Nano News

Nanoparticles have already found their way into a wide range of products: cosmetics, paints or tires. These tiny particles are even a selling point for car-care products. So far, however, little research has been done into how they impact on the environment and the human organism.

Nanotechnology has been described as one of the century's key new technologies, but Swiss experts say determining its future impact remains difficult.

Researchers are working on a project that could see two million books stored in an area the size of a postage stamp.

Nanotech Briefs magazine has announced the winners of its second annual Nano 50™ awards competition, which recognizes the top 50 technologies, innovators, and products that have significantly impacted, or will impact, the state of the art in nanotechnology. The 50 winners are the best of the best ­ the innovative people and designs that will move nanotechnology to key mainstream markets.

NanoCover Scandinavia A/S, which has just applied for admission to First North marketplace under the Danish OMX exchange, is dealing with sales, distribution and development of NanoCover® a series of products for surface treatment, developed and manufactured by using the most innovative and advanced nanotechnologies to present the user with a product of quite unique qualities.

Tumor cells that develop resistance to multiple anticancer drugs are responsible for a majority of cases in which treatment ultimately fails. In most cases of multiple drug resistance, the tumor cells have evolved the ability to produce a protein in their membrane, known as p-glycoprotein (P-gp), that pumps anticancer agents back out of the cells before the drugs can exert their toxic effects. Certain types of nanoparticles have already demonstrated they can overcome multiple drug resistance by ferrying drugs into cancer cells, bypassing this protein pump.

NANOIDENT Technologies AG, the leading company in the development and manufacture of organic semiconductor-based photonic solutions, today announced its NANOIDENT Photonic Solutions Platform(TM). An industry first, this new Platform includes unique technical features designed to produce commercial organic photonic devices for applications in a wide range of markets, including consumer, industrial, life science, security and telecommunications. With its groundbreaking manufacturing process, NANOIDENT helps original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) deliver innovative photonic applications to market faster and at a lower cost.

Germany's food safety risk assessment agency has commissioned a study on the potential health effects of nanotechnologies used in products.

In recent years, gold has received more and more attention as a catalyst. ETH researchers have determined a possible reaction mechanism in these highly active catalysts, of the activation of oxygen on gold nano-particles. These results were obtained by using state-of-the-art time-resolved and high energy-resolution fluorescence detected X-ray spectroscopy on catalysts under reaction conditions.

Nano-optical solver offers rapid solution German firm JCMwave, a Zuse Institute Berlin spin-off, has come up with optical software that can model electromagnetic wave propagation on a laptop, solving Maxwell's equations and offering solutions in just 10 s. James Tyrrell learns more about the company that has grabbed the attention of Infineon Technologies and Siemens.