a blog by the NSF Center for Sustainable Nanotechnology
co-written by Claire Alford People love to categorize themselves by personality type, whether it’s describing what kind of baked potato we are, or which character we have most in common with from Stranger Things. But have you ever wondered what kind of nanoparticle you would be? We thought it would be fun to create a …
Continue reading "What Nanoparticle Are You? Take Our Quiz to Find Out!"
When you hear the term “plastic pollution,” what do you think of? If you’re like me, you might picture a pile of garbage on a beach, or microplastic beads inside a fish. Most of us are aware that plastic pollution can be found everywhere. But you might be surprised to learn that "everywhere" in this …
Continue reading "Accidental nanoparticles in the environment: the nanoplastic pollution problem"
Spring is here! We’re very excited for the weather to warm up and for our flowers to bloom (we’ve got several planters of tulips and hyacinths on their way!). We’ve also got a gardenia that we love and are trying to help survive in Wisconsin. Folly? Probably. What we’re not so excited for, however, are …
Continue reading "Nano in the Environment: Allergens"
With winter and our first snowfall right around the corner where I live in Wisconsin, I am really looking forward to playing in the snow! One of my favorite activities is to throw snowballs up in the air while on a walk with my dog, Ginny. She jumps to catch the snowball on its way …
Continue reading "Snowballs and… Nanoparticles?"
Lee the nanoparticle (art by Elfy Chiang) This post was originally published on the Lifeology blog on March 25th, 2021. Here at Lifeology, we’ve recently been honored to collaborate with The NSF Center for Sustainable Nanotechnology (CSN)! Together we’ve now created two Lifeology “flashcard” courses about how nanotechnology can be applied responsibly to solve real-world problems like …
How do you photograph the unphotographable? In this podcast episode we interview MIT research scientist Felice Frankel, who specializes in visualizing science, using pictures to draw audiences in and help scientists more deeply examine their own work, including nanoscale materials that are smaller than wavelengths of light! We also have a mini-interview with graduate student …
Continue reading "Podcast Ep 35. Photographing the Unphotographable"
A brief introduction of nanoparticle applications in agriculture from the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station There are currently about 7.67 billion people on Earth, and by 2050 the population is expected to increase to nearly 9.8 billion.1 That is a lot of people who all need to eat. According to the Food and Agricultural Organization of the …
Continue reading "Nanotechnology and Modern Agriculture"
Guess what? Your skin is the biggest organ in your body, with an area of 2m2 (pretty much the size of a beach towel)! Skin plays an important role in the protection of your muscles, bones, and organs, and acts as a physical barrier against pathogens. It also regulates your temperature, and when exposed to the …
Continue reading "Nanotechnology for Younger & Healthier Skin?"
The size of the materials in nanotechnology is one of the most important factors that power and define the properties of the nanomaterials. But there are many different techniques for measuring that size, and depending on the measurement methods, the results may vary! It doesn’t mean the actual lengths or diameters of the materials change: …
Continue reading "How do we measure the size of nanoparticles in a solution?"
In a previous post, Can gold melt at room temperature? Melting temperature depression!, we talked about how the color of gold changes from shiny yellow to dark red when it is shrunk down to the nanoscale. We know that lots of materials have interesting properties when they get that small, but why do gold nanoparticles have …
Continue reading "What gives gold nanoparticles their color?"
Sustainable Nano 