[BITList] The incredible world at nanoscale -- 9/15/14

Mon Sep 15 13:25:52 BST 2014

I like the water bottle
frank

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Today's selection -- from /The Human Age/ by Diane Ackerman. The 
incredible developments unfolding at nanoscale:

"We're not just seeing invisibles; we're engineering things on a minute, 
invisible-to-the-eye scale. 'Nano,' which means 'dwarf' in Greek, 
applies to things one-billionth of a meter long. In nature that's the 
size of sea spray and smoke. An ant is about 1 million nanoparticles 
long. A strand of hair is 80,000 to 100,000 nanometers wide, roomy 
enough to hold 100,000 perfectly machined carbon nanotubes (which are 50 
to 100 times stronger than steel at one-sixth the weight). A human 
fingernail grows about 1 nanometer a second. About 500,000 nanometers 
would fit in the period at the end of this sentence, with room left over 
for a rave of microbes and a dictator's heart.

"I'm stirred by the cathedral-like architecture of the nanoscale, which 
I love to ogle in photographs taken through scanning electron 
microscopes. One year in college, I spent off-duty hours hooking 
long-stranded wool rugs after the patterns of the amino acid leucine 
(seen by polarized light), an infant's brain cells, a single neuron, and 
other objects revealed by such microdelving. How beautifully some amino 
acids shine when lit by polarized light: pastel crystals of pyramidal 
calm, tiny tents along life's midway. Arranged on a slide or flattened 
on a page, they glow gemlike but arid. We cannot see their vitality, how 
they collide and collude as they build behavior. But their nanoscale 
physiques are eye-openers, and more and more we're turning to nature for 
inspiration.

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*Gecko's foot*

"We used to think that wall-climbing geckos must have suckers on the 
soles of their feet. But in 2002, biologists at Lewis & Clark College in 
Portland, Orgeon, and the University of California at Berkeley released 
their strange findings, and science was agog. Viewed at the nano level, 
a gecko's five-toed feet are covered in a series of ridges, the ridges 
are tufted with billions of tiny tubular elastic hairs, and the hairs 
bear even tinier spatula-shaped boots. The natural force between atoms 
and molecules is enough to stick the spatulas to the surface of most 
anything. And the toes are self-cleaning. As a gecko relaxes a toe and 
begins to step, the dirt slides off and the gecko steps out of it. No 
grooming required.

"When I learned of gecko feet from a biologist friend with an infectious 
sense of wonder, the idea of sticky instantly changed from a gluey 
sensation to a triumph of nature's engineering. The next time I spied a 
gecko climbing up a stucco wall, my brain saw the tidy toes rising, and 
the spatula-tipped hairs clinging, even though my raw eyes couldn't see 
beyond the harlequin slither. Inspired by gecko toes, scientists have 
invented chemical-free dry bio-adhesives and-bandages, and all sorts of 
biodegradable glues and geckolike coatings for home, office, military, 
and sports.

"The nanotechnology world is a wonderland of surfaces unimaginably 
small, full of weird properties, and invisible to the naked eye, where 
we're nonetheless reinventing industry and manufacturing in giddy new 
ways. Nano can be simply, affordably lifesaving during natural 
disasters. The 2012 spate of floods in Thailand inspired scientists to 
whisk silver nanoparticles into a solar-powered water filtration system 
that can be mounted on a small boat to purify water for drinking from 
the turbid river it floats on.

"In the Namibian desert, inspired by water-condensing bumps on the backs 
of local beetles, a new breed of water bottle harvests water from the 
air and refills itself. The bottles will hit the market in 2014, for use 
by both marathon runners and people in third-world countries where fresh 
water may be scarce. South African scientists have created 
water-purifying tea bags. Nano can be as humdrum as the titanium dioxide 
particles that thicken and whiten Betty Crocker frosting and Jell-O 
pudding. It can be creepy: pets genetically engineered with firefly or 
jellyfish protein so that they glow in the dark (fluorescent green cats, 
mice, fish, monkeys, and dogs have already been created). It can be 
omnipresent and practical: the army's newly invented self-cleaning 
clothes. It can be unexpected, as microchips embedded in Indian snake 
charmers' cobras so that they can be identified if they stray into the 
New Delhi crowds. Or it can dazzle and fill us with hope, as in 
medicine, where it promises nano-windfalls. ...

"The futurist Ray Kurzweil predicts that 'by the 2030s we'll be putting 
millions of nanobots inside our bodies to augment our immune system, to 
basically wipe out disease. One scientist cured Type I diabetes in rats 
with a blood-cell-size device already.' "

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The Human Age: The World Shaped By Us
Author: Diane Ackerman
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Copyright 2014 by Diane Ackerman
Pages: 179 - 181

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