Buckyballs may see widespread use in future products and applications, from drug-delivery vehicles for cancer therapy to ultrahard coatings and military armor, chemical sensors and hydrogen-storage technologies for batteries and automotive fuel cells.

"Because of the numerous potential applications, it is important to learn how buckyballs react in the environment and what their possible environmental impacts might be," said Chad Jafvert, a professor of civil engineering at Purdue.

The researchers mixed buckyballs in a solution of water and a chemical called octanol, which has properties similar to fatty tissues in animals. Jafvert and doctoral student Pradnya Kulkarni were the first to document how readily buckyballs might be "partitioned," or distributed into water, soil and fatty tissues in wildlife such as fish.

Findings indicated buckyballs have a greater chance of partitioning into fatty tissues than the banned pesticide DDT. However, while DDT is toxic to wildlife, buckyballs currently have no documented toxic effects, Jafvert said. [Read More]

The device, called a monolithic comb drive, might be used as a "nanoscale manipulator" that precisely moves or senses movement and forces. The devices also can be used in watery environments for probing biological molecules, said Jason Vaughn Clark, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering and mechanical engineering, who created the design.

The monolithic comb drives could make it possible to improve a class of probe-based sensors that detect viruses and biological molecules. The sensors detect objects using two different components: A probe is moved while at the same time the platform holding the specimen is positioned. The new technology would replace both components with a single one - the monolithic comb drive.

The innovation could allow sensors to work faster and at higher resolution and would be small enough to fit on a microchip. The higher resolution might be used to design future computer hard drives capable of high-density data storage and retrieval. Another possible use might be to fabricate or assemble miniature micro and nanoscale machines. [Read More]

The conference, scheduled for Aug. 19-21 at the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research in Bangalore, will focus on how to improve the energy transport, conversion and efficiency of nanomaterials. A session on Aug. 21, hosted by General Electric Co.'s John F. Welch Technology Centre in Bangalore, will highlight industry-university research partnerships.

"This workshop will bring together researchers in India, the United States and industry to initiate collaborative projects in nanomaterials for advancing energy science and technology," said Pankaj Sharma, associate director of operations and international affairs for Discovery Park. "This event also highlights Discovery Park's international efforts that are stimulating business opportunities and partnerships in India and at Purdue."

The workshop, "Scalable Nanomaterials for Enhanced Energy Transport, Conversion and Efficiency," is co-sponsored by the Indo-U.S. Science and Technology Forum. [Read More]

Researchers have overcome a major obstacle in producing transistors from networks of carbon nanotubes, a technology that could make it possible to print circuits on plastic sheets for applications including flexible displays and an electronic skin to cover an entire aircraft to monitor crack formation.

The so-called "nanonet" technology - circuits made of numerous carbon nanotubes randomly overlapping in a fishnet-like structure - has been plagued by a critical flaw: The network is contaminated with metallic nanotubes that cause short circuits.

The discovery solves this problem by cutting the nanonet into strips, preventing short circuits by breaking the path of metallic nanotubes.

"This is a fundamental advance in how nanotube circuits are made," said Ashraf Alam, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Purdue University. He is working with Kaushik Roy, Purdue's Roscoe H. George Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and doctoral students Ninad Pimparkar and Jaydeep P. Kulkarni. [Read More]

The technology, called light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, is about four times more efficient than conventional incandescent lights and more environmentally friendly than compact fluorescent bulbs. The LEDs also are expected to be far longer lasting than conventional lighting, lasting perhaps as long as 15 years before burning out.

"The LED technology has the potential of replacing all incandescent and compact fluorescent bulbs, which would have dramatic energy and environmental ramifications," said Timothy D. Sands, the Basil S. Turner Professor of Materials Engineering and Electrical and Computer Engineering.

The LED lights are about as efficient as compact fluorescent lights, which contain harmful mercury.

But LED lights now on the market are prohibitively expensive, in part because they are created on a substrate, or first layer, of sapphire. The Purdue researchers have solved this problem by developing a technique to create LEDs on low-cost, metal-coated silicon wafers, said Mark H. Oliver, a graduate student in materials engineering who is working with Sands. [Read More]

Called Nanotechnology and the Environment, the sessions will feature the latest research on the subject and future business possibilities in nanotechnology. Nanotechnology is the design and production of materials that are less than 100 nanometers in size.

"Applications in this science are relatively new, so we are just now finding out some of the implications," said conference coordinator Natalie Carroll, a Purdue professor of youth development and agricultural education. "Materials made on this very small scale have been found to have very different physical properties from the same substances made in more traditional ways.

"The goal of this conference is to bring to light what is known about this technology and help inform those who must make decisions about future opportunities and acceptance of nanotechnology."

Anyone interested in the topic is welcome to attend, particularly those in industry, government and research. The conference will be held at the Crowne Plaza Hotel and Conference Center. Rooms may be reserved by calling (317) 631-2221.

The conference fee is $200. The rate for government employees is $100. Registration is available at www.conf.purdue.edu/nano or by contacting John Wellman at jmw@purdue.edu, (765) 494-0243 or (800) 359-2968.

[Read More]

The online tools, believed to be the first of their kind for the instruments, represent a research trend, with tools for other applications also being developed, said Arvind Raman, a Purdue professor of mechanical engineering.

"We will see more and more of this sort of thing for many other types of instruments that are being used around the world," he said. "This allows researchers to spend more time doing research and less time and money developing simulations."

More than 300 researchers from around the world have used the "virtual environment for dynamic atomic force microscopy," or VEDA, since it went online about a year ago.

The virtual environment is described in a research article featured as a cover story in the June issue of the journal Review of Scientific Instruments, published by the American Institute of Physics. The article focuses on two simulation tools needed for atomic force microscopes. [Read More]

In a Nature Physics journal paper currently online, the researchers describe how they have created a new, hybrid molecule in which its quantum state can be intentionally manipulated - a required step in the building of quantum computers.

"Up to now large-scale quantum computing has been a dream," says Gerhard Klimeck, professor of electrical and computer engineering at Purdue University and associate director for technology for the national Network for Computational Nanotechnology.

"This development may not bring us a quantum computer 10 years faster, but our dreams about these machines are now more realistic."

The workings of traditional computers haven't changed since they were room-sized behemoths 50 years ago; they still use bits of information, 1s and 0s, to store and process information. Quantum computers would harness the strange behaviors found in quantum physics to create computers that would carry information using quantum bits, or qubits. Computers would be able to process exponentially more information. [Read More]

Unlike conventional cooling systems, which use a fan to circulate air through finned devices called heat sinks attached to computer chips, miniature refrigeration would dramatically increase how much heat could be removed, said Suresh Garimella, the R. Eugene and Susie E. Goodson Professor of Mechanical Engineering.

The Purdue research focuses on learning how to design miniature components called compressors and evaporators, which are critical for refrigeration systems. The researchers developed an analytical model for designing tiny compressors that pump refrigerants using penny-size diaphragms and validated the model with experimental data. The elastic membranes are made of ultra-thin sheets of a plastic called polyimide and coated with an electrically conducting metallic layer. The metal layer allows the diaphragm to be moved back and forth to produce a pumping action using electrical charges, or "electrostatic diaphragm compression."

In related research, the engineers are among the first to precisely measure how a refrigerant boils and vaporizes inside tiny "microchannels" in an evaporator and determine how to vary this boiling rate for maximum chip cooling.

The research is led by Garimella and Eckhard Groll, a professor of mechanical engineering. [Read More]

Slated for June 17-20 at the San Diego Convention Center, the annual event, sponsored by the Biotechnology Industry Organization, is expected to draw 20,000 corporate executives, researchers, government officials and venture capitalists for three days of networking and learning.

Purdue Research Park and Discovery Park are among the event's 2,200 exhibitors, showcasing the latest in biotechnology and life science products and services. A new feature, the Emerging Technologies Zone, will provide a venue for first-time exhibitors, including early-stage and startup companies, to get their ideas and products in front of the industry's top decision makers.

"Purdue is demonstrating how a university can successfully and effectively take a discovery in the laboratory, move it into development through the Purdue Research Foundation and then deliver it to the public where it best benefits people,” said Joseph B. Hornett, senior vice president, treasurer and chief operating officer for the Purdue Research Foundation, which operates Purdue Research Park. "BIO 2008 provides the Purdue Research Park and Discovery Park a global audience to showcase the best ways to develop a technology, launch a company to commercialize a product, and create quality jobs in the biotech and life sciences arena." [Read More]

The synthetic "polymer micelles" are drug-delivery spheres 60-100 nanometers in diameter, or roughly 100 times smaller than a red blood cell. The spheres harbor drugs in their inner core and contain an outer shell made of a material called polyethylene glycol.

Purdue researchers showed for the first time how this shell of polyethylene glycol latches onto the membranes of cancer cells, allowing fluorescent probes mimicking cancer drugs to enter the cancer cells, said Ji-Xin Cheng, an assistant professor in the Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering and Department of Chemistry.

"This is an interesting new step in developing nanomedicine techniques in drug delivery," he said. [Read More]

So-called "peel tests" are used extensively in manufacturing. Knowing how much force is needed to pull a material off of another material is essential for manufacturing, but no tests exist for nanoscale structures, said Arvind Raman, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at Purdue.

Researchers are trying to learn about the physics behind the "stiction," or how the tiny structures stick to other materials, to manufacture everything from nanoelectronics to composite materials, "nanotweezers" to medical devices using nanotubes, nanowires and biopolymers such as DNA and proteins, he said.

Flexible carbon nanotubes stick to surfaces differently than larger structures because of attractive forces between individual atoms called van der Waals forces.

"Operating in a nanoscale environment is sort of like having flypaper everywhere because of the attraction of van der Waals forces," Raman said. "These forces are very relevant on this size scale because a nanometer is about 10 atoms wide." [Read More]

Microfabrication allows construction of cellular sized or smaller devices made of new materials for what is known as cell land-tissue engineering. Nanofabrication is used to create nanoscale devices for advanced targeting and delivery of pharmaceuticals to individual human cells through the emerging field of nanomedicine. "We are very pleased that Purdue partnered with CCMB for this event," said N Madhusudhana Rao, CCMB. India and the US face many similar challenges in healthcare, climate change and the environment, energy, improving manufacturing, development of adequate cyber infrastructure, and others. These challenges can be met more effectively when both countries work together to exploit new opportunities in life sciences and nanotechnology. [Read More]

In the first published study to examine Buckyball toxicity on microbes that break down organic substances in wastewater, the scientists used an amount of the nanoparticles on the microbes that was equivalent to pouring 10 pounds of talcum powder on a person. Because high amounts of even normally safe compounds, such as talcum powder, can be toxic, the microbes' resiliency to high Buckyball levels was an important finding, the Purdue investigators said.

The experiment on Buckyballs, which are carbon molecules C60, also led the scientists to develop a better method to determine the impact of nanoparticles on the microbial community.

"It's important to look at the entire microbial community when nanomaterials are introduced because the microbes are all interdependent for survival and growth," said Leila Nyberg, a doctoral student in the School of Civil Engineering and the study's lead author. "If we see a minor change in these microorganisms it could negatively impact ecosystems." [Read More]

The information would help to more effectively kill tumors, said Babak Ziaie, an associate professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering and a researcher at Purdue's Birck Nanotechnology Center.

Ziaie is leading a team that has tested a prototype "wireless implantable passive micro-dosimeter" and said the device could be in clinical trials in 2010. "Because organs and tumors shift inside the body during treatment, a new technology is needed to tell doctors the exact dosage of radiation received by a tumor," Ziaie said.

The prototype is enclosed in a glass capillary small enough to inject into a tumor with a syringe, said Ziaie, who has a dual appointment in Purdue's Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering.

Research findings are detailed in a paper appearing in the June issue of IEEE Transactions On Biomedical Engineering. The paper was written by doctoral student Chulwoo Son and Ziaie. [Read More]

NanoDays is a weeklong event established by the Nanoscale Informal Science Education Network to raise public awareness of nanoscale science and engineering through community-based educational outreach. This year's NanoDays started March 29 and runs through April 6.

"Nano in Your Neighborhood," designed by the Purdue Agricultural Communication department and Purdue nanotechnology experts, is an interactive exhibit that relates emerging science to everyday life.

Visitors of the exhibit will walk through a fictional neighborhood that focuses on six themes introducing them to different areas of nanotechnology. The neighborhood features elements like a university, manufacturing company, mega-mart, medical center, farm and drive-in, each of which explores related areas of nanotechnology.

Throughout the exhibit visitors will find videos, hands-on and flip panel displays, interactive games, a "Jumbotron video and more.

More details on NanoDays are available at www.nisenet.org/page.php?page_ID=46.

The transistors are made of "nanowires," tiny cylindrical structures that are assembled on glass or thin films of flexible plastic. The researchers used nanowires as small as 20 nanometers - a thousand times thinner than a human hair - to create a display containing organic light emitting diodes, or OLEDS. The OLEDS are devices that rival the brightness of conventional pixels in flat-panel television sets, computer monitors and displays in consumer electronics.

"This is a step toward demonstrating the practical potential of nanowire transistors in displays and for other applications," said David Janes, a researcher at Purdue University's Birck Nanotechnology Center and a professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering. [Read More]

Officially billed as the Midwest Academy for Nanoelectronics and Architectures (MANA), the center will link Notre Dame and Purdue University with the development resources of national laboratories and the trillion-dollar per year technology industry. Together, the team of academia and business will work to develop and exploit a new class of semiconductor materials and devices -- nanoelectronics -- that stretches beyond today’s state-of-art chip technologies.

“For Indiana, this means national leadership in a central technology of the future, and we’d be excited to welcome it anywhere in our state. But it’s a special thrill to see it come to Notre Dame, which now enters new dimensions of research prominence and contributions to its home state through the partnership with Purdue,” said Daniels. [Read More]

… A team of scientists has created a versatile strategy for building three dimensional structures on the nanometre (billionth of a metre) scale by coaxing strands of DNA to [form] a basic building block that can then assemble spontaneously into complex three dimensional shapes over distances of around ten to twenty billionths of a metre.

…A variety of patterns and nanostructures have already been made from DNA, or alternatively DNA has been used as a glue to stick gold particles together, by making DNA molecules that interact just in the right way.

But larger and more complex three-dimensional structures are difficult to make using existing fabrication methods, which would require the use of hundreds of different DNA strands.

Today, in the journal Nature, Dr Chengde Mao of Purdue University, Indiana, and colleagues overcome this problem by programming DNA to fold first into a basic structural unit, akin to a basic building block that can be used to make more complicated shapes. [Read More]

Recently, researchers at Purdue University's Birck Nanotechnology Center devised a method for growing densely-packed CNTs on chips in order to enhance heatflow at critical points where chips connect to heatsinks. The method - using microwave plasma chemical vapor deposition - outperforms conventional thermal interface materials, and does not require a clean-room environment, making it a potentially low-cost approach.

Materials aside from carbon are also being examined, such as graphene, and even silicon continues to hold promise in some areas. Graphene is theoretically capable of scaling down much further than silicon, to circuits only a few atoms across, in part because of its extreme strength and stability. Its conductive properties work differently from other conductors: electrons move at the same high speeds, regardless of their energy. Those high speeds mean that graphene-based transistors could theoretically switch faster than silicon-based transistors. [Read more]

The center will focus on the behavior and reliability of miniature switches and is one of five new Centers of Excellence chosen by the NNSA.

About 35 researchers at Purdue, including faculty members, software professionals and students, will be involved in the new Center for Prediction of Reliability, Integrity and Survivability of Microsystems, or PRISM. The University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and the University of New Mexico will collaborate in the center.

"The center takes advantage of Purdue's interdisciplinary strengths and considerable expertise in computational modeling and nanotechnology," Purdue President France A. Córdova said. [Read More]

"Bionanotechnology and Pharmaceuticals: A Glimpse into the Future" is expected to draw more than 100 researchers and students from across the globe for the conference on March 13-14 in Hyderabad. Lectures, a panel discussion on transforming pharmaceutical manufacturing, and a poster session for students and researchers are planned.

"Pharmaceuticals and other aspects of health care are major beneficiaries of the nanotechnology revolution sweeping our world today," said conference speaker Craig Svensson, dean of Purdue's College of Pharmacy, Nursing and Health Sciences. "Novel formulations, tissue engineering and tools of nanoscience are changing our world's health-care system. The symposium will foster new links and new possibilities in the next frontier of health and medicine." [Read More]

Wen Jiang, an assistant professor of biological sciences at Purdue, led a research team that used the emerging technique of single-particle electron cryomicroscopy to capture a three-dimensional image of a virus at a resolution of 4.5 angstroms. Approximately 1 million angstroms would equal the diameter of a human hair.

"This is one of the first projects to refine the technique to the point of near atomic-level resolution," said Jiang, who also is a member of Purdue's structural biology group. "This breaks a threshold and allows us to now see a whole new level of detail in the structure. This is the highest resolution ever achieved for a living organism of this size."
Details of the structure of a virus provide valuable information for development of disease treatments, he said.

"If we understand the system - how the virus particles assemble and how they infect a host cell - it will greatly improve our ability to design a treatment," Jiang said. "Structural biologists perform the basic science and provide information to help those working on the clinical aspects."

A paper detailing the work was published in the Feb. 28 issue of Nature. [Read More]

“The ultimate in miniaturization is the molecule,” explains NIST’s Curt Richter. “The hope is that a single molecule will one day be able to act as an electrical component such as a diode or a resistor with the ultimate goal being shrinking computer chips.”

Colleagues at Purdue University provided three types of silicon-molecule-metal junctions that are a few micrometers large. The small molecules researchers used were octadecane, nitrobenzene and diethylaminobenzene. [Read More]

The material, made of hollow fibers, is a Roach Motel for photons -- light checks in, but it never checks out. By voraciously sucking up all surrounding illumination, it can give those who gaze on it a dizzying sensation of nothingness.

"It's very deep, like in a forest on the darkest night," said Shawn-Yu Lin, a scientist who helped create the material at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y. "Nothing comes back to you. It's very, very, very dark."

But scientists are not satisfied. Using other new materials, some are trying to manufacture rudimentary Harry Potter-like cloaks that make objects inside of them literally invisible under the right conditions -- the pinnacle of stealthy technology.

Both advances reflect researchers' growing ability to manipulate light, the fleetest and most evanescent of nature's offerings. The nascent invisibility cloak now being tested, for example, is made of a material that bends light rays "backward," a weird phenomenon thought to be impossible just a few years ago.

Known as transformation optics, the phenomenon compels some wavelengths of light to flow around an object like water around a stone. As a result, things behind the object become visible while the object itself disappears from view.

"Cloaking is just the tip of the iceberg," said Vladimir Shalaev, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Purdue University and an expert in the fledgling field. "With transformation optics you can do many other tricks," perhaps including making things appear to be located where they are not and focusing massive amounts of energy on microscopic spots. [Read More]

The IEST is an international society whose members are internationally recognized for their contributions to the environmental sciences in the areas of contamination control; design, test, and evaluation; product reliability; and aerospace.

The technique was developed to study and design miniature biosensors, and could help industry perfect lab-on-a-chip technology for uses ranging from medical diagnostics to environmental monitoring.

The experimental devices represent a new class of portable sensors designed to capture and detect specific "target molecules," which will allow the sensors to identify pathogens, DNA or other substances.

Researchers at Purdue University are the first to create "a new conceptual framework" and corresponding computational model to relate the shape of a sensor to its performance and explain why certain designs perform better than others, said Ashraf Alam, a professor of electrical and computer engineering. Findings also refute long-held assumptions about how to improve sensor performance.

Read More

What: Best Gen-Nano Game Competition Call Out with pizza served
When: 5PM-6:30PM on Thurs, Feb 7
Where: POTR 118
Why: Learn more about generation-nano project and competition details

Invent the Best Gen-Nano Game and win up to $300 in cash! The competition is open Jan 16, 2008 with a deadline for proposal submission of Mar 15, 2008. Bring in your creativity and expertise into this growing e-learning project for kids!

Competition Overview:
The Network for Computational Nanotechnology (NCN) is accepting proposals from students on Purdue's West Lafayette campus interested in designing a storyboard for an interactive K-12 learning activity to be published within one of the learning modules of the generation-nano.org Web site, which aims to excite middle school children about science by teaching them nanotechnology concepts. The individual or team authors of the three winning storyboards will receive cash awards of up to $300. Additional prizes will be awarded to authors of activities selected for implementation.

For details visit: http://www.generation-nano.org/competition
Questions: feedback@generation-nano.org

The nanotube radios, in which nanotube devices provide all of the active functionality in the devices, represent “important first steps toward the practical implementation of carbon-nanotube materials into high-speed analog electronics and other related applications,” said John Rogers, a Founder Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Illinois.

Rogers is a corresponding author of a paper that describes the design, fabrication and performance of the nanotube-transistor radios, which were achieved in a close collaboration with radio frequency electronics engineers at Northrop Grumman Electronics Systems in Linthicum, Md.

The paper has been accepted for publication in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and is to be published in PNAS Online Early Edition next week.

“These results indicate that nanotubes might have an important role to play in high-speed analog electronics, where benchmarking studies against silicon indicate significant advantages in comparably scaled devices, together with capabilities that might complement compound semiconductors,” said Rogers, who also is a researcher at the Beckman Institute and at the university’s Frederick Seitz Materials Research Laboratory.

Practical nanotube devices and circuits are now possible, thanks to a novel growth technique developed by Rogers and colleagues at the U. of I., Lehigh and Purdue universities, and described last year in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.

[Read More - eurekalert.org]

[Read More - Vnunet.com]

Link to Nature Nanotechnology article (Muhammad A. Alam, Ninad Pimparkar - Purdue University authors)

The individual or team authors of the three winning storyboards will receive cash awards of up to $300.

Additional prizes will be awarded to authors of activities selected for implementation.

The competition is open to all students on Purdue's West Lafayette campus. The deadline for proposal submission is March 15.

[More]

Now EEs at Purdue University (West Lafayette, Ind.) claim to have invented that missing framework, providing a new method of modeling sensor designs that is already solving long-standing puzzles.

"Other groups have come up with a whole array of conflicting principles regarding how to make better sensors," said Ashraf Alam, an EE and professor of electrical and computer engineering at Purdue. "But we have unified those principles in a systematic way, so that now there is a consistent framework regarding how to make sensors better." He performed the research with his student, an EE doctoral candidate, Pradeep Nair.

To test their sensor design principles, the researchers addressed the issue of which nanoscale sensor designs are optimal for sensor applications where target molecules stick to the sensing element. EEs have long known that when sensing individual molecules—from smoke detectors to biological and chemical sensors—the smaller the sensing element, the better. The reason smaller is better, however, has been only anecdotally related to how diffusion of the target molecule limits the speed at which a sensor can act. [Read More]

Officials from Taylor & Francis Group and the Network for Computational Nanotechnology, through an agreement announced Monday (Nov. 19), will cooperate to increase availability, volume and appeal of online content for nanoscience. They also will explore ways to make it easier for scientists, researchers and students to create and share content.

The Network for Computation Nanotechnology's nanoHUB is a Web-based resource funded by the National Science Foundation to promote research, education and collaboration in nanotechnology. With more than 25,000 users and based in Discovery Park's Birck Nanotechnology Center, nanoHUB hosts close to 800 nanoscience resources, including a suite of online simulation tools, along with online presentations, courses, learning modules and podcasts. [Full Story]

ScienceDaily (Oct. 30, 2007) — Researchers at Purdue and Duke universities have developed a technique that uses a magnetic field to selectively separate tiny magnetic particles, representing a highly sensitive method for potentially diagnosing disease by testing samples from patients.

Because different pathogens could be attracted to specific-size magnetic particles and the new technique can selectively separate particles by size, the method could be used to diagnose the presence of many diseases in a single sample, said Gil Lee, a professor of chemical and biomedical engineering at Purdue.

The micron-size magnetic particles have been coated with antibodies that attract certain pathogens and are then mixed with blood samples from patients. A critical piece of the technology is a microchip containing an array of metal disks as wide as 5 microns, or millionths of a meter. The magnetic particles are dispersed in a liquid placed in a container housing the chip. The container is surrounded by three electromagnets energized in sequence to produce a rotating magnetic field.

As the magnetic field rotates, the particles move from one disk to another until they are separated from the rest of the sample. Rotating the magnetic field at specific speeds separates only particles of certain sizes, meaning pathogens attached to those particles would be separated from the sample by varying the rotation speed, Lee said. [Full Story]

The carpetlike growth of nanotubes has been shown to outperform conventional "thermal interface materials." Like those materials, the nanotube layer does not require elaborate clean-room environments, representing a possible low-cost manufacturing approach to keep future chips from overheating and reduce the size of cooling systems, said Placidus B. Amama, a postdoctoral research associate at the Birck Nanotechnology Center in Purdue's Discovery Park.

Researchers are trying to develop new types of thermal interface materials that conduct heat more efficiently than conventional materials, improving overall performance and helping to meet cooling needs of future chips that will produce more heat than current microprocessors. The materials, which are sandwiched between silicon chips and the metal heat sinks, fill gaps and irregularities between the chip and metal surfaces to enhance heat flow between the two.

The method developed by the Purdue researchers enables them to create a nanotube interface that conforms to a heat sink's uneven surface, conducting heat with less resistance than comparable interface materials currently in use by industry, said doctoral student Baratunde A. Cola. [Full Story]

The devices are an example of an emerging technology known as "micro electromechanical systems," or MEMS, which are machines that combine electronic and mechanical components on a microscopic scale.

"The MEMS technology is critical because it needs to be small enough that it doesn't interfere with the performance of the bearing itself," said Farshid Sadeghi, a professor of mechanical engineering. "And the other issue is that it needs to be able to withstand extreme heat." [Full Story]

A one-year skill development pilot project to introduce nanostructured tool coating technology to industrial firms within the 14-county Indiana WIRED region began this month, said Christy Bozic, Indiana WIRED's manager of business innovation. Companies with workers who perform machining operations are invited to apply for the program.

"A significant part of WIRED is involved in innovation," Bozic said. "We're trying to help workers develop new skills and manufacturers adopt innovative industrial processes so that they can stay in north-central Indiana, retain jobs and be more competitive."

Indiana WIRED, an economic and work force development initiative administered by Purdue University, comprises Benton, Carroll, Cass, Clinton, Fountain, Fulton, Howard, Miami, Montgomery, Tippecanoe, Tipton, Wabash, Warren and White counties. [Full Story]

Burrill, who is chief executive of California-based Burrill & Co., will give his address, "Biotech 2007: A Global Transformation," at 12:15 p.m. in the Ross-Ade Pavilion on campus.

Purdue President France A. Córdova will highlight Purdue's success in technology commercialization at 1:30 p.m. During her address, she will outline how Purdue's commitment to interdisciplinary research has accelerated campus commercialization efforts in life sciences, nanotechnology, cancer, entrepreneurship, health care and other areas. [Full Story]

Tumor cell membranes often have an abnormally high number of receptor sites to capture molecules of folic acid, or folate, a form of vitamin B that many tumor cells crave. The Purdue researchers attached folate to the gold nanorods, enabling them to target the receptors and attach to the tumor cell membranes.

"The cells are then illuminated with light in the near-infrared range," said Ji-Xin Cheng (pronounced Gee-Shin), an assistant professor in Purdue's Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering. "This light can easily pass through tissue but is absorbed by the nanorods and converted rapidly into heat, leading to miniature explosions on the cell surface."

Scientists have recently determined that gold nanorods and other nanostructures can be used to target and destroy tumor cells, but it was generally assumed that cell death was due to the high heat produced by the light-absorbing nanoparticles. The Purdue team discovered, however, that a more complex biochemical scenario is responsible for killing the cells. [Full Story]

The carpetlike growth of nanotubes has been shown to outperform conventional "thermal interface materials." Like those materials, the nanotube layer does not require elaborate clean-room environments, representing a possible low-cost manufacturing approach to keep future chips from overheating and reduce the size of cooling systems, said Placidus B. Amama, a postdoctoral research associate at the Birck Nanotechnology Center in Purdue's Discovery Park.

Researchers are trying to develop new types of thermal interface materials that conduct heat more efficiently than conventional materials, improving overall performance and helping to meet cooling needs of future chips that will produce more heat than current microprocessors. The materials, which are sandwiched between silicon chips and the metal heat sinks, fill gaps and irregularities between the chip and metal surfaces to enhance heat flow between the two. [Full Story]

Said Pedro Irazoqui, assistant professor of biomedical engineering, "When epileptics have a seizure, a particular part of the brain starts firing in a way that is abnormal. Being able to record signals from several parts of the brain at the same time enables you to predict when a seizure is about to start." Data from the transmitter are picked up by an external receiver, also developed by the Purdue researchers.

The second project is a sensor implanted in the eye to monitor glaucoma by measuring pressure in the eye's interior. The disease causes blindness from a buildup of fluid pressure in the interior chamber of the eye, killing fibers in the optic nerve. Glaucoma patients have their eye pressure checked regularly, but it can change at any minute. [Full Story]

The carpetlike growth of nanotubes has been shown to outperform conventional "thermal interface materials." Like those materials, the nanotube layer does not require elaborate clean-room environments, representing a possible low-cost manufacturing approach to keep future chips from overheating and reduce the size of cooling systems, said Placidus B. Amama, a postdoctoral research associate at the Birck Nanotechnology Center in Purdue's Discovery Park.

Researchers are trying to develop new types of thermal interface materials that conduct heat more efficiently than conventional materials, improving overall performance and helping to meet cooling needs of future chips that will produce more heat than current microprocessors. The materials, which are sandwiched between silicon chips and the metal heat sinks, fill gaps and irregularities between the chip and metal surfaces to enhance heat flow between the two. [Full Story]

The national network was launched in 2002 with $10.5 million from NSF to develop sophisticated, high-powered computational tools that allow scientists from Boston to Beijing to advance nano-related research simply by using their desktop computers.

"This additional funding will help us expand these sophisticated computational tools to researchers, educators and even industry," said network director Mark Lundstrom, Purdue's Scifres Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering. "With the help of our five partner universities, we are growing beyond our roots in nanoelectronics to new areas such as nanofluidics, nanomedicine, nanophotonics and applications of nanoscience to the environment, energy, the life sciences and homeland security." [Full Story]

However for Graham Cooks, professor of analytical chemistry at Purdue University in the US, the reality doesn't match the TV series. "We're quite a long way away from that. There are some handheld detectors which do very specific sorts of chemical analyses," says Cooks. Nevertheless, he's working on a sensing system which he boldly goes as far as comparing to the tricorder. [Full Story]

Twenty South Korean researchers will travel to the Purdue campus for the Discovery Park symposium, Molecular Imaging and Theragnosis, which will be highlighted by presentations from the project's leading researchers.

"The international symposium will attract participation from a variety of groups: faculty researchers, students, corporations, biotechnology companies, economic developers, government representatives and globally focused entrepreneurs," said event organizer James Leary, the School of Veterinary Medicine professor of nanomedicine at the Birck Nanotechnology Center and professor of basic medical sciences and biomedical engineering. [Full Story]

In the May issue of Controlled Environments, editors highlighted Birck's state-of-the-art laboratories, its partnership with facility designer, Omaha, Neb.-based HDR Architecture Inc., and the role the Purdue facility now plays in encouraging interdisciplinary research. Birck was one of five winners honored through the magazine's 2007 Experts' Choice Awards.

"The goals established for Purdue's Birck Nanotechnology Center were daunting," editors at Controlled Environments wrote. "The program called for 25,000 square feet of cleanroom with very stringent operating parameters. Purdue University partnered with HDR Architecture and created an environment of collaboration that engaged all parties by stimulating creativity at all levels." [Full Story]

nanoHUB.org, a so-called science gateway for nano-science and nanotechnology housed at Purdue University, is taking the tools of Web 2.0 and applying them, along with a few tricks of its own, to further nano-scholarly pursuits.

The result is a Web site that is a required bookmark for people who get excited about algorithms, carbon nanotubes, nanoelectronics and quantum dots - the current hot topics on the site. [Full Story]

The Purdue University researchers, in work funded by Intel Corp., have shown that the technology increased the "heat-transfer coefficient," which describes the cooling rate, by as much as 250 percent.
"Other experimental cooling-enhancement approaches might give you a 40 percent or a 50 percent improvement," said Suresh Garimella, a professor of mechanical engineering at Purdue. "A 250 percent improvement is quite unusual."

Findings will be detailed in three research papers being presented at the Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society's Sciences and Technologies for Health conference from Aug. 23-26 in Lyon, France.

One research project focuses on a tiny transmitter three times the width of a human hair to be implanted below the scalp to detect the signs of an epileptic seizure before it occurs. The system will record neural signals relayed by electrodes in various points in the brain, said Pedro Irazoqui (pronounced Ear-a-THOkee), an assistant professor of biomedical engineering.

On July 18 the group put on protective suits called "bunny suits" and entered the dust-free environment of the Birck Nanotechnology Center cleanroom for some hands-on training.

The group consisted of 13 teachers from Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, Ohio and Finland who participated in the National Center for Learning and Teaching in the professional development program "Inquiry-Based Instruction in Nanoscale Science and Engineering."

Pellets made out of aluminum and gallium can produce pure hydrogen when water is poured on them, offering a possible alternative to gasoline-powered engines, U.S. scientists say.

Hydrogen is seen as the ultimate in clean fuels, especially for powering cars, because it emits only water when burned. U.S. President George W. Bush has proclaimed hydrogen to be the fuel of the future, but researchers have not decided what is the most efficient way to produce and store hydrogen.

The Discovery Channel reports that the "cloaking device makes colour red invisible" (Brian Jackson).

The IRAN DAILY recently ran a story entitled "'Optical Cloaking' for Invisibility."

ABC News reported that "scientists [are] close to Potter-stye 'invisible cloak.'"