Sep

25

UK Starts Monitoring Potential Risks of Nanotechnology

September 25, 2006 | Leave a Comment

Monitoring environmental risks of nanotech. ‘The UK government’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) has launched a scheme to assess the potential risks of nanotechnology. Their Voluntary Reporting Scheme will collate information from industrial and academic researchers about the physical and toxicological properties of the nanoscale materials they work with, in order to [...]

Sep

24

Report: Major Improvements Needed in K-8 Science Education

September 24, 2006 | Leave a Comment

Taking Science to School: Learning and Teaching Science in Grades K-8. ‘What is science for a child? How do children learn about science and how to do science? Drawing on a vast array of work from neuroscience to classroom observation, Taking Science to School provides a comprehensive picture of what we know about teaching and [...]

Sep

24

Tungsten Trimers: A New Model for Catalysis

September 24, 2006 | Leave a Comment

Uniform Tungsten Trimers Stand and Deliver. ‘Research provides fundamental insights into catalyst structure and behavior. Like tiny nano-soldiers on parade, the cyclic tungsten trioxide clusters line up molecule-by-molecule on the titanium dioxide platform. One tungsten atom from each cluster is raised slightly, holding forth the potential to execute catalytic reactions. The nanostructures constitute a new [...]

Sep

21

The Chemists Touch: Wine Chemistry

September 21, 2006 | Leave a Comment

SciAm Observations: Chemistry of Wine. ‘Wine is among the oldest of humanity’s agricultural creations. King Tut enjoyed the red variety and its making stretches back as far as the ancient Mesopotamians (also potentially responsible for beer) and possibly much further. The grape remains the only fruit that can ferment completely without the addition of extra [...]

Sep

21

Use of Quantum Dots for Cancer Treatment: A Review

September 21, 2006 | Leave a Comment

AZojono: Review of Quantum Dot Technologies for Cancer Detection and Treatment. Abstract: ‘Semiconductor quantum dots (QDs) are nanoparticles that have attracted widespread interest in biology and medicine due to their unique optical and electronic properties. These properties, especially their reduced tendency to photobleach and the dependence of their fluorescence wavelength on their size, make them [...]

Sep

21

Electromagnetism Animations at MIT

September 21, 2006 | Leave a Comment

Visualizing Electricity and Magnetism at MIT. ‘We are using visualizations in teaching physics interactively in freshman courses at MIT (classes of 500 students). We combine desktop experiments with visualizations of those experiments to “make the unseen seen”. Our visualizations are organized into five categories: Vector Fields, Electrostatics, Magnetostatics, Faraday’s Law, and Light. Here we present [...]

Sep

21

Negative Refractive Index Metamaterials

September 21, 2006 | Leave a Comment

Superlens microscope gets up close. ‘The first direct near-field optical images from a superlens have been obtained by researchers in Germany and the US. Superlenses are made of negative refractive index metamaterials and this breakthrough could lead to their use in enhancing near-field microscopy for imaging biological samples and materials used in electronics (Science 313 [...]

Sep

21

Cleaner Coal Technology: Remove Oxygen From Air

September 21, 2006 | Leave a Comment

Making coal cleaner. ‘University of Queensland researchers are working on a process that could make the theory of clean coal a reality. Dr Joe da Costa’s research group, from the Division of Chemical Engineering in the School of Engineering, has developed unique hollow fibre technology that can separate oxygen from air, making the process of [...]

Sep

19

Cisplatin Encapsulation in Nanoliposomes

September 19, 2006 | Leave a Comment

Nanoparticles Boost Delivery of Cisplatin to Tumor Cells. ‘Cisplatin is one of the most powerful and effective drugs for treating a wide variety of cancers, but many tumors develop resistance to this drug, ultimately limiting its benefits for cancer patients. Now, however, researchers have developed a nanoparticulate formulation of cisplatin that shows promise for overcoming [...]

Sep

19

PAC-1: Converting Procaspase-3 to Caspase-3

September 19, 2006 | Leave a Comment

Personalized Apoptosis. ‘The death of individual cells is critical to the life of the body. It’s important during development. If some of the cells of an infant’s nascent hand don’t self-destruct, the fingers never separate. It’s important in fighting off disease because infected cells can be ordered to commit suicide. One form of cell death, [...]

Sep

17

The Science Channel’s 100 Greatest Discoveries

September 17, 2006 | Leave a Comment

The Big 100 – The Science Channel’s 100 Greatest Discoveries. ‘Scientists have transformed the way we think and live throughout the centuries. What are the most important scientific discoveries of all time? In no particular order, we present the top 100 in eight different categories.’
Categories: Astronomy, Biology, Chemistry, Earth Science, Evolution, Genetics, Medicine, Physics

Sep

17

Free Online Access to Royal Society Journals Digital Archive (Until December 2006)

September 17, 2006 | Leave a Comment

The greatest journals series in Science. ‘Nearly three and a half centuries of scientific study and achievement is now available online in the Royal Society Journals Digital Archive following its official launch this week. This is the longest-running and arguably most influential journal archive in Science, including all the back articles of both Philosophical Transactions [...]