Nanotech
sciencepunk | June 23, 2011From the Journal of Things Kurt Vonnegut Warned Us About, Japanese scientists have discovered a way to make water freeze at room temperature.
Image CC Nicholas Bufford
The team of scientists were investigating the properties of water molecules wrapped in single-atom thick carbon nanotubes. The nanoconfined water displayed several unusual properties. Most striking was that as the width of the carbon nanotube decreased, the melting point of the water trapped inside rose. These "tubule ices" are unlike any seen in bulk water, and can even occur at room temperatures.
Thankfully, there's no…
sciencepunk | September 14, 2010In September Wired UK published my feature on the health risks of nanotechnology. The article is now online.
Nanotechnology's commercial growth has been accompanied by fears that it could damage human health and the environment. This in turn is stoking pressure on government and regulators to limit -- even ban -- a technology whose promise includes cleaner fuels, improved water filtration, better medicines, faster electronics and healthier foods.
cevans | December 4, 2009Whilst they (as Homer's Iliad in a nut)
A world of wonders in one closet shut
-- Inscription on the Tradescant family tombstone, London
There are two things which have deeply terrified me in recent science news. The first, as you may have heard, is that a bumper crop of some 32 "new" planets was discovered by a team of European researchers armed with a spectrograph called HARPS, or High Accuracy Radial velocity Planetary Searcher. The second is that Israeli scientists have made a robot small enough to crawl through human veins.
The offending nanobots.
Why do these things strike horror in…