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.
It’s interesting to see scientists take science fiction and use it as inspiration; something which I think happens more often than we know. After all, when someone asks where you got an idea, it can be difficult to track down the thought process that started it all.
Scientists at Virginia Tech (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University) are looking for a new source of inspiration after offering a close examination of how insect-size superheroes, Ant-Man and the Wasp might breathe. From a December 11, 2018 news item on phys.org (Note: A link has been removed),
Max Mikel-Stites and Anne Staples were searching for a sequel.
This summer, Staples, an associate professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering and Mechanics in the College of Engineering, and graduate student Mikel-Stites published a paper in the inaugural issue of the Journal of Superhero Science titled, “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Microscale Respiration and Microfluidic Technology.”
Now, they needed a new hero.
The two were working with a team of graduate students, brainstorming who could be the superhero subject for their next scientific inquiry. Superman? Batgirl? Aquaman?
Mikel-Stites lobbied for an investigation of Dazzler’s sonoluminescent powers. Staples was curious how Mera, The Princes sof Atlantis, used her hydrokinetic powers.
It turns out, comic books are a great inspiration for scientific discovery.
This month, Mikel-Stites is presenting the findings of their paper at the American Physical Society’s Division of Fluid Dynamics meeting.
The wonder team’s paper looked at how Ant-Man and the Wasp breathe when they shrink down to insect-size and Staples’ lab studied how fluids flow in nature. Insects naturally move fluids and gases efficiently at tiny scales. If engineers can learn how insects breathe, they can use the knowledge to invent new microfluidic technologies.
A November 2018 Virginia Tech news release (also on EurekAlert but published on December 11, 2018) by Nancy Dudek describes the ‘Ant-Man and Wasp respiratory project’ before revealing the inspiration for the team’s new project,
“Before the 2018 ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp’ movie, my lab was already wondering about insect-scale respiration,” said Staples. “I wanted to get people to appreciate different breathing mechanisms.”
For most of Mikel-Stites’ life, he had been nit-picking at the “science” in science-fiction movies.
“I couldn’t watch ‘Armageddon’ once they got up to space station Mir and there was artificial gravity. Things like that have always bothered me. But for ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp’ it was worse,” he said.
Staples and Mikel-Stites decided to join forces to research Ant-Man’s microscale respiration.
Mikel-Stites was stung by what he dubbed “the altitude problem or death-zone dilemma.” For Ant-Man and the Wasp to shrink down to insect size and still breathe, they would have to overcome an atmospheric density similar to the top of Mt. Everest. Their tiny bodies would also require higher metabolisms. For their survival, the Marvel comic universe had to give Ant-Man and the Wasp superhero technologies.
“I thought it would be fun to find a solution for how this small-scale respiration would work,”said Mikel-Stites.”I started digging through Ant-Man’s history. I looped through scenes in the 2015 movie where we could address the physics. Then I did the same thing with trailers from the 2018 movie. I used that to make a list of problems and a list of solutions.”
Ant-Man and the Wasp solve the altitude problem with their superhero suits. In their publication, Mikel-Stites and Staples write that the masks in Ant-Man and the Wasp’s suits contain “a combination of an air pump, a compressor, and a molecular filter including Pym particle technology,” that allows them to breathe while they are insect-sized.
“This publication showed how different physics phenomena can dominate at different size scales, how well-suited organisms are for their particular size, and what happens when you start altering that,” said Mikel-Stites. “It also shows that Hollywood doesn’t always get it right when it comes to science!”
Their manuscript was accepted by the Journal of Superhero Science before the release of the sequel, “Ant-Man and the Wasp.” Mikel-Stites was concerned the blockbuster might include new technologies or change Ant-Man’s canon. If the Marvel comic universe changed between the 2015 ‘Ant-Man’ movie and the sequel, their hypotheses would be debunked and they would be forced to retract their paper.
“I went to the 2018 movie before the manuscript came out in preprint so that if the movie contradicted us we could catch it. But the 2018 movie actually supported everything we had said, which was really nice,” said Mikel-Stites. Most moviegoers simply watched the special effects and left the theater entertained. But Mikel-Stitesleft the movie with confirmation of the paper’s hypotheses.
The Staples lab members are not the only ones interested in tiny technologies. From lab-on-a-chip microfluidic devices to nanoparticles that deliver drugs directly to cells, consumers will ultimately benefit from this small scientific field that delivers big results.
“In both the movies and science, shrinking is a common theme and has been for the last 50-60 years. This idea is something that we all like to think about. Given enough time, we can reach the point where science can take it from the realms of magic into something that we actually have an explanation for,” Mikel-Stites said.
In fact, the Staples lab group has already done just that.
While Mikel-Stites is presenting his superhero science at the APS meeting, his colleague Krishnashis Chatterjee, who recently completed his Ph.D. in engineering mechanics will be presenting his research on fabricating and testing four different insect-inspired micro-fluidic devices.
From fiction to function, the Staples lab likes to have fun along the way.
“I think that it is really important to connect with people and be engaged in science with topics they already know about. With this superhero science paper I wanted to support this mission,” Staples said.
And who did the lab mates choose for their next superhero science subject? The Princess of Atlantis, Mera. They hope they can publish another superhero science paper that really makes waves.
And, just because the idea of a superhero science journal tickles my fancy, here’s a little more from the journal’s About webpage,
Serial title Superhero Science and Technolog
Focus and Scope Superhero Science and Technology (SST) is multi-disciplinary journal that considers new research in the fields of science, technology, engineering and ethics motivated and presented using the superhero genre.
The superhero genre has become one of the most popular in modern cinema. Since the 2000 film X-Men, numerous superhero-themed films based on characters from Marvel Comics and DC Comics have been released. Films such as The Avengers, Iron Man 3, Avengers: Age of Ultron and Captain America: Civil War have all earned in excess of $1 billion dollars at the box office, thus demonstrating their relevance in modern society and popular culture.
Of particular interest for Superhero Science and Technology are articles that motivate new research by using the platform of superheroes, supervillains, their superpowers, superhero/supervillain exploits in Hollywood blockbuster films or superhero/supervillain adventures from comic books. Articles should be written in a manner so that they are accessible to both the academic community and the interested non-scientist i.e. general public, given the popularity of the superhero genre.
Dissemination of content using this approach provides a potential for the researcher to communicate their work to a larger audience, thus increasing their visibility and outreach within and outside of the academic domain.
The scope of the journal includes but is not limited to: Genetic editing approaches; Innovations in the field of robotics; New and advanced materials; Additive Manufacturing i.e. 3D printing, for both bio and non-bio applications; Advancements in bio-chemical processing; Biomimicry technologies; Space physics, astrophysical and cosmological research; Developments in propulsion systems; Responsible innovation; Ethical issues pertaining to technologies and their use for human enhancement or augmentation.
Open Access Policy SST is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence. You are free to use the work, but you have to attribute (refer to) the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). The easiest way to refer to an article is to use the HOWTO CITE tool that you’ll find alongside each article in the right sidebar.
Editor-in-Chief Dr. Barry W. Fitzgerald, TU Delft, the Netherlands Editorial Board Prof. Wim Briels, University of Twente, the Netherlands Dr. Ian Clancy, University of Limerick, Ireland Dr. Neil Clancy, University College London, UK Dr. Tom Hunt, University of Kent, UK Ass. Prof. Johan Padding, TU Delft, the Netherlands Ass. Prof. Aimee van Wynsberghe, TU Delft, the Netherlands Prof. Ilja Voets, TU Eindhoven, the Netherlands
For anyone unfamiliar with the abbreviation, TU stands for University of Technology or Technische Universiteit in Dutch.
A March 30, 2016 news item on Nanowerk announces the 2016 nanotechnology grants from the US Dept. of Agriculture (USDA),
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack today [March 30, 2016] announced an investment of more than $5.2 million to support nanotechnology research at 11 universities. The universities will research ways nanotechnology can be used to improve food safety, enhance renewable fuels, increase crop yields, manage agricultural pests, and more. The awards were made through the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI), the nation’s premier competitive, peer-reviewed grants program for fundamental and applied agricultural sciences.
“In the seven years since the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative was established, the program has led to true innovations and ground-breaking discoveries in agriculture to combat childhood obesity, improve and sustain rural economic growth, address water availability issues, increase food production, find new sources of energy, mitigate the impacts of climate variability and enhance resiliency of our food systems, and ensure food safety. Nanoscale science, engineering, and technology are key pieces of our investment in innovation to ensure an adequate and safe food supply for a growing global population,” said Vilsack. “The President’s 2017 Budget calls for full funding of the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative so that USDA can continue to support important projects like these.”
Universities receiving funding include Auburn University in Auburn, Ala.; Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station in New Haven, Conn.; University of Central Florida in Orlando, Fla; University of Georgia in Athens, Ga.; Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa; University of Massachusetts in Amherst, Mass.; Mississippi State University in Starkville, Miss.; Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Mo.; Clemson University in Clemson, S.C.; Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Va.; and University of Wisconsin in Madison, Wis.
With this funding, Auburn University proposes to improve pathogen monitoring throughout the food supply chain by creating a user-friendly system that can detect multiple foodborne pathogens simultaneously, accurately, cost effectively, and rapidly. Mississippi State University will research ways nanochitosan can be used as a combined fire-retardant and antifungal wood treatment that is also environmentally safe. Experts in nanotechnology, molecular biology, vaccines and poultry diseases at the University of Wisconsin will work to develop nanoparticle-based poultry vaccines to prevent emerging poultry infections. USDA has a full list of projects and longer descriptions available online.
Past projects include a University of Georgia project developing a bio-nanocomposites-based, disease-specific, electrochemical sensors for detecting fungal pathogen induced volatiles in selected crops; and a University of Massachusetts project creating a platform for pathogen detection in foods that is superior to the current detection method in terms of analytical time, sensitivity, and accuracy using a novel, label-free, surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) mapping technique.
The purpose of AFRI is to support research, education, and extension work by awarding grants that address key problems of national, regional, and multi-state importance in sustaining all components of food and agriculture. AFRI is the flagship competitive grant program administered by USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture [NIFA]. Established under the 2008 Farm Bill, AFRI supports work in six priority areas: plant health and production and plant products; animal health and production and animal products; food safety, nutrition and health; bioenergy, natural resources and environment; agriculture systems and technology; and agriculture economics and rural communities. Since AFRI’s creation, NIFA has awarded more than $89 million to solve challenges related to plant health and production; $22 million of this has been dedicated to nanotechnology research. The President’s 2017 budget request proposes to fully fund AFRI for $700 million; this amount is the full funding level authorized by Congress when it established AFRI in the 2008 Farm Bill.
Each day, the work of USDA scientists and researchers touches the lives of all Americans: from the farm field to the kitchen table and from the air we breathe to the energy that powers our country. USDA science is on the cutting edge, helping to protect, secure, and improve our food, agricultural and natural resources systems. USDA research develops and transfers solutions to agricultural problems, supporting America’s farmers and ranchers in their work to produce a safe and abundant food supply for more than 100 years. This work has helped feed the nation and sustain an agricultural trade surplus since the 1960s. Since 2009, USDA has invested $4.32 billion in research and development grants. Studies have shown that every dollar invested in agricultural research now returns over $20 to our economy.
Since 2009, NIFA has invested in and advanced innovative and transformative initiatives to solve societal challenges and ensure the long-term viability of agriculture. NIFA’s integrated research, education, and extension programs, supporting the best and brightest scientists and extension personnel, have resulted in user-inspired, groundbreaking discoveries that are combating childhood obesity, improving and sustaining rural economic growth, addressing water availability issues, increasing food production, finding new sources of energy, mitigating climate variability, and ensuring food safety.
Academics, small business, and industry researchers are the big winners in a US National Science Foundation bonanza according to a Sept. 16, 2015 news item on Nanowerk,
To advance research in nanoscale science, engineering and technology, the National Science Foundation (NSF) will provide a total of $81 million over five years to support 16 sites and a coordinating office as part of a new National Nanotechnology Coordinated Infrastructure (NNCI).
The NNCI sites will provide researchers from academia, government, and companies large and small with access to university user facilities with leading-edge fabrication and characterization tools, instrumentation, and expertise within all disciplines of nanoscale science, engineering and technology.
A Sept. 16, 2015 NSF news release provides a brief history of US nanotechnology infrastructures and describes this latest effort in slightly more detail (Note: Links have been removed),
The NNCI framework builds on the National Nanotechnology Infrastructure Network (NNIN), which enabled major discoveries, innovations, and contributions to education and commerce for more than 10 years.
“NSF’s long-standing investments in nanotechnology infrastructure have helped the research community to make great progress by making research facilities available,” said Pramod Khargonekar, assistant director for engineering. “NNCI will serve as a nationwide backbone for nanoscale research, which will lead to continuing innovations and economic and societal benefits.”
The awards are up to five years and range from $500,000 to $1.6 million each per year. Nine of the sites have at least one regional partner institution. These 16 sites are located in 15 states and involve 27 universities across the nation.
Through a fiscal year 2016 competition, one of the newly awarded sites will be chosen to coordinate the facilities. This coordinating office will enhance the sites’ impact as a national nanotechnology infrastructure and establish a web portal to link the individual facilities’ websites to provide a unified entry point to the user community of overall capabilities, tools and instrumentation. The office will also help to coordinate and disseminate best practices for national-level education and outreach programs across sites.
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New NNCI awards:
Mid-Atlantic Nanotechnology Hub for Research, Education and Innovation, University of Pennsylvania with partner Community College of Philadelphia, principal investigator (PI): Mark Allen
Texas Nanofabrication Facility, University of Texas at Austin, PI: Sanjay Banerjee
Northwest Nanotechnology Infrastructure, University of Washington with partner Oregon State University, PI: Karl Bohringer
Southeastern Nanotechnology Infrastructure Corridor, Georgia Institute of Technology with partners North Carolina A&T State University and University of North Carolina-Greensboro, PI: Oliver Brand
Midwest Nano Infrastructure Corridor, University of Minnesota Twin Cities with partner North Dakota State University, PI: Stephen Campbell
Montana Nanotechnology Facility, Montana State University with partner Carlton College, PI: David Dickensheets
Soft and Hybrid Nanotechnology Experimental Resource,
Northwestern University with partner University of Chicago, PI: Vinayak Dravid
The Virginia Tech National Center for Earth and Environmental Nanotechnology Infrastructure, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, PI: Michael Hochella
North Carolina Research Triangle Nanotechnology Network, North Carolina State University with partners Duke University and University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, PI: Jacob Jones
San Diego Nanotechnology Infrastructure, University of California, San Diego, PI: Yu-Hwa Lo
Cornell Nanoscale Science and Technology Facility, Cornell University, PI: Daniel Ralph
Nebraska Nanoscale Facility, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, PI: David Sellmyer
Nanotechnology Collaborative Infrastructure Southwest, Arizona State University with partners Maricopa County Community College District and Science Foundation Arizona, PI: Trevor Thornton
The Kentucky Multi-scale Manufacturing and Nano Integration Node, University of Louisville with partner University of Kentucky, PI: Kevin Walsh
The Center for Nanoscale Systems at Harvard University, Harvard University, PI: Robert Westervelt
The universities are trumpeting this latest nanotechnology funding,
Many years ago I was dragged to a movie about J. Krishnamurti (a philosopher and spiritual teacher; there’s more in this Wikipedia essay) which, for some reason, featured Whirling Dervishes amongst many other topics. Watching those dervishes was hypnotic and I now find out it was also an experience in physics, according to a Nov. 26, 2013 news item on ScienceDaily,
A force that intricately links the rotation of the Earth with the direction of weather patterns in the atmosphere has been shown to play a crucial role in the creation of the hypnotic patterns created by the skirts of the Whirling Dervishes.
This is according to an international group of researchers who have demonstrated how the Coriolis force is essential for creating the archetypal, and sometimes counterintuitive, patterns that form on the surface of the Whirling Dervishes skirts by creating a set of very simple equations which govern how fixed or free-flowing cone-shaped structures behave when rotating.
The Whirling Dervishes, who have become a popular tourist attraction in Turkey, are a religious movement who commemorate the 13th-century Persian poet, Rumi, by spinning on the spot and creating mesmerising patterns with their long skirts. A YouTube video of the Whirling Dervishes in action can be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_Cf-ZxDfZA.
Co-author of the study James Hanna, from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, said: “The dancers don’t do much but spin around at a fixed speed, but their skirts show these very striking, long-lived patterns with sharp cusp-like features which seem rather counterintuitive.”
Hanna, along with Jemal Guven at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México and Martin Michael Müller at Université de Lorraine, found that it was the presence of a Coriolis force that was essential in the formation of the different patterns.
The Coriolis effect accounts for the deflection of objects on a rotating surface and is most commonly encountered when looking at the Earth’s rotations and its effect on the atmosphere around it. The rotation of the Earth creates the Coriolis force which causes winds to be deflected clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and anti-clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere – it is this effect which is responsible for the rotation of cyclones.
“Because the sheet is conically symmetric, material can flow along its surface without stretching or deforming. You can think of the rotating Earth, for example, with the air of the atmosphere free to flow around it.
“The flow of a sheet of material is much more restrictive than the flow of the atmosphere, but nonetheless it results in Coriolis forces. What we found was that this flow, and the associated Coriolis forces, plays a crucial role in forming the dervish-like patterns,” Hanna continued.
By providing a basic mathematical description of the spinning skirts of the Dervishes, the researchers hope their future research will discern how different patterns are selected, how stable these patterns are and if gravity or any other effects make a qualitative difference.
The news release notes,
The equations, which have been published today, 27 November,[2013], in the Institute of Physics and German Physical Society’s New Journal of Physics, were able to reproduce the sharp peaks and gentle troughs that appear along the flowing surface of the Dervishes’ skirts and showed a significant resemblance to real-life images.
Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,
Whirling skirts and rotating cones by Jemal Guven, J A Hanna, and Martin Michael Müller. New Journal of Physics Volume 15 November 2013 doi:10.1088/1367-2630/15/11/113055 Published 26 November 2013
While the Whirling Dervishes and the fabric in their clothing provide insights into aspects of physics, ballet dancers are providing valuable information to neuroscientists and geriatric specialists with pirouettes, according to a Sept. 26, 2013 news item on ScienceDaily,
Scientists have discovered differences in the brain structure of ballet dancers that may help them avoid feeling dizzy when they perform pirouettes.
The research suggests that years of training can enable dancers to suppress signals from the balance organs in the inner ear.
The findings, published in the journal Cerebral Cortex, could help to improve treatment for patients with chronic dizziness. Around one in four people experience this condition at some time in their lives.
The Imperial College of London (ICL) Sept. 26, 2013 news release on EurekAlert (also on the ICL website but dated Sept. 27, 2013), which originated the news item, describes dizziness, this research, and ballet dancers’ unique brains in more detail,
Normally, the feeling of dizziness stems from the vestibular organs in the inner ear. These fluid-filled chambers sense rotation of the head through tiny hairs that sense the fluid moving. After turning around rapidly, the fluid continues to move, which can make you feel like you’re still spinning.
Ballet dancers can perform multiple pirouettes with little or no feeling of dizziness. The findings show that this feat isn’t just down to spotting, a technique dancers use that involves rapidly moving the head to fix their gaze on the same spot as much as possible.
Researchers at Imperial College London recruited 29 female ballet dancers and, as a comparison group, 20 female rowers whose age and fitness levels matched the dancers’.
The volunteers were spun around in a chair in a dark room. They were asked to turn a handle in time with how quickly they felt like they were still spinning after they had stopped. The researchers also measured eye reflexes triggered by input from the vestibular organs. Later, they examined the participants’ brain structure with MRI scans.
In dancers, both the eye reflexes and their perception of spinning lasted a shorter time than in the rowers.
Dr Barry Seemungal, from the Department of Medicine at Imperial, said: “Dizziness, which is the feeling that we are moving when in fact we are still, is a common problem. I see a lot of patients who have suffered from dizziness for a long time. Ballet dancers seem to be able to train themselves not to get dizzy, so we wondered whether we could use the same principles to help our patients.”
The brain scans revealed differences between the groups in two parts of the brain: an area in the cerebellum where sensory input from the vestibular organs is processed and in the cerebral cortex, which is responsible for the perception of dizziness.
The area in the cerebellum was smaller in dancers. Dr Seemungal thinks this is because dancers would be better off not using their vestibular systems, relying instead on highly co-ordinated pre-programmed movements.
“It’s not useful for a ballet dancer to feel dizzy or off balance. Their brains adapt over years of training to suppress that input. Consequently, the signal going to the brain areas responsible for perception of dizziness in the cerebral cortex is reduced, making dancers resistant to feeling dizzy. If we can target that same brain area or monitor it in patients with chronic dizziness, we can begin to understand how to treat them better.”
Another finding in the study may be important for how chronic dizzy patients are tested in the clinic. In the control group, the perception of spinning closely matched the eye reflexes triggered by vestibular signals, but in dancers, the two were uncoupled.
“This shows that the sensation of spinning is separate from the reflexes that make your eyes move back and forth,” Dr Seemungal said. “In many clinics, it’s common to only measure the reflexes, meaning that when these tests come back normal the patient is told that there is nothing wrong. But that’s only half the story. You need to look at tests that assess both reflex and sensation.”
For the curious, here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,
I love these kinds of stories where two very different branches of science find information of interest in something as ordinary as spinning around.
Courtesy: Imperial College of London (downloaded from: http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/newsandeventspggrp/imperialcollege/newssummary/news_26-9-2013-17-43-4]
James Hanna likes to have fun with his engineering views of physics.
So when he and his colleague Jemal Guven visited their friend Martin Michael Müller in France on a rainy, dreary day, the three intellects decided to stay in. Guven, absent-mindedly switching between channels on the television, stumbled upon a documentary on whirling dervishes, best described as a Sufi religious order, who commemorate the teachings of 13th century Persian mystic and poet Rumi through spinning at a fixed speed in their floor length skirts.
“Their skirts showed these very striking, long-lived patterns,” Hanna, the engineer, recalled.
The film caused physicists Guven and Müller to think about structures with conical symmetry, or those shapes that can be defined as a series of straight lines emanating from a single point. By contrast, Hanna, the engineer with a physicist’s background, thought about rotating flexible structures, namely strings or sheets.
The inventory of nanotechnology-based consumer products or the Consumer Products Inventory (CPI) is still cited in articles about nanotechnology and its pervasive use in consumer products despite the fact that the inventory was effectively rendered inactive (i.e., dead) in 2009 and that it was a voluntary system with no oversight, meaning whoever made the submission to the inventory could make any claims they wanted. Now that it’s 2013, things are about to change according to an Oct. 28, 2013 news item on ScienceDaily,
As a resource for consumers, scientists, and policy makers, the Virginia Tech Center for Sustainable Nanotechnology (VTSuN) has joined the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars to renew and expand the Nanotechnology Consumer Product Inventory, an important source of information about products using nanomaterials.
“We want people to appreciate the revolution, such as in electronics and medicine. But we also want them to be informed,” said Nina Quadros, a research scientist at Virginia Tech’s Institute for Critical Technology and Applied Science and associate director of VTSuN, who leads a team of Virginia Tech faculty members and students on this project. Todd Kuiken, senior program associate, and David Rajeski, director of the science and technology innovation program, lead this project at the Wilson Center.
The Wilson Center and the Project on Emerging Nanotechnology created the inventory in 2005. It grew from 54 to more than 1,000 products, many of which have come and gone. The inventory became the most frequently cited resource, showcasing the widespread applications of nanotechnology. However, in 2009, the project was no longer funded.
“I used it in publications and presentations when talking about all the ways nano is part of people’s lives in consumer products,” said Matthew Hull, who manages the Institute for Critical Technology and Applied Science’s investment portfolio in nanoscale science and engineering, which includes the Center for Sustainable Nanotechnology. “But the inventory was criticized by researchers, regulators, and manufacturers for the lack of scientific information available to support product claims.”
In a meeting with his friend, Andrew Maynard, director of the University of Michigan Risk Science Center, who had initiated the inventory when he was at the Wilson Center, Hull proposed leveraging Institute for Critical Technology and Applied Science and Center for Sustainable Nanotechnology resources to improve the inventory.
“My role was to ask ‘what if’ and [the Virginia Tech Center for Sustainable Nanotechnology] ran with it,” said Hull.
A partnership was formed and, with funding from the Virginia Tech institute, the Center for Sustainable Nanotechnology restructured the inventory to improve the reliability, functionality, and scientific credibility of the database.
“Specifically, we added scientific significance and usefulness by including qualitative and quantitative descriptors for the products and the nanomaterials contained in these products, such as size, concentration, and potential exposure routes,” said Quadros. For example, an intentional exposure route would be the way a medicine is administered. An unintentional exposure would be when a child chews on a toy that has been treated with silver nanoparticles that are used as an antimicrobial. The potential health effect of nanomaterials on children was Quadros doctoral research and she used the inventory to find products designed for children that use nanomaterials, such as plush toys.
“One of the best things about the new version of the inventory is the additional information and the ability to search by product type or the type of nanomaterial,” she said. “When researchers were first attempting to assess the potential environmental impacts of nanotechnology, one main challenge was understanding how these nanomaterials might end up in the environment in the first place. After searching the CPI and seeing the vast applications of nanotechnologies in consumer products it was easier to narrow down scenarios.”
For example, Quadros said many silver nanoparticles are used in clothing for antimicrobial protection, so we can infer that some silver nanoparticles may end up in wastewater treatment plants after clothes washing. This helped justify some of the research on the effects of silver nanoparticle in the biological wastewater treatment processes. Currently, the inventory lists 188 products under the ‘clothing’ category.”
This team also included published scientific data related to those products, where available, and developed a metric to assess the reliability of the data on each inventory entry.
The team interviewed more than 50 nanotechnology experts with more than 350 combined years of experience in nanotechnology, Quadros said. “Their answers provided valuable guidance to help us address diverse stakeholder needs.”
In addition, the site’s users can log in and add information based on their own expertise. “Anyone can suggest edits. The curator and reviewer will approve the edits, and then the new information will go live,” Quadros said.
“We’ve added the horsepower of [the Center for Sustainable Nanotechnology], but opened it by means of crowdsourcing to new information, such as refuting or supporting claims made about products,” Hull said.
“The goal of this work is to create a living, growing inventory for the exchange of accurate information on nanoenabled consumer products,” Quadros said. “Improved information sharing will allow citizens, manufacturers, scientists, policymakers, and others to better understand how nanotechnology is being used in the consumer marketplace,” she said.
As of October 2013,
The inventory currently lists more than 1,600 consumer products that claim to contain nanotechnology or have been found to contain nanomaterials.
Quadros will give a presentation about the inventory at the Sustainable Nanotechnology Organization conference in Santa Barbara on Nov. 3-5 and will present to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the National Science Foundation in the spring.
Key collaborators at Virginia Tech are Sean McGinnis, an associate research professor in the materials science and engineering department; Linsey Marr, professor of civil and environmental engineering; her postdoc, Eric Vejerano, who was instrumental in development of product categories; and Michael Hochella, a university distinguished professor in the geosciences department and Virginia Tech Center for Sustainable Nanotechnology director.
You can find the Consumer Products Inventory here where it is still hosted by the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies. The website for the Second Sustainable Nanotechnology Organization Conference where Quadros will be presenting can be found here and is where this conference description can be found,
The objective of this conference is to bring together scientific experts from academia, industry, and government agencies from around the world to present and discuss current research findings on the subject of nanotechnology and sustainability.
The conference program will address the critical aspects of sustainable nanotechnology such as life cycle assessment, green synthesis, green energy, industrial partnerships, environmental and biological fate, and the overall sustainability of engineered nanomaterials. In principle, this involves the fundamental/applied research on the chemistry of producing new green nanomaterials; eco-manufacturing processing of nanomaterials and products, using nanotechnology to benefit society, and examining possible harmful effects of nanotechnology.
The conference will also foster new collaborations between academic and industrial participants. This community of users, researchers and developers of engineered nanomaterials will provide a long-term, scientific assessment of where the science is for sustainable nano, where it should be heading, and what steps academics, government agencies and others can take now to reach targeted goals. In addition, the conference will serve as the platform to initiate the formation of the Sustainable Nanotechnology Organization (SNO), a non-profit, international professional society dedicated to advancing sustainable nanotechnology through education, research, and promotion of responsible development of nanotechnology.
Finally because I can resist no longer, especially so near to Hallowe’en, I guess you could call the ‘renewed’ CPI, a zombie CPI as it’s back from the dead and it needs brains,
Zombies in Moscow, 26 April 2009 Credit: teujene [downloaded from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Zombies_in_Moscow.jpg]
![Courtesy: Imperial College of London (downloaded from: http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/newsandeventspggrp/imperialcollege/newssummary/news_26-9-2013-17-43-4]](http://www.frogheart.ca/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/BalletPirouette.jpeg)
![Istanbul - Monestir Mevlevi - Dervixos dansaires Credit: Josep Renalias [downloaded from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Istanbul_-_Monestir_Mevlevi_-_Dervixos_dansaires.JPG]](http://www.frogheart.ca/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Whirling-DervishesJPG.jpg)
![Zombies in Moscow, 26 April 2009 Credit: teujene [downloaded from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Zombies_in_Moscow.jpg]](http://www.frogheart.ca/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Zombies_in_Moscow-200x300.jpg)