Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. has announced the availability of two new DXR Nanocarbon Analysis Packages for the characterization and microcharacterization of carbon nanomaterials. Both packages offer large-scale chemical and materials producers complete systems for carbon nanotube analysis.
Elpida Develops Smallest 2-Gigabit DDR2 Mobile RAM on its 40nm Process Line
Elpida Memory, Inc., Japan's leading global supplier of Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM), today announced that it had developed a 2-gigabit DDR2 Mobile RAM, the DRAM industry's smallest LPDDR2 chip.
Oxford Instruments Announces Collaboration with the University of Southampton
Oxford Instruments has 10 systems installed in the University's state-of the-art Southampton Nanofabrication Centre (SNC), operated by the ECS Nano Research Group. Oxford Instruments' process engineers will have use of this and selected other equipment at the SNC which opened just last year.
Oxford Instruments to Showcase MQC Benchtop NMR Analyzer at 240th ACS National Meeting
Oxford Instruments Magnetic Resonance, a leading supplier of low-field benchtop nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) technology, with North American operations based in Concord, Massachusetts, announces that it will be showcasing its popular MQC analyzers at the American Chemical Society (ACS) National Exposition, August 22n - 25th, 2010 in booth #1126 at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center, Boston, Massachusetts.
Fluidigm Introduces World’s First Reusable Bio-Chip Architecture
These reusable integrated fluidic circuits (IFCs) will dramatically lower SNP genotyping costs and are designed to support accelerated sample throughput, while maintaining data quality of 99.75 percent or greater accuracy and 99 percent or greater call rates.
Halbleiter aus Kunststoff besser verstehen
Neue Methode erlaubt aufschlussreiche Einblicke in Polymer-Halbleiter.
Physicists identify the transition from superfluid to Mott insulator
Researchers studying a gas of trapped ultracold atoms have identified a set of conditions, never before observed but in excellent agreement with new theoretical predictions, that determine the onset of a critical 'phase transition' in atomic arrays used to model the behavior of condensed-matter systems.
Novel buckypaper device converts light into electricity
Previous studies have revealed that single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) strongly absorb light, especially in the near-infrared region, and convert it into heat. There even has been a report that fluffy SWCNTs can burst into flames when exposed to a camera flash, which means the local temperature has reached 600-700C. This effect has already been used to develop effective CNT-based cancer killers or extremely dark materials. In a new twist, researchers in China have now discovered that SWCNT buckypapers have a large Seebeck coefficient, indicating a strong capability to convert heat into electricity. Based on this, they have designed an opto-electronic power source which converts the incident light into electricity. While this has been discussed as a theoretical mechanism, the team at Tsinghua University in Beijing has actually fabricated an integrated device that outputs a macroscopic voltage, moving forward towards practical applications.
Frontiers of Nanotechnology: Impact on India
Department of IT, BT and S + T, Government of Karnataka in association with Vision Group on Nanotechnology, chaired by Prof. C.N.R. Rao, Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR) and MM Activ Scitech Communications is organizing the 3rd edition of Bangalore Nano.
Sea urchin shaped nanostructures could increase photovoltaic eficiency
Empa researchers have succeeded in growing sea-urchin shaped nanostructures from minute balls of polystyrene beads using a simple electrochemical process. The spines of the sea urchin consist of zinc oxide nanowires. The structured surface should help increasing the efficiency of photovoltaic devices.
SII NanoTechnology Launches a Website with X-ray and XRF Product Solutions
SII NanoTechnology USA Inc. will be debuting a redesigned company website to assist current and potential customers in choosing the best X-ray detector and spectrometric systems for their companies.
Novel electrical confinement method fabricates uniform quantum dots based on quantum well
Quantum dots have been receiving extensive attention from researchers because they can be widely used for basic physics study, quantum computing, biological imaging, nanoelectronics, and photonics applications. Current major fabrication methods for semiconductor quantum dots all have certain drawbacks. Comparing all these methods, the electrical depletion method has many advantages, such as electrical tunability by gate contacts, smooth confinement boundaries, good control and uniformity if the top gate patterns are uniform enough. Researchers have now, for the first time, applied the electrical depletion method to quantum wells and generate a large area of uniform quantum dots using a uniform metallic nanoholes array on top of quantum wells. This design for forming quantum dots has inherited all the advantages of the electrical depletion method. Furthermore, it can produce millions of uniform quantum dots easily, precisely, and controllably, which will help realize the wide applications of quantum dots in many areas.
Behind the secrets of silk lie high-tech opportunities
A decade of research yields new uses for ancient material.
Applied Nanotech Composite Program to be Presented at Army Science Conference
Applied Nanotech Holdings, Inc. announced that work related to improving the ballistic performance of E-glass composite panels using carbon nanotubes performed in collaboration with the U.S. Army Engineer Research Development Center.
Graphene exhibits bizarre new behavior well-suited to electronic devices
Physicists at the University of California, Berkeley, and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) have found that when graphene is stretched in a specific way it sprouts nanobubbles in which electrons behave in a bizarre way, as if they are moving in a strong magnetic field.
Hitachi High-Tech Develops a New Class of Transmission Electron Microscope Enabling Novel Work Environments
Hitachi High-Technologies Corporation has announced the development and release of the HT7700, a new type of transmission electron microscope (TEM) that integrates previously complex system operation onto a single monitor screen, and allows for sample observation even under normal room light conditions.
Nanotechnology’s brightest coming to Rice for Buckyball Discovery Conference
Registration is open for Year of Nano events to be held Oct. 10-13 in honor of the 25th anniversary of the Nobel Prize-winning discovery of the carbon 60 molecule, the buckminsterfullerene, at Rice.
A proposed flow battery for grid-scale storage gets $1.6 million from ARPA-E
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, known for having one of the top research programs in the country for batteries and fuel cells for vehicle applications, has decided to enter another area in the battery world. It has been granted $1.6 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds to develop a novel storage device for the electric grid.
Graphene under strain creates gigantic pseudo-magnetic fields
Researchers report the creation of pseudo-magnetic fields far stronger than the strongest magnetic fields ever sustained in a laboratory - just by putting the right kind of strain onto a patch of graphene.
The Natural History Cabinet of Alfred Russel Wallace, 19th Century
Images © Robert Heggestad 2009 – All Rights Reserved
I just stumbled upon a wonderful collection of photographs documenting specimens from the natural history cabinet of naturalist explorer Alfred Russel Wallace; this incredible cabinet was famously discovered in 1979 at an Arlington Virgina-based antique store by Robert Heggestad. Heggestad--who took the photos you see above and who still owns the cabinet--purchased this amazing cabinet, seen by some to be a national treasure, for a mere $600.
Alfred Russel Wallace, The cabinet's creator, is famous for having come up with a theory of natural selection concurrently with his associate Charles Darwin; a letter he wrote to Darwin detailing his theory--which came to him in a fever dream, as explored compellingly by artist Mark Dion in the piece "The Delirium of Alfred Russel Wallace"-- famously led Darwin to overcome his qualms and publish his own work. The following excerpted text and images above are all from the blog Quigley's Cabinet:
“As you can imagine,” Heggestad writes, “after spending the past three years learning about his multifaceted life, I have become a great Wallace fan.” He notes that the cabinet is no longer on exhibit, but is still at the American Museum of Natural History cared for by Dr. David Grimaldi, Curator of Diptera, Fossil Insects & Lepidoptera, who will publish a paper on the historical and scientific significance of the collection. “I think this is a fabulous thing…a national treasure, actually,” says Dr. Grimaldi.
The collection contains some 1679 specimens in 26 glass-topped drawers that were originally hermetically sealed. “Of dragon-flies, I have many pretty species…” Wallace wrote in a letter from Singapore in 1854, and indeed the cabinet contains 36 dragon and caddis flies (1st image). The drawers in which the 398 butterflies and 294 moths were pinned had been built with a compartment along the front filled with camphor crystals, used to prevent damage to insect collections by other small insects. Wallace’s butterfly specimens include a “cracker” butterfly (Papilio amphinome, 2nd image), native to South America and named for the unusual sound the males produce as part of their territorial displays; a brush-footed butterfly collected in Brazil and commonly known as an “88” because of the pattern on its wings. The moths include a blue underwing, named for the bright hindwings hidden beneath dull forewings, and 2 species of sphinx moth, known for their quick and sustained flying ability, for which they are often mistaken for hummingbirds. Of the sphinx moth, Wallace wrote, “this moth, shortly after its immergence from the cocoon, as shown by the bloom on its unruffled scales, may be seen poised stationary in the air, with its long hair-like proboscis uncurled and inserted into the minute orifices of flowers; and no one, I believe, has ever seen this moth learning to perform its difficult task which requires such unerring aim.”
Among the 396 shells (3rd image) and stones and 86 pods and botanical specimens (4th image) is the fruit of a large leguminous tree of Brazil, the pulpy center of which is pulpy and edible. But perhaps the most intriguing specimen is the skin of an African sun bird (5th image), an Old World bird also reminiscent of hummingbirds because of the iridescent coloration of the males.
The collection also includes a British butterfly that is now extinct, fireflies and bedbugs captured by Wallace when he was 11 years old, and glasswing butterflies. The cabinet includes 2 specimens of the death’s-head moth featured in “The Silence of the Lambs.” Wallace gathered insects with “protective resemblances” - beetles that look like dewdrops, and moths that look like leaves, sticks, and bird droppings – and insects that mimic each other. He had many examples of protective coloration. He collected multiples of a single species to show individual variation. Wallace believed “that a superior intelligence, acting nevertheless through natural and universal laws, has guided the development of man in a definite direction and for a special purpose” - a more theistic view than Darwin, and the equivalent of today’s theory of “intelligent design.”
You can read this story in its entirety and see the full image collection (from which the above were excerpted) by clicking here. You can read more about the discovery of the cabinet by Mr. Heggestad by clicking here. To find out more about Alfred Russel Wallace, click here. To find out more about Mark Dion's artpiece, click here.
