Graphene Oxide: A new tool in the war against bacteria

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Animals evolve strong defenses against predators. Predators evolve to better kill and catch their prey. Plants evolve defenses against insects. Insects evolve defenses against plants. We evolve defenses against bacteria. Bacteria evolve strategies against us. And they are better at it than we are. These rapidly reproducing organisms adapt to pharmaceuticals almost as fast as …

Keeping Our Food Safe – Nanomaterial Style

From reading this blog, you may know that nanomaterials are becoming more and more prevalent in the products that we use on a regular basis. What you may not realize is that nanomaterials are also becoming a growing part of our food packaging.  In this post, I'm going to explore a few ways in which nanomaterials …

The Cautionary Tale of DDT – Biomagnification, Bioaccumulation, and Research Motivation

We perform many different kinds of experiments in the Center for Sustainable Nanotechnology—some that you might expect (like making new kinds of nanoparticles), and some that you might not (like feeding nanoparticles to tiny organisms such as bacteria and water fleas).  The second kind of experiment may seem a little strange to you: why is …

Teamwork Wins! Why Science Is Not an Individual Sport.

When you think about a scientist, what picture pops into your head? I’ll bet you’re picturing a lone scientist with wild hair, toiling away on some world-changing problem in lab. You know the one - that classic, crazy picture of the scientist. The truth is, when you’re a scientist one of the best parts of …