Next Big Future: Finally Diamond Mechanosynthesis Viability Experiments funded for $3.1 million
Experiments to validate the theoretical work of Robert Freitas and Ralph Merkle have been funded in the UK for $3.1 million. These experiments could finally prove and legitimize critical aspects of molecular nanotechnology. Success will mean a funding wave to bring about molecular nanotechnology.
Tiny Quantum Dots Shed New Light on Nutrient Flow
Exactly how do nutrients such as nitrogen move through the environment? That’s a key question in ecology and environmental science. The answer may be clearer thanks to a new technique that uses the light from tiny quantum dots to trace the movement of such nutrients. The technique offers a way for microbial ecologists to watch nutrient flow in real time in the field and forge clearer connections between organisms and the ecological functions they serve.
Tracking the movement of nutrients in the real world is difficult. For example, some fungi help transfer nutrients from soil to the roots of plants; to study the process, researchers typically inject a tracer, such as radioactive carbon-14, into the soil and then take a soil sample back to the laboratory, where plant roots are teased out and analyzed to see where the tracer ends up. Root-associated fungi are typically too fine to be seen, so it’s been hard to pin down precisely which fungi are responsible for the nutrient transfer and how they work.
So microbial ecologists Matthew Whiteside and Kathleen Treseder, both of the University of California, Irvine, set out to find a way to see the nutrient flow in the soil itself. They attached nanometer-sized bits of semiconducting material called quantum dots to organic compounds. As the fungi take in the compounds, they also take in the attached dots, which light up like little light-emitting diodes when zapped with light from an ultraviolet laser. The researchers then imaged that light with a root-level camera. Images trace how the nutrients are consumed by the microscopic fungi and moved into the associated plant.
Nanotechnologys Impact on Functional Foods, Dietary Supplements
The nutraceutical and functional food/beverage industries have maintained a steady buzz around the concept of nanotechnology, but mostly on an introductory level. However, looking forward, the impact of nanotechnology on such products will manifest in four principal ways: enhanced packaging; improved delivery systems; enhanced uptake, kinetics and distribution within the body; and, unexpected, unpredictable and possibly wondrous new clinical effects.
Garbage + Nanotechnology + Gasification = Ethanol
A method of making potentially cheap ethanol fuel out of garbage and other waste materials by deploying a combination of modern and old technologies is under development by government and university researchers.
The process involves the use of nanotechnology and gasification to convert carbon-based materials into a product called synthesis gas, or syngas, which in turn can be made into ethanol.
Developing new ways of producing biofuels such as ethanol is urgent business as the country and world scout for alternatives to fossil fuels.
For now, ethanol is made chiefly by fermenting corn, diverting the valuable commodity from serving as food for people and livestock.