Inventors and scientists have been continuously working towards reducing the size of technological components. Room-sized computers to laptops that are slimmer than a pane of glass? It’s done. Huge bulky telephones to smartphones that can fulfil a lot more? A thing of the past. The real question is, to what extent can all this go? Will we see smartphones that can be embedded in human bodies? Or is there more to it?
Nanotechnology has been around for a while now. It is a branch of technology so minuscule that it can operate on a microscopic level. And what’s more, it can be programmed to do whatever is desired of it. Richard Feynman was the physicist who first gave birth to an idea of nanotechnology and nanoscience in 1959. With his paper titled “There’s plenty of room at the bottom”, Richard laid the vision on top of which nanotechnology is being developed today. And in the future, it is expected to greatly change the way our world operates.
“Nanobot” is a term that people may have gotten used to because of Hollywood science fiction movies. As the name suggests, a nanobot or a nanorobot measures about a few nanometers, where 1 nm = 10-9 meter. With properties like self-replication (producing copies of themselves to replace defective units) and molecular manufacturing (building nanoscale circuits and devices), nanobots have a host of applications that can be implemented in our day-to-day life. They are highly valued in healthcare, construction, telecommunications and disaster management.
Here are some of the areas where nanobots can be of immense help and value
News This Week
Supercapacitor nano-architecture: designing a plant-powered future
“The most crucial result of this work is the correlation between form and function in supercapacitor materials,” states first author Dina Ibrahim Abouelamaiem. She elaborates that “our research is driven by the need for [...]
Updated – Worldwide Press for “Human Brain/Cloud Interface”
“We’ll have nanobots that… connect our neocortex to a synthetic neocortex in the cloud. Our thinking will be a…. biological and non-biological hybrid.” Ray Kurzweil, TED 2014 UPDATE - June 18 2019 Since [...]
Research reveals liquid gold on the nanoscale
Swansea University researchers have discovered what liquid gold looks like on the nanoscale – and in doing so have mapped the way in which nanoparticles melt, which is relevant to the manufacturing and performance [...]
The Potential for Nanomedicine to Clean up our Bodies
A new study by the Environmental Working Group reveals that: “Major food companies like General Mills continue to sell popular children’s breakfast cereals and other foods contaminated with troubling levels of glyphosate, the cancer-causing [...]
Nanotechnology treatment reverses multiple sclerosis in mice
A nanotechnology treatment derived from bone marrow stem cells has reversed multiple sclerosis symptoms in mice and could eventually be used to help humans, according to a new study led by University of California, [...]
Scientists create new class of two-dimensional materials
In a paper published this week in Nature ("Freestanding crystalline oxide perovskites down to the monolayer limit"), materials science researchers at the University of California, Irvine and other institutions unveil a new process for [...]
Understanding the (ultra-small) structure of silicon nanocrystals
New research provides insight into the structure of silicon nanocrystals, a substance that promises to provide efficient lithium ion batteries that power your phone to medical imaging on the nanoscale. The research was conducted [...]
Small particles can have big consequences for electronics in space missions
Several space missions, planned by both the European Space Agency and NASA, have their target set on Jupiter and its moons. The extraordinarily harsh radiation environments in the Jovian system will set some strict [...]
Video – What is Neuralink? Neural Lace Explained
The text of the video commentary: Elon Musk’s new project Neuralink has been making headlines recently, but very little is known about this mysterious company so far. We’re going to answer [...]
‘I wash all my food like crazy’ Scientists voice concern about nanoparticles
rance is clamping down on a common food additive that has been shown to be carcinogenic in animal studies. The ban of titanium dioxide, announced by the French government last month, follows a review [...]
Cyber defense for nanoelectronics
Today’s societies critically depend on electronic systems. Past spectacular cyber-attacks have clearly demonstrated the vulnerability of existing systems and the need to prevent such attacks in the future. The majority of available cyber-defenses concentrate [...]
Researchers discover how a nanocatalyst works at the atomic level
Researchers of the Nanoscience Center (NSC) at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland, and in the Xiamen University, China, have discovered how copper particles at the nanometre scale operate in modifying a carbon–oxygen bond when [...]
Scientists discover signalling circuit boards inside body’s cells
Cells in the body are wired like computer chips to direct signals that instruct how they function, research suggests (Nature Communications, “The cell-wide web coordinates cellular processes by directing site-specific Ca2+ flux across cytoplasmic [...]
Nanotechnology vs. cancer – How tiny particles sniff out the deadly disease
We may be able to detect cancer soon by simply peeing on a stick. - Cancer is an aberrant function of a normal cell, where the regulators of that cell's dividing are broken [...]
Magnetic nanoparticles ease removal of microcontaminants from wastewater
Microcontaminants place a considerable burden on our water courses, but removing them from wastewater requires considerable technical resources. Now, ETH researchers have developed an approach that allows the efficient removal of these problematic [...]
Bending the norm on nanowires
New methods of arranging silver nanowires make them more durable, shows a study by KAUST. These nanowires form flexible, transparent conductive layers that can be used for improved solar cells, strain sensors and next-generation mobile [...]
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