Latest Nanoparticle Stories

Nanoparticles have many useful applications, but also raise some potential health and ecological concerns. Now, new research shows that plastic nanoparticles are transported through the aquatic food chain and affect fish metabolism and behavior. The full report is published Feb. 22 in the open access journal PLoS ONE. Exposing fish to nanoparticles slowed their feeding behavior, and also affected metabolic parameters including weight loss and cholesterol levels and distribution. The...

Discovery is designed to allow inexpensive detection of poisonous industrial gases by workers wearing small sensor chips filled with gold nanowires Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh have coaxed gold into nanowires as a way of creating an inexpensive material for detecting poisonous gases found in natural gas. Along with colleagues at the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL), Alexander Star, associate professor of chemistry in Pitt's Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and...

Billions of engineered nanoparticles in foods and pharmaceuticals are ingested by humans daily, and new Cornell research warns they may be more harmful to health than previously thought. A research collaboration led by Michael Shuler, a professor of Chemical Engineering and chair of Biomedical Engineering at Cornell University, studied how large doses of polystyrene nanoparticles – a common, FDA-approved substance found in substances ranging from food additives to vitamins – affected...

Brown University scientists have created the first three-dimensional living tissue model, complete with surrounding blood vessels, to analyze the effectiveness of therapeutics to combat brain tumors. The 3-D model gives medical researchers more and better information than Petri dish tissue cultures. The researchers created a glioma, or brain tumor, and the network of blood vessels that surrounds it. In a series of experiments, the team showed that iron-oxide nanoparticles ferrying the...

A light scalpel to treat cancerous cells Researchers at Polytechnique Montréal have succeeded in changing the genetic material of cancer cells using a brand-new transfection method. This major breakthrough in nanosurgery opens the door to new medical applications, among others for the treatment of cancers. A light scalpel to treat cancerous cells The unique method developed by Professor Michel Meunier and his team uses a femtosecond laser (a laser with ultra-short pulses) along with...

Three-dimensional computer simulations reveal diffusional behavior Some of the recent advancements in nanotechnology depend critically on how nanoparticles move and diffuse on a surface or in a fluid under non-ideal to extreme conditions. Georgia Tech has a team of researchers dedicated to advancing this frontier. Rigoberto Hernandez, a professor in the School of Chemistry and Biochemistry, investigates these relationships by studying three-dimensional particle dynamics simulations on...

Tiny metallic nanoparticles that shimmer in the light like the scales on a butterfly's wing are set to become the color-change components of a revolutionary new approach to point-of-care medical diagnostics, according to a study published in International Journal of Design Engineering. Thomas Schalkhammer and colleagues at Attophotonics Biosciences GmbH in Austria are working with Roland Palkovits of the University of Applied Sciences, in Wiener Neustadt, to develop a nanoparticle...

A relatively fast, easy and inexpensive technique for inducing nanorods - rod-shaped semiconductor nanocrystals - to self-assemble into one-, two- and even three-dimensional macroscopic structures has been developed by a team of researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). This technique should enable more effective use of nanorods in solar cells, magnetic storage devices and sensors. It should also help boost the electrical and...

NEW YORK, February 1, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- New Report Added in ResearchMoz Reports Database Nanotechnology in Drug Delivery: Global Markets [http://www.researchmoz.com/nanotechnology-in-drug-delivery-global-markets-report.html ] The report provides an in-depth presentation of recent developments (2000-2010) in nanoparticle-enabled DDS and future opportunities (2011-2021). Persons with a financial or academic interest in the pharmaceutical industry who want to learn how...

Air Force Research Laboratory experiment shows chirality of tube controls speed of growth The Air Force Research Laboratory in Dayton, Ohio, has experimentally confirmed a theory by Rice University Professor Boris Yakobson that foretold a pair of interesting properties about nanotube growth: That the chirality of a nanotube controls the speed of its growth, and that armchair nanotubes should grow the fastest. The work is a sure step toward defining all the mysteries inherent in what...