Electrifying the night: supporting solar energy conversion in the dark

The dwindling supply of non-renewable energy sources (I’m looking at you, fossil fuels!) and their impact on the environment have driven the pursuit for more sustainable energy sources. 1 According to the International Energy Agency, global energy demands decreased by 1% in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but this statistic is quickly turning around, …

Lipid Nanoparticles in COVID Vaccines

cartoon of a lipid nanoparticle showing a lipid bilayer ring (hairpin shapes with open ends toward each other) surrounding a DNA helix shape in the center

Now that children from 5 to 11 years old are eligible to receive COVID vaccines, many people are wondering again about exactly how they work. You may have heard that both Moderna and Pfizer make mRNA vaccines (more on that in a minute). But the vaccines would not be effective with mRNA alone. Another significant …

Nanotechnology and the Military

woman wearing gray miltary fatigues sitting in front of a purple door

If you’ve read our blog before, you probably remember that nanotechnology is the study and manipulation of matter at incredibly small sizes. It is used across all scientific fields, including chemistry, biology, physics, materials science and engineering, and it is at the forefront of some incredible discoveries and technological advances. In honor of Veterans Day …

Why is October 9 Nano Day? (And what does it have to do with scientific notation?)

Happy Nano Day, Everyone! Though you might be looking at me weird if you use the dd/mm dating system, tomorrow (10/9 in the U.S.) is the day to celebrate the scale that’s minuter than micro and more prodigious than pico. So what is Nano Day? Nano Day, or National Nanotechnology Day, is a celebration started …

Anxiety can make graduate school feel like an Olympic balance beam

Even if you didn’t watch the Olympics this summer, chances are you heard something about gymnast Simone Biles dropping out of the team and individual all-round competition. I won’t rehash any of the public discussion that occurred, but I am grateful that some athletes are starting the discussion about mental health. It is long overdue …

Protein folding, artificial intelligence, and impacts on sustainable nanotechnology

computer-generated image of ribbon-like protein shapes

Back in 2016 you might have read about a computer called AlphaGo that beat some of the best Go players in the world (I even wrote a blog post about it). At the end of 2020, DeepMind (the same company that developed AlphaGo), made news again. This time, their latest version of an artificial intelligence …