

Proton exchange membrane fuel cells have shown great promise as a clean energy technology with numerous applications including zero-emission vehicles. The fuel cells work by causing hydrogen fuel and oxygen from the air to react to produce electricity, and the exhaust they create is water—rather than the pollutants and greenhouse gases emitted by traditional car engines.

The chemical processes that take place in proton exchange membrane fuel cells are catalyzed by metals. One of those processes is an oxygen reduction reaction, which has typically used platinum as its catalyst. But the high cost of platinum has been a major factor in hindering wider adoption of fuel cells. Scientists have studied alternative catalysts—including using a platinum–nickel compound—but to date, none has been durable enough to be a viable solution. ...

http://phys.org/news/2015-06-lower-cost-efficient-nanostructure-fuel-cells.html
 
One problem that arises with diagnosing medical conditions is that the symptoms of some conditions only arise after a certain amount of time. By the time these symptoms come to the surface, the underlying condition will have progressed to a stage at which its treatment is much more complicated than it would have been had the problem been discovered earlier.

The most obvious example of this problem would be cancers such as pancreatic cancer that often do not cause any signs or symptoms during their early stages, only causing symptoms once the cancer has spread to other parts of the body.

But this problem is a common one. Another example would be when an implant - a hip implant, for example - becomes infected or inflammation causes prohibitive scar tissue to form. By the time it becomes apparent that a hip implant has become infected, however, the only solution is to remove the implant and insert a new one.

This week, MNT spoke to Thomas Webster, a professor and chair of the Department of Chemical Engineering at Northeastern University in Boston, MA, about his team's current work in dealing with this issue.

"What we quickly realized in our medical care system today is that a lot of what we do is very reactionary," he said.

In this Spotlight, we take a look at how Prof. Webster and his colleagues are looking to move away from a reactionary model of health care with the development of nanosensors - a new form of technology that will be able to monitor the build-up of bacteria on implants and warn clinicians when treatment is required before the problem escalates.

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/299663.php
 
DNA Nanobots Will Target Cancer Cells In The First Human Trial Using A Terminally Ill Patient

“The very mention of “nanobots” can bring up a certain future paranoia in people—undetectable robots under my skin? Thanks, but no thanks. Professor Ido Bachelet of Israel’s Bar-Ilan University confirms that while tiny robots being injected into a human body to fight disease might sound like science fiction, it is in fact very real.

Cancer treatment as we know it is problematic because it targets a large area. Chemo and radiation therapies are like setting off a bomb—they destroy cancerous cells, but in the process also damage the healthy ones surrounding it. This is why these therapies are sometimes as harmful as the cancer itself. Thus, the dilemma with curing cancer is not in finding treatments that can wipe out the cancerous cells, but ones that can do so without creating a bevy of additional medical issues. As Bachelet himself notes in a TEDMED talk: “searching for a safer cancer drug is basically like searching for a gun that kills only bad people.”

This is where nanobots come in—rather than take out every cell in the area they’re distributed to, they’re able to recognize and interact with specific molecules. This means that new drugs don’t even need to be developed; instead, drugs that have already been proven to be effective for cancer treatment but too toxic for regular use can be used in conjunction with nanobots to control said toxicity.” ...

http://3tags.org/article/dna-nanobo...st-human-trial-using-a-terminally-ill-patient
 
A spot of sunshine is all it could take to get your washing done, thanks to pioneering nano research into self-cleaning textiles.

Researchers at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, have developed a cheap and efficient new way to grow special nanostructures—which can degrade organic matter when exposed to light—directly onto textiles.

The work paves the way towards nano-enhanced textiles that can spontaneously clean themselves of stains and grime simply by being put under a light bulb or worn out in the sun.

Dr Rajesh Ramanathan said the process developed by the team had a variety of applications for catalysis-based industries such as agrochemicals, pharmaceuticals and natural products, and could be easily scaled up to industrial levels.

"The advantage of textiles is they already have a 3D structure so they are great at absorbing light, which in turn speeds up the process of degrading organic matter," he said.

"There's more work to do to before we can start throwing out our washing machines, but this advance lays a strong foundation for the future development of fully self-cleaning textiles."

The researchers from the Ian Potter NanoBioSensing Facility and NanoBiotechnology Research Lab at RMIT worked with copper and silver-based nanostructures, which are known for their ability to absorb visible light.



Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2016-03-nano-enhanced-textiles.html#jCp
 
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ramonmercado said:
A spot of sunshine is all it could take to get your washing done, thanks to pioneering nano research into self-cleaning textiles.

Researchers at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, have developed a cheap and efficient new way to grow special nanostructures—which can degrade organic matter when exposed to light—directly onto textiles.
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I presume wearing this clothing this won't skeletonize me? :eek:
 
Some Good Nanonews.

Faster, More Accurate Cancer Detection Using Nanoparticles, Rutgers-Led Study Finds
Light-emitting nanoprobes can detect cancer early and track the spread of tiny tumors
By Todd B. Bates December 11,

Using light-emitting nanoparticles, Rutgers University-New Brunswickscientists have invented a highly effective method to detect tiny tumors and track their spread, potentially leading to earlier cancer detection and more precise treatment.

The technology could improve patient cure rates and survival times.

“We’ve always had this dream that we can track the progression of cancer in real time, and that’s what we’ve done here,” said Prabhas V. Moghe, a corresponding author of the study and distinguished professor of biomedical engineering and chemical and biochemical engineering at Rutgers-New Brunswick. “We’ve tracked the disease in its very incipient stages.”

The study, published online Dec.11 in Nature Biomedical Engineering, shows that the new method is better than magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and other cancer surveillance technologies. The research team included Rutgers’ flagship research institution (Rutgers University-New Brunswick) and its academic health center (Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences, or RBHS).

https://news.rutgers.edu/faster-mor...rutgers-led-study-finds/20171207#.WjuxTd9l_IX
 
More nice nano-news.

An electricity-conducting, environment-sensing, shape-changing machine the size of a human cell? Is that even possible?

Cornell physicists Paul McEuen and Itai Cohen not only say yes, but they've actually built the "muscle" for one.

With postdoctoral researcher Marc Miskin at the helm, the team has made a robot exoskeleton that can rapidly change its shape upon sensing chemical or thermal changes in its environment. And, they claim, these microscale machines – equipped with electronic, photonic and chemical payloads – could become a powerful platform for robotics at the size scale of biological microorganisms.

"You could put the computational power of the spaceship Voyager onto an object the size of a cell," Cohen said. "Then, where do you go explore?"

"We are trying to build what you might call an 'exoskeleton' for electronics," said McEuen, the John A. Newman Professor of Physical Science and director of the Kavli Institute at Cornell for Nanoscale Science. "Right now, you can make little computer chips that do a lot of information-processing … but they don't know how to move or cause something to bend."

Their work is outlined in "Graphene-based Bimorphs for Micron-sized, Autonomous Origami Machines," published Jan. 2 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Miskin is lead author; other contributors included David Muller, the Samuel B. Eckert Professor of Engineering, and doctoral students Kyle Dorsey, Baris Bircan and Yimo Han. ...

https://phys.org/news/2018-01-physicists-cell-sized-robots.html
 
Even more nice nano news.

Cancer-fighting nanorobots programmed to seek and destroy tumors
Study shows first applications of DNA origami for nanomedicine
Date:
February 12, 2018
Source:
Arizona State University
Summary:
In a major advancement in nanomedicine, scientists have successfully programmed nanorobots to shrink tumors by cutting off their blood supply.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/02/180212112000.htm
 
Do we really need mice who can see in the dark?

Scientists have figured out how to confer a superpower, like those wielded by the mythical X-Men, at least to mice. Using nanoparticles that convert infrared (IR) light to visible light, researchers have given mice the ability to see in the dark.

If the same technique works in humans, it could offer soldiers night vision without the need for goggles and possibly counter ailments that cause patients to gradually lose their sight.

“This paper is astonishing,” says Michael Do, a neuroscientist at Harvard Medical School in Boston, who was not involved with the work. “To think that you can inject these nanoparticles and have them work is incredible.”

When injected into the eye, the nanoparticles deliver visible light to the light-sensitive pigments that vertebrates use to see. The pigments are in specialized cells called photoreceptors, located in the retina at the back of the eye.

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/201...ly_2019-02-28&et_rid=394299689&et_cid=2691838
 
ramonmercado said:
Do we really need mice who can see in the dark?

Scientists have figured out how to confer a superpower, like those wielded by the mythical X-Men, at least to mice. Using nanoparticles that convert infrared (IR) light to visible light, researchers have given mice the ability to see in the dark.

If the same technique works in humans, it could offer soldiers night vision without the need for goggles and possibly counter ailments that cause patients to gradually lose their sight.

“This paper is astonishing,” says Michael Do, a neuroscientist at Harvard Medical School in Boston, who was not involved with the work. “To think that you can inject these nanoparticles and have them work is incredible.”

When injected into the eye, the nanoparticles deliver visible light to the light-sensitive pigments that vertebrates use to see. The pigments are in specialized cells called photoreceptors, located in the retina at the back of the eye.

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/201...ly_2019-02-28&et_rid=394299689&et_cid=2691838
Click to expand...
*squeak!"
 
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