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.
Network News
Great Walls and Thin Films
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.
See-Through Toasters and More in Five Minutes or Less
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.
More Nano Jobs: History of Nanotechnology
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.
Nano Haiku: Quantum Dots
A quantum dots haiku, by Kim Duncan:
quantum dots glowing
all colors of the rainbow
Could they be toxic?
Zooms Now Zooming Properly
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.
Puppets Win in Video Contest
The American Chemical Society just announced the winners of their "What is Nano?" video contest.
Win Fancy Prizes!
Submit your NanoDays report by May 1st, and we'll enter you in a drawing for a free registration to either the Association of Science-Technology Centers Conference in Fort Worth or the Materials Research Society 2009 Fall Meeting in Boston.
Nano Haiku: Societal Implications
On societal implications, by Anders Liljeholm:
Tiny Particles
are the wave of the future
Or they'll kill us all.
Nano Haiku - April
Untitled
Margaret Glass
Raindrops roll and drop
from a hydrophobic leaf
leaving it clean
NISE Net
A community of professionals engaging the public in nanoscale science
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