Monthly Archives: July 2013

Structural color and cephalopods at the University of California Santa Barbara

I last wrote about structural color in a Feb.7, 2013 posting featuring a marvelous article on the topic by Cristina Luiggi in the The Scientist. As for cephalopods, one of my favourite postings on the topic is a Feb. 1, 2013 posting which features the giant squid, a newly discovered animal of mythical proportions that appears golden in its native habitat in the deep, deep ocean. Happily, there’s a July 25, 2013 news item on Nanowerk which combines structural color and squid,

Color in living organisms can be formed two ways: pigmentation or anatomical structure. Structural colors arise from the physical interaction of light with biological nanostructures. A wide range of organisms possess this ability, but the biological mechanisms underlying the process have been poorly understood.

Two years ago, an interdisciplinary team from UC Santa Barbara [University of California Santa Barbara a.k.a. UCSB] discovered the mechanism by which a neurotransmitter dramatically changes color in the common market squid, Doryteuthis opalescens. That neurotransmitter, acetylcholine, sets in motion a cascade of events that culminate in the addition of phosphate groups to a family of unique proteins called reflectins. This process allows the proteins to condense, driving the animal’s color-changing process.

The July 25, 2013 UC Santa Barbara news release (also on EurekAlert), which originated the news item, provides a good overview of the team’s work to date and the new work occasioning the news release,

Now the researchers have delved deeper to uncover the mechanism responsible for the dramatic changes in color used by such creatures as squids and octopuses. The findings –– published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, in a paper by molecular biology graduate student and lead author Daniel DeMartini and co-authors Daniel V. Krogstad and Daniel E. Morse –– are featured in the current issue of The Scientist.

Structural colors rely exclusively on the density and shape of the material rather than its chemical properties. The latest research from the UCSB team shows that specialized cells in the squid skin called iridocytes contain deep pleats or invaginations of the cell membrane extending deep into the body of the cell. This creates layers or lamellae that operate as a tunable Bragg reflector. Bragg reflectors are named after the British father and son team who more than a century ago discovered how periodic structures reflect light in a very regular and predicable manner.

“We know cephalopods use their tunable iridescence for camouflage so that they can control their transparency or in some cases match the background,” said co-author Daniel E. Morse, Wilcox Professor of Biotechnology in the Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology and director of the Marine Biotechnology Center/Marine Science Institute at UCSB.

“They also use it to create confusing patterns that disrupt visual recognition by a predator and to coordinate interactions, especially mating, where they change from one appearance to another,” he added. “Some of the cuttlefish, for example, can go from bright red, which means stay away, to zebra-striped, which is an invitation for mating.”

The researchers created antibodies to bind specifically to the reflectin proteins, which revealed that the reflectins are located exclusively inside the lamellae formed by the folds in the cell membrane. They showed that the cascade of events culminating in the condensation of the reflectins causes the osmotic pressure inside the lamellae to change drastically due to the expulsion of water, which shrinks and dehydrates the lamellae and reduces their thickness and spacing. The movement of water was demonstrated directly using deuterium-labeled heavy water.

When the acetylcholine neurotransmitter is washed away and the cell can recover, the lamellae imbibe water, rehydrating and allowing them to swell to their original thickness. This reversible dehydration and rehydration, shrinking and swelling, changes the thickness and spacing, which, in turn, changes the wavelength of the light that’s reflected, thus “tuning” the color change over the entire visible spectrum.

“This effect of the condensation on the reflectins simultaneously increases the refractive index inside the lamellae,” explained Morse. “Initially, before the proteins are consolidated, the refractive index –– you can think of it as the density –– inside the lamellae and outside, which is really the outside water environment, is the same. There’s no optical difference so there’s no reflection. But when the proteins consolidate, this increases the refractive index so the contrast between the inside and outside suddenly increases, causing the stack of lamellae to become reflective, while at the same time they dehydrate and shrink, which causes color changes. The animal can control the extent to which this happens –– it can pick the color –– and it’s also reversible. The precision of this tuning by regulating the nanoscale dimensions of the lamellae is amazing.”

Another paper by the same team of researchers, published in Journal of the Royal Society Interface, with optical physicist Amitabh Ghoshal as the lead author, conducted a mathematical analysis of the color change and confirmed that the changes in refractive index perfectly correspond to the measurements made with live cells.

A third paper, in press at Journal of Experimental Biology, reports the team’s discovery that female market squid show a set of stripes that can be brightly activated and may function during mating to allow the female to mimic the appearance of the male, thereby reducing the number of mating encounters and aggressive contacts from males. The most significant finding in this study is the discovery of a pair of stripes that switch from being completely transparent to bright white.

“This is the first time that switchable white cells based on the reflectin proteins have been discovered,” Morse noted. “The facts that these cells are switchable by the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, that they contain some of the same reflectin proteins, and that the reflectins are induced to condense to increase the refractive index and trigger the change in reflectance all suggest that they operate by a molecular mechanism fundamentally related to that controlling the tunable color.”

Could these findings one day have practical applications? “In telecommunications we’re moving to more rapid communication carried by light,” said Morse. “We already use optical cables and photonic switches in some of our telecommunications devices. The question is –– and it’s a question at this point –– can we learn from these novel biophotonic mechanisms that have evolved over millions of years of natural selection new approaches to making tunable and switchable photonic materials to more efficiently encode, transmit, and decode information via light?”

In fact, the UCSB researchers are collaborating with Raytheon Vision Systems in Goleta to investigate applications of their discoveries in the development of tunable filters and switchable shutters for infrared cameras. Down the road, there may also be possible applications for synthetic camouflage. [emphasis mine]

There is at least one other research team (the UK’s University of Bristol) considering the camouflage strategies employed cephalopods and, in their case,  zebra fish as noted in my May 4, 2012 posting, Camouflage for everyone.

Getting back to cephalopod in hand, here’s an image from the UC Santa Barbara team,

This shows the diffusion of the neurotransmitter applied to squid skin at upper right, which induces a wave of iridescence traveling to the lower left and progressing from red to blue. Each object in the image is a living cell, 10 microns long; the dark object in the center of each cell is the cell nucleus. [downloaded from http://www.ia.ucsb.edu/pa/display.aspx?pkey=3076]

This shows the diffusion of the neurotransmitter applied to squid skin at upper right, which induces a wave of iridescence traveling to the lower left and progressing from red to blue. Each object in the image is a living cell, 10 microns long; the dark object in the center of each cell is the cell nucleus. [downloaded from http://www.ia.ucsb.edu/pa/display.aspx?pkey=3076]

Fro papers currently available online, here are links and citations,

Optical parameters of the tunable Bragg reflectors in squid by Amitabh Ghoshal, Daniel G. DeMartini, Elizabeth Eck, and Daniel E. Morse. doi: 10.1098/​rsif.2013.0386 J. R. Soc. Interface 6 August 2013 vol. 10 no. 85 20130386

The Royal Society paper is behind a paywall until August 2014.

Membrane invaginations facilitate reversible water flux driving tunable iridescence in a dynamic biophotonic system by Daniel G. DeMartini, Daniel V. Krogstadb, and Daniel E. Morse. Published online before print January 28, 2013, doi: 10.1073/pnas.1217260110
PNAS February 12, 2013 vol. 110 no. 7 2552-2556

The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) paper (or the ‘Daniel’ paper as I prefer to think of it)  is behind a paywall.

Split or symbiotic relationship? University of Albany and its College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering

There’s a change taking place at New York state’s University of Albany and its College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering (CNSE). Some call it a split, while others call it a new symbiotic relationship. Given the importance of the nano effort in NY state (my July 17, 2008 posting about IBM’s $1.5B investment in the state’s nanotechnology sector) and the CNSE’s prominence and outreach efforts (my May 28, 2013 posting), I checked into this further.

A July 17, 2013 posting by Charles Huckabee for The Ticker blog on The Chronicle for Higher Education website provides an overview of the situation and some of the funding considerations leading to the new relationship (Note: Links have been removed),

Trustees of the State University of New York [SUNY] voted on Tuesday [July 16, 2013] to begin the process of splitting off the University at Albany’s College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering into a separate, degree-granting institution, according to reports by the Times Union newspaper of Albany and the Associated Press. Several trustees, however, challenged whether the separation was necessary, saying it had not been sufficiently reviewed and could end up duplicating administration costs for SUNY.

In a news release from SUNY, the system’s chancellor, Nancy L. Zimpher, who champions the move, said the task of separating the institutions would be completed by the 2014-15 academic year. …

… a study group assembled by Ms. Zimpher concluded that to achieve its goals, the college needed more independence. Those goals, according to the Times Union, include amassing up to $500-million in research dollars in 2015 alone while continuing to build up space used for classes and research by public- and private-sector scientists.

As might be expected, not everyone is entirely thrilled with this change. From the July 24, 2013 interview by Haley Viccano for The Business Review (Note: Links have been removed),

I spoke with Karen Hitchcock, University at Albany’s president from 1996 until 2004, about the split between UAlbany and the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering.

Hitchcock discussed the history of the nanocollege’s growth during her presidency and how she believes the restructuring could affect both campuses.

She said she is concerned about the decision to split because it has the potential to hurt UAlbany’s reputation and diminish its stature as a research institution.

It’s an interesting read and I’m inclined to agree with Hitchcock’s analysis. Dave Lucas’s July 23, 2013 posting (which includes an embedded radio interview [running time: a little over 3.5 mins.]) for WAMC; Northeast Public Radio, acknowledges the doubts and the hopes for this action,

David Doyle is Director of Communications for the State University of New York. He admits there are obviously many questions and issues that need to be resolved over the next year of transition.

Although the colleges will “split,” University at Albany President Robert Jones agrees they will forever be interlinked. He expects both schools have important roles to play and will rise to new levels of education and innovation.  Jones adds there is no issue that can’t be worked out to make a smooth transition from one school to two.

Nano College Senior Vice President and Chief Executive Officer Alain Kaloyeros was not available for comment. An op-ed piece for the Albany Times Union Kaloyeros co-authored with Jones states that the action “by the SUNY Board of Trustees is not the end of the process; it is the beginning.”

The posting is not a full transcript of the radio interview, so you might want to check out the interview to get such tidbits as Doyle’s and other’s  description of the symbiotic relationship (not split) they hope for.

How many Holy Grails are there? Nanoscientists have reached another one (cancer, again)

A July 24, 2013 news item on ScienceDaily mentions the latest ‘Holy Grail’ breakthrough’,

Just months after setting a record for detecting the smallest single virus in solution, researchers at the Polytechnic Institute of New York University (NYU-Poly) have announced a new breakthrough: They used a nano-enhanced version of their patented microcavity biosensor to detect a single cancer marker protein, which is one-sixth the size of the smallest virus, and even smaller molecules below the mass of all known markers.

The July 24, 2013 Polytechnic Institute of New York University (NYU-Poly) press release features the Holy Grail in its headline (Note: Links have been removed),

NYU-Poly Nano Scientists Reach the Holy Grail in Label-Free Cancer Marker Detection: Single Molecules

Unlike current technology, which attaches a fluorescent molecule, or label, to the antigen to allow it to be seen, the new process detects the antigen without an interfering label.
Stephen Arnold, university professor of applied physics and member of the Othmer-Jacobs Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, published details of the achievement in Nano Letters, a publication of the American Chemical Society.

The press release goes on to the describe the context for this breakthrough and provides details about it (Note: A link has been removed),

In 2012, Arnold and his team were able to detect in solution the smallest known RNA virus, MS2, with a mass of 6 attograms. Now, with experimental work by postdoctoral fellow Venkata Dantham and former student David Keng, two proteins have been detected: a human cancer marker protein called Thyroglobulin, with a mass of just 1 attogram, and the bovine form of a common plasma protein, serum albumin, with a far smaller mass of 0.11 attogram. [emphasis mine] “An attogram is a millionth of a millionth of a millionth of a gram,” said Arnold, “and we believe that our new limit of detection may be smaller than 0.01 attogram.”

This latest milestone builds on a technique pioneered by Arnold and collaborators from NYU-Poly and Fordham University.  In 2012, the researchers set the first sizing record by treating a novel biosensor with plasmonic gold nano-receptors, enhancing the electric field of the sensor and allowing even the smallest shifts in resonant frequency to be detected. Their plan was to design a medical diagnostic device capable of identifying a single virus particle in a point-of-care setting, without the use of special assay preparations.

At the time, the notion of detecting a single protein—phenomenally smaller than a virus—was set forth as the ultimate goal.

“Proteins run the body,” explained Arnold. “When the immune system encounters virus, it pumps out huge quantities of antibody proteins, and all cancers generate protein markers. A test capable of detecting a single protein would be the most sensitive diagnostic test imaginable.”

To the surprise of the researchers, examination of their nanoreceptor under a transmission electron microscope revealed that its gold shell surface was covered with random bumps roughly the size of a protein. Computer mapping and simulations created by Stephen Holler, once Arnold’s student and now assistant professor of physics at Fordham University, showed that these irregularities generate their own highly reactive local sensitivity field extending out several nanometers, amplifying the capabilities of the sensor far beyond original predictions. “A virus is far too large to be aided in detection by this field,” Arnold said. “Proteins are just a few nanometers across—exactly the right size to register in this space.”

The implications of single protein detection are significant and may lay the foundation for improved medical therapeutics.  Among other advances, Arnold and his colleagues posit that the ability to follow a signal in real time—to actually witness the detection of a single disease marker protein and track its movement—may yield new understanding of how proteins attach to antibodies.

Arnold named the novel method of label-free detection “whispering gallery-mode biosensing” because light waves in the system reminded him of the way that voices bounce around the whispering gallery under the dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. A laser sends light through a glass fiber to a detector. When a microsphere is placed against the fiber, certain wavelengths of light detour into the sphere and bounce around inside, creating a dip in the light that the detector receives. When a molecule like a cancer marker clings to a gold nanoshell attached to the microsphere, the microsphere’s resonant frequency shifts by a measureable amount.

Just a brief comment about the attogram, this is the first time I’ve seen atto prepended to anything other than a unit of time, e.g. attosecond. For anyone who’s not familiar with the atto scale, it’s less than femto,which is less than pico, which is less than nano. There are two more scales moving downward after atto:  zetto followed by yocto. As far as I’m aware, yocto is still the smallest unit of measurement. (more simply and moving down in scale: micro, nano, pico, femto, atto, zetto, yocto)

Back to the Holy Grail at hand, here’s a link to and a citation for the published paper,

Label-Free Detection of Single Protein Using a Nanoplasmonic-Photonic Hybrid Microcavity by Venkata R. Dantham, Stephen Holler, Curtis Barbre, David Keng, Vasily Kolchenko, and Stephen Arnold. Nano Lett., 2013, 13 (7), pp 3347–3351 DOI: 10.1021/nl401633y Publication Date (Web): June 18, 2013
Copyright © 2013 American Chemical Society

This paper is behind a paywall.

Eco-friendly nitrogen-doped graphene nanoplatelets from South Korea

South Korean researchers from Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST) have devised a new technique to fix nitrogen to graphene, from the July 24, 2013 news item on Azonano,

A simple, low-cost and eco-friendly method of creating nitrogen-doped graphene nanoplatelets (NGnPs), which could be used in dye-sensitized solar cells and fuel cells, is published in Scientific Reports today.

The work, carried out at Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST) in South Korea, could be a step towards replacing conventional platinum (Pt)-based catalysts for energy conversion.

The UNIST July 23, 2013 news release by Eunhee Song, which originated the news item, provides some context for why the technique is exciting interest,

The search for economically viable alternatives to fossil fuels has attracted attention among energy communities because of increasing energy prices and climate change. Solar cells and fuel cells are to be promising alternatives, but Pt-based (platinum-based) electrodes are expensive and susceptible to environmental damage.

Nitrogen fixation is where nitrogen (N2) in the atmosphere is converted into ammonia (NH3). Fixation processes free up nitrogen atoms from their diatomic form to be used in other ways, but nitrogen does not easily react with other chemicals to form new compounds.

The most common method of industrial nitrogen fixation is the Harber-Bosch process, which requires extremely harsh conditions, 200 atm of pressure and 400 °C of temperature.

The UNIST team previously reported that dry ball-milling can efficiently produce chemically modified graphene particles in large quantities*. This research, in Scientific Reports, presents another innovation to improve the materials. Along the way, the research team discovered a novel nitrogen fixation process.

They focus on modifications with nitrogen, developing a technique with direct nitrogen fixation, carbon-nitrogen bond formation, at the broken edges of graphite frameworks using ball-milling graphite in the presence of nitrogen gas.

In my search for this latest paper I found an earlier piece of work based on a wet-chemical reaction and published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society,

Nitrogen-Doped Graphene Nanoplatelets from Simple Solution Edge-Functionalization for n-Type Field-Effect Transistors by Dong Wook Chang, Eun Kwang Lee, Eun Yeob Park, Hojeong Yu, Hyun-Jung Choi, In-Yup Jeon, Gyung-Joo Sohn, Dongbin Shin, Noejung Park, Joon Hak Oh, Liming Dai, and Jong-Beom Baek. J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2013, 135 (24), pp 8981–8988 DOI: 10.1021/ja402555n Publication Date (Web): May 27, 2013
Copyright © 2013 American Chemical Society

That paper is behind a paywall while this latest work featuring a ‘dry’ technique is open access,

Direct nitrogen fixation at the edges of graphene nanoplatelets as efficient electrocatalysts for energy conversion by In-Yup Jeon, Hyun-Jung Choi, Myung Jong Ju, In Taek Choi, Kimin Lim, Jaejung Ko, Hwan Kyu Kim, Jae Cheon Kim, Jae-Joon Lee, Dongbin Shin, Sun-Min Jung, Jeong-Min Seo, Min-Jung Kim, Noejung Park, Liming Dai, & Jong-Beom Baek. Scientific Reports 3, Article number: 2260 doi:10.1038/srep02260 Published 23 July 2013

This team has been quite prolific recently. I last mentioned them in a June 7, 2013 posting highlighting another iteration of this ‘dry’ technique.

Amid controversies, Australian government spends big bucks on Australian Institute for Nanoscience

Kim Carr, Australia’s Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research, delivered  an extraordinary speech, by Canadian standard (ours tend to remarkable blandness), at the sod-turning event for the new Australian Institute for Nanoscience (AIN) due to open in May 2015. Before getting to the speech, here’s a bit more about the event from a July 24, 2013 news item on Global Times,

Australian government will deliver a fund for the new Australian Institute for Nanoscience ( AIN) which will open in May 2015 to boost its research of nanotechnology, Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research Kim Carr confirmed in a statement after breaking the ground for the new facility at the University of Sydney on Wednesday.

The AIN project is a major new building combining research laboratories with teaching facilities to drive cross-disciplinary collaboration to develop nanomaterials and devices.

The July 24, 2013 Australian government media release about the AIN sod-turning provides more details about the government’s investment in the institute and its backing of nanoscience/nanotechnology research,

Senator Kim Carr said the Australian Government’s $40 million contribution, through the Education Investment Fund, to assist in the facility’s construction backs in Labor’s commitment to giving our researchers the tools they need to pursue world-leading work.

“Nanotechnology is a transformative force for manufacturing and is predicted to be worth $US3 trillion globally by 2020. Australia needs to stake a claim to our slice of that pie now, by building well-researched prototypes for the market. AIN will help make that happen and keep Australian research internationally competitive.”

Senator Carr said AIN will increase our national research capability by bringing together world-class nanoscience researchers across three main areas:

  • New medical diagnostics and therapies combining quantum technology with imaging and drug delivery and solutions such as a fully implantable bionic eye;
  • Faster, more secure and more efficient communications based on photonics and quantum science technologies; and
  • Revolutionary optical instrumentation to explore the frontiers of our universe, along with faster data processing technologies for the SKA.

I’m not sure where Carr got the “… worth $US3 trillion globally by 2020” number for nanotechnology’s impact on the global economy. More interesting to me, are these comments from Carr’s speech (you can find the entire speech here),

It is a great pleasure to share in the progress of the Australian Institute for Nanoscience here at Sydney University.

Three years have passed since I announced the funding for this facility:

$40 million from the Federal Government;

backed by $71 million from the university;

and a further $20 million from other sources, including the New South Wales government, the Australian National Fabrication Facility; the ARC’s CUDOS; the Australian Astronomical Observatory and Bandwidth Foundry International.

It was one of the many projects made possible by the Education Investment Fund – which, over three rounds, secured a total of $3.5 billion in new research infrastructure for a federal contribution of $1.5 billion.

This is an impressive return on investment.

At that time, this was the sort of research guaranteed to bring out the anti-science crowd.

There were beat-ups in the press, demonstrations in universities, and scare campaigns run on worksites. [emphasis mine]

It was as if the Enlightenment had never happened. It was as if nanoscience was some kind of global conspiracy to kill us all with sunscreen. [emphasis mine]

But I saw this project differently. And I put my views on the record at the time this investment was announced.

As I said back then:

“I don’t begin by saying “this is too strange” or “this is too hard”. I don’t begin by saying “no”.

I begin by asking, “what’s in it for Australia?” – “what’s in it for the people we serve?” – and “how can we make this work?”

The speech continues with a very optimistic view of all the economic benefits to be derived from an investment in nanoscience/nanotechnology.

Given the extreme lack of interest in Canada and its very odd (or perhaps it’s a harbinger of the future?) almost unknown National Institute of Nanotechnology (NINT), which exists on a NINT University of Alberta website and on a NINT National Research Council website, the “beat-ups in the press, etc.” provide a fascinating and contrasting socio-cultural perspective. The difference is perhaps due to a very active, both in Australia and internationally, Friends of the Earth group.

Friends of the Earth Australia campaigned long (years) and hard against nanosunscreens in a leadup to some rather disturbing survey findings in 2012 (my Feb. 9, 2012 posting) where some 13% of Australians, first reported as 17%,  didn’t use any sunscreens whatsoever, due to their fear of ‘nanosunscreens’.

Kim Carr has been mentioned here before in an Aug. 26, 2011 posting which highlighted a study showing  Australians held positive (?) attitudes towards nanotechnology and those attitudes had gotten more positive over time. My guess, not having looked at the study, is that the study focussed on areas where people usually express positive attitudes (e. g. better health care with less invasive medical procedures) and not on environmental issues (e.g. nanosilver in your clothing washing off and ending up in the water supply).

I do love how elected officials, the world over, pick and choose their ‘facts’.

Dr. Robin Coope will be speaking at Vancouver’s (Canada) Café Scientifique on July 30, 2013

The back room of the The Railway Club (2nd floor of 579 Dunsmuir St. [at Seymour St.], Vancouver, Canada), should be raucous with the sounds of beer slurping and talk of engineering in the life sciences at  the next Café Scientifique Vancouver talk given by Robin Coope on Tuesday, July 30,  2013 at 7:30 pm. Here’s the talk description (from the announcement),

Explain what it is you do again? Engineering in the life sciences

After studiously avoiding biology from high school on, Robin Coope wound up doing a PhD in Physics which involved understanding some exotic failure modes in capillary DNA sequencing. This led to a job at the BC Cancer Agency’s Genome Sciences Centre where he is now the Instrumentation Group Leader. This mostly involves managing the Centre’s liquid handling robots but with various funding sources, projects have involved novel automation platforms for DNA sample prep, as well as several medical devices for cancer treatment and even orthopaedics.

It turns out that practicing engineering while embedded in a clinical research lab with ready access to physicians and life scientists presents a fantastic opportunity to pursue the fundamental objective of engineering: to identify challenges and develop tools to solve them. The clinic is full of problems and unmet needs but the success of a solution often hinges on subtle issues, so it can take many prototypes and much discussion to get something that works. Working in this science-based industry also elucidates a clear distinction between engineering and science where success in the latter should be measured by publishing important ideas, whereas success in the former is really in making solutions available to a broad audience, which ultimately means commercialization. After seven years of in this field its also clear that the most interesting part of the work is the people and the challenges of communicating with specialists in widely divergent fields.

In this talk, Robin will present some recent projects and reflect on key lessons in what has thus far been a remarkably exciting adventure.

Happy slurping!

3rd annual Virtual Nanotechnology Poster Contest (Nanoposter 2013)

András Paszternák, founder of the The Internet Nanoscience Community, TINC, (also known nanopaprika.eu) has announced the organization’s third annual virtual conference in a July 24, 2013 news item on Nanowerk,

Share your science and results with 6400+ nanotechnology researchers and students from more than 80 countries.

NANOPOSTER 2013 is the best, easiest and cheapest way to find new partners, students, supervisors.

No travel, accommodation costs, no time outside of your research lab.

Use all the tools of the Internet to introduce your laboratory, research group.

… The Internet Nanoscience Community, TINC, was created by Hungarian chemistry PhD student Andras Paszternak in 2007. It now provides a rich menu of communication tools for the international community of scientists working in the growing field of nanoscience and nanotechnology and recently passed the 6400 members mark.

The virtual nano community is fully equipped with all the functions one expects from a modern online networking site: personal chat, a scientific forum, more than 100 thematic groups, including microscopy, nanomedicine, and even a discussion forum on safety and toxicity. …

No registration fees.

Deadlines

Abstract: 15th August 2013

Poster submission: 1st September 2013

Send your abstract (in .doc or .docx format) until 15th August 2013 and your poster (in .pdf format) until 1st September 2013 to editor@nanopaprika.eu

Abstract template:NANOPOSTER 2013 – abstract.doc

You can access the Nanoposter 2013 webpage here. or you can check out the general  http://www.nanopaprika.eu/ website. I last mentioned András’ nanopaprika website in a Nov. 29, 2011 posting on the occasion of the community’s fourth anniversary.

Better than today’s nanotechnology-enabled coatings: thin film metal coatings from ancient and medieval times

A July 24, 2013 news item on Nanowerk highlights work by Italian researchers on the topic of gilding and thin films (Note: A link has been removed),

Artists and craftsmen more than 2,000 years ago developed thin-film coating technology unrivaled even by today’s standards for producing DVDs, solar cells, electronic devices and other products. Understanding these sophisticated metal-plating techniques from ancient times, described in the ACS journal Accounts of Chemical Research (“Ancient Mercury-Based Plating Methods: Combined Use of Surface Analytical Techniques for the Study of Manufacturing Process and Degradation Phenomena”), could help preserve priceless artistic and other treasures from the past.

The July 24, 2013 American Chemical Society PressPak release, which originated the news item, gives more detail,

Gabriel Maria Ingo and colleagues point out that scientists have made good progress in understanding the chemistry of many ancient artistic and other artifacts — crucial to preserve them for future generations. Big gaps in knowledge remained, however, about how gilders in the Dark Ages and other periods applied such lustrous, impressively uniform films of gold or silver to intricate objects. Ingo’s team set out to apply the newest analytical techniques to uncover the ancients’ artistic secrets.

They discovered that gold- and silversmiths 2,000 years ago developed a variety of techniques, including using mercury like a glue to apply thin films of metals to statues and other objects. Sometimes, the technology was used to apply real gold and silver. It also was used fraudulently, to make cheap metal statues that look like solid gold or silver. The scientists say that their findings confirm “the high level of competence reached by the artists and craftsmen of these ancient periods who produced objects of an artistic quality that could not be bettered in ancient times and has not yet been reached in modern ones.”

Here’s a link to and a citation for the published paper,

Ancient Mercury-Based Plating Methods: Combined Use of Surface Analytical Techniques for the Study of Manufacturing Process and Degradation Phenomena by Gabriel Maria Ingo, Giuseppe Guida, Emma Angelini, Gabriella Di Carlo, Alessio Mezzi, and Giuseppina Padeletti. Acc. Chem. Res., Article ASAP DOI: 10.1021/ar300232e Publication Date (Web): July 5, 2013
Copyright © 2013 American Chemical Society

The paper is behind a paywall but you can access the abstract and this image, which was likely submitted by the researchers,

Image used to illustrate abstract (downloaded from http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ar300232e]

Image used to illustrate abstract (downloaded from http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/ar300232e]

Hydrophobic and hydrophilic for beginners

Anyone who’s interested in biomimicry (mimicking nature, for one reason or another) is likely to come across the terms hydrophobic (e.g. lotus leaves where water beads up into little balls) and hydrophilic, materials where water spreads itself evenly (e.g. desert beetles such as the stenocara are partly hydrophilic).  David L. Chandler at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) has written a good explanation (H/T phys.org) of these two states and the surface tensions which cause them in his article, Explained: Hydrophobic and hydrophilic; Better understanding of how surfaces attract or repel water could improve everything from power plants to ketchup bottles of July 16, 2013,

Materials with a special affinity for water — those it spreads across, maximizing contact — are known as hydrophilic. Those that naturally repel water, causing droplets to form, are known as hydrophobic. Both classes of materials can have a significant impact on the performance of power plants, electronics, airplane wings and desalination plants, among other technologies, says Kripa Varanasi, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at MIT. Improvements in hydrophilic and hydrophobic surfaces could provide ketchup bottles where the condiment just glides right out, glasses that never fog up, or power plants that wring more electricity from a given amount of fuel.

Hydrophilic and hydrophobic materials are defined by the geometry of water on a flat surface — specifically, the angle between a droplet’s edge and the surface underneath it. This is called the contact angle.

If the droplet spreads, wetting a large area of the surface, then the contact angle is less than 90 degrees and that surface is considered hydrophilic, or water-loving (from the Greek words for water, hydro, and love, philos). But if the droplet forms a sphere that barely touches the surface — like drops of water on a hot griddle — the contact angle is more than 90 degrees, and the surface is hydrophobic, or water-fearing.

I recommend  reading this piece in its entirety if you want find out more about this unexpectedly interesting topic. For those who don’t have the patience to read the whole article or like to augment their reading with videos, there’s the Bouncing Droplets: Superhydrophobic and Superhydrophilic Surfaces video at the Khan Academy. This well-paced  video was produced by MIT’s Bioinstrumentation Laboratory and is suitable for older children and adults.

Insurance, nanotechnology, and risk

I’ve been meaning to do something on insurance and the nanotechnology industry for a while so I’m thankful to have stumbled across this July 15, 2013 article by Anya Khalamayzer, which concerns actuaries, for Property Casualty 360°,

“An emerging technology can leave insurers covering risks they never contemplated,” states the Casualty Actuarial Society (CAS) in a statement on this revolutionary occupation [nanotechnology].

Parr Schoolman, a CAS fellow and senior managing director at Aon Benfield, explains that despite the lack of definitive data on the nanotech industry, an actuary’s ability to analyze a situation can help insurers develop a product to cover a futuristic technology that has arrived on society’s doorstep.

“Working with limited data is exactly the area where actuaries add most value,” says Alex Krutov, president of Navigation Advisors, in an email to PC360. “In general, the ability to provide solid actuarial risk analysis can also help accelerate societal progress by making possible the development and introduction of new technologies and products that otherwise might be considered uninsurable and too risky.”

I find this bit from the article  interesting,

Krutov says, “Medical applications of nanotechnology are very promising.  At the same time, health and other risks of specific products based on nanotechnology have to be properly analyzed before any insurance underwriting decision is made.  While actuaries are not expected to be experts on nanotechnology or medicine, they provide the general framework for this risk analysis.”

It seems to me the only way a nonexpert could establish a general framework for risk analysis, as Krutov suggests, would be to read some of the literature and get reports from people who do have expertise. One has to wonder though, at what point a threshold, whatever it might be, is passed and something becomes insurable. For example, there’s Chad Mirkin’s therapeutic skin moisturizer breakthrough in July 2012, mentioned in my Penetrating the skin barrier posting,

Researchers at Northwestern University (Illinois, US) have found a way to deliver gene regulation technology using skin moisturizers. From the July 3, 2012 news item on Science Blog,

A team led by a physician-scientist and a chemist — from the fields of dermatology and nanotechnology — is the first to demonstrate the use of commercial moisturizers to deliver gene regulation technology that has great potential for life-saving therapies for skin cancers.

At what point, once the treatments have passed through clinical trials, does the treatment or the doctor giving the treatment become insurable? From the article,

Because nanotechnology has only been available since the 1984, and due to the cutting-edge speed at which it is being developed, reliable data describing its effects is often outdated. Furthermore, Kingdollar [Charlie Kingdollar, vice president and emerging issues officer of General Reinsurance Corporation] says more than 60 percent of firms and universities fail to conduct toxicity tests on nanomaterial.

According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), nanomaterials are effective precisely because their size allows them to enter the body in ways not typically found in other chemicals: for example, through the blood-brain barrier or by crossing cell membranes.

Kingdollar appears to be suggesting uninsurability while at the same time noting possible future loopholes should companies insure some form of nanotechnology-enabled therapy or product.

A little digging unearthed this Dec. 17, 2012 news item on Nanowerk (Note: A link has been removed),

The article “Handling Nanotechnologies with foresight in the context of Liability insurance” (pdf), published by reinsurance company Gen Re, describes potential risks of nanotechnologies from the perspective of insurance companies and shows strategies for foresight handling.

The article concludes that “In summary it must be noted that our goal as an insurance industry should support highly profitable nanotechnologies from an underwriting perspective, but without losing sight of the considerable risk potential. This can only be achieved through risk identification, risk monitoring and risk analysis. Simply waiting until risk materialises could have significant consequences for the insurance industry.

… align both of those goals — support for nanotechnologies and justifiable limitation of the potential financial risks for the insurance industry. A step in the right direction could be to contain the problem of late claims, which are inherent with these technologies, by employing the claims made principle.”

While I find the jargon a little difficult, it does seem that another loophole is being developed in that last line about “employing the claims made principle.”

For further investigation, here’s a link to the 10 pp. article Handling Nanotechologies With Foresight in the Context of Liability Insurance by Richard Wieczorek for Gen Re.