There is always something new happening in the world of science. In fact, there are so many new scientific discoveries and inventions, that it’s virtually impossible to stay abreast of all the new information. Here are a few really cool new inventions that are under development.
Using flying beetles for search and rescue
New research, funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), has demonstrated how flying beetles could one day be used surveillance purposes or for search-and-rescue and similar missions.
Michel Maharbiz is trying to take advantage of the beetle’s natural abilities by melding insect and machine. The team has wirelessly controlled a giant flower beetle with implanted electrodes and a radio receiver on its back. With a nearby computer they can send wireless signals to the beetle including commands to take off, hover in place, turn left, and turn right and land.
Oscillating electrical pulses delivered to the beetle’s optic lobes trigger takeoff, while a single short pulse ceases flight. Sending electrical signals to the left or right basilar flight muscles make the animal turn right or left, respectively.
The reason behind the selection of the giant flower beetle is that it is large and can carry a heavy payload. It would need to carry a camera and heat sensor for search-and-rescue missions for example.
Artificial gecko feet using carbon nanotubes
Scientists have been trying to duplicate the adhesiveness of gecko feet for years without success. Liming Dai, a professor at the University of Dayton, and Zhong Wang, director of the Center for Nanostructure Characterization at Georgia tech, have developed a new adhesive that closely mimics the structures on gecko feet.
Gecko feet are covered with millions of micro-scale hairs which branch into even smaller hairs. The hairs each have a weak electrical interaction with a surface, and add up to a strong force over the area of the foot.
The researches came up with an adhesive made of carbon nanotubes whose structure closely resembles that of gecko feet. The material is 10 times more adhesive than the geckos’ feet and it’s easy to lift back up.
Dai’s group, using a silicon substrate, grew arrays of vertically aligned carbon nanotubes topped with an unaligned layer of nanotubes, like rows of trees with branching tops. The adhesive force of these nanotube arrays is very strong, about 100 newtons per square centimeter. That’s enough for a .15 inch x .15 inch square to support a 3 pound weight. The adhesive properties stayed the same when tested on surfaces, including glass plates, polymer films, and rough sandpaper.
One problem with these materials is that when the material gets dirty they don’t work well. No one has been able to do that. Dai says that carbon nanotubes’ versatility may help overcome the dirt problem. Dai is developing adhesive nanotube arrays that have the nanotubes coated with proteins that change their shape in response to temperature changes. The idea is that robot feet could heat up when they get clogged, sloughing off the dirt so that it can keep walking.
Self-cleaning clothing
Researchers at Monash University, in Victoria, Australia, led by organic chemist and nanomaterials researcher Walid Daoud, have discovered a way to coat fibers with titanium dioxide nanocrystals, which break down food and dirt in sunlight. They have coated natural fibers such as wool, silk, and hemp so that they will automatically shed food, grime, and even red-wine stains when exposed to sunlight.
Titanium dioxide is used in sunscreens, toothpaste, and paint, and it is a strong photo catalyst. In the presence of water vapor and ultraviolet light, it forms hydroxyl radicals, or decompose organic matter. However, says Daoud, “these nanocrystals cannot decompose wool and are harmless to skin.” The nanocrystal coating doesn’t change the look or feel of the material.
Titanium dioxide also destroys bacteria in the presence of sunlight by breaking down the cell walls of the microorganisms. Self-cleaning fabrics would be useful in hospitals and other medical settings.
The material stands up to red-wine stains, which are very difficult to remove. After 20 hours of exposure to simulated sunlight, titanium-dioxide-coated wool shows almost no sign of the red stain, while the untreated wool remains boldly stained. Other stains disappear faster: coffee stains fade away in two hours, while blue-ink stains disappear in seventeen hours.
Materials that use nanoparticles have been developed in the past. Stain-repellant fabrics and paints that are currently on the market typically have a nanoparticle or nanofiber coating that causes drops of liquid to roll off instead of getting absorbed into the material, taking small particles of dirt and grime with them.
The sunlight requirement has not stopped the technology from getting commercial interest. Several wool manufacturers have suggested that they’d like to evaluate the technology, Daoud says.
Watch the video related to carbon nanotubes
A brief video explaining what a carbon nanotube is and what they might bring to future technologies. Audio from Earth & Sky, produced for Too Small To See. www.earthsky.org www.toosmalltosee.org
Help answer the question about carbon nanotubes
what is new about carbon nanotubes? and what is the length scales for nanotechnology?is it carbon nanotechnology real?
what are appilication of carbon nanotubes?
how they(CNTs desinged) and difficulty of fabrication?
what is the future of carbon nanotubes
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of research going on. While they may not be specific to nanotubes, they do pertain to nanotechnology. One example uses nanotechnology circuits and nano-materials to build a sensor to sense pH levels in biological systems.
Thank you for your opinion. While I will not speculate on this possibility, allow me to provide some related facts:
-nanotubes are one of the strongest materials known, if you normalize to it’s nano size (tensile strength is more than steel & diamonds)
-however, nanotubes in bulk, may or may not be super-strong, depending on how it is woven (or not) into a form of fiber
Salaam, Khoobi !
Fascinating. Loved every thing you've mentioned, also the links, loved'em all. I really appreciate the time and effort you've put in this. I'm certain, there're lot of people who will enjoy this and get informed a bit about our country. Don't worry about some of these clowns with weired and repugnant responses. There're lot of good Americans who get the points and are comprehensible, however there're lot of fu**heads among them as you can observe in some of the responses who are total jerks and are completely blinded by nationalism and think they're better than every body and every nation!! F**em, not worth paying attention to those kinds. I came to Iran few years back after 20 years being abroad and loved every Minuit of it. Spend three months with friends and family and travelled a lot, specially 'SHOMAL'. Amazing time i had and amazing GIRLS! wow, it was awesome! Tehran was totally changed and lot more modernized. You're definitely on the money, those westerners who don't know Iran, won't conceive how it is. OK, take a good care of your self and keep up a good work!
PS. I'm really impressed with your English and writing. Hamah ro beboos!
General questions are very welcome.
My personal opinions to your questions (the future is always hard to predict, so I can only offer you my opinion):
1. Search “Super-thin nanotube body armor promises to stop and deflect bullets”. It is an article on nanotubes for body armor applications. While I may not agree with the entire article, I do think that nanotubes have plenty of applications besides electronics.
Americans have been brainwashed for years, they have been sold the belief they are better than God.
They don't realize how well their news is edited (returning bodies is one subtle one, which they tried to copy in Canada until freedom raised its voice)
1. We know you're different than Iraqis
2. Glad to hear there is freedom
3. Especially for the women
4. So no-one is getting stoned? (and I don't mean "high")
5. The media is a mess – we hate them too.
6. I had friends from Iran in college and I know they are good, smart decent people.
7. I think your president is as crazy as ours is.
8. If an American tried to come live in Iran, what would happen? (I am seriously asking. I had a friend who had escaped Iran at 14 and he said I could never go there because of my blonde hair and blue eyes.)
9. I am American and I truly think Iranians in Iran hate me.
10. Oh no, please don't let the Christians in. There will be hoards of fundies on your doorstep wanting to "save" you.
11. Are you the government of Iran trying to trick me? Or even my own government trying to trick me?
12. The phrase "pulling your/my leg" means to joke on someone. For instance, if I told you elephants could fly, I'd be pulling your leg.
13. I think over 80% of Americans now want the war in Iraq to end. Do Iraqis hate you? Is there any way your country and your people could help stabilize that region?
14. I personally can't wait for Bush to be out of office. When will your president be voted out?
15. What will you do if a woman is elected as the next U.S. president? Will Muslim governments refuse to deal with her?
16. How can we as civilized people (I mean you and me and our countrymen/women) convince the fundamentalists to STOP blowing things and people (and children) up? This was going on long before the war and is really really sad.
Thanks for your essay. It was informative.
P.S. Do you have charities like we do to help the poor or help people after disasters and such?
-nanotubes are indeed light-weight given its strength
-nanotubes, mixed in with various materials, have been shown to improve the mechanical properties of those various materials
which may help the body heal (though the nanotube itself does not do the healing directly).
3. This is an interesting idea and perhaps something along these lines can be investigated. While it there are already anti-stick nano coatings today (e.g. teflon in your pots/pans, specially treated windshields…), I do not think they will be used on roads. The main reason is that if rain and water don’t stick to the road, it’s likely your car’s tires won’t either, which is very bad.
Hello! I am so happy to see this! I am a 25 year old American woman. I agree with you so much! I am so sick and tired our children being taught fear and hatred. Americans (including myself) are hidden from the truth about anyone who is different in order to instill fear, to avoid any chance of an overthrow of government. I find Iranians very beautiful and you seem to have a very beautiful and enriched culture. Thank you so much for this and I really hope that more people take the time to consider what you have said. Best of luck and send me e-mail if you'd like.
Thus, it is not unreasonable to speculate that nanotubes could be used in body armor to provide better protection due to the nanotube’s great mechanical properties (I don’t know about “deflect” though).
2. Nanotubes current have no known “healing” effects that I am aware of. Thus, I personally find it unlikely that nanotubes will be used as a medical “healer”. However, nanotube may one day be used as electrical components (circuits/batteries/sensors) in medical devices,
I enjoy reading about Iran and the Middle East in general. Sure hope that I can visit there someday.
and one more ( i couldn’t fit it into the other comment box)
3. Could some solution be mixed into tar, or the blacktop used in roads to make ice and rain “not” stick to it?? therefore eliminating some of the worst driving conditions there are, and as a result less crashes and related deaths occuring.
I just read your entire essay and believe that almost no one else will read the whole thing. I'm sorry, but we are a bunch of lazy Americans too busy to read for 5 min. I found it informative, but truthfully How do I know you are even who you say you are? I wish to believe you and you do sound credible as being an Iranian and knowing the culture. I hope the U.S. and Iran can get along too. Gov. rule the world and the media is how they get their citizens to believe them. Screw FOX news. They would nuke all of Iran and kill all the Democrats in the U.S. in the name of their God if they could. Then they would call themselves Pro-Life and talk about how much God loves them. They are a sick, sick people, and I pray for them to change their views.
"Forgive them Lord, for they know not what they do." Good quote for the misguided people in today's world. Good luck………..friend? ha ha ha ha….yeah when hell freezes over. I will probably be labled a Terrorist just for answering positively to your question and jailed. And THIS is America, Land of the free and home of the slaves!
Instead, an alternative may be to add something on the road and car tires which help them stick to each other, despite rain/snow. Or, to add something to the road which causes water to have a suppressed freezing point when it’s wetting the road. This will lead to less ice and black ice, which could help improve road conditions. However, all this is just a possibility, and may or may not materialize.