NISE Network Blog

Get your party hats on, because April 25th is the birthday of nanotechnology pioneer Eric Drexler! Among other things, Drexler coined the term “grey goo” in his 1986 book Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology to describe what might happen if hypothetical nanoscale assemblers self-replicated out of control and ate up everything else on the planet.

I just got an email from Jayatri Das from The Franklin Institute about one of their NanoDays events targeted specifically to girls. The event, Girls Exploring Tomorrow's Technology (GETT), is designed to engage girls (grades 6 - 12) in science and introduce them to women who are actively involved in STEM careers.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) just posted an interesting and very readable article by a graduate student who traveled to China to make nanostructured thin films for solar cells.

Here's one easy way to learn about some new nano applications. Industry analyst Marlene Bourne hosts a 5-minute podcast series called the Bourne Report on "next generation science, cool technologies, and real products" that often features nanotechnology. You can find the full archive here.

In addition to the post-doc positions open at the University of Wisconsin - Madison MRSEC, the Center for Nanotechnology in Society (CNS) at the University of California, Santa Barbara is looking for a postdoctoral scholar to conduct research on the history of nanotechnology. The deadline for submitting applications is June 15th, and they'd like to have the postdoc start by October 1st.

A quantum dots haiku, by Kim Duncan:

quantum dots glowing
all colors of the rainbow
Could they be toxic?

We had some glitches recently with the digital zoom files, but no more! The working digital zoom files are here along with instructions for downloading.

The zooms, Zoom into a Human Hand, and Zoom into a Nasturtium Leaf, are interactive media pieces that highlight relative scale and other key nanoscience concepts, and were developed by the NISE Net's Visualization Lab team.

In DC, there is a special season inserted in the early part of the year. It falls just after the start of a new Congress and runs right up to the Cherry Blossom Festival. No, it is not 8th grade civics class field trip season - that comes later.

The American Chemical Society just announced the winners of their "What is Nano?" video contest.