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At CSU Dr. Ketul Popat sees a future where severely fractured bones and mangled joints are allowed to heal themselves, with nanotechnology as their guide.
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Shaped like a WWII bunker, just a few microns across, and created by single-celled algae, the silica shells of diatoms are telling scientists about Earth\'s past, and perhaps humankind\'s technological future.
Researchers at that National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder have adapted technology developed for atomic clocks to create a chip-scale magnetometer -- a device that, if perfected, could make battlefield MRI scanning devices, tiny bomb-detection systems or more advanced and affordable geologic surveying tools possible.
With \"nanotechnology\" on T.V., in the movies and in the news, knowledge of existing nanotech remains sparse and often focused on the strange or outlandish.
Nanotechnology is a rapidly growing industry, with two dozen companies in Colorado already producing nanoproducts. A number of local companies are working on groundbreaking products in a wide variety of fields. But are there unknown risks facing these companies? Are there safety risks to the public or environment? And are some of the more controversial \"nano-products\" on the market really nanotechnology at all?
At the first university on Earth to create Bose-Einstein Condensate, CU-Boulder, a handful of research projects are helping to explain exactly what the weird substance is and how it might be used. BEC, as it is called, may one day be manipulated on the scale of nanometers.
Professor David Klaus at CU is shedding light on how bacterial cells communicate with one another. By observing their behavior when launched into the zero gravity environment of outer space, he has determined that molecular transport is strongly driven by gravity.
Despite being a relatively old technology -- first developed in 1976 -- Atomic Layer Deposition is evolving into perhaps one of the most important and influential techniques spurring nanotechnology and nanoscience forward.
Professor Scheufele specializes in public opinion and polling, specifically dealing with science and technology issues.
For several decades a significant amount of buzz has surrounded one particular creation of nanotechnology: Nanotubes. These tubes possess a grab bag of never-before-seen properties and possible applications. Researchers around the world are scrambling to discover the most efficient and profitable ways to make and use carbon nanotubes.
the understanding, characterizing and handling of materials that are between 1 and 100 nanometers in size-as small as 1 billionth of a meter. Manipulating matter on this tiny scale promises to be one of the most influential advances in human history.
stands poised to be one of the hubs of this expansive branch of science. At the University of Colorado alone, more than 100 faculty members from many different departments are currently engaged in cutting-edge research projects dealing with matter on the scale of nanometers.
Nanotechnology now includes new approaches to health sciences, physics, biology, chemistry, environmental ecology, electronics and more. This means researchers and workers in different fields can learn a lot from each other. But until now, communication between these groups has been lacking.
These Weekly Reports look to solve this problem, while, perhaps, inspiring a new generation of young scientists.
About the Author
Dan Ray is a graduate student at the University of Colorado, studying Science and Environmental Journalism.
He graduated from the University of Wisconsin in 2004 with degrees in Physics and Astrophysics.
For the past 3 years Dan has been working as a freelance writer, focusing on various topics in the physical and natural sciences. He has also contributed numerous science and environmental articles to the Boulder Daily Camera.
