Swiss Army Knife of Science – Collaborations & Research Instrumentation

This blog post comes at a time when our center is probing the nano-bio interface (see prior blog entries below) with one of the largest collection of scientific research instrumentation to which I have ever had access. The Center for Sustainable Nanotechnology has researchers at 5 universities across the Midwest as well as the Pacific …

How the 2013 Government Shutdown Forced a Retreat from the Frontier of Science

Federal science funding is at the heart of the American enterprise. Sustained science funding was first established as the core of US science policy in July 1945, when Vannevar Bush, Science advisor to President Roosevelt, wrote “Science the Endless Frontier”. That laid the foundations for government agencies like the National Science Foundation and the National …

“How do Lasers Work?” or “Not your father’s lightsaber”

When Luke Skywalker receives his father’s lightsaber from Obi Wan in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, he learns that it is “not as random or clumsy as a blaster; an elegant weapon for a more civilized age.” Here at our Center for Sustainable Nanotechnology, we don’t work with weapons, no matter how sophisticated …