Items Tagged With Materials Science

The International Council on Nanotechnology (ICON) today issued a comprehensive review of existing efforts to develop “best practices” for handling nanomaterials in the workplace. The work was performed by researchers at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) as part of a two-phase project to catalogue how industry is managing the potential occupational safety risks posed by nanomaterials.

David Grewell picked up the little plastic model of a molecule he keeps in his office. He scrunched the model’s folding pieces into a ball. That’s about the shape of a soy or corn protein, said Grewell, an Iowa State University assistant professor of agricultural and biosystems engineering. Then he unfolded the model into a long, straight loop. That’s what happens when researchers add some glycerin—a byproduct of biodiesel production – and some water to the molecule. And that’s how biorenewable, biodegradable plastics can be made from the proteins in Iowa crops.

A Malvern Zetasizer Nano particle characterisation system at Cornell University’s NanoBioTechnology Centre (NBTC) is being used for a wide variety of applications. These range from DNA size measurement and the study of DNA—DNA interactions, through the development of photonic crystal lattices, to the creation of cylindrical nanoparticles. The system has been in place for just over one year and around 80 researchers now have access to it. Many had no previous experience of light scattering systems, so the Zetasizer Nano’s easy operation and straightforward data interpretation have been crucial in making this a truly valuable resource for such diverse research groups.

For most people, soap bubbles are little more than ethereal, ephemeral childhood amusements, or a bit of kitsch associated with the Lawrence Welk Show. But for Johns Hopkins University mathematician William Minicozzi, the translucent film that automatically arranges itself into the least possible surface area on the bubble wand is an elegant and captivating illustration of a mathematical concept called “minimal surfaces.” A minimal surface is one with the smallest surface area that can span a boundary.