Nanotech and Biotech Consulting

Derivation of equations that describe the dynamics of complex magnetic quasi-particles may aid the design of novel electronic devices.

Photovoltaic panels made from plant material could become a cheap, easy alternative to traditional solar cells.

A new kind of high-temperature photonic crystal could someday power everything from smartphones to spacecraft.

The Obama Administration's $60 billion Loan Guarantee Program (LGP) for renewable energy is considered a failure because of Solyndra, Beacon Power, and potential 2012 bankruptcies. What is not well known is that 75 percent of the program's deployed funds went to relatively low risk power plants that will catapult the U.S. to a leadership role in the utility-scale solar sector. This is hardly the hallmark of a "failed program." The program is akin to Shakespeare's King Henry V, who said as a delinquent Prince: "I'll so offend as to make offense a skill, redeeming time when men think least I will."

If you wanted to draw your family tree, you could start by searching for people who share your surname. Cells, of course, don’t have surnames, but scientists have found that genetic switches called enhancers, and the molecules that activate those switches – transcription factors – can be used in a similar way, as clues to a cell’s developmental history. The study also unveils a new model for how enhancers function.

Many living organisms suffer from parasites, which use the hosts’ resources for their own purposes. The problem of parasitism occurs at all levels right down to the DNA scale. Genomes may contain up to 80% “foreign” DNA but details of the mechanisms by which this enters the host genome and how hosts attempt to combat its spread are still the subject of conjecture. Nearly all organisms contain pieces of DNA that do not really belong to them.

A ‘gatekeeper’ protein plays a critical role in helping immune cells to sound a warning after encountering signs of tumor growth or infection.

In a series of deals the investor-owned utility says is good for consumers' wallets, American Electric Power subsidiary Southwestern Electric Power Co. (SWEPCO) recently signed long-term power purchase agreements for a total of 358.65 MW of capacity from wind projects in Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas.

The International Congress on Safety of Engineered Nanoparticles and Nanotechnologies (SENN2012) will be held from October 28 to 31, 2012, in Helsinki, Finland. The goal of the Congress is to summarize and share the latest knowledge on the safety of engineered nanomaterials and nano-related technologies, with an emphasis on producing solutions to safety challenges. It will provide a forum for reporting and demonstrating findings, methods, tools, and approaches to safety and health at workplaces that use nanoparticles and nanotechnologies. The full program and registration information can be viewed on the conference website.

A team of researchers from Stockholm University, Sweden, and Polytechnic University, Spain, has presented a new porous material that could be used to convert gasoline directly into diesel. The new material is an aluminosilicate that belongs to the zeolite class. Zeolites are natural and synthetic minerals with an open crystal structure that contain masses of nanometer-sized pores and channels. Due to the immense number of pores and intersecting channels, they have a huge internal surface area, and can be used as catalytic converters, ion-exchangers and adsorbents. The team’s material, ITQ-39, is the most complex zeolite ever discovered, and has a chaotic order. It has proven to be an excellent catalytic converter for turning gasoline into diesel. This process is an ever more important one as world fuel consumption is shifting more and more to diesel at the expense of gasoline. The team’s material was presented in the journal Nature Chemistry.