Two research teams have claimed that rare earths can be phytomined without damaging the plants.Here’s more about the work in the order in which I stumbled across the research. Later, I have a couple of articles with one critiquing the research and praising it. Finally, I have some news about rare earths conference taking place in Vancouver, Canada and winding up today, April 17, 2026.
Blechnum orientale fern can form nanoscale crystals of monazite
A November 24, 2026 article (Humanity Is Desperate for Rare Earth Elements. This Plant Is Growing Them Right Under Our Feet.) by Darren Orf for Popular Mechanics provides context for why the need is urgent and the problems standard extraction techniques cause, Note: Links have been removed,
The green energy revolution holds the promise of clean air, drinkable water, and a world not beholden to an unsustainable addiction to fossil fuels, but there’s one big barrier (among many) between now and this idyllic energy future—rare earth elements (REEs).
While green technologies like solar panels don’t use many REEs directly, they’re essential for batteries, inverters, wind turbines, and many other technologies that undergird the electric grid.
In other words, they’re essential; and unfortunately, the mad dash to find them, dig them up, and refine them is one of the greatest ecological and human rights questions facing the world today.
REEs refer to the 15 lanthanides on the periodic table, along with Scandium (Sc) and Yttrium (Y), and are abundant in the Earth’s crust (albeit in low concentrations) in ores such as bastnäsite or monazite, that then need further refining to be usable. This is an immensely energy-intensive process that creates tons of toxic waste, which can seep into groundwater and cause untold amounts of environmental damage.
However, mining for these ores isn’t the only way to extract REEs out of the ground. A new study in the journal Environmental Science & Technology drills into the biological details of a process known as phytomining, which uses specialized plants known as “hyperaccumulators” to pull REEs out of the ground or form valuable rare earth crystals within its leaves. In fact, these plants can pull so much metal out of the ground that some of them are about five percent metal by weight.
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According to the scientists, this is the first time they’ve seen a plant create an REE crystal, but B. orientale is only one plant in an entire family of hyperaccumulators that are similarly capable of extracting REEs from the soil—and the U.S. has already taken notice.
Last year, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) program doled out nearly $10 million for developing phytomining technologies that can specifically produce nickel. …
Aman Tripathi’s November 12, 2025 article about the research for Interesting Engineering focuses on other aspects of the research, Note: A link has been removed,
A Chinese-led team of scientists has made a world-first discovery, identifying a naturally formed mineral containing rare earth elements (REEs) inside a living plant.
The researchers found nanoscale monazite, a valuable mineral, crystallised within the tissues of an evergreen fern named Blechnum orientale.
According to a statement from the Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry, an institution involved in the study, this “opens new possibilities for the direct recovery of functional rare earth element materials.”
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Monazite is a phosphate mineral rich in REEs [rare earth elements] such as cerium, lanthanum, and neodymium. These elements are critical for modern technology. The mineral itself is highly valued for its mechanical, physical, and thermal properties.
It has a high melting point and offers resistance to corrosion and radiation damage, making it suitable for applications in coatings, lasers, light emitters, ionic conductors, and radioactive waste management.
What makes the discovery significant is the manner in which the mineral was formed. Typically, monazite forms geologically under high pressure and at temperatures of hundreds of degrees Fahrenheit. The scientists noted that this study demonstrates plants can facilitate its mineralisation under ambient, Earth-surface conditions.
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Phytomining is a green strategy that uses “hyperaccumulator” plants to extract metals from the ground. These plants are capable of concentrating heavy metals in their tissues at levels hundreds to thousands of times higher than the surrounding soil.
The strategy involves cultivating these plants on metal-rich soils and later recovering the target metals from the harvested biomass. The researchers explained this approach “reduces reliance on conventional mining while mitigating associated environmental and geopolitical risks.”
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Tripathi’s November 12, 2025 article reveals a bit more including the fact that the Chinese researchers were collaborating with a team at Virginia Tech (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, US).
This photo shows Phytolacca americana plants growing in different concentrations of acid mine drainage sludge to evaluate the amount of rare-earth elements that can be recovered from the sludge. Photo credit: External Affairs.
Researchers have developed a technique for detecting and measuring the concentration of many rare-earth elements in plants, without destroying the plant. The technique can be used to optimize “plant mining” efforts, in which plants take up and concentrate these critical materials so that they can be harvested for practical use.
“Rare-earth metals are essential for many technologies,” says Colleen Doherty, co-corresponding author of a paper on the work. “These are not actually rare, it’s just that they are rarely found in high concentrations in the environment in their pure form. Right now, the U.S. obtains most of the rare-earth materials it needs from international sources, so there is a great deal of interest in identifying domestic sources of these critical materials.”
One option is to harvest the rare-earth elements found in mine waste and other polluted soils. However, while these toxic soils have relatively high concentrations of rare-earth elements compared to other soils, those concentrations are still too low to make this an economically feasible strategy.
But there is a potential solution: plants.
“Some plant species are capable of taking rare-earth elements out of polluted soil and concentrating it in their tissue,” says Doherty, who is an associate professor of molecular and structural biochemistry at North Carolina State University. “In order to maximize this ‘plant mining’ technique, we wanted to find a way to detect and measure the concentration of rare-earth materials in these plants. This can inform not only which plants we want to use for these mining projects, but when the optimal time would be for harvesting those plants to maximize yield of rare-earth elements.”
To solve this challenge, the researchers used fluorescence spectroscopy. The technique makes use of the fact that some chemical compounds absorb light and then re-emit that absorbed energy as light at different wavelengths. By cataloging which chemical compounds absorb and emit specific wavelengths, and how long those emissions last, you can determine which chemical compounds are present. Generally, the more intense the light emitted, the higher the concentration of the chemical compound.
“Plant matter itself fluoresces across a broad range of wavelengths,” Doherty says. “So one challenge has been distinguishing the autofluorescence of the plant itself from the fluorescence of rare-earth elements the plant has taken up.”
For this project, the researchers focused on dysprosium, a rare-earth element that is critical for manufacturing everything from cell phones to wind turbines to electric vehicle motors.
“We focused on dysprosium, in part, because it fluoresces for a relatively long time,” says Michael Kudenov, co-corresponding author of the paper and the John and Catherine Amein Family Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at NC State. “This means dysprosium will still be emitting light after the plant’s autofluorescence has died down. That allows us to detect it, measure its intensity, and then calculate the concentration of dysprosium in the plant tissue.”
The researchers demonstrated the technique using two species of pokeweed. The plants took up dysprosium from a substrate. The plant tissue was then treated externally with sodium tungstate, which interacts with the dysprosium to intensify the light being emitted by the dysprosium during fluorescence. The researchers then triggered fluorescence using a deep ultraviolet laser and measured the wavelengths and intensity of light emitted by the plant samples.
“The sodium tungstate makes it easier to detect the dysprosium,” Doherty says. “But because it intensifies the light in a predictable way, we can still account for its presence and get an accurate reading on the concentration of dysprosium in the plant.”
The researchers found their technique was accurate at both detecting the presence of dysprosium and measuring the concentration of dysprosium in the plant tissue.
“This technique can be done very quickly and we’re excited that we can conduct the testing without destroying the plant, which allows us to test the same plant repeatedly,” Doherty says. “This is critical for helping us determine the best time to harvest these plants in order to get the optimal concentration of rare-earth elements in the plants’ tissue.”
“We’ve also done enough preliminary work to be confident that this technique will work for the rare-earth elements terbium and europium,” Kudenov says. “And we’re fairly confident the technique will work for erbium and neodymium, with minor changes to the experimental setup. It’s much too early to speak to other rare-earth elements, but we’re interested in exploring those as well.”
This new technique was developed as part of a larger project being led by Doherty and Kudenov that focuses on supplementing the U.S.’s domestic rare-earth metal needs while offsetting the cost of environmental remediation at fly ash ponds, areas contaminated by acid mine drainage, and other toxic sites.
“We’re optimistic that this can make a real difference for both our manufacturing sector and the environment,” Doherty says. “It could be an important part of our rare-earth supply chain moving forward.”
The paper, “Detection and Quantification of Dysprosium in Plant Tissues,” is published open access in the journal Plant Direct. First author of the paper is Edmaritz Hernández-Pagán, a Ph.D. student at NC State. The paper was co-authored by Kanjana Laosuntisuk and Cyprian Rajabu, former postdoctoral researchers at NC State; Anisa Guidira, a Ph.D. student at NC State; Allison Haynes, an undergraduate at NC State; Alex Harris, a former undergraduate at NC State; and David Buitrago, a former master’s student at NC State.
This work was done with support from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency under DARPA Young Investigator Award D19AP00026.
Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,
Detection and Quantification of Dysprosium in Plant Tissues by Edmaritz Hernández-Pagán, Kanjana Laosuntisuk, Alex T. Harris, Allison N. Haynes, David Buitrago, Anisa Guedira, Cyprian Rajabu, Michael W. Kudenov, Colleen J. Doherty. Plant Direct Volume 10, Issue 4 April 2026 e70164 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/pld3.70164 First published: 12 April 2026
This paper is open access.
Some criticism and some enthusiasm
First, a more critical look at phytomining for rare earth elements (RREs), from a November 13, 2025 posting by Daniel on Rare Earth Exchanges, Note: Links have been removed,
Highlights
Chinese researchers discovered the first naturally crystallized rare earth minerals (monazite) inside a living fern, suggesting potential for plant-based extraction and soil remediation.
Despite the scientific breakthrough, major limitations exist: no evidence of commercial scalability, tiny production quantities, and unresolved challenges in extraction and processing steps where China dominates.
The discovery serves as strategic signaling from China, positioning itself as a leader in ‘green rare earths’ and environmentally friendly extraction amid global criticism of its mining practices.
A Chinese-led research team from the Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry(Chinese Academy of Sciences), working with an earth scientist atVirginia Tech, reports the first-ever recovery of naturally crystallized rare earth minerals inside a living plant. According to their paper in Environmental Science & Technology, the tropical fern Blechnum orientale formed nanoscale monazite crystals—a rare earth phosphate mineral typically found in igneous and sedimentary deposits—inside its tissues.
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This April 16, 2026 posting by Daniel on Rare Earth Exchanges strikes a more celebratory tone, Note: A link has been removed,
Highlights
Researchers at NC State developed a non-destructive fluorescence method to detect and quantify dysprosium in living plants, enabling real-time monitoring of rare earth concentrations for optimized phytomining strategies.
The breakthrough technique could enable plants to extract valuable rare earths like dysprosium from contaminated sites and mine waste, offering a decentralized, low-impact supplement to traditional mining.
While promising for heavy rare earth recovery, phytomining remains early-stage research requiring field trials and economic viability studies before becoming a strategic supply chain component.
A new peer-reviewed study led by Edmaritz Hernández-Pagán at North Carolina State University, working with senior authors Colleen Doherty and Michael Kudenov, introduces a novel way to measure rare earth elements inside living plants—without destroying them. Published in Plant Direct, the research demonstrates a fluorescence-based technique to detect and quantify dysprosium (a critical rare earth used in EV motors and wind turbines) in plant tissue, potentially advancing “phytomining”—a process where plants absorb and concentrate valuable metals from contaminated soils.
The work, supported in part by DARPA, could open a new frontier in domestic rare earth sourcing while simultaneously addressing environmental cleanup challenges.
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Vancouver hosts first North American rare earths conference?
Metal Events hosts the 1st North American Rare Earths Conference in Vancouver, April 15–17, 2026, bringing together miners, processors, magnet manufacturers, and investors to rebuild strategic rare-earth supply chains across North America and allied markets.
The conference addresses critical industry challenges including reducing reliance on Chinese supply chains, navigating price volatility driven by EV and renewable energy demand, and establishing integrated mine-to-magnet production capabilities in Western economies.
Despite diversification efforts, the continued participation of Chinese-linked firms alongside Western companies signals that complete decoupling remains unlikely, with the industry moving toward a more geographically diversified yet still globally interconnected rare-earth ecosystem.
Metal Events will convene the 1st North American Rare Earths Conference in Vancouver, April 15–17, 2026, assembling miners, processors, magnet manufacturers, market analysts, traders, and institutional investors to examine how North America can rebuild strategic rare-earth supply chains. While framed as a regional meeting, the attendee roster reveals a globally integrated industry network, with participants from Canada, the United States, Europe, Japan, and China-linked firms. The agenda underscores a central question shaping the sector: how Western economies can diversify supply chains for magnet metals while still operating within a globally interconnected rare-earth market.
Metal Events is delighted to announce the 1st North American Rare Earths Conference will take place in Vancouver during 15-17 April 2026.
In conjunction with this event, on Thursday 16 in the afternoon, we will have an update on the scandium market and we will also be holding the inaugural AGM for the International Scandium Association.
Metal Events reserves the right to change any of its rates due to currency fluctuations. Our base rate is always in Sterling and rates in other currencies will be calculated on the day.
I really wasn’t expecting to see the fee listed in pounds sterling. Intriguing, non?
Finally, it seems the hunt for rare earth elements continues.
‘Extinction of experience’ is a bit of an attention getter isn’t it? Well, it worked for me when I first saw it and it seems particularly apt after putting together my August 9, 2018 posting about the 2018 SIGGRAPH conference, in particular, the ‘Previews’ where I featured a synthetic sound project. Here’s a little more about EOE from a July 3, 2018 news item on phys.org,
Opportunities for people to interact with nature have declined over the past century, as most people now live in urban areas and spend much of their time indoors. And while adults are not only experiencing nature less, they are also less likely to take their children outdoors and shape their attitudes toward nature, creating a negative cycle. In 1978, ecologist Robert Pyle coined the phrase “extinction of experience” (EOE) to describe this alienation from nature, and argued that this process is one of the greatest causes of the biodiversity crisis. Four decades later, the question arises: How can we break the cycle and begin to reverse EOE?
In citizen science programs, people participate in real research, helping scientists conduct studies on local, regional and even global scales. In a study released today, researchers from the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, North Carolina State University, Rutgers University, and the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology propose nature-based citizen science as a means to reconnect people to nature. For people to take the next step and develop a desire to preserve nature, they need to not only go outdoors or learn about nature, but to develop emotional connections to and empathy for nature. Because citizen science programs usually involve data collection, they encourage participants to search for, observe and investigate natural elements around them. According to co-author Caren Cooper, assistant head of the Biodiversity Lab at the N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences, “Nature-based citizen science provides a structure and purpose that might help people notice nature around them and appreciate it in their daily lives.”
To search for evidence of these patterns across programs and the ability of citizen science to reach non-scientific audiences, the researchers studied the participants of citizen science programs. They reviewed 975 papers, analyzed results from studies that included participants’ motivations and/or outcomes in nature-oriented programs, and found that nature-based citizen science fosters cognitive and emotional aspects of experiences in nature, giving it the potential to reverse EOE.
The eMammal citizen science programs offer children opportunities to use technology to observe nature in new ways. Photo: Matt Zeher.
The N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences’ Stephanie Schuttler, lead author on the study and scientist on the eMammal citizen science camera trapping program, saw anecdotal evidence of this reversal through her work incorporating camera trap research into K-12 classrooms. “Teachers would tell me how excited and surprised students were about the wildlife in their school yards,” Schuttler says. “They had no idea their campus flourished with coyotes, foxes and deer.” The study Schuttler headed shows citizen science increased participants’ knowledge, skills, interest in and curiosity about nature, and even produced positive behavioral changes. For example, one study revealed that participants in the Garden Butterfly Watch program changed gardening practices to make their yards more hospitable to wildlife. Another study found that participants in the Coastal Observation and Seabird Survey Team program started cleaning up beaches during surveys, even though this was never suggested by the facilitators.
While these results are promising, the EOE study also revealed that this work has only just begun and that most programs do not reach audiences who are not already engaged in science or nature. Only 26 of the 975 papers evaluated participants’ motivations and/or outcomes, and only one of these papers studied children, the most important demographic in reversing EOE. “Many studies were full of amazing stories on how citizen science awakened participants to the nature around them, however, most did not study outcomes,” Schuttler notes. “To fully evaluate the ability for nature-based citizen science to affect people, we encourage citizen science programs to formally study their participants and not just study the system in question.”
Additionally, most citizen science programs attracted or even recruited environmentally mindful participants who likely already spend more time outside than the average person. “If we really want to reconnect people to nature, we need to preach beyond the choir, and attract people who are not already interested in science and/or nature,” Schuttler adds. And as co-author Assaf Shwartz of Technion-Israel Institute of Technology asserts, “The best way to avert the extinction of experience is to create meaningful experiences of nature in the places where we all live and work – cities. Participating in citizen science is an excellent way to achieve this goal, as participation can enhance the sense of commitment people have to protect nature.”
Luckily, some other factors appear to influence participants’ involvement in citizen science. Desire for wellbeing, stewardship and community may provide a gateway for people to participate, an important first step in connecting people to nature. Though nature-based citizen science programs provide opportunities for people to interact with nature, further research on the mechanisms that drive this relationship is needed to strengthen our understanding of various outcomes of citizen science.
And, I because I love dragonflies,
Nature-based citizen science programs, like Dragonfly Pond Watch, offer participants opportunities to observe nature more closely. Credit: Lea Shell.
For many people this may seem like a dream come true but there is a proviso. So far researchers have gotten to the in vivo testing (mice) with no word about human clinical trials, which means it could be quite a while, assuming human clinical trials go well, before any product comes to market. With that in mind, here’s more from a Sept.15, 2017 news item on Nanowerk,
Researchers have devised a medicated skin patch that can turn energy-storing white fat into energy-burning brown fat locally while raising the body’s overall metabolism. The patch could be used to burn off pockets of unwanted fat such as “love handles” and treat metabolic disorders like obesity and diabetes, according to researchers at Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) and the University of North Carolina.
Humans have two types of fat. White fat stores excess energy in large triglyceride droplets. Brown fat has smaller droplets and a high number of mitochondria that burn fat to produce heat. Newborns have a relative abundance of brown fat, which protects against exposure to cold temperatures. But by adulthood, most brown fat is lost.
For years, researchers have been searching for therapies that can transform an adult’s white fat into brown fat–a process named browning–which can happen naturally when the body is exposed to cold temperatures–as a treatment for obesity and diabetes.
“There are several clinically available drugs that promote browning, but all must be given as pills or injections,” said study co-leader Li Qiang, PhD, assistant professor of pathology and cell biology at CUMC. “This exposes the whole body to the drugs, which can lead to side effects such as stomach upset, weight gain, and bone fractures. Our skin patch appears to alleviate these complications by delivering most drugs directly to fat tissue.”
To apply the treatment, the drugs are first encased in nanoparticles, each roughly 250 nanometers (nm) in diameter–too small to be seen by the naked eye. (In comparison, a human hair is about 100,000 nm wide.) The nanoparticles are then loaded into a centimeter-square skin patch containing dozens of microscopic needles. When applied to skin, the needles painlessly pierce the skin and gradually release the drug from nanoparticles into underlying tissue.
“The nanoparticles were designed to effectively hold the drug and then gradually collapse, releasing it into nearby tissue in a sustained way instead of spreading the drug throughout the body quickly,” said patch designer and study co-leader Zhen Gu, PhD, associate professor of joint biomedical engineering at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and North Carolina State University.
The new treatment approach was tested in obese mice by loading the nanoparticles with one of two compounds known to promote browning: rosiglitazone (Avandia) or beta-adrenergic receptor agonist (CL 316243) that works well in mice but not in humans. Each mouse was given two patches–one loaded with drug-containing nanoparticles and another without drug–that were placed on either side of the lower abdomen. New patches were applied every three days for a total of four weeks. Control mice were also given two empty patches.
Mice treated with either of the two drugs had a 20 percent reduction in fat on the treated side compared to the untreated side. They also had significantly lower fasting blood glucose levels than untreated mice.
Tests in normal, lean mice revealed that treatment with either of the two drugs increased the animals’ oxygen consumption (a measure of overall metabolic activity) by about 20 percent compared to untreated controls.
Genetic analyses revealed that the treated side contained more genes associated with brown fat than on the untreated side, suggesting that the observed metabolic changes and fat reduction were due to an increase in browning in the treated mice.
“Many people will no doubt be excited to learn that we may be able to offer a noninvasive alternative to liposuction for reducing love handles,” says Dr. Qiang. “What’s much more important is that our patch may provide a safe and effective means of treating obesity and related metabolic disorders such as diabetes.” [emphasis mine]
The patch has not been tested in humans. The researchers are currently studying which drugs, or combination of drugs, work best to promote localized browning and increase overall metabolism.
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The study was supported by grants from the North Carolina Translational and Clinical Sciences Institute and the National Institutes of Health (1UL1TR001111, R00DK97455, and P30DK063608).
Notice the emphasis on health and that the funding does not seem to be from industry (the National Institutes of Health is definitely a federal US agency but I’m not familiar with the North Carolina Translational and Clinical Sciences Institute).
Getting back to the research, here’s an animation featuring the work,
I would imagine that Qiang and his colleagues will find a number of business entities will be lining up to fund their work. While the researchers may be focused primarily on health issues, I imagine business types will be seeing dollar signs (very big ones with many zeroes).
I have three news bits about legal issues that are arising as a consequence of emerging technologies.
Deep neural networks, art, and copyright
Caption: The rise of automated art opens new creative avenues, coupled with new problems for copyright protection. Credit: Provided by: Alexander Mordvintsev, Christopher Olah and Mike Tyka
Presumably this artwork is a demonstration of automated art although they never really do explain how in the news item/news release. An April 26, 2017 news item on ScienceDaily announces research into copyright and the latest in using neural networks to create art,
In 1968, sociologist Jean Baudrillard wrote on automatism that “contained within it is the dream of a dominated world […] that serves an inert and dreamy humanity.”
With the growing popularity of Deep Neural Networks (DNN’s), this dream is fast becoming a reality.
Dr. Jean-Marc Deltorn, researcher at the Centre d’études internationales de la propriété intellectuelle in Strasbourg, argues that we must remain a responsive and responsible force in this process of automation — not inert dominators. As he demonstrates in a recent Frontiers in Digital Humanities paper, the dream of automation demands a careful study of the legal problems linked to copyright.
For more than half a century, artists have looked to computational processes as a way of expanding their vision. DNN’s are the culmination of this cross-pollination: by learning to identify a complex number of patterns, they can generate new creations.
These systems are made up of complex algorithms modeled on the transmission of signals between neurons in the brain.
DNN creations rely in equal measure on human inputs and the non-human algorithmic networks that process them.
Inputs are fed into the system, which is layered. Each layer provides an opportunity for a more refined knowledge of the inputs (shape, color, lines). Neural networks compare actual outputs to expected ones, and correct the predictive error through repetition and optimization. They train their own pattern recognition, thereby optimizing their learning curve and producing increasingly accurate outputs.
The deeper the layers are, the higher the level of abstraction. The highest layers are able to identify the contents of a given input with reasonable accuracy, after extended periods of training.
Creation thus becomes increasingly automated through what Deltorn calls “the arcane traceries of deep architecture”. The results are sufficiently abstracted from their sources to produce original creations that have been exhibited in galleries, sold at auction and performed at concerts.
The originality of DNN’s is a combined product of technological automation on one hand, human inputs and decisions on the other.
DNN’s are gaining popularity. Various platforms (such as DeepDream) now allow internet users to generate their very own new creations . This popularization of the automation process calls for a comprehensive legal framework that ensures a creator’s economic and moral rights with regards to his work – copyright protection.
Form, originality and attribution are the three requirements for copyright. And while DNN creations satisfy the first of these three, the claim to originality and attribution will depend largely on a given country legislation and on the traceability of the human creator.
Legislation usually sets a low threshold to originality. As DNN creations could in theory be able to create an endless number of riffs on source materials, the uncurbed creation of original works could inflate the existing number of copyright protections.
Additionally, a small number of national copyright laws confers attribution to what UK legislation defines loosely as “the person by whom the arrangements necessary for the creation of the work are undertaken.” In the case of DNN’s, this could mean anybody from the programmer to the user of a DNN interface.
Combined with an overly supple take on originality, this view on attribution would further increase the number of copyrightable works.
The risk, in both cases, is that artists will be less willing to publish their own works, for fear of infringement of DNN copyright protections.
In order to promote creativity – one seminal aim of copyright protection – the issue must be limited to creations that manifest a personal voice “and not just the electric glint of a computational engine,” to quote Deltorn. A delicate act of discernment.
DNN’s promise new avenues of creative expression for artists – with potential caveats. Copyright protection – a “catalyst to creativity” – must be contained. Many of us gently bask in the glow of an increasingly automated form of technology. But if we want to safeguard the ineffable quality that defines much art, it might be a good idea to hone in more closely on the differences between the electric and the creative spark.
The Fifth Annual Conference on Governance of Emerging Technologies:
Law, Policy and Ethics held at the new
Beus Center for Law & Society in Phoenix, AZ
May 17-19, 2017!
Call for Abstracts – Now Closed
The conference will consist of plenary and session presentations and discussions on regulatory, governance, legal, policy, social and ethical aspects of emerging technologies, including (but not limited to) nanotechnology, synthetic biology, gene editing, biotechnology, genomics, personalized medicine, human enhancement technologies, telecommunications, information technologies, surveillance technologies, geoengineering, neuroscience, artificial intelligence, and robotics. The conference is premised on the belief that there is much to be learned and shared from and across the governance experience and proposals for these various emerging technologies.
Keynote Speakers:
Gillian Hadfield, Richard L. and Antoinette Schamoi Kirtland Professor of Law and Professor of Economics USC [University of Southern California] Gould School of Law
Shobita Parthasarathy, Associate Professor of Public Policy and Women’s Studies, Director, Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program University of Michigan
Stuart Russell, Professor at [University of California] Berkeley, is a computer scientist known for his contributions to artificial intelligence
Craig Shank,Vice President for Corporate Standards Group in Microsoft’s Corporate, External and Legal Affairs (CELA)
Plenary Panels:
Innovation – Responsible and/or Permissionless
Ellen-Marie Forsberg,Senior Researcher/Research Manager at Oslo and Akershus University College of Applied Sciences
Adam Thierer,Senior Research Fellow with the Technology Policy Program at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University
Andrew Maynard,Senior Sustainability Scholar, Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability Director, Risk Innovation Lab, School for the Future of Innovation in Society Professor, School for the Future of Innovation in Society, Arizona State University
Gary Marchant,Regents’ Professor of Law, Professor of Law Faculty Director and Faculty Fellow, Center for Law, Science & Innovation, Arizona State University
Anupam Chander,Martin Luther King, Jr. Professor of Law and Director, California International Law Center, UC Davis School of Law
Pilar Ossorio,Professor of Law and Bioethics, University of Wisconsin, School of Law and School of Medicine and Public Health; Morgridge Institute for Research, Ethics Scholar-in-Residence
George Poste,Chief Scientist, Complex Adaptive Systems Initiative (CASI) (http://www.casi.asu.edu/), Regents’ Professor and Del E. Webb Chair in Health Innovation, Arizona State University
Emily Shuckburgh, climate scientist and deputy head of the Polar Oceans Team at the British Antarctic Survey, University of Cambridge
Responsible Development of AI
Spring Berman,Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering, Arizona State University
John Havens, The IEEE [Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers] Global Initiative for Ethical Considerations in Artificial Intelligence and Autonomous Systems
Subbarao Kambhampati,Senior Sustainability Scientist, Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability, Professor, School of Computing, Informatics and Decision Systems Engineering, Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering, Arizona State University
Wendell Wallach, Consultant, Ethicist, and Scholar at Yale University’s Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics
*Current Student / ASU Law Alumni Registration: $50.00
^Cybsersecurity sessions only (May 19): $100 CLE / $50 General / Free for students (registration info coming soon)
There you have it.
Neuro-techno future laws
I’m pretty sure this isn’t the first exploration of potential legal issues arising from research into neuroscience although it’s the first one I’ve stumbled across. From an April 25, 2017 news item on phys.org,
New human rights laws to prepare for advances in neurotechnology that put the ‘freedom of the mind’ at risk have been proposed today in the open access journal Life Sciences, Society and Policy.
The authors of the study suggest four new human rights laws could emerge in the near future to protect against exploitation and loss of privacy. The four laws are: the right to cognitive liberty, the right to mental privacy, the right to mental integrity and the right to psychological continuity.
Marcello Ienca, lead author and PhD student at the Institute for Biomedical Ethics at the University of Basel, said: “The mind is considered to be the last refuge of personal freedom and self-determination, but advances in neural engineering, brain imaging and neurotechnology put the freedom of the mind at risk. Our proposed laws would give people the right to refuse coercive and invasive neurotechnology, protect the privacy of data collected by neurotechnology, and protect the physical and psychological aspects of the mind from damage by the misuse of neurotechnology.”
Advances in neurotechnology, such as sophisticated brain imaging and the development of brain-computer interfaces, have led to these technologies moving away from a clinical setting and into the consumer domain. While these advances may be beneficial for individuals and society, there is a risk that the technology could be misused and create unprecedented threats to personal freedom.
Professor Roberto Andorno, co-author of the research, explained: “Brain imaging technology has already reached a point where there is discussion over its legitimacy in criminal court, for example as a tool for assessing criminal responsibility or even the risk of reoffending. Consumer companies are using brain imaging for ‘neuromarketing’, to understand consumer behaviour and elicit desired responses from customers. There are also tools such as ‘brain decoders’ which can turn brain imaging data into images, text or sound. All of these could pose a threat to personal freedom which we sought to address with the development of four new human rights laws.”
The authors explain that as neurotechnology improves and becomes commonplace, there is a risk that the technology could be hacked, allowing a third-party to ‘eavesdrop’ on someone’s mind. In the future, a brain-computer interface used to control consumer technology could put the user at risk of physical and psychological damage caused by a third-party attack on the technology. There are also ethical and legal concerns over the protection of data generated by these devices that need to be considered.
International human rights laws make no specific mention to neuroscience, although advances in biomedicine have become intertwined with laws, such as those concerning human genetic data. Similar to the historical trajectory of the genetic revolution, the authors state that the on-going neurorevolution will force a reconceptualization of human rights laws and even the creation of new ones.
Marcello Ienca added: “Science-fiction can teach us a lot about the potential threat of technology. Neurotechnology featured in famous stories has in some cases already become a reality, while others are inching ever closer, or exist as military and commercial prototypes. We need to be prepared to deal with the impact these technologies will have on our personal freedom.”
I’m not sure I’d call it the next big advance in electronics, there are too many advances jockeying for that position but this work from Australia and the US is fascinating. From a Feb. 17, 2017 news item on ScienceDaily,
A new technique using liquid metals to create integrated circuits that are just atoms thick could lead to the next big advance for electronics.
The process opens the way for the production of large wafers around 1.5 nanometres in depth (a sheet of paper, by comparison, is 100,000nm thick).
Other techniques have proven unreliable in terms of quality, difficult to scale up and function only at very high temperatures — 550 degrees or more.
Distinguished Professor Kourosh Kalantar-zadeh, from RMIT’s School of Engineering, led the project, which also included colleagues from RMIT and researchers from CSIRO, Monash University, North Carolina State University and the University of California.
He said the electronics industry had hit a barrier.
“The fundamental technology of car engines has not progressed since 1920 and now the same is happening to electronics. Mobile phones and computers are no more powerful than five years ago.
“That is why this new 2D printing technique is so important – creating many layers of incredibly thin electronic chips on the same surface dramatically increases processing power and reduces costs.
“It will allow for the next revolution in electronics.”
Benjamin Carey, a researcher with RMIT and the CSIRO, said creating electronic wafers just atoms thick could overcome the limitations of current chip production.
It could also produce materials that were extremely bendable, paving the way for flexible electronics.
“However, none of the current technologies are able to create homogenous surfaces of atomically thin semiconductors on large surface areas that are useful for the industrial scale fabrication of chips.
“Our solution is to use the metals gallium and indium, which have a low melting point.
“These metals produce an atomically thin layer of oxide on their surface that naturally protects them. It is this thin oxide which we use in our fabrication method.
“By rolling the liquid metal, the oxide layer can be transferred on to an electronic wafer, which is then sulphurised. The surface of the wafer can be pre-treated to form individual transistors.
“We have used this novel method to create transistors and photo-detectors of very high gain and very high fabrication reliability in large scale.”
Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,
Wafer-scale two-dimensional semiconductors from printed oxide skin of liquid metals by Benjamin J. Carey, Jian Zhen Ou, Rhiannon M. Clark, Kyle J. Berean, Ali Zavabeti, Anthony S. R. Chesman, Salvy P. Russo, Desmond W. M. Lau, Zai-Quan Xu, Qiaoliang Bao, Omid Kevehei, Brant C. Gibson, Michael D. Dickey, Richard B. Kaner, Torben Daeneke, & Kourosh Kalantar-Zadeh. Nature Communications 8, Article number: 14482 (2017) doi:10.1038/ncomms14482
Published online: 17 February 2017
The deadline for nominations is May 15, 2017. Details are available on the IIN website.
“Our goal is to recognize the outstanding accomplishments in nanoscience and nanomedicine that have the potential to benefit all humankind,” said David G. Kabiller, a Northwestern trustee and alumnus. He is a co-founder of AQR Capital Management, a global investment management firm in Greenwich, Connecticut.
The two prizes, awarded every other year, were established in 2015 through a generous gift from Kabiller. Current Northwestern-affiliated researchers are not eligible for nomination until 2018 for the 2019 prizes.
The Kabiller Prize — the largest monetary award in the world for outstanding achievement in the field of nanomedicine — celebrates researchers who have made the most significant contributions to the field of nanotechnology and its application to medicine and biology.
The Kabiller Young Investigator Award recognizes young emerging researchers who have made recent groundbreaking discoveries with the potential to make a lasting impact in nanoscience and nanomedicine.
“The IIN at Northwestern University is a hub of excellence in the field of nanotechnology,” said Kabiller, chair of the IIN executive council and a graduate of Northwestern’s Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences and Kellogg School of Management. “As such, it is the ideal organization from which to launch these awards recognizing outstanding achievements that have the potential to substantially benefit society.”
Nanoparticles for medical use are typically no larger than 100 nanometers — comparable in size to the molecules in the body. At this scale, the essential properties (e.g., color, melting point, conductivity, etc.) of structures behave uniquely. Researchers are capitalizing on these unique properties in their quest to realize life-changing advances in the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of disease.
“Nanotechnology is one of the key areas of distinction at Northwestern,” said Chad A. Mirkin, IIN director and George B. Rathmann Professor of Chemistry in Weinberg. “We are very grateful for David’s ongoing support and are honored to be stewards of these prestigious awards.”
An international committee of experts in the field will select the winners of the 2017 Kabiller Prize and the 2017 Kabiller Young Investigator Award and announce them in September.
The recipients will be honored at an awards banquet Sept. 27 in Chicago. They also will be recognized at the 2017 IIN Symposium, which will include talks from prestigious speakers, including 2016 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry Ben Feringa, from the University of Groningen, the Netherlands.
2015 recipient of the Kabiller Prize
The winner of the inaugural Kabiller Prize, in 2015, was Joseph DeSimone the Chancellor’s Eminent Professor of Chemistry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the William R. Kenan Jr. Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering at North Carolina State University and of Chemistry at UNC-Chapel Hill.
DeSimone was honored for his invention of particle replication in non-wetting templates (PRINT) technology that enables the fabrication of precisely defined, shape-specific nanoparticles for advances in disease treatment and prevention. Nanoparticles made with PRINT technology are being used to develop new cancer treatments, inhalable therapeutics for treating pulmonary diseases, such as cystic fibrosis and asthma, and next-generation vaccines for malaria, pneumonia and dengue.
2015 recipient of the Kabiller Young Investigator Award
Warren Chan, professor at the Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Toronto, was the recipient of the inaugural Kabiller Young Investigator Award, also in 2015. Chan and his research group have developed an infectious disease diagnostic device for a point-of-care use that can differentiate symptoms.
BTW, Warren Chan, winner of the ‘Young Investigator Award’, and/or his work have been featured here a few times, most recently in a Nov. 1, 2016 posting, which is mostly about another award he won but also includes links to some his work including my April 27, 2016 post about the discovery that fewer than 1% of nanoparticle-based drugs reach their destination.
It seems the Center for the Environmental Implications of Nanotechnology (CEINT) at Duke University (North Carolina, US) is making an adjustment to its focus and opening the door to industry, as well as, government research. It has for some years (my first post about the CEINT at Duke University is an Aug. 15, 2011 post about its mesocosms) been focused on examining the impact of nanoparticles (also called nanomaterials) on plant life and aquatic systems. This Jan. 9, 2017 US National Science Foundation (NSF) news release (h/t Jan. 9, 2017 Nanotechnology Now news item) provides a general description of the work,
We can’t see them, but nanomaterials, both natural and manmade, are literally everywhere, from our personal care products to our building materials–we’re even eating and drinking them.
At the NSF-funded Center for Environmental Implications of Nanotechnology (CEINT), headquartered at Duke University, scientists and engineers are researching how some of these nanoscale materials affect living things. One of CEINT’s main goals is to develop tools that can help assess possible risks to human health and the environment. A key aspect of this research happens in mesocosms, which are outdoor experiments that simulate the natural environment – in this case, wetlands. These simulated wetlands in Duke Forest serve as a testbed for exploring how nanomaterials move through an ecosystem and impact living things.
CEINT is a collaborative effort bringing together researchers from Duke, Carnegie Mellon University, Howard University, Virginia Tech, University of Kentucky, Stanford University, and Baylor University. CEINT academic collaborations include on-going activities coordinated with faculty at Clemson, North Carolina State and North Carolina Central universities, with researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the Environmental Protection Agency labs, and with key international partners.
The research in this episode was supported by NSF award #1266252, Center for the Environmental Implications of NanoTechnology.
Water researchers are interested in nanotechnology, and one of its most commonplace applications: nanosilver. Today these tiny particles with anti-microbial properties are being used in a wide range of consumer products. The problem with nanoparticles is that we don’t fully understand what happens when they are released into the environment.
The research at the IISD-ELA [International Institute for Sustainable Development Experimental Lakes Area] will look at the impacts of nanosilver on ecosystems. What happens when it gets into the food chain? And how does it affect plants and animals?
Here’s a video describing the Nanosilver project at the ELA,
You may have noticed a certain tone to the video and it is due to some political shenanigans, which are described in this Aug. 8, 2016 article by Bartley Kives for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s (CBC) online news.
Not unexpectedly, there’s a news item about science and Iron Man (it’s getting quite common for the science in movies to be promoted and discussed) just a few weeks before the movie Captain America: Civil War or, as it’s also known, Captain America vs. Iron Man opens in the US. From an April 26, 2016 news item on phys.org,
… how much of our favourite superheros’ power lies in science and how much is complete fiction?
As Iron Man’s name suggests, he wears a suit of “iron” which gives him his abilities—superhuman strength, flight and an arsenal of weapons—and protects him from harm.
In scientific parlance, the Iron man suit is an exoskeleton which is worn outside the body to enhance it.
An April 26, 2016 posting by Chris Marr on the ScienceNetwork Western Australia blog, which originated the news item, provides an interesting overview of exoskeletons and some of the scientific obstacles still to be overcome before they become commonplace,
In the 1960s, the first real powered exoskeleton appeared—a machine integrated with the human frame and movements which provided the wearer with 25 times his natural lifting capacity.
The major drawback then was that the unit itself weighed in at 680kg.
UWA [University of Western Australia] Professor Adrian Keating suggests that some of the technology seen in the latest Marvel blockbuster, such as controlling the exoskeleton with simple thoughts, will be available in the near future by leveraging ongoing advances of multi-disciplinary research teams.
“Dust grain-sized micromachines could be programmed to cooperate to form reconfigurable materials such as the retractable face mask, for example,” Prof Keating says.
However, all of these devices are in need of a power unit small enough to be carried yet providing enough capacity for more than a few minutes of superhuman use, he says.
Does anyone have a spare Arc Reactor?
Currently, most exoskeleton development has been for medical applications, with devices designed to give mobility to amputees and paraplegics, and there are a number in commercial production and use.
Dr Lei Cui, who lectures in Mechatronics at Curtin University, has recently developed both a hand and leg exoskeleton, designed for use by patients who have undergone surgery or have nerve dysfunction, spinal injuries or muscular dysfunction.
“Currently we use an internal battery that lasts about two hours in the glove, which can be programmed for only four different movement patterns,” Dr Cui says.
Dr Cui’s exoskeletons are made from plastic, making them light but offering little protection compared to the titanium exterior of Stark’s favourite suit.
It’s clear that we are a long way from being able to produce a working Iron Man suit at all, let alone one that flies, protects the wearer and has the capacity to fight back.
This is not the first time I’ve featured a science and pop culture story here. You can check out my April 28, 2014 posting for a story about how Captain America’s shield could be a supercapacitor (it also has a link to a North Carolina State University blog featuring science and other comic book heroes) and there is my May 6, 2013 post about Iron Man 3 and a real life injectable nano-network.
As for ScienceNetwork Western Australia, here’s more from their About SWNA page,
ScienceNetwork Western Australia (SNWA) is an online science news service devoted to sharing WA’s achievements in science and technology.
Our team of freelance writers work with in-house editors based at Scitech to bring you news from all fields of science, and from the research, government and private industry sectors working throughout the state. Our writers also produce profile stories on scientists. We collaborate with leading WA institutions to bring you Perspectives from prominent WA scientists and opinion leaders.
We also share news of science-related events and information about the greater WA science community including WA’s Chief Scientist, the Premier’s Science Awards, Innovator of the Year Awards and information on regional community science engagement.
Since our commencement in 2003 we have grown to share WA’s stories with local, national and global audiences. Our articles are regularly republished in print and online media in the metropolitan and regional areas.
Bravo to the Western Australia government! I wish there initiatives of this type in Canada, the closest we have is the French language Agence Science-Presse supported by the Province of Québec.
Scientists at North Carolina State University (NCSU) claim to have found a new phase for solid carbon which allows them to create diamond materials at room temperature. From a Nov. 30, 2015 news item on Nanowerk,
Researchers from North Carolina State University have discovered a new phase of solid carbon, called Q-carbon, which is distinct from the known phases of graphite and diamond. They have also developed a technique for using Q-carbon to make diamond-related structures at room temperature and at ambient atmospheric pressure in air.
Phases are distinct forms of the same material. Graphite is one of the solid phases of carbon; diamond is another.
“We’ve now created a third solid phase of carbon,” says Jay Narayan, the John C. Fan Distinguished Chair Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at NC State and lead author of three [?] papers describing the work. “The only place it may be found in the natural world would be possibly in the core of some planets.”
Q-carbon has some unusual characteristics. For one thing, it is ferromagnetic – which other solid forms of carbon are not. [definition from its Wikipedia entry: Ferromagnetism is the basic mechanism by which certain materials (such as iron) form permanent magnets, or are attracted to magnets.]
“We didn’t even think that was possible,” Narayan says.
In addition, Q-carbon is harder than diamond, and glows when exposed to even low levels of energy.
“Q-carbon’s strength and low work-function – its willingness to release electrons – make it very promising for developing new electronic display technologies,” Narayan says.
But Q-carbon can also be used to create a variety of single-crystal diamond objects. …
The news release describes the process for creating Q-carbon,
Researchers start with a substrate, such as such as sapphire, glass or a plastic polymer. The substrate is then coated with amorphous carbon – elemental carbon that, unlike graphite or diamond, does not have a regular, well-defined crystalline structure. The carbon is then hit with a single laser pulse lasting approximately 200 nanoseconds. During this pulse, the temperature of the carbon is raised to 4,000 Kelvin (or around 3,727 degrees Celsius) and then rapidly cooled. This operation takes place at one atmosphere – the same pressure as the surrounding air.
The end result is a film of Q-carbon, and researchers can control the process to make films between 20 nanometers and 500 nanometers thick.
By using different substrates and changing the duration of the laser pulse, the researchers can also control how quickly the carbon cools. By changing the rate of cooling, they are able to create diamond structures within the Q-carbon.
“We can create diamond nanoneedles or microneedles, nanodots, or large-area diamond films, with applications for drug delivery, industrial processes and for creating high-temperature switches and power electronics,” Narayan says. “These diamond objects have a single-crystalline structure, making them stronger than polycrystalline materials. And it is all done at room temperature and at ambient atmosphere – we’re basically using a laser like the ones used for laser eye surgery. So, not only does this allow us to develop new applications, but the process itself is relatively inexpensive.”
And, if researchers want to convert more of the Q-carbon to diamond, they can simply repeat the laser-pulse/cooling process.
If Q-carbon is harder than diamond, why would someone want to make diamond nanodots instead of Q-carbon ones? Because we still have a lot to learn about this new material.
“We can make Q-carbon films, and we’re learning its properties, but we are still in the early stages of understanding how to manipulate it,” Narayan says. “We know a lot about diamond, so we can make diamond nanodots. We don’t yet know how to make Q-carbon nanodots or microneedles. That’s something we’re working on.”
NC State has filed two provisional patents on the Q-carbon and diamond creation techniques.
While the news release mentions Narayan is the lead author of three papers about this work, only two papers are cited at the end of the news release.
James Tour lab researchers at Rice University announce in a Nov. 16, 2015 news item on Nanowerk,
Though they’re not quite ready for boarding a lá “Fantastic Voyage,” nanoscale submarines created at Rice University are proving themselves seaworthy.
Each of the single-molecule, 244-atom submersibles built in the Rice lab of chemist James Tour has a motor powered by ultraviolet light. With each full revolution, the motor’s tail-like propeller moves the sub forward 18 nanometers.
And with the motors running at more than a million RPM, that translates into speed. Though the sub’s top speed amounts to less than 1 inch per second, Tour said that’s a breakneck pace on the molecular scale.
“These are the fastest-moving molecules ever seen in solution,” he said.
Expressed in a different way, the researchers reported this month in the American Chemical Society journal Nano Letters that their light-driven nanosubmersibles show an “enhancement in diffusion” of 26 percent. That means the subs diffuse, or spread out, much faster than they already do due to Brownian motion, the random way particles spread in a solution.
While they can’t be steered yet, the study proves molecular motors are powerful enough to drive the sub-10-nanometer subs through solutions of moving molecules of about the same size.
“This is akin to a person walking across a basketball court with 1,000 people throwing basketballs at him,” Tour said.
Tour’s group has extensive experience with molecular machines. A decade ago, his lab introduced the world to nanocars, single-molecule cars with four wheels, axles and independent suspensions that could be “driven” across a surface.
Tour said many scientists have created microscopic machines with motors over the years, but most have either used or generated toxic chemicals. He said a motor that was conceived in the last decade by a group in the Netherlands proved suitable for Rice’s submersibles, which were produced in a 20-step chemical synthesis.
“These motors are well-known and used for different things,” said lead author and Rice graduate student Victor García-López. “But we were the first ones to propose they can be used to propel nanocars and now submersibles.”
The motors, which operate more like a bacteria’s flagellum than a propeller, complete each revolution in four steps. When excited by light, the double bond that holds the rotor to the body becomes a single bond, allowing it to rotate a quarter step. As the motor seeks to return to a lower energy state, it jumps adjacent atoms for another quarter turn. The process repeats as long as the light is on.
For comparison tests, the lab also made submersibles with no motors, slow motors and motors that paddle back and forth. All versions of the submersibles have pontoons that fluoresce red when excited by a laser, according to the researchers. (Yellow, sadly, was not an option.)
“One of the challenges was arming the motors with the appropriate fluorophores for tracking without altering the fast rotation,” García-López said.
Once built, the team turned to Gufeng Wang at North Carolina State University to measure how well the nanosubs moved.
“We had used scanning tunneling microscopy and fluorescence microscopy to watch our cars drive, but that wouldn’t work for the submersibles,” Tour said. “They would drift out of focus pretty quickly.”
The North Carolina team sandwiched a drop of diluted acetonitrile liquid containing a few nanosubs between two slides and used a custom confocal fluorescence microscope to hit it from opposite sides with both ultraviolet light (for the motor) and a red laser (for the pontoons).
The microscope’s laser defined a column of light in the solution within which tracking occurred, García-López said. “That way, the NC State team could guarantee it was analyzing only one molecule at a time,” he said.
Rice’s researchers hope future nanosubs will be able to carry cargoes for medical and other purposes. “There’s a path forward,” García-López said. “This is the first step, and we’ve proven the concept. Now we need to explore opportunities and potential applications.”
Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,
Unimolecular Submersible Nanomachines. Synthesis, Actuation, and Monitoring by Víctor García-López, Pinn-Tsong Chiang, Fang Chen, Gedeng Ruan, Angel A. Martí, Anatoly B. Kolomeisky, Gufeng Wang, and James M. Tour. Nano Lett., Article ASAP DOI: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.5b03764 Publication Date (Web): November 5, 2015
The eMammal citizen science programs offer children opportunities to use technology to observe nature in new ways. Photo: Matt Zeher.
