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?"
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 …
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"
Designing non-toxic nanomaterials requires that we understand how those nanomaterials interact with biological systems. Systems such as you me, and all other organisms, contain a ābiological soupā of chemical compounds, known as biomolecules. So the question becomesā¦how do nanomaterials transform once they come into contact with these biomolecules? This question has become increasingly important, especially …
Continue reading "How I Study Nanoparticlesā Interactions with Biological Soup"
Recent discoveries continue to highlight the many uses of that wonderful kingdom of life, fungus.Ā Penicillin, a group of antibiotics that changed medicine forever, is derived from the Penicillium fungi (taken from a moldy cantaloupe in an Illinois market). These antibiotics have saved countless lives since WWII and are still in use today. Yeast, perhaps …
Continue reading "Fungus Amongus ā the Nanoparticle Producers"
Not too long ago, a team of frustrated scientists glanced up from their computer screens and saw the untapped potential beyond their lab doors. They had spent years trying to unravel the mysteries of protein folding, but some just couldnāt seem to be solved. Why not harness the brainpower of the public? The biochemists disguised …
Continue reading "Citizen nanoscientists: Can you design nanomaterials from the couch?"
To me, one of the most interesting aspects of nanotechnology is how close in size theĀ nanoparticles we can make are to the nano-sized components of living organisms. These nano sized proteins, lipids and nucleic acids have evolved to form the network of biological machines to support the abundance of life on this planet. Just as …
Continue reading "Nature’s Nanomachines Harnessed to Enable Healthier Delicious Ice Cream"
Sustainable Nano 