July 12 / The New York Times
Can’t Find a Parking Spot? Check Smartphone
If you live a big city, then you know what it's like to drive around and around looking for that elusive parking spot. But starting this fall, San Franciscans will be in for a treat. The city is testing the use of wireless sensors that will communicate to street signs or a smartphone the availability of free spaces. Now just don't run anyone over trying to get the spot first.

July 13 / Guardian
Doctors Rage At Being Rated Online
As a big fan of AngiesList and Yelp, I'm all for a Web site that will allow patients to rate their doctors online. Isn't it all about referrals anyway? And health care is a service for which we pay big bucks. So suck it up, GPs, and get with the times.

July 15 / Discovery News
Giant Laser in the Works to Achieve Fusion
Wouldn't Dr. Evil love this "laser?" It can't blow up the planet, but at 10 stories tall and 400 feet long, it will create enough heat and pressure to fuse atoms and create helium. The reaction will release massive amounts of environmentally friendly energy and enough helium to keep us all talking about it with high squeaky voices.

July 15 / New Scientist
Dirt-Repelling Tube Promises Cheap, Pure Water
Man, we've really messed up the world's water supply. Most of it can't be consumed without being purified first, and that's not good for people living in developing worlds. But a a new way of purifying water could offer a simple solution. The technique uses a material that naturally attracts water while at the same time repelling impurities.

July 15 / BBC
The Importance of Being There
You have to really not like your surroundings (or yourself?) to prefer a virtual world over reality. But even still, VR environments have a long way to go before they will supplant this world, says regular columnist Bill Thompson.

July 16 / Wired
Obama Wages Cyberwar
Even though the Bush administration has initiated a $30 billion effort to beef up cyber security, Obama says its too little too late.

July 16 / Popular Science
Robotic Jellyfish Just Like the Real Thing, But Without the Sting
Sure, it's great that the AquaJelly has sensors, a short-range radio system, LEDs for illumination and communication and is coated with conductive metal paint that helps it connect with a nearby charging station, but I think they're dern pretty and I sure wish I had one. Hint hint.

July 16 / Wired
Army Wants 'Psychologically Inspired' Robot Vision
Robots score a big "duh" when it comes to vision. They just can't see the world we do. That's why the Army has put out an APB for a "psychologically inspired object recognition system." But do we really want robots seeing the world through our eyes? What if they notice what a bunch of doofuses we are?

July 17 / Discovery News
Invisible Carpet Idea Close to Actual Invisibility
Invisibility cloaks are great for hiding giant spaceships, but an invisibility carpet is just way more practical. Scientists have created a material that can hide objects in visible light. My question: If we can't see it, how will we know it's working? (See what I mean about being a doofus.)

July 17 / Popular Science
A Gene for Baby Makin’
This could put an end to birth control pills, foams and devices and eliminate the need for testicle snipping. Scientists have located the gene that both regulates and blocks ovulation.

July 17 / Wired
Why China's Olympian Efforts to Clean Up Beijing's Air Won't Work.
China is doing a bunch of stuff to clean up the air in time for the Olympics. Smoking bans, traffic bans and turning off power plants to name of few. But it might not make any difference.

Photo: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Researchers at Penn State think they've found a solution. It relies on water, solar energy and nanotubes.

The process -- developed by Craig Grimes, professor of electrical engineering, and his his team -- starts with a diode that has two sides, each made from one of twoa commonly found elements: titanium and copper. Both are used to make nanotube arrays (see illustration).

It doesn't look like it, but the device works similar to a leaf. Whereas leaves take in sunlight and CO2 and convert it into usable energy, this so-called photoelectrochemical diode takes in sunlight and water to produce usable energy in the form of hydrogen gas.

It occurs through a chemical reaction between water and the sun, which is ignited by the nanotube arrays. On the one side, titanium and sunlight work to break oxygen free of water, the remaining hydrogen ion diffuses to the copper side where it is matched with an electron, forming gaseous hydrogen. 

What's cool is that the process doesn't require electricity, which is typically made by coal-fired plants, defeating the purpose.

According to Meghan Crosby, press secretary at the the UCS, this is the third year the contest has been going on. It was started "to draw attention to the censoring, manipulating, and distorting of science by political appointees on issues from public health to global warming.

Image: Peter Hess
 

Steven Bailey and colleagues from Lancaster University have created both a nanomotor (a) and a nanodrill (b) that could work as tiny motors in nanosized machines. Both rely on electrons, which travel between the two ends points -- either gold to gold or gold to mercury.

The electrons move when a voltage is applied and create a wind that is capable of spinning the rotor
up to 8,000 meters per second.

The nanomotor could be used as a switch in nanoscale magnetic memory devices; the nanodrill could work as a pump in a tiny device filled with fluid.

The team describe their work in the journal Physical Review Letters.

July 4 / Guardian
2b or Not 2b
Language is like life. It evolves. Get over it and stop fretting so darn much over whether text messaging will destroy linguistics. In fact, according to professor David Crystal, it improves children's writing and spelling.

July 4 / New Scientist
Do We Have the Technology to Build a Bionic Human?
Scientist can engineer organs, bones, retinas and much, much more. (Yet they still haven't found a way to prevent baldness. Huh.)

July 4 / Guardian
It's the Screens, Not the Internet, That are Making Us Stupid
We may be reading less, but we're staring at computer screens way more. It's enough to give you a stupid headache.

July 7 / Roland Piquepaille's Technology Trends
Lemon-Filled Odorless Socks
What's better: socks that smell like citrus? Or those that smell like cheese? You make the call.

July 7 / Wired
Researchers Track Disease With Google News, Google.org Money
What year is it now? 2008. Right. To World Health Organization: Welcome to the age of the Interwebosphere. Finally, you've put together a website that can be used to track new disease outbreaks.

July 9 / Webmonkey
Yahoo’s New ‘Build Your Own’ Search Engine Nips at Google’s Lead
Yikes. Yahoo has a new open source initiative that could allow outside web developers to hack into the company's search engine code to produce customized results and mashups. Yahoo is doing it to compete with search engine giant, Google. Will David defeat Goliath? Duh, duh, duh, duh (dramatic music). Stay tuned.

July 9 / Wired
Nanotubes Hold Promise for Next-Generation Computing
It's carbon nanotube this and carbon nanotube that. Blah, blah, blah. It's all lab talk. Show me the money, man.

July 9 / New York Times
Designing Cars for Low-Carbon Chic
Lighter and sleeker automatically improve gas mileage without even tinkering with the engine. Not only that, but these kinds of cars will just look cool.

July 10 / Discovery News
Implant Designed to Shrink Waistline
Wouldn't an implant for the waistline, by definition, make the midsection bigger? Au, contraire, Monfraire. This one quells hunger pangs and the desire to feed one's pie hole.

July 10 / Super Duper Sustainable Tech
Solar-Powered Home, No Panels Needed
Special dyes designed to capture specific spectrums of sunlight could turn regular old windows into  solar-harnessing power panels. That's genius-level thinking, guys.

July 10 / Wired
Crowdsourcing the Flu Vaccine
More words about how the internet (via data sharing and networking) could help health workers develop a better flu vaccine.

July 10 / IEEE Spectrum
Our First Electric Cars May Be Trucks
Personally, I'd like an electric scooter, but more fuel-efficient trucks could sure help bring those food prices down. 

My laptop seemed to be getting quite uncomfortable, too. Its fan was whirring on much more frequently than normal. I was starting to think that something was wrong. Or that my lap was about to lift off and dock with the International Space Station.

That's why this little piece of news from Rensselaer (one "n," two "s's") caught my attention. Researchers found that if they added a layer of copper nanorods to the bottom of a metal vessel, it helped increase the boiling efficiency of water inside. You can see in the photo that the nanorods grow upright like trees and have little spaces between them. Those pockets trap air that eventually escapes as nanobubbles. When the nanobubbles break free, they scurry into nearby microscopic cavities found within the interior surface of the vessel. That net abundance of air helps promote boiling. And boiling is a way to transfer heat.

It seems a little counter-intuitive, right? That boiling would help COOL off something. So I emailed the lead scientist, associate professor Nikhil Koratkar, and asked him how this technique could work to cool computer chips. You wouldn't boil the chip in your computer while you were using it, would you? Correct me if I'm wrong, but circuits and water don't seem to go together.

"You are right that it cannot be water since water would short the circuit," said Koratkar.

He told me that the fluid would be a coolant. But how do you get some liquid near a circuit and still not short out your system?

"There will have to be an automated micro-plumbing system that will release coolant when the temperature exceeds a critical threshold level," said Koratkar. "The concept is called 'pool boiling,' and many companies are exploring it as an alternative to traditional air cooling systems."

It's like a little radiator for your computer. Neat.


Photo credit: Rensselaer Polytechnic University/Koratkar

A team from China and UMass-Amherst studied the effect of zinc oxide particles (used commonly in sunscreen lotions, coatings and paints) on seedling roots. Their on-going mission is to try to answer two questions: Can plants uptake and transport nanomaterials? And can metal-based nanomaterials (like zinc oxide) poison plants.

Their research showed that zinc oxide nanoparticles at certain concentrations got through ryegrass root surfaces, damaged root tissues, entered root cells, and inhibited seedling growth. You can see it in the image here. "A" represents a normal, healthy root tip. But "B" and "C" show the root tips in the presences of zinc oxide. The rootcaps are broken, cortical cells are collapsed and the vascular structures have shrunk.

The results were published by the researchers (Baoshan Xing, a professor in the Department of Plant, Soil & Insect Sciences at the University of Massachusetts, and Daohui Lin from the Department of Environmental Science at Zhejiang University in China) in the June 25, 2008 online edition of Environmental Science & Technology.

The more I ready about how nanoparticles can have an adverse affect on living cells, the more I think that nanotechnology should be limited to products that people do not injest or put on their skin. At least until scientists have a better understanding of the ways in which these particles interact with cells.

Photo: courtesy American Chemical Society

Okay, I know what you're thinking. The words "materials research" don't exactly call to mind incredible imagery or astounding panoramic vistas. But that's what's so cool about it. The unexpected. About every six months or so, the society holds an image competition whereby researchers can submit imagery related to their field of study. These are folks studying a host of molecule-sized things, including nanowires, self-assembling particles, magnetic shape-memory composites, organic thin-film transistors, nano-structured gold and well, hundreds of items you've probably NEVER heard of, but that are all important for advancing the science of medicine and energy technologies, among others.

If you were one of these researchers and you wanted to get across the importance of your work, you could try to explain it using a slide-show presentation or an academic paper. And in fact, they all probably do that. But another way to get across what you're doing is give someone an image from the tiny world in which you work. It's a world few people know about, even other scientists. And once they see the image, curiosity follows, as do explanations about why this microscope world is so important.

That's why I like this site and why I'll be working with the folks at MRS as well as the researchers who create these images to bring these amazing graphics to the Discovery Tech site.

In the meantime, you can see competition winners here as well as other cool images here. Enjoy!

Photo: This picture presents a collage of scanning electron microscopy images nanowires and flower-like arrangements of SnO₂ platelets.
Credit: S. Barth, J. Altmayer and S. Mathur, Leibniz-Institute of New Materials, Saarbruecken, Germany

June 28 / The New York Times
I Freed Myself From E-Mail’s Grip
Gasp! This guy stopped using email. On purpose. His server didn't even go down or anything!

June 29 / Guardian
Calls for ID Card to Replace Passwords
Passwords be damned! Finally, an industry group known as the Information Card Foundation is advocating that we replace our passwords with an electronic ID card. Advantages: security and signing in just once.

June 30 / Guardian
Welcome to the Particle Menagerie
Up, down, top, bottom, charm, strange, axions, sleptons and quarks. How do physicists dream up such whimsical names for the fundamental particles they discover? Simon Singh explains

June 30 /  Guardian
The Brains Behind the Operation
Cern scientists have invented a new way to network computers, and it could be the next leap forward in computing.

June 30 / Discovery News
Meet the Steel-Melting Solar Mirror
Enterprising kids know you can melt crayons by focusing light on them with a magnifying glass. MIT students are now vaporizing wood, and can theoretically melt steel, by focusing sunlight with mirrors.

July 1 / Popular Science
Powering Cars With Toxic Waste
Scientists invent a uranium-eating molecule that could help turn nuclear junk into fuel.

July 1 / Technology Trends
Toward Eco-Friendly Fireworks
Researchers are developing new pyrotechnic formulas that burn cleaner and produce less smoke.

July 1 / Scientific American
Farming Solar Energy in Space
Japanese scientists are working on the hardware needed to realize orbital generators as a form of clean, renewable energy, with plans to complete a prototype in about 20 years.

July 1 / The New York Times
Google’s Ethos, Applied to Dining
Crowdsourcing sommeliers and open source recipes. Let's eat.

July 1 / Guardian
Hybrid Embryos: U.K. Team Plans Stem Cell First
British scientists got the okay from their gov to create the world's first human stem cells from embryos that are part human and part animal.

July 2 / Nature
How to Weave an Invisible Rug
You've heard of an invisibility cloak. Researchers calculate that a carpet, not a cloak, would be the most realistic kind of cloaking device. It would produce a controlled mirage.

July 2 / The New York Times
Obama Voters Protest His Switch on Telecom Immunity
Senator Barack Obama’s Web site has netted him lots-o cash. Now it's netted him lots-o backlash. When followers heard he supported legislation granting legal immunity to telecommunications companies that cooperated with the Bush administration’s program of wiretapping without warrants, they protested electronically.

July 3 / Wired
Laugh at High Gas Prices With a 282-MPG VW
Fuel efficiency seems like oxymoron. But now Volkswagen is upping the ante with a new bullet-shaped car that gets triple-digit mpg. Muh-ha-ha-ha-ha.

July 3 / Scientific American
Who Will Die?: Computer Predicts Which Death Row Inmates Will Be It
Sounds like a gruesome game that no one would want to play. But the predictions could actually lead to a fairer appeals process.

July 3 / The New York Times
See Spot Run. Now Find Out Where He Went.
Track everyone, everything with GPS, for under $130.

July 3 / Guardian
Environment: Climate Risk From Flat-Screen TV
The rising demand for flat-screen televisions could have a greater impact on global warming than the world's largest coal-fired power stations, a leading environmental scientist warned yesterday.

July 3 / IEEE Spectrum Online
Crimeware Pays
Adware, phishing, and spam are a strange -- and big -- business.

July 3 / IEEE Spectrum Online
Iraq Electricity, By the Numbers
The scorching truth about electricity use and need in Iraq.

Today I read a notice from North Carolina State University saying that researchers have discovered that quantum dots can penetrate skin through wounds or scrapes. Quantum dots are tiny, round semiconductor nanocrystals about 5 or so nanometers in diameter (the average cell is about 1,000 nanometers in diameter). Qdots are used for lots of different things, but among them, medical imaging. They can be engineered to link to antibodies that attach to specific molecules and they can be designed glow brightly in any desired color.

So, in other words, you could engineer different kinds of qdots (fluorescing in a variety colors) to attach to a cells or proteins and then watch what happens by tracking the glowing lights.

But if qdots can penetrate wounds or scrapes, then the health care worker that is handing the materials could be in jeopardy of getting some under their own skin. The researchers, who report their work in Skin Pharmacology and Physiology say that this potential route of exposure should not be overlooked.

Ever since quantum dots made the scene, no one has been able to say definitively whether these things are safe or not for use in medical applications. It gets back to Maynard's point about how much money the United States government is actually putting toward assessing risk. In short, not much. And that could have serious health implications later, if we're not careful.

Photo: Evident Technologies