Nanotubes

There’s a New Material That’s So Black You Can’t See It

A team of British researchers has created a record-breaking material, but you might struggle to tell—because it’s so black that you can barely see it. The new material, called Vantablack, is a coating made using carbon nanotubes, which absorbs all but 0.035 percent of visible light. Grown on a sheet of aluminum foil, the coating…

Physics & Chemistry Jamie Condliffe

The First Carbon Nanotube Computer: The Hyper-Efficient Future Is Here

Coming just a year after the creation of the first carbon nanotube computer chip, scientists have just built the very first actual computer with a central processor centered entirely around carbon nanotubes. Which means the future of electronics just got tinier, more efficient, and a whole lot faster. https://gizmodo.com/scientists-are-making-computer-chips-of-the-future-out-5955734 Built by a group of engineers…

Tech News Ashley Feinberg

How Effective Can a Microscopic Nanotube Cupid Really Be?

Banking on the whole notion of it not being the size of the gift that counts, physics students at Brigham Young University’s Nanotechnology Research Group have created what could be the world’s tiniest cupid, made of carbon nanotubes. The impossibly small cherub was made by blasting a pattern of tiny iron seeds with a heated…

Tech News Andrew Liszewski

Muscles Made From Wax-Filled Yarn Are Way Stronger Than Yours

The expansion and contraction of muscles keeps us alive every second of every day. Even though it’s such a basic part of our existance, creating artificial muscles has proven to be a bit more complicated. That is, until now. Scientists have recently found what could be a good solution: yarn full of wax. Developed by…

Tech News Eric Limer

The Miraculous NASA Breakthrough That Could Save Millions of Lives (UPDATED)

There are no hospitals in space. The closest E.R. is back on Earth, and astronauts can’t exactly jump in a cab to get there. So what happens if the sun burps out a massive blast of radiation while an astronaut is space-amblin’ by? The NASA Biocapsule—made of carbon nanotubes—will be able to “diagnose” and instantly…

Health Brent Rose

Scientists have used carbon nanotubes to engineer the most powerful artificial muscles ever

Will the wonders of carbon nanotubes never cease? Engineers have now used everyone’s favorite cylindrical übermolecules to create artificial muscles that can contract and twist, in a manner not unlike like the muscles found in elephant trunks and squid tentacles. The upshot? Researchers say these tiny little motors could soon be used to propel microscopic…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez

Nanotechnology: what is reality and what is magic?

Arthur C. Clarke famously said that “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” I always keep this quote in my mind when reading science fiction and try to spot where things become indistinguishable from magic. They always do. One of the most popular ways in modern sci-fi to get away with magic is to…

io9 Ryan Anderson - Science In My Fiction

Why Did NASA Create a Material Ten Times Blacker than the Blackest Black Paint?

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center scientists have created a new material that is ten times blacker than the blackest black paint in the world. It’s made of carbon nanotubes grown on titanium. Why does NASA need this material? Once it goes through some manufacturing fine-tuning, the new material will be used to coat the guts…

Space & Spaceflight Jesus Diaz

Tiny Solar Cells Can Rebuild Themselves

Minuscule solar cells that can fix themselves using the same building blocks as plant cells have been demonstrated, with our old friend the carbon nanotube one of the key components that holds these self-healing power units together. The photoelectrochemical cells, built from proteins, nanotubes and plant lipids, are clever enough technology to begin with, but…

Tech News Gary Cutlack

Scientists fabricate a paint that destroys deadly MRSA bacteria

MRSA bacteria is a virulent bacteria that breeds in hospitals, killing patients who are recovering from surgery or other ailments. But now we can create MRSA-free hospitals, by painting them with a special substance that kills MRSA without antibiotics. A group of biotech researchers created the paint by knitting together carbon nanotubes with lysostaphin, an…

io9 Annalee Newitz

Printable Nanotube RFID Tags Could Make Wireless Checkout Aisles a Reality

Wireless checkout is many a grocer’s dream. It’s like Amazon’s one-click shopping in the real world, maximizing efficiency for the customer and cutting costs for the supermarket. A new printable RFID tag could make it a reality. RFID checkout is far from being a new idea—it’s already seen small scale implementation in various pockets around…

Tech News Kyle VanHemert

Laser-Powered Carbon Nanotube Speakers

Laser-powered carbon nanotube speakers! They’ll fit in walls and windows, and can noise-cancel ambient rackets. Or blast some music. “Speakers made with carbon nanotube sheets are extremely thin, light and almost transparent,” Kozlov said. “They have no moving parts and can be attached to any surface, which makes the surface acoustically active. They can be…

Tech News Brian Lam

Heat-Channeling Carbon Nanotubes Produce 100 Times More Energy than Li-ion Batteries

Johnny Cash can’t have known about carbon nanotubes when he sang about rings of fire, but MIT scientists have shown how they can create electrical current—about 100 times as much energy per unit of weight as lithium-ion batteries. The new experiments involved nanotubes, or submicroscopic structures just a few billionths of a meter in diameter,…

Tech News Kyle VanHemert

Bacteria Colonies May Be Linked By Nanowires

A bacterium on its own can’t reach very far. And when stacked on the sea floor in a large colony, it may have access to either oxygen (top of the pile) or food (bottom of the pile). So for the entire colony to thrive, the bottom and top layers must be choreographed in chemical reactions…

Tech News Mark Wilson

Buff Buckypaper Makes Steel Sob Into Tub of Ben and Jerry’s

Nanotech wonder Buckypaper is 10 times lighter and 500 times stronger than steel. And while academic research labs have successfully synthesized the stuff for years, the first architectural firm has just made Buckypaper on their own. NY’s Decker Yeardon just revealed their first thin sheet of the stuff—a “paper” made up of carbon nanotubes that,…

Tech News Mark Wilson

Nanotech And Lasers Team Up To Cure Cancer

When nanotech and lasers team up, is there anything they can’t do? Apparently not. New research shows a combined nanotube/laser treatment zaps kidney tumors in 80 percent of mice. Nanotech is teaming up with viruses to kill ovarian tumors, too. Scientists at Wake Forest University injected multi-walled carbon nanotubes into tumors and then heated them…

io9 Charlie Jane Anders

Nano Silver May Be Envionment’s Silver Bullet

The UK’s Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution has recently released a report urging for more study of nano-engineered materials, warning that there is a “major gap” in our knowledge of this technology. We’ve covered the potential dangers of carbon nanotubes here before, but the commission also warns about nano silver, an antibacterial particle that can…

Health Mark Wilson

Nanobama: Barack Obama in Nanotubes

A technique known as nanolithography was used to build these Obama faces, combining 150 million carbon nanotubes to construct each individual half-millimeter visage. Depending on your political leanings, the result is either the cutest wittle powitician ever or proof that science, in the wrong hands, will engineer miniature robotic Democrats who distract with a message…

Tech News Mark Wilson

Nanotube Speaker Film: Transparent, Stretchy, Likes Moldovan Pop

Scientists at Tsinghua University in Beijing have just perfected a process by which nanotubes can be coaxed to emit sound, allowing for the construction of ultra-thin, transparent, flexible ‘speakers’, demonstrated above affixed to a waving flag. Unlike normal speakers, which produce sound with direct vibration, these sheets produce sound with wildly fluctuating temperatures that create…

Tech News John Herrman

Carbon Nanotube Manufacturing Breakthrough Could Mean Bye-Bye Steel

Carbon nanotubes have been popping on Giz for a while, touted as one of the next wonder-materials—but a new development in their manufacture means they may not remain “future technology” for long. In fact the work of a team at CSIRO and the University of Texas at Dallas means that commercial-scale production of sheets of…

Physics & Chemistry Kit Eaton

Nanotubes

There’s a New Material That’s So Black You Can’t See It

The First Carbon Nanotube Computer: The Hyper-Efficient Future Is Here

How Effective Can a Microscopic Nanotube Cupid Really Be?

Muscles Made From Wax-Filled Yarn Are Way Stronger Than Yours

The Miraculous NASA Breakthrough That Could Save Millions of Lives (UPDATED)

Scientists have used carbon nanotubes to engineer the most powerful artificial muscles ever

Nanotechnology: what is reality and what is magic?

Why Did NASA Create a Material Ten Times Blacker than the Blackest Black Paint?

Tiny Solar Cells Can Rebuild Themselves

Scientists fabricate a paint that destroys deadly MRSA bacteria

Printable Nanotube RFID Tags Could Make Wireless Checkout Aisles a Reality

Laser-Powered Carbon Nanotube Speakers

Heat-Channeling Carbon Nanotubes Produce 100 Times More Energy than Li-ion Batteries

Bacteria Colonies May Be Linked By Nanowires

Buff Buckypaper Makes Steel Sob Into Tub of Ben and Jerry’s

Nanotech And Lasers Team Up To Cure Cancer

Nano Silver May Be Envionment’s Silver Bullet

Nanobama: Barack Obama in Nanotubes

Nanotube Speaker Film: Transparent, Stretchy, Likes Moldovan Pop

Carbon Nanotube Manufacturing Breakthrough Could Mean Bye-Bye Steel

Roku’s 2025 Streaming Stick HD Is 40% Off to Compete With Amazon Fire TV Stick During Spring Sale

Epstein Victims Sue Google, Claim AI Mode Exposed Personal Information

‘Wicked Spot’ Is a Fun, Sapphic Rom-Com That Yeets a Witch Into the Magical World of Influencer Culture

Anthropic and OpenAI Just Gave Us a Glimpse Into the Future of Model Pricing

Amazon Slashes 63% Off Acer Aspire Desktop for a Limited-Time Spring Sale, With Keyboard and Mouse Included

Smart Glasses Now Have One of the Vision Pro’s Best Features

Marvel Just Put ‘Daredevil: Born Again’ Season 2 in a Very Weird Place in the MCU Timeline

Trump Drops $1B to Kill 2 Wind Farms, Then Watches a Bigger One Go Online

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The Ikea Varmblixt Smart Lamp Fills a Donut Hole in My Life

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Asus ROG’s Cetra Open Wireless Gaming Earbuds Might Be Better Than Wearing a Headset

Nintendo’s Talking Flower Is Annoying as Hell. I Love It

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