a blog by the NSF Center for Sustainable Nanotechnology
You could say that baking runs in my family: the inventor of angel food cake was a distant cousin, the big question at family gatherings when I was a kid was whether my grandfather made a cheesecake, and holidays are always full of homemade cookies, quick breads, and pies. One of my favorite food traditions …
Continue reading "What can frosting teach us about cell membranes?"
You walk past a body products store on a weekend shopping trip and are immediately overtaken by fragrance, your nose saturated with floral, sugary and tropical scents. Intrigued by the promise of a candle sale, you venture in, perusing the soaps, mists, and candles. About ten free samples later, you find some products labeled āaromatherapyā …
Continue reading "Combining the Old With the New: using nanotechnology to enhance ancient medicines"
Remember all those great Black Friday deals on QLED televisions? You may not realize it, but they were all about nanotechnology! The Q in QLED stands for quantum dots, which are not only being used to enhance the displays of TVs, but also are used in solar cells, medical imaging, and sensing.1-3 However, the disposal …
Continue reading "Quantum Dots and Lipid Rafts: Analytical Chemistry Solves a Nanoscale Mystery"
The coming of spring, like New Years Day, leads many of us to ruminate over what we did and did not accomplish in the past year and to set readily achievable and truly ambitious goals for the next. But what if you wanted to make resolutions about what you wanted to do 10 or 25 …
Continue reading "2016: The Start of a Newā¦ Decade? Part 1"
I recently had an article published in the journal Environmental Science: Nano along with seven co-authors from the Center for Sustainable Nanotechnology. The title is āFormation of supported lipid bilayers containing phase-segregated domains and their interaction with gold nanoparticles.ā1 At first glance that title may be confusing, but I promise it will all make sense …
Think about the last time you cooked meat, wiped down a countertop with Lysol, or used hand sanitizer. You already know that these actions will help to kill bacteria that might make you sick, but wouldnāt it be nice if you could easily tell whether your efforts had been effectiveāthat is, how many of the …
Continue reading "How Can You Tell if Bacteria are Alive or Dead?"
Sustainable Nano 