nanotechnology

Got cold hands and a really hot wallet? Chaval Outdoor is showing off a pair of $390 heated ski gloves that regulate temperature independently for each finger. Say you're one of those people with a chronically blazing-hot thumb and perpetually shivering pinkie. These luxury gloves are here to tend to your tempermental digits.

Instead of the standard wire-heating technology you'd find in many heated gloves, the Chaval Response-XRT wireless gloves rely on a paper-thin, flexible nanotech polymer film to deliver heat to each individual finger (much like this technology from Aevex). The Seattle-area company calls its system AlphaHeat.

"Think of this like having independent temperature control in each room of your house," Chaval co-founder Mark Boone tells me.… Read more

British scientists have come up with a super-sensitive prototype sensor that lets doctors detect early stage diseases with the naked eye, an innovation that could prove valuable in countries that lack the resources for expensive diagnostic equipment.

The sensor, created at Imperial College London, relies on nanotechnology to analyze serum derived from blood samples.

A positive reaction to p24, a protein that indicates early HIV infection, or PSA, a protein that at certain levels can indicate prostate cancer, generates irregular clumps of nanoparticles that emit a blue color in a solution kept in a disposable container.

A negative reaction, however, … Read more

Glucose levels are 100 times more concentrated in blood than in saliva, which is why in spite of many efforts to use saliva, diabetics are still pricking themselves to get accurate glucose readings.

But now, harnessing the power of nanotechnology, engineers at Brown University say they've designed a biochip that can measure glucose levels in saliva almost as accurately as current devices can measure levels in blood.

To do this, the engineers etched a complicated array of thousands of plasmonic interferometers (no, this is not an episode of Farscape) onto a fingernail-size biochip. This means they were essentially using … Read more

A superhydrophobic spray-on coating set to launch next year could dramatically change our perception of the phrase "water resistant."

NeverWet is a patent-pending silicon-based covering that deflects nearly all liquids and heavy oils by creating a very high contact angle upon application. The angle is much higher than traditional substrates, such as car wax (90 degrees), Teflon (95 degrees), or Rain-X (110 degrees). Liquid literally glides off NeverWet's 160 degree to 175 degree angle in a way that almost seems like computer animation, as seen in the video below.

At first glance, the mind-bending NeverWet comes across as a liquid repellent, but it is much more than that. Surfaces that are sprayed with NeverWet repel ice, corrosion, and even bacteria. The company behind the product, Ross Nanotechnologies, says on its Web site that the material does not fade in strength from blasts of high pressure. In fact, it even states that NeverWet-infused materials "have remained under seawater for over a year and reemerged completely dry." … Read more

Researchers have built a battery that's six times thinner than a bacterium. The microscopic power pack could be used to run all sorts of minuscule electronic devices, including sensors that spy on single cells.

Does this mean we'll start seeing commercials for the Energizer bacterium? At 150 nanometers wide, the nano battery is hundreds of times thinner than a human hair and more than 60,000 times smaller than a AAA battery. How many "A"s is that?

The little battery, developed at Rice University, is actually a cross between a battery and a supercapacitor. Supercapacitors can deliver more power at once than batteries--a bigger jolt. The diminutive battery is made by the thousands in dense arrays. Each battery is a nanowire, with one half of the wire working as a negative electrode and the other half as a positive electrode.… Read more

The little blue pill is getting a high-tech makeover, thanks to Egyptian researchers who used a dose of nanotechnology to address some of Viagra's shortcomings. The result: a transdermal patch for Viagra.

A Viagra patch offers a couple of distinct advantages over the little blue pill: the patch-delivered drug gets into your system faster and more of it is absorbed, making it longer-lasting. This conveniently addresses a pair of common complaints about Viagra: it's not always ready when you are, and it sometimes fades prematurely.

The Alexandria University pharmaceutical researchers overcame hurdles that have previously kept researchers from … Read more

Lytro's Founder and CEO Ren Ng Ph.D. stopped by the BOL studio today to discuss his new product the Lytro Light Field Camera which allows you to focus different depths of field within one photograph. We picked his brain about how the technology works and how it will evolve into the art of photography and beyond. We also discuss the FTC's probe into Google's business practices as well as the upcoming possible overhaul of the United States Patent office rules and regulations. Lulzsec continues to make news and publish the identity of its victims while a rival hacker group calling themselves TeaMp0ison has vowed to out the members of Lulzsec by publishing Lulzsec's identities and personal information in retaliation. All this and more on today's Buzz Out Loud with special guest host from Android Atlas Antuan Goodwin who has a deep fear of Zombies.

At just 1/50,000 the width of an average human hair, nanoparticles are widely used in cosmetics, medicines, and more.

But their emerging use in agriculture has raised questions about health and environmental effects, and a new report by a team of chemists at the University of Texas at El Paso concludes that those questions don't yet have answers.

After reviewing nearly 100 scientific articles on the effects of a variety of nanoparticles on edible plants (including cucumbers, rye, barley, and zucchini), the team found that both uptake and build-up of nanoparticles vary widely depending on plant type … Read more

Every year, an infectious "superbug" known as MRSA kills thousands of Americans who never should have died. But an international group of scientists think they may have found the key to shutting down the lethal bacteria that leads to these deaths and to countless less-serious infections.

According to IBM Research, which worked with the Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology in Singapore on the discovery of the new antibiotic nanoparticles, Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) killed 19,000 Americans in 2005.

This dangerous infectious bacteria is often found in hospitals and other places, like health clubs and schools, where people … Read more