A study that combines experimental observations of spider webs with complex computer simulations shows that web durability depends not only on silk strength, but on how the overall web design compensates for damage and the response of individual strands to continuously varying stresses.

Students from Albany High School slipped on goggles and gloves to participate in hands-on classes today in the nanobioscience labs at the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering (CNSE), part of the successful "NanoHigh" program developed by the City School District of Albany and CNSE.

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 Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Affinity capture devices provide a platform for viewing cancer cells and other macromolecules in dynamic, life-sustaining liquid environments.

A new form of proteins discovered by researchers at The University of Texas at Austin could drastically improve treatments for cancer and other diseases, as well as overcome some of the largest challenges in therapeutics: delivering drugs to patients safely, easily and more effectively.

Rice University lab uses nanoparticles to increase thermal properties of transformer oil.

Back in the early 2010s, food nanotechnology seemed to be a very hot topic and large industrial food companies were eager to explore new opportunities offered by nanotechnology applications. Then, as critical voices from NGOs and regulators appeared, the food industry went into silent mode. But that doesn't mean that food nanotechnologies aren't being researched and developed in labs around the world. Here is an overview of what nanotechnology applications are currently being researched, tested and in some cases already applied in food technology. It appears that we are still some way from seeing "Frankenfoods" in supermarket shelves. According to a recent commentary by an FDA official, what's holding back the introduction of nanofoods is the hesitation of the food industry, fearing a public backlash along the lines of what happened wit genetically modified foods.

Today sees the announcement of full details of how an additional GBP50 million will be spent to keep the UK at the forefront of research into 'wonder material' graphene. Also below are details of further investment strands for graphene engineering and research technology.

DNA is a useful building material for nanoscale structures. In a way similar to origami, a long single strand of DNA can be folded into nearly any three-dimensional shape desired with the use of short DNA fragments. The DNA nanostructure can also be equipped with specific docking sites for proteins. Researchers have now introduced a new method for attaching the proteins by means of special "adapters" known as zinc-finger proteins.

Researchers from the NIST Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology have made a grating coupler that transmits over 45 % of the incident optical energy from a plane wave into a single surface plasmon polariton (SPP) mode propagating on a flat gold surface, an order-of-magnitude increase over any SPP grating coupler reported to date.