After opening its new "Nano" exhibit last week, ExplorationWorks in Helena welcomes the community to come check out that and everything else it has to offer at no cost today.

The exhibit on nanoscale science, engineering and technology includes hands-on exhibits that introduce real-world applications and explore the societal and ethical implications of the new technology. Free Day at the museum is scheduled for 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

At noon, the community is also invited to join the Democratic Action Club at Lewis and Clark Library for a program on health care and climate change. Kim Abbott of the Montana Human Rights Network will discuss the Healthy Montana Initiative at noon and local Rhodes Scholar Aven Satre Meloy will address climate change at 12:30 p.m.

Visit http://www.helenaevents.com for more information on Helena area events.

The National Weather Service is forecasting mostly cloudy weather in Helena today with a 40 percent chance of rain and snow. The temperature is expected to fall to around 30 degrees by 5 p.m.

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Good Morning, Helena: Free Day at ExpoWorks, health care and climate change, and a chance of snow

SpaceWorks Enterprises, Inc. (SEI) released the annual update to its nanosatellite and microsatellite market assessment. The assessment presents the latest observations and trends for the nano/microsatellite market. The study summary is available in presentation form as a free download on the website, http://www.spaceworksforecast.com.

Since 2008, SpaceWorks has actively monitored global satellite activities to provide its clients with valuable insight into this growing market. For example, SpaceWorks is currently tracking almost 1,100 future (2015 - 2017) nano/microsatellites with masses between 1 kilogram and 50 kilograms in various stages of planning or development. Historical launches and publicly announced plans for future launches, as well as estimated market growth serve as a basis for projection of the quantity of satellites that will launch between 2015 and 2020. Data concerning future launches is sourced from public announcements by small satellite operators, launch vehicle providers, government agencies, and other industry sources, as well as from additional market research.

"The small satellite market continues to flourish, bolstered by increased commercial activity. The commercial sector remains highly interested in using small satellites to provide customers with valuable imagery and data services for a wide variety of applications," stated Ms. Elizabeth Buchen, Director of SpaceWorks' Engineering Economics Group. "We offer our study's summary presentation as a resource for the community and for those interested in better understanding this dynamic market."

SpaceWorks internally maintains a broad Launch Demand Database (LDDB) to track historical and future satellites in all size classes. Detailed analyses and custom assessments of the nano/microsatellite market and larger satellite classes are available to interested clients.

News and information about SpaceWorks can be found at http://www.sei.aero.

For more information contact: Elizabeth Buchen SpaceWorks Enterprises, Inc. (SEI) +1.770.379.8006 elizabeth.buchen@sei.aero

About SpaceWorks SpaceWorks Enterprises, Inc. (SEI), based in Atlanta, GA, specializes in independent concept development, economic analysis, technology impact assessment, and systems analyses for future space systems and projects. Along with custom analyses, SEI develops software and apps for the aerospace field. The company also serves as an incubator for interesting new business ventures. Past ventures include Generation Orbit Launch Services, Inc. (GO) and Terminal Velocity Aerospace, LLC (TVA).

SpaceWorks' Engineering Economics Group (EEG) provides integrated and quantitative analysis of life cycle disciplines that complements advanced space systems design and development activities. The EEG regularly evaluates proposed solutions and architectures from a business perspective and determines the criteria for financial success.

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2015 SpaceWorks Nano/Microsatellite Market Assessment

Nanoengineering is the application extension of Nanotechnology, which is a collective term for a range of new technologies that involve the manipulation of matter at small scales, typically 0.2-100 nanometres. Such capability enables us to invent, design and utilize a large array of new materials and new devices in innovative applications that have not been possible before. It is an emerging field of technological development with a strong thrust internationally. It is predicted to impact on practically every major sector of engineering, from consumer goods, health care and medicine, food and agriculture, to space technology, telecommunications, environment and energy, to name a few.

Nanoengineering is increasingly recognised in Australia as a key emerging development with wide-ranging industrial and social impacts in the next few decades. The Federal Government has set up a number of initiatives, often with State government support, including R&D funding, national research networks and industrial workforces, to support and to facilitate development in this new field.

In a specific sense, "Nanoengineering" may be viewed as a middle stage in a full spectrum of technological development from nanoscience to nanotechnology to nanoengineering and to commericalisation.

It has been a keen attempt by many scientists, engineers and industrialists to set a clear definition of "nanotechnology". The main viewpoints and attributes of "nanotechnology" may be summarised as the following:

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What is Nano-Engineering? | Engineers Australia

7 hours ago by Jacqueline Mitchell In a series of experiments over the last five years, Igor Sokolov used an atomic force microscope like the one at left to look for physical differences between cancer cells and healthy cells. Credit: Alonso Nichols

As a young physicist in the former Soviet Union, Igor Sokolov studied the biggest of the bigthe entire universe. Now, as a professor of mechanical engineering at Tufts, he's focused on the tiny, the nano. By zooming inway, way inSokolov and his colleagues study everything from bacteria to beetles down to the nanoscale level. Now he's turned a fresh eye on one of medicine's oldest problems: cancer.

Sokolov's instrument of choice is the atomic force microscope (AFM), which uses its minuscule finger-like probe to measure tiny forces at a very small scale, "pretty much between individual atoms," he says. He first came across this technology as a graduate student studying the origins of the universe more than 20 years ago, about the time the AFM was invented. He used it to look for evidence of theoretical elementary particles. When Sokolov didn't find any, his work helped put those ideas to bed.

Soon Sokolov turned the instrument toward more earthly concerns. By 1994, as a member of the microbiology department at the University of Toronto, he was among the first to use AFM to study bacteria. Zooming in on a probiotic bacterium used to make Swiss cheese, Sokolov revealed a never-before-documented process by which the cell repairs its surface after sustaining chemical damage.

The experiment also demonstrated AFM's ability to detect mechanical changes in living cells at unprecedented resolutionsomething that would be useful in Sokolov's later work. "That was the beginning of my love of biomedical applications," says Sokolov, who also has appointments in the departments of biomedical engineering and physics.

Closer Look at Cancer

More recently, Sokolov and his colleagues have used atomic force microscopy on some of the most mysterious cells of allmalignant ones. Most existing diagnostic tools use the cells' chemical footprint to identify cancer. In a series of experiments over the last five years, he looked for physical differences between cancer cells and healthy cells that could help physicians diagnose cancer earlier and more accurately. Early detection substantially increases patients' chances of survival.

He and his collaborators have had some promising results in preliminary studies using cervical and bladder cancer cells"cancers where you can harvest cells without biopsiesvery un-invasive methods," he points out.

In 2009, Sokolov and his colleagues at Clarkson University in New York studied healthy and diseased cells that were virtually identical, biochemically speaking. Searching for some physical or mechanical difference that could help distinguish the two types of cells, the researchers found that the surface coat surrounding cancer cellswhat Sokolov calls the pericellular brush layerwas markedly different from that of the normal ones.

"That was definitely new," he says, noting that similar results were recently published by researchers using more traditional biochemical methods. "The authors called those findings the result of the change of paradigm of looking at cancer."

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Nano scale research could yield better ways to identify and track malignant cells

IMAGE:Amyloid fibers self-assemble from smaller proteins. UC Davis researchers have engineered other proteins so they spontaneously form amyloid. These new proteins could be useful in nanotechnology. Here, the cap structure... view more

Credit: UC Davis

Nature has many examples of self-assembly, and bioengineers are interested in copying or manipulating these systems to create useful new materials or devices. Amyloid proteins, for example, can self-assemble into the tangled plaques associated with Alzheimer's disease -- but similar proteins can also form very useful materials, such as spider silk, or biofilms around living cells. Researchers at UC Davis and Rice University have now come up with methods to manipulate natural proteins so that they self-assemble into amyloid fibrils. The paper is published online by the journal ACS Nano.

"These are big proteins with lots of flat surfaces suitable for functionalization, for example to grow photovoltaics or to attach to other surfaces," said Dan Cox, a physics professor at UC Davis and coauthor on the paper. They could be used as "scaffolding" for tissue engineering, and potentially could be programmed so that other particles or proteins could be attached in specific locations or arrays. Amyloids are also tough: they can withstand boiling, attack by digestive proteins and ultraviolet radiation.

Maria Peralta, a graduate student in chemistry at UC Davis, and colleagues made the amyloid fibrils by tweaking natural "antifreeze" proteins from ryegrass and an insect, spruce budworm. These proteins allow some plants and animals to withstand very cold temperatures by preventing the growth of ice crystals, but they do not naturally self-assemble into larger structures.

The researchers removed cap structures from the end of the antifreeze proteins. They were then able to let them self-assemble into fibrils with predictable heights, a potential new material for bioengineering.

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The project was funded by the Research Investments in Science and Engineering program, established by the UC Davis Office of Research to seed large-scale interdisciplinary research efforts on campus. In addition to Cox and Peralta, the team included Arpad Karsai, Alice Ngo, Catherine Sierra, Kai Fong, Xi Chen, Gang-yu Liu and Michael Toney in the UC Davis Department of Chemistry; N. Robert Hayre, Nima Mirzaee, Krishnakumar Ravikumar and Rajiv Singh in the Department of Physics; and Alexander Kluber at Rice University, Houston. Several authors are also affiliated with the Institute for Complex Adaptive Matter, based at UC Davis.

Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert system.

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Engineering self-assembling amyloid fibers

Indium Corporation announces that several company technologists have earned their designation as SMTA-Certified Process Engineers, further expanding the largest SMTA-certified engineering team in the industry.

Joining the more than 30 Indium Corporation engineers who have earned SMTA Certification are: Jun Cardozo, area technical manager, Philippines; Kenny Chiong, senior technical support engineer, Singapore; Jason Chou, area technical manager, Taiwan; Jeffrey Len, technical support engineer, Malaysia; and Nguyen Viet Truong assistant technical manager, Vietnam.

SMTA Certification is a unique program, sponsored by the Surface Mount Technology Association (SMTA), which recognizes and certifies competence across the entire SMT assembly process at an engineering level. This certification is one of the electronics assembly industrys most respected validations of process excellence.

Cardozo assists in the development and execution of strategies to maintain current customer relationships and grow new business in the Philippines. He is also responsible for providing technical recommendations and support to optimize processes at customer sites. Cardozo earned his bachelors degree in electronics and communications engineering from Saint Louis University in the Philippines.

Chiong assists customers in the optimization of manufacturing processes, including technical support for Indium Corporations full product suite. He is experienced in providing technical support and reviewing design for printed circuit board assembly to maintain quality, delivery, and optimal output. Chiong earned his bachelors degree in mechanical and manufacturing engineering from the Universiti Malaysia Sarawak and has earned his Six Sigma Green Belt.

Chou provides technical support to Indium Corporations customers in Taiwan, with a focus on the semiconductor industry. Chou earned a masters degree in chemistry from National Tsing Hua University and a bachelors degree in chemistry from National Cheng Kung University. He served as the group leader for the National Nano Device Laboratory, Tainan, Taiwan, where he collaborated with university professors and industry professionals on special projects for semiconductor manufacturing.

Len provides comprehensive technical advice in the selection, use, and application of all of Indium Corporations products. Len has experience improving processes to increase quality and customer relationship management. Len holds a bachelors degree in pure chemistry from Universiti Sains Malaysia in Penang, Malaysia.

Truong is responsible for providing technical support for Indium Corporations electronics assembly materials, semiconductor and advanced assembly materials, engineered solders, and thermal management materials in Vietnam. He earned his degree in automation from the Hanoi University of Science and Technology.

In addition to its large team of SMTA-certified engineers, Indium Corporations Dr. Ron Lasky, senior technologist, and Ivn Castellanos, technical services manager Latin America, are SMTA-certified instructors. These instructors have extensive experience conducting and supporting the SMTAs training programs in the U.S., Central and South America, and Asia.

Indium Corporation is a premier materials manufacturer and supplier to the global electronics, semiconductor, solar, thin-film, and thermal management markets. Products include solders and fluxes; brazes; thermal interface materials; sputtering targets; indium, gallium, germanium, and tin metals and inorganic compounds; and NanoFoil. Founded in 1934, Indium has global technical support and factories located in China, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, the United Kingdom, and the USA.

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Indium Corporation Adds to Rapidly-Growing SMTA-Certified Engineering Team

An assistant materials engineering professor is bringing new innovations in construction technology.

Kendra Erk, a professor in the College of Engineering, was given the Faculty Early Career Development Program Award from the National Science Foundation for her extensive research on the use of hydrogels in cement.

The same hydrogels are used in diapers to soak up moisture. When added to concrete, they can make it stronger in the curing process.

I think its cool because adding something soft and squishy to concrete makes it stronger and more durable, said Erk.

This project arose from a simple discussion among colleagues and is now one of the biggest projects that Erk will be working on for the next five years.

Erk and her team make the hydrogels themselves, test them to see how they hold water and then characterize them before finally putting them in the cement. The use of hydrogels in cement is getting more popular in the United States, but most of the research on them has been done in Europe.

Cement is unique around the world because it cannot be outsourced. The properties of cement are different depending on the area where it is made because not every location has the same resources.

Erk and her team are interested in approaching the implementation of hydrogels from a polymer physics side.

Id like the team to take a lot of the big material related problems in the construction field, said Erk.

Part of Erks team is Travis Thornell, a graduate student in materials engineering who works closely with the hydrogels.

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Materials engineering professor receives NSF grant

Sugar-like molecules self-assemble into a nano fiber web around bone cancer cells but spare healthy ones

The inspiration for spinning a molecular cage around cells came from nature, says Rein V. Ulijn of the City University of New Yorks Hunter College. Credit: National Cancer Institute

Chemists have designed a carbohydrate-based molecule that can surround and strangle bone cancer cells by self-assembling into a tangled web of nanofibers (J. Am. Chem. Soc.2014, DOI:10.1021/ ja5111893). The molecule spares healthy cells because its assembly is triggered by an enzyme thats overexpressed on cancer cells.

The inspiration for spinning a molecular cage around cells came from nature, saysRein V. Ulijnof theCity University of New Yorks Hunter College. Many of the bodys cells are enmeshed in an extracellular matrixa complex web of biomolecules that provides structure for tissues, facilitates intercellular communication, and traps nutrients. Scientists are developing molecules that spontaneously assemble into simpler versions of this matrix to provide a growth medium for cells, in particular for tissue engineering.

The field has focused mainly on self-assembling peptides. In a recent study,Bing XuofBrandeis Universityand colleagues designed a nonnurturing peptide that aggregates and engulfs cancer cells only when its phosphate group is removed (Angew. Chem. Int. Ed.2014, DOI:10.1002/anie.201402216). The phosphate-free peptides have a hydrophilic end and a hydrophobic one, which allow them to assemble like lipids in a cell membrane. The negative charge on the phosphate groups creates electrostatic repulsion between the molecules and prevents this. This phosphate on-off switch is great for targeting cancer because some types of cancer cells overexpress alkaline phosphatase, an enzyme that cleaves phosphates.

Ulijn and his colleagues, includingIva Pashkulevaof theUniversity of Minho, in Portugal, thought they could get carbohydrate-based molecules to behave the same way. Compared with peptides, Ulijn says, carbohydrates can lead to more diverse structures, opening up new possible applications. So to make their web-weaving molecules, the researchers first took the hydrophilic carbohydrate glucosamine and added a hydrophobic aromatic group to create a molecule that would self-assemble. They then added a phosphate group to the sugar.

To test the molecules cancer-killing prowess, the researchers added it to cultures of bone cancer cells as well as to normal cartilage cells, which have only about 5% of the alkaline phosphatase activity observed in the cancerous ones. After seven hours, about 95% of the bone cancer cells had died, while only 15% of the cartilage ones were dead.

Scanning electron microscope images of the cells revealed a cagelike hydrogel on the surface of the bone cancer cells. Although the mechanism of cell death remains unknown, Ulijn suspects the nanofiber cage suffocates the cancer cells, neither allowing nutrients in nor waste products out.

The study nicely demonstrates that high enzyme activity can serve as a way to target cancer cells, Brandeiss Xu says. One concern Xu has is that the team needed to use concentrations of the molecule that are higher than are typical for drugs. High concentrations often require large doses for patients, which usually mean high risk of side effects. Ulijn agrees that his team needs to study possible side effects of their self-assembling carbohydrates.

This article is reproduced with permission from Chemical & Engineering News ( American Chemical Society). The article was first published on January 20, 2015.

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Designed Molecules Trap Cancer Cells in Deadly Cages

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Newswise By analyzing such parameters as the force applied by key presses and the time interval between them, a new self-powered non-mechanical intelligent keyboard could provide a stronger layer of security for computer users. The self-powered device generates electricity when a users fingertips contact the multi-layer plastic materials that make up the device.

This intelligent keyboard changes the traditional way in which a keyboard is used for information input, said Zhong Lin Wang, a Regents professor in the School of Materials Science and Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Every punch of the keys produces a complex electrical signal that can be recorded and analyzed.

Conventional keyboards record when a keystroke makes a mechanical contact, indicating the press of a specific key. The intelligent keyboard records each letter touched, but also captures information about the amount of force applied to the key and the length of time between one keystroke and the next. Such typing style is unique to individuals, and so could provide a new biometric for securing computers from unauthorized use.

In addition to providing a small electrical current for registering the key presses, the new keyboard could also generate enough electricity to charge a small portable electronic device or power a transmitter to make the keyboard wireless.

An effect known as contact electrification generates current when the users fingertips touch a plastic material on which a layer of electrode material has been coated. Voltage is generated through the triboelectric and electrostatic induction effects. Using the triboelectric effect, a small charge can be produced whenever materials are brought into contact and then moved apart.

Our skin is dielectric and we have electrostatic charges in our fingers, Wang noted. Anything we touch can become charged.

While the self-powered feature could provide a convenience benefit and potentially eliminate the need for batteries in wireless keyboards, Wang believes the major impact of the device may be in helping to secure computers by using individual typing patterns or habits as a biometric.

This has the potential to be a new means for identifying users, he said. With this system, a compromised password would not allow a cyber-criminal onto the computer. The way each person types even a few words is individual and unique.

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Self-Powered Intelligent Keyboard Could Provide a New Layer of Security

IMAGE:Arunkumar Subramanian, Ph.D., works with the nanobot, a co-integrated device created on silicon chips, which includes a lithium cell and a nanoelectromechanical resonator for charge capacity measurements. view more

Credit: Kate Vinnedge, School of Engineering

A Virginia Commonwealth University professor has received a five-year, $505,000 award from the National Science Foundation to make lithium-ion batteries -- which power electric vehicles and portable electronic devices -- far more efficient, sustainable and environmentally friendly.

Arunkumar Subramanian, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering in the School of Engineering, will use the grant to deliver technological advances that reduce the cost and carbon footprint of Li-ion batteries by extending their lifespan. He will simultaneously research alternative battery materials that are both nontoxic and more abundant.

"If you look at electrical energy storage solutions that are used in today's electric vehicles and portable electronic devices, you would find that lithium-ion batteries is the technology of choice," Subramanian said. "But if you want to make this technology truly sustainable and environmentally benign, then we need to be able to reduce its cost, as well as its carbon footprint as compared to energy derived from other sources such as fossil fuels."

Subramanian plans to address these goals by extending the lifespan of Li-ion batteries made from sustainable electrode materials, which are derived from the nontoxic manganese oxide material system.

"This project is likely to result in transformative innovations for the battery industry, which in turn will impact a whole host of consumer devices and cars," said Ram Gupta, Ph.D., a professor and associate dean for research in the School of Engineering.

An overarching goal of the project, "Sustainable Solutions for Li-ion Batteries through Cycle-Life Improvements in Nanostructured, 'Green' Cathodes," is to maximize the environmental benefits of electric cars.

"Electric vehicles are one alternative for reducing fossil fuel consumption and greenhouse gas production for sustainable transportation needs," according to the project's abstract. "Electric vehicles require rechargeable batteries that balance the electrical energy storage and power delivery needs, and these batteries must have a lifespan sufficient to reduce cost and achieve true carbon footprint reduction. Furthermore, batteries should be manufactured from sustainable materials to minimize environmental impact."

The award is from National Science Foundation's Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program, which provides the foundation's most prestigious awards in support of junior faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research, excellent education and the integration of education and research within the context of the mission of their organizations.

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VCU researcher receives NSF grant to extend lifespan of Li-ion batteries

To be powered by two new engines -- a one-litre petrol power engine and an 800-cc diesel engine -- the car is expected to hit the road next year.

Image: Tata Nano. Photograph: Kind courtesy, Tata Motors

The Nano did not take off the way Tata Motors would have liked, despite aggressive pricing and Rs 4,000 crore (Rs 40 billion) of investments in development, marketing and a dedicated plant at Sanand in Gujarat.

But the company, Indias largest automaker by revenue, is looking to recover some of the cost incurred on the Nano platform.

The plan is to develop a slightly bigger hatchback at the Sanand factory, to take on the Maruti Suzuki Alto, Indias top-selling car.

The new car, code-named the Pelican, is being developed on the X302 platform, an upgraded version of the Nano, Business Standard has learnt from several industry sources.

To be powered by two new engines -- a one-litre petrol power engine and an 800-cc diesel engine -- the car is expected to hit the road next year.

The bigger car will be sold under a new brand. Its diesel variant, the cheapest diesel car in India, will later be exported to several other markets, a source said.

Another added: Tata has given its suppliers a modest sales target of about 2,500 units a month.

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Tata Motors' next from Nano factory to take on Maruti Alto

IMAGE:Weidong Zhou, UT Arlington electrical engineering professor, was elected Fellow at SPIE. view more

Credit: UT Arlington

Weidong Zhou, a University of Texas at Arlington electrical engineering professor, has been elected a Fellow of SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics.

Zhou was one of 58 new Fellows elected to the society, which was founded in 1955. He was recognized for "important contributions to nanophotonics, including nano-membranes and photonic crystal lasers."

Khosrow Behbehani, dean of the College of Engineering, said recognition of Dr. Zhou by a highly prestigious professional society reflects the excellence of his work.

"He has excelled on the research front, in the classroom and as a collaborator with colleagues," Behbehani said. "His work with photonic crystals holds promise for increasing the speed of data transfer. His work provides technological advantages that can help keep our country competitive."

The SPIE Fellows Committee fields nominations and recommends nominees for consideration by the SPIE Board of Directors for election.

Shanhui Fan, an electrical engineering professor at Stanford University, wrote the nominating letter for Zhou, noting: "Professor Zhou has built a world-class research program that is excellent and very active in the areas of nanophotonics, photonic crystals and flexible on-chip photonics and electronics."

Fan added that Zhou had made pioneering contributions to these fields and has been published in Nature Photonics. He described Zhou as one of the leading figures in the field of photonics, having published more than 230 archived journal articles.

Zhou said he is honored and humbled by being named a Fellow.

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UT Arlington electrical engineering professor earns society's high honor

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Newswise MADISON, Wis. University of Wisconsin-Madison materials engineers have made a significant leap toward creating higher-performance electronics with improved battery life and the ability to flex and stretch.

Led by materials science Associate Professor Michael Arnold and Professor Padma Gopalan, the team has reported the highest-performing carbon nanotube transistors ever demonstrated. In addition to paving the way for improved consumer electronics, this technology could also have specific uses in industrial and military applications.

In a paper published recently in the journal ACS Nano, Arnold, Gopalan and their students reported transistors with an on-off ratio thats 1,000 times better and a conductance thats 100 times better than previous state-of-the-art carbon nanotube transistors.

Carbon nanotubes are very strong and very flexible, so they could also be used to make flexible displays and electronics that can stretch and bend, allowing you to integrate electronics into new places like clothing, says Arnold. The advance enables new types of electronics that arent possible with the more brittle materials manufacturers are currently using.

Carbon nanotubes are single atomic sheets of carbon rolled up into a tube. As some of the best electrical conductors ever discovered, carbon nanotubes have long been recognized as a promising material for next-generation transistors, which are semiconductor devices that can act like an on-off switch for current or amplify current. This forms the foundation of an electronic device.

However, researchers have struggled to isolate purely semiconducting carbon nanotubes, which are crucial, because metallic nanotube impurities act like copper wires and short the device. Researchers have also struggled to control the placement and alignment of nanotubes. Until now, these two challenges have limited the development of high-performance carbon nanotube transistors.

Building on more than two decades of carbon nanotube research in the field, the UW-Madison team drew on cutting-edge technologies that use polymers to selectively sort out the semiconducting nanotubes, achieving a solution of ultra-high-purity semiconducting carbon nanotubes.

Previous techniques to align the nanotubes resulted in less-than-desirable packing density, or how close the nanotubes are to one another when they are assembled in a film. However, the UW-Madison researchers pioneered a new technique, called floating evaporative self-assembly, or FESA, which they described earlier in 2014 in the ACS journal Langmuir. In that technique, researchers exploited a self-assembly phenomenon triggered by rapidly evaporating a carbon nanotube solution.

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Carbon Nanotube Finding Could Lead to Flexible Electronics with Longer Battery Life

HOUSTON Flotek Industries, Inc. (NYSE: FTK) this morning announced the introduction of FracMax Canada, introduced Steve Marinello, PhD as the new Director of Applied Chemistry Research and announced an upcoming Society of Petroleum Engineers presentation by John Chisholm in Saudi Arabia.

Flotek Introduces FracMax Canada

Building upon technology developed to analyze U.S. production results, Flotek today introduced FracMax Canada, its patent-pending, advanced analytics software now for the Canadian oil and gas markets. With nearly 7,700 wells, including over 800 that have utilized Flotek's patented, proprietary Complex nano-Fluid completion chemistries, the initial release of FracMax Canada provides a broad representation of Canadian production across nearly all Western Canadian producing basins.

"The introduction of FracMax Canada extends Flotek's commitment to provide industry-leading analytics as well as a platform by which to show the efficacy of CnF chemistries based on widespread, empirical data," said John Chisholm, Flotek's Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer. "Based on the current data set, Canadian wells with CnF perform at levels superior to those without, very similar to results obtained from the U.S. data set, consisting of over 85,000 wells. We look forward to working with our Canadian clients and others to improve well performance and, through FracMax, better understand best practices in well completions."

Similar to the United States, the FracMax architecture will remain proprietary to Flotek with well studies run for clients through the Company's FracMax analytics subsidiary. The closed architecture provides for consistency and integrity of the data and processes of the software application.

"While data availability and access is diverse across countries, it is our intention to continue to look for ways to expand the FracMax analytical power to oil and gas producing regions around the globe," added Chisholm. "We believe the power of FracMax not only benefits Flotek's efforts to increase penetration of CnF in the global completion market, the analytical capabilities stand to add value in many ways to exploration and production as well as energy service companies. We look forward to continue building this powerful platform in the coming months."

Flotek Appoints Veteran Reservoir Engineer to Lead Applied CnF Technology Efforts

Flotek also announced the appointment of Stephen A. Marinello, PhD to the position of Director of CnF Applied Technology. In his role Dr. Marinello brings over two decades of reservoir engineering and completion experience to lead Flotek's research team in expanding the application of its research to develop pragmatic solutions to specific oilfield challenges. In addition, Dr. Marinello will assist in the development of new CnF markets and new applications of CnF around the globe. He will also be an integral part of the team that develops research protocol and standards for the growth of FracMax Analytics, Flotek's subsidiary that will provide customized research based on the FracMax platform.

Most recently, Dr. Marinello spent nearly three years as the Senior Reservoir Engineer with Shell International Exploration and Production. Specifically, Dr. Marinello led a team responsible for analyzing field performance of mobility enhancement fluids and completion systems. During his time at Shell he worked closely with Complex nano-Fluids. Prior to Shell Dr. Marinello worked with Halliburton, Baroid Fluid Services, M-I Swaco and Newpark Resources. His broad range of experience includes reservoir, stimulation and production engineering, petroleum and environmental research and academic program development. He holds an undergraduate degree in Biological Sciences from Stanford University and was awarded an M.S. and Ph.D. in Petroleum Engineering from the University of Southern California.

"We are thrilled that someone with Steve's credentials, experience and depth of knowledge in reservoir and completion engineering is joining the Flotek team," added Chisholm. "Steve's understanding of the impact of Flotek's Complex nano-Fluids on production and economic returns can only add to the groundswell of credibility surrounding our proprietary chemistry. In addition, Steve's research acumen will allow him to have an immediate impact on the growth of FracMax Analytics and our quest to accelerate our practical research, including the possibility of developing field laboratories where Flotek can validate the efficacy of its technologies through direct field research and operations."

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Flotek Industries Announces Introduction of FracMax(TM) Canada, Appoints Stephen A. Marinello, PhD Director of Applied ...

Growing up, Sanjay Srikanth Nekkanti had wanted to be a pilot. But while studying for his bachelors degree in engineering in SRM University in Chennai, he was selected to be part of the team that built the first student nano satellite project in India. Thats when I got interested in the space domain, says Nekkanti, the 25-year-old CEO of Indias first private company to manufacture satellites, Dhruva Space. While building the satellite, the company did a comparison between the cost of solutions in India and abroad, and realised that while it could build its satellite for Rs 5 lakh, it would have cost Rs 30 lakh in Europe. That planted the seed for the Bengaluru-headquartered start-up that is currently making two satellites, one a communication satellite for a client and the other an experimental satellite with multiple payloads, which are likely to be launched late this year or early next year.

In line with Prime Minister Narendra Modis Make In India campaign, Dhruva Space is also collaborating with a foreign company to formulate a proposal to set up a satellite manufacturing facility in India and hopes to make a formal proposal to the government by the end of February.

Although Nekkanti and his team had built a satellite successfully in college, he couldnt immediately launch his venture. Back then, I was just an undergraduate and it was unlikely that I would have been taken seriously, he says. He also needed a team to work with and nobody was willing to take the risk of launching a start-up to manufacture satellites at that point, so he decided to go to Europe to do his Masters. It was while doing his Masters in space science and technology as part of the multi-university Erasmus Mundus programme that he met Dhruva Space co-founder Narayan Prasad, a mechanical engineer.

On a shoestring budget Like Indias Mars mission, which won global accolades for keeping costs low, Dhruva Space also follows the model of frugal innovation, starting from keeping the office as lean as possible. To use a colloquial term, we use a lot of jugaad, says Raju. This includes using a lot of 3D printing, replacing space grade components with commercial grade components that cost one-tenth after extensive testing, and reusing and re-engineering components wherever possible.

Their company is also the only small satellite manufacturer that is completely bootstrapped, adds Raju, laughing. We are trying to prove our hypothesis that space need not be expensive, and a lot of frugal innovation is possible. Nekkanti adds that when they had approached investors initially, they were told that it was a completely new domain and were asked a lot of questions to which they did not have answers back then. But they still wanted to go ahead, so they used the savings they had from working abroad. Now, having managed to get a client in the first two years of operations, they can finance operations through revenues, rather than their own pockets.

Apart from satellites, the company has also pioneered a high-altitude ballooning platform, which is currently being used by the Indian Institute of Astrophysics for experiments and observation. The platform can go up to an altitude of 40 kilometres which is close to the edge of the stratosphere. (To put this in perspective, commercial flights usually fly at an altitude of 10-11 kilometres.) Dhruva is also keen on planning to build the countrys first indigenous automatic identification systems to track ships on the high seas.

The company does not view itself as a rival to ISRO, says Raju. ISRO satellites have a much longer life expectancy of around eight years, while ours will be around three years. And their clientele will be different. We share a lot of information with them from time to time, and they are our mentors in a very informal way, he says.

Asked when the company would break even or generate profit, Nekkanti admitted that this was a tough question. Our aim is to have a constellation of satellites in orbit and we have taken a very small step towards this big vision, he says. The companys ultimate goal is to be able to provide real-time data through its network of satellites, whether it is monitoring a natural disaster or crop patterns, which is where the bulk of the revenue would come from.

The biggest challenge to the company is policy, or rather the lack of one, geared towards the private space industry, since it has so far been dominated by ISRO. We need to convince the government to create policies to include smaller companies like us and integrate us into the ecosystem, says Raju. Dhruva also expects more such start-ups to come into being, provided policies are changed accordingly.

In the long term, Dhruva Space also wants to spin off its outreach arm into a separate university, which would design a curriculum for advanced courses, and also create manpower for the industry, which is currently a challenge. We are in this for the long run, Raju adds.

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Dhruva's big leap opens private sector to space

MANILA, Philippines - Autodesk is changing the way the world is designed and made. We track and drive significant design technology trends, to make sure that our customers have the best design tools and are equipped for the future. Here are some of trends that are keeping Autodesk and our customers busy and intrigued about the future of making things.

Humans and robots working together:

Today robots are being fed big data, analytics and machine learning. Robotics will evolve into collaborative robotics, with humans playing a proactive role and working alongside robots. For example, Bloomberg reported that Toyota is becoming more efficient by replacing some robots with craftspeople: Humans are taking the place of machines in plants across Japan so workers can develop new skills and figure out ways to improve production lines and the car-building process. At Autodesk, we feel optimistic about a future where humans and robots collaborate and learn from each other. You can find out more from Autodesk Tech Futurist Jordan Brandt in his PechaKucha talk Teaching our Machines to Design.

Generative design:

This is one of the most exciting times to be a designer. What if a computer-aided design (CAD) system could automatically generate tens, hundreds, or even thousands of design options that all meet your specific design criteria? Its no longer what if: its Autodesks Project Dreamcatcher, the next generation of computational design. Dreamcatcher is a generative design system that lets designers input design objectives, including functional requirements, material type, manufacturability, performance criteria, and cost parameters. The power of the cloud then takes over. This doesnt replace the designerfar from it. It does the grunt work, processing and evaluating design tradeoffs at a speed impossible for humans. D

Dreamcatcher can free up the designer to innovate and createto move away from repetitive design tasks and calculations and instead focus on creative design. This is cloud computing in its purest form; true computing rather than simple file storage. The required computing power was previously available only to institutional and government agencies with supercomputers its now on the verge of being available to everyone.

Living buildings and bespoke materials:

New materials and building typologies are being made possible through computer-aided design. In the future, most buildings and products will be made of bespoke materials, requiring todays global standards like ISO to evolve. For example, David Benjamin, founding principal of the design and research studio The Living, is collaborating with plant biologists at the University of Cambridge in England to grow new composite materials from bacteria. The Living is also harnessing live mussels to detect water quality in the East River and relay environmental conditions to the public. In 2014, The Living delivered Hy-Fi, Benjamins winning installation for the Museum of Modern Arts (MoMAs) Young Architects Program competition, to build a project in its PS1 courtyard in Queens, N.Y. The temporary installation involved a 40-foot-tall tower with 10,000 bricks made entirely of compostable materialscorn stalks and mushroomsdeveloped in collaboration with innovative materials company Ecovative.

Biotech is the next info tech:

Biotech is the use of living systems and organisms to develop products. Its one of the fastest-growing sectors of the global economy. The pharma industry is suffering because product development takes longer and has rising costs. Synthetic biology based on digital design tools could help by making biotechnology more accessible to more innovators. There are implications for engineering new medications, materials and food faster. There is an emerging community of young, entrepreneurial biological designers who are making incredible breakthroughs, including: RevBios color-changing flowers Petunia Circadia, Muufris animal-free milk derived from cow proteins, and Hyasynth exploring the use of cannabinoids to treat multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, Alzheimers and other diseases.

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Design trends to watch out for

Pioneers in 3D printing unveil its MC product line aimed at enabling the medical, scientific, academic and research communities to create tiny things that help solve huge, real-world problems

LAS VEGAS Old World Labs (OWL) today announced the launch of two new best-in-class 3D printers in its MC Series, delivering unmatched precision and accuracy and offering the best resolution in the industry. The MC-1 and MC-2 were unveiled at the 2015 International CES in Las Vegas and are available via a service plan subscription, which allows customers to upgrade their hardware as the technology is refined, ensuring small-volume, high-value manufactured parts are printed at optimum quality. Customers interested in learning how they can procure an OWL 3D printer or finding out more about the MC-1 and MC-2 should visit http://www.oldworldlabs.com.

Tiny Solutions to Huge, Real-World Problems OWL customers are working on the future of everything - medicine, science, engineering, robotics, art - and need to be able to create things that are tomorrow-ready, today. OWL printers have 250x the resolution of other 3D printers, making them most precise option for laboratories and research facilities. Customers depend on OWL's printers to have the most accurate outputs to solve problems that require the most utterly accurate production possible. Customers include NASA, Stanford University, University of Virginia, Virginia Tech and Old Dominion University. OWL is also working with the United States Department of Defense, and collaborating with institutions on creating photonics based tools for the Integrated Photonics Institute for Manufacturing Innovation.

"The benefits of 3D printing to science, medical research and academic discovery are evolving, and the people who are making the utmost progress and greatest discoveries need the most precise and accurate printers available. The MC Series fit this description - no other 3D printers can match them for resolution, precision and functionality," said Nick Liverman, CEO and Founder, Old World Labs. "Our printers are not like anything else on the market. They are more accurate and capable of handling printing the minute details that makes the difference to people trying to change the world."

OWL'S Newest Lineup The MC-1 is a high-precision nano-scale photo fabrication device, built by hand in the U.S.A. It offers cutting-edge resolution designed for use in leading medical, engineering, scientific, and defense laboratories. This precision instrument is designed to be run constantly, maximizing productivity without compromising quality. The MC-1 comes with a selection of services, support, training and consultation packages.

The MC-2 features an advanced control board, multiple upgraded lasers capable of processing new multiple materials, and improved software. It is the first scheduled upgrade printer for OWL's subscription customers and will become available mid-2015.

As new technology is developed and 3D printers evolve, older models will quickly become obsolete. Instead of selling its 3D printers outright, OWL is offering customers a contracted service plan that gives immediate access to new hardware and software by invoking the option to upgrade their model to reflect the technological progressions in this changing market.

Visitors to International CES 2015 can visit OWL at the Sands Expo Centre, booth #72620.

About Old World Labs Founded in Hampton Roads in 2013 Old World Labs (OWL) revolutionizes how engineers, medical professionals, educators, hobbyists and designers create and produce. OWL is a group of passionate, gifted individuals from an array of multidisciplinary backgrounds. Our mission is to advance manufacturing by creating advanced processes and equipment to make your dreams a reality. Our team develops and manufactures innovative products that support automated chemical and industrial platforms. We design technology that has much higher feature resolution than competitors, which enables advanced solutions. OWL is dedicated to deliver the best and most innovative technology with an unmatched return on investment. Our team remains committed to making sophisticated, high-quality technology.

We only strive for excellence when it comes to developing and manufacturing technology; to turn your dreams into a reality. If you can dream it, OWL can build it.

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Professional 3D Printers support future upgrades.

Funding supports research into layeredoxide ferroics, novel materialsfor solar cells and LEDs, and optically active particles

The Center for Nanoscale Science, a National Science Foundation-funded Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC) at Penn State, has been awarded a six-year, $15 million grant to continue research on materials at the nanoscale.

The Center focuses on nanomaterial synthesis and fabrication, complex oxide thin films, nano- and micro-motors, low-dimensional electronic nanostructures, and integrated optical metamaterials. These areas often involve the use of novel compound semiconductors.

MRSECs are funded to support materials research that would be beyond the scope of one or a few investigators. By funding long-term multi-investigator projects, NSF promotes an interdisciplinary approach to address fundamental problems in science and engineering. In Penn State's Center for Nanoscale Science, four distinct interdisciplinary research groups (IRGs) will develop new classes of materials through predictive modeling, newly developed methods of synthesis at the nanoscale, and advanced methods of testing and characterising materials and devices.

The four topics to be addressed include designing functionality into a class of materials called layered oxide ferroics, which can change shape in response to electrical signals and could be used for tunable microwave devices, energy storage, piezo-transistors, and high- temperature magnetoelectrics; high-pressure enabled electronic metalattices that can squeeze electrons into new forms of behaviour for solar cells, light-emitting devices, and improved thermoelectrics; electrically and optically active particles organised into materials that guide light and electrons to create lasers, tiny antennas, and the building blocks for next-generation computer vision; and new types of autonomously powered nano- and micro-motors that can sense their environment and react in a collective fashion that mimics living microorganisms.

"Thirty seven faculty members across seven departments and three colleges at Penn State, plus eight faculty members at partner institutions around the world will join their diverse backgrounds in pursuit of these ambitious goals," said Vincent Crespi, director of the Center for Nanoscale Science and Distinguished Professor of Physics, Chemistry and Materials Science and Engineering. "The Center for Nanoscale Science also supports high- risk, high-reward seed projects from faculty across the University. Seed projects have continuously rejuvenated and redirected the mission of the MRSEC."

Projects sponsored by industry partners build on and extend Center research in each of the four IRGs, with sponsored projects contributing around $500,000 annually. Research in the Center has resulted in more than 450 publications and patents since 2008, when the previous group of IRGs was funded.

CS International 2015 will provide timely, comprehensive coverage of every important sector within the compound semiconductor industry.

The fifth CS International conference will build on the success of its predecessors, with industry-leading insiders delivering more than 30 presentations spanning six sectors.

Together, these talks will detail breakthroughs in device technology; offer insights into the current status and the evolution of compound semiconductor devices; and provide details of advances in tools and processes that will help to drive up fab yields and throughputs.

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NSF awards $15 million to Penn State Center for Nanoscale Science

4 hours ago by Matt Shipman Researchers have attached two drugs -- TRAIL and Dox -- onto graphene strips. TRAIL is most effective when delivered to the external membrane of a cancer cell, while Dox is most effective when delivered to the nucleus, so the researchers designed the system to deliver the drugs sequentially, with each drug hitting a cancer cell where it will do the most damage. Credit: Zhen Gu

(Phys.org)An international team of researchers has developed a drug delivery technique that utilizes graphene strips as "flying carpets" to deliver two anticancer drugs sequentially to cancer cells, with each drug targeting the distinct part of the cell where it will be most effective. The technique was found to perform better than either drug in isolation when tested in a mouse model targeting a human lung cancer tumor.

The researchers also found that an anticancer protein, TRAIL, can serve as an active targeting molecule to bind directly to the surface of cancer cells, which had not been demonstrated previously. The work was done by researchers at North Carolina State University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and China Pharmaceutical University (CPU).

In this study, the researchers attached two drugs - TRAIL and doxorubicin (Dox) - onto graphene strips. Graphene is a two-dimensional sheet of carbon that is only one atom thick. Because TRAIL is most effective when delivered to the external membrane of a cancer cell, while Dox is most effective when delivered to the nucleus, the researchers wanted to deliver the drugs sequentially, with each drug hitting a cancer cell where it will do the most damage.

The Dox is physically bound to the graphene due to similarities in the molecular structure of the drug and the graphene. The TRAIL is bound to the surface of the graphene by a chain of amino acids called peptides.

"These drug-rich graphene strips are introduced into the bloodstream in solution, and then travel through the bloodstream like nanoscale flying carpets," explains Dr. Zhen Gu, senior author of a paper describing the work and an assistant professor in the joint biomedical engineering program at NC State and UNC-Chapel Hill.

Once in the bloodstream, these flying carpets take advantage of the fact that cancer tumors cause nearby blood vessels to leak by using those leaks to penetrate into the tumor.

When the flying carpet comes into contact with a cancer cell, receptors on the surface of the cell latch onto the TRAIL. Meanwhile, enzymes that are common on the surface of cancer cells sever the peptides linking the TRAIL and the graphene. This allows the cell to absorb the Dox-laden graphene and leaves the TRAIL on the surface, where it begins a process to trigger cell death.

After the flying carpet is "swallowed" by the cell, the acidic environment inside the cell promotes the separation of the Dox from the graphene - freeing it to attack the nucleus.

"We've demonstrated that TRAIL itself can be used to attach a drug delivery system to a cancer cell, without using intervening material - which is something we didn't know," Gu says. "And because graphene has a large surface area, this technique enhances our ability to apply TRAIL to its target on cancer cell membranes."

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'Flying carpet' technique uses graphene to deliver one-two punch of anticancer drugs

VIDEO:Researchers at The Ohio State University are the first to prove that the same basic design principles that apply to typical full-size machine parts can also be applied to DNA... view more

Credit: Movie courtesy of The Ohio State University.

COLUMBUS, Ohio--If the new nano-machines built at The Ohio State University look familiar, it's because they were designed with full-size mechanical parts such as hinges and pistons in mind.

The project is the first to prove that the same basic design principles that apply to typical full-size machine parts can also be applied to DNA--and can produce complex, controllable components for future nano-robots.

In a paper published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Ohio State mechanical engineers describe how they used a combination of natural and synthetic DNA in a process called "DNA origami" to build machines that can perform tasks repeatedly.

"Nature has produced incredibly complex molecular machines at the nanoscale, and a major goal of bio-nanotechnology is to reproduce their function synthetically," said project leader Carlos Castro, assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering. "Where most research groups approach this problem from a biomimetic standpoint--mimicking the structure of a biological system--we decided to tap into the well-established field of macroscopic machine design for inspiration."

"In essence, we are using a bio-molecular system to mimic large-scale engineering systems to achieve the same goal of developing molecular machines," he said.

Ultimately, the technology could create complex nano-robots to deliver medicine inside the body or perform nanoscale biological measurements, among many other applications. Like the fictional "Transformers," a DNA origami machine could change shape for different tasks.

"I'm pretty excited by this idea," Castro said. "I do think we can ultimately build something like a Transformer system, though maybe not quite like in the movies. I think of it more as a nano-machine that can detect signals such as the binding of a biomolecule, process information based on those signals, and then respond accordingly--maybe by generating a force or changing shape."

The DNA origami method for making nano-structures has been widely used since 2006, and is now a standard procedure for many labs that are developing future drug delivery systems and electronics. It involves taking long strands of DNA and coaxing them to fold into different shapes, then securing certain parts together with "staples" made from shorter DNA strands. The resulting structure is stable enough to perform a basic task, such as carrying a small amount of medicine inside a container-like DNA structure and opening the container to release it.

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DNA origami could lead to nano 'transformers' for biomedical applications