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The sensors use activation of immune cells by highly specific antigens - signatures of bacteria, viruses or cancer cells - as the detector. When T cells are activated, they produce acid, and generate a tiny current in the nanowire electronics, signaling the presence of a specific antigen. The system can detect as few as 200 activated cells.
In earlier studies, these researchers demonstrated that the nanowires could detect generalized activation of this small number of T cells. The new report expands that work and shows the nanowires can identify activation from a single specific antigen even when there is substantial background "noise" from a general immune stimulation of other cells.
Describing the sensitivity of the system, senior author Tarek Fahmy, Yale assistant professor of biomedical engineering, said:. "Imagine I am the detector in a room where thousands of unrelated people are talking - and I whisper, 'Who knows me?' I am so sensitive that I can hear even a few people saying, 'I do' above the crowd noise. In the past, we could detect everyone talking - now we can hear the few above the many."
According to the authors, this level of sensitivity and specificity is unprecedented in a system that uses no dyes or radioactivity. Beyond its sensitivity, they say, the beauty of this detection system is in its speed - producing results in seconds - and its compatibility with existing CMOS electronics.
"We simply took direction from Mother Nature and used the exquisitely sensitive and flexible detection of the immune system as the detector, and a basic physiological response of immune cells as the reporter," said postdoctoral fellow and lead author, Eric Stern. "We coupled that with existing CMOS electronics to make it easily usable."
The authors see a huge potential for the system in POC diagnostic centers in the US and in underdeveloped countries where healthcare facilities and clinics are lacking. He says it could be as simple as an iPod-like device with changeable cards to detect or diagnose disease. Importantly, Stern notes that the system produces no false positives - a necessity for POC testing.
The authors suggest that in a clinic, assays could immediately determine which strain of flu a patient has, whether or not there is an HIV infection, or what strain of tuberculosis or coli bacteria is present. Currently, there are no electronic POC diagnostic devices available for disease detection. "Instruments this sensitive could also play a role in detection of residual disease after antiviral treatments or chemotherapy," said Fahmy. "They will help with one of the greatest challenges we face in treatment of disease - knowing if we got rid of all of it."
Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by Yale University

Santa Barbara, Calif. – The Center for Nanotechnology in Society at the University of California at Santa Barbara (CNS-UCSB) helped to win the new University of California Center for the Environmental Implications of Nanotechnology (UC CEIN), a five-year, $24 million center co-funded by the National Science Foundation and the Environmental Protection Agency to study the environmental impacts of nanotechnology. The new center, headquartered at UCLA but involving significant collaboration from UC Santa Barbara researchers, will include a research group on environmental risk perception led by Dr. Barbara Herr Harthorn, Director of the CNS-UCSB and Associate Professor of Feminist Studies, Anthropology & Sociology. CNS-UCSB also will collaborate in the UC CEIN’s novel science journalist program, led by Professor William Freudenburg, a professor in UCSB’s Environmental Studies Program and a member of Harthorn’s team. UC CEIN also includes other researchers in the Bren School of Environmental Science and Management, Environmental Studies, Chemistry, and Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology.
“The new centers represent a promising step toward US development of much needed systematic knowledge about the environmental toxicology, ecology, and bioaccumulation of nanoparticles,” said Harthorn. “Characterization of the hazards (and eventually, potential for exposures) associated with nanomaterial development and incorporation in other products is an essential next step in the responsible development of nanotechnologies. CNS-UCSB researchers involved in the UC CEIN and our new collaborators look forward to assessing public perceptions of nanoparticle environmental hazards, and conducting systematic comparative analyses of risk and risk communication, as we work with UC CEIN toxicologists and ecologists to develop empirically based risk communication.”
UC CEIN will be led by UCLA’s chief of nanomedicine, Dr. Andre Nel. It was founded due to growing public, industry, and regulatory agencies’ interest in better understanding the environmental impacts of nanoparticles. Combining interests in understanding nanoparticles’ effects in the environment, NSF and EPA sought out teams of university researchers to conduct such studies in a competition that was run over 2007 and 2008. The presence of CNS-UCSB and its experience as an NSF Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center dedicated to research on the societal impacts of nanotechnologies contributed to the success of the UC CEIN in securing its $24 million award.
Four of the seven Integrated Research Groups (IRGs) in the UC CEIN are based at UC Santa Barbara. Harthorn’s IRG, which builds on her research team’s effort in the CNS-UCSB, also includes UCSB Environmental Studies professor William Freudenburg, University of British Columbia (UBC) environmental risk researchers Terre Satterfield and Milind Kandlikar, and Cardiff University’s social psychologist Nick Pidgeon. In addition to Harthorn’s IRG, the other 3 at UCSB will be led by Arturo Keller, professor of environmental engineering in the Bren School of Environmental Science & Management and UC CEIN associate director; Bren professor of microbiology, Patricia Holden; and Bren associate professor of applied marine ecology, Hunter Lenihan. Other researchers include Environmental Studies professor and chair, Josh Schimel; professor and vice chair in the Department of Ecology, Roger Nisbet; EEMB assistant professor, Bradley Cardinale; and Galen Stucky, professor, Chemistry and Material Research Labs. The UC CEIN collaboration will also include researchers at UC Davis, UC Riverside, Lawrence Livermore and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories, Columbia University, Germany's University of Bremen, and Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. Funding for the center is part of the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI), a multi-agency federal program created to encourage development of nanotechnology in the U.S. economy.
Science Background
“Nanoscience involves research to discover new behaviors and properties of materials with dimensions at the nanoscale which ranges roughly from 1 to 100 nanometers(nm),” states the National Nanotechnology Initiative Web site. One nanometer is one billionth of a meter. “Nanotechnology is the way discoveries made at the nanoscale are put to work. Nanotechnology is more than throwing together a batch of nanoscale materials—it requires the ability to manipulate and control those materials in a useful way.”
About CNS-UCSB
The NSF Center for Nanotechnology in Society at UCSB serves as a national research and education center, a network hub among researchers and educators concerned with societal issues concerning nanotechnologies, and a resource base for studying these issues in the US and abroad. The Center addresses education for a new generation of social science and nanoscience professionals, and it conducts research on the historical context of the nano-enterprise, on innovation processes and global diffusion of nanotech, and on risk perception and the public sphere. CNS-UCSB researchers address a linked set of social and environmental issues regarding the domestic US and global creation, development, commercialization, production, consumption, and control of specific kinds of nanoscale technologies. It is one of only two such centers in the country (the other is housed at Arizona State University). The CNS research efforts are led by Dr. Harthorn and her UCSB Co-PIs, Professors Rich Appelbaum, Bruce Bimber, W. Patrick McCray, and Chris Newfield.

Alongside renewable energy, green tech is tipped to become employment sector number one in the next decades if you believe reports by major organizations covering green jobs. But my hunch is to keep a check of nano technology as well. Because green technology's tendency to thrive on clever solutions to reduce energy usage is all great but it boils down to a rather finite activity. Humans will look for the next challenge and switch their attention to those found in truly greening production of tangible materials. That’s in essence the domain of nanotechnology.
Numbers of the National Science Foundation estimate that by 2015 nanotechnology will be worth $1 trillion in the world economy, employing over 2 million people .
That compares to UN figures indicating that the global green economy of environmental products and services is estimated to double from US$1,370 billion (1.37 trillion) per year to US$2,740 billion (2.74 trillion) by 2020. The comparison makes little sense, I know, but hey, these are figures that are seldomly released so bear with me.
For the time being there has been little reason to be all to obsessed with nanotechnology in a green context. That is because nano-engineered products are both intensely distrusted and overly hyped. We seem to be aware of the technology's potential in a positive sense yet there’s also a tremendous amount of skepticism because toxic substances are often created in the process that ordinary technology can’t handle.
But then again, those few nano-products that actually are green at the core are incredibly laudable. One example is the production of environmentally friendly gold particles, a recent development that the manufacturing marketplace is already wildly enthusiastic about. GreenNano, the new nanotech company that started commercializing eco-friendly gold nano-particles is receiving lots of press attention. The man who heads it all up, Kattesh Katti, is the renowned professor of radiology and physics attached to the University of Missouri's School of Medicine and College of Arts and Science.
Gold nano-particles are used in industrial applications ranging from cancer treatment to automobile sensors to cell phones and hydrogen gas production. The (patent pending) method Katti has invented eliminates synthetic chemicals involved in the production of gold nano-particles. That means that the production process is entirely environmentally friendly.
GreenNano submerses gold salts in water and then adds soybeans. A complex but wholly natural process leads to the creation of gold nano-particles. Sounds almost too good to be true, but more curious things have known to have occurred in the nano-business (including the growth of cell phones on plants).
GreenNano Company is in the midst of developing, commercializing and organizing the supply of gold nano particles for medical and technological applications. In my view the most exciting thing is that the creation, marketing and distribution of the new product is not where the story ends. According to Professor Katti, because the production procedure has changed so profoundly, other researchers are developing new uses for the technology.
In other words, we’re evolving!

Biotechnologists frequently use microorganisms or biological substances to perform specific processes or for manufacturing. Examples include the production of drugs, hormones, foods and converting waste products.
There are many sub-branches involved in the biotech industry. A few of the more common branches include; molecular biology, genetic engineering, and cell biology.
A new and exciting sub-branch requiring biotechnologists is the field of nanotechnology. Nanotechnology gives us the capability to engineer the tiniest of objects, things at the molecular level. Nano means a billionth of a specific unit in Greek. Nanotechnology includes the study and manipulation of materials between 1 and 100 nanometers.
To give you an idea, DNA is approximately 2.5 nanometers. Red blood cells are 2.5 micrometers (1,000 times larger). And a sheet of paper is about 100,000 nanometers thick!
As you can imagine, it is very difficult to scale and mass produce objects within the realm of nanotechnology. Their minute size makes them nearly impossible to manipulate. But scientists and engineers have teamed up to make the seemingly impossible a reality.
Which means those with the proper training will be highly sought after in the future. The National Science Foundation estimates that the U.S. alone will need up to 1 million nanotechnology researchers. It is estimated that the need for nanotechnology workers will reach 2 million by 2015.
Therefore, if you?re considering getting into the field of biotech, you may want to gear your background in nanotechnology if your school offers it or seek employment in this exciting new career field after graduating.
No matter what sub-branch you wind up specializing in, biotechnologists often collaborate with others in the laboratory and bounce ideas off one another. This can create a pleasant work environment; one that involves sharing with others and working together to achieve a great goal.
About the Author: To learn more about a career in the biotech industry, please visit Biotech Career News biotechcareernews.com/

Albany, NY - Amid the growing number of nanotechnology-related career opportunities in the Capital Region and New York State, more than 300 elementary, middle- and high-school students got an inside look at the high-tech workplace of the future when they participated in NanoCareer Day held today at the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering ("CNSE") of the University at Albany.
Students had the unique opportunity to put on cleanroom "bunny suits," conduct experiments to learn the basics of solar cells and fuel cells, and to tour the UAlbany NanoCollege's $4.5 billion, world-class Albany NanoTech Complex, the most advanced research and development enterprise on a university campus anywhere in the world.
Created to lead the effort to begin preparing students for careers in New York's fast-growing nanotechnology industry - while also addressing the national need to stimulate an interest in math and science among America's younger generation - NanoCareer Day gives students unprecedented access to CNSE, ranked in May 2007 by Small Times magazine as the world's number one college for nanotechnology and microtechnology.
"Pioneering programs like NanoCareer Day have taken on increasing importance amid the rapid growth of New York's nanotechnology economy, spurred by the extraordinary leadership, vision and investment of Governor Paterson and Assembly Speaker Silver and led by the globally recognized UAlbany NanoCollege," said Dr. Alain E. Kaloyeros, Senior Vice President and Chief Executive Officer of CNSE. "NanoCareer Day begins the process of educating students about nanotechnology, helping to build a future workforce that is critical to advancing New York's growing nanotechnology sector and vital to strengthening U.S. competitiveness in an increasingly global marketplace."
The National Science Foundation projects the need for two million nanotechnology-savvy workers by 2014, with 20 percent expected to be scientists and the remaining 80 percent consisting of highly skilled engineers, technicians, business leaders, economists and others, with expertise ranging from two-year associate degrees to doctoral degrees.
Participating schools, and their counties, included: Ballston Spa High School (Saratoga); Doane Stuart School (Albany); Cohoes Middle School (Albany); Lynch Literacy Academy (Montgomery); Germantown High School (Columbia); New Scotland Elementary School, Albany City School District (Albany); Schenectady High School (Schenectady); Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake High School (Saratoga/Schenectady); and, Broadalbin-Perth High School (Fulton).
About CNSE. The UAlbany CNSE is the first college in the world dedicated to research, development, education, and deployment in the emerging disciplines of nanoscience, nanoengineering, nanobioscience, and nanoeconomics. In May 2007, it was ranked as the world's number one college for nanotechnology and microtechnology in the Annual College Ranking by Small Times magazine. CNSE's Albany NanoTech complex is the most advanced research enterprise of its kind at any university in the world: a $4.5 billion, 450,000-square-foot complex that attracts corporate partners from around the world and offers students a one-of-a-kind academic experience. The UAlbany NanoCollege houses the only fully-integrated, 300mm wafer, computer chip pilot prototyping and demonstration line within 65,000 square feet of Class 1 capable cleanrooms. More than 2,000 scientists, researchers, engineers, students, and faculty work on site at CNSE's Albany NanoTech complex, from companies including IBM, AMD, SEMATECH, Toshiba, ASML, Applied Materials, Tokyo Electron, Vistec Lithography and Freescale. An expansion currently underway will increase the size of CNSE's Albany NanoTech complex to over 800,000 square feet, including over 80,000 square feet of Class 1 capable cleanroom space, to house over 2,500 scientists, researchers, engineers, students, and faculty by mid-2009. For more information, visit cnse.albany.edu/.
CNSE Contact: Steve Janack, CNSE Vice President for Marketing and Communications (phone) 518-956-7322 (cell) 518-312-5009 (e-mail) sjanack@uamail.albany.edu

A couple of weeks ago I took part in a dialogue meeting in Brussels organised by the CIAA, the Confederation of the Food and Drink Industries of the EU, about nanotechnology in food. The meeting involved representatives from big food companies, from the European Commission and agencies like the European Food Safety Association, together with consumer groups like BEUC, and the campaigning group Friends of the Earth Europe. The latter group recently released a report on food nanotechnology - Out of the laboratory and on to our plates: Nanotechnology in food and agriculture; according to the press release, this “reveals that despite concerns about the toxicity risks of nanomaterials, consumers are unknowingly ingesting them because regulators are struggling to keep pace with their rapidly expanding use.” The position of the CIAA is essentially that nanotechnology is an interesting technology currently in research rather than having yet made it into products. One can get a good idea of the research agenda of the European food industry from the European Technology Platform Food for Life. As the only academic present, I tried in my contribution to clarify a little the different things people mean by “food nanotechnology”. Here, more or less, is what I said.
What makes the subject of nanotechnology particularly confusing and contentious is the ambiguity of the definition of nanotechnology when applied to food systems. Most people’s definitions are something along the lines of “the purposeful creation of structures with length scales of 100 nm or less to achieve new effects by virtue of those length-scales”. But when one attempts to apply this definition in practise one runs into difficulties, particularly for food. It’s this ambiguity that lies behind the difference of opinion we’ve heard about already today about how widespread the use of nanotechnology in foods is already. On the one hand, Friends of the Earth says they know of 104 nanofood products on the market already (and some analysts suggest the number may be more than 600). On the other hand, the CIAA (the Confederation of Food and Drink Industries of the EU) maintains that, while active research in the area is going on, no actual nanofood products are yet on the market. In fact, both parties are, in their different ways, right; the problem is the ambiguity of definition.
The issue is that food is naturally nano-structured, so that too wide a definition ends up encompassing much of modern food science, and indeed, if you stretch it further, some aspects of traditional food processing. Consider the case of “nano-ice cream”: the FoE report states that “Nestlé and Unilever are reported to be developing a nano- emulsion based ice cream with a lower fat content that retains a fatty texture and flavour”. Without knowing the details of this research, what one can be sure of is that it will involve essentially conventional food processing technology in order to control fat globule structure and size on the nanoscale. If the processing technology is conventional (and the economics of the food industry dictates that it must be), what makes this nanotechnology, if anything does, is the fact that analytical tools are available to observe the nanoscale structural changes that lead to the desirable properties. What makes this nanotechnology, then, is simply knowledge. In the light of the new knowledge that new techniques give us, we could even argue that some traditional processes, which it now turns out involve manipulation of the structure on the nanoscale to achieve some desirable effects, would constitute nanotechnology if it was defined this widely. For example, traditional whey cheeses like ricotta are made by creating the conditions for the whey proteins to aggregate into protein nanoparticles. These subsequently aggregate to form the particulate gels that give the cheese its desirable texture.
It should be clear, then, that there isn’t a single thing one can call “nanotechnology” – there are many different technologies, producing many different kinds of nano-materials. These different types of nanomaterials have quite different risk profiles. Consider cadmium selenide quantum dots, titanium dioxide nanoparticles, sheets of exfoliated clay, fullerenes like C60, casein micelles, phospholipid nanosomes – the risks and uncertainties of each of these examples of nanomaterials are quite different and it’s likely to be very misleading to generalise from any one of these to a wider class of nanomaterials.
To begin to make sense of the different types of nanomaterial that might be present in food, there is one very useful distinction. This is between engineered nanoparticles and self-assembled nanostructures. Engineered nanoparticles are covalently bonded, and thus are persistent and generally rather robust, though they may have important surface properties such as catalysis, and they may be prone to aggregate. Examples of engineered nanoparticles include titanium dioxide nanoparticles and fullerenes.
In self-assembled nanostructures, though, molecules are held together by weak forces, such as hydrogen bonds and the hydrophobic interaction. The weakness of these forces renders them mutable and transient; examples include soap micelles, protein aggregates (for example the casein micelles formed in milk), liposomes and nanosomes and the microcapsules and nanocapsules made from biopolymers such as starch.
So what kind of food nanotechnology can we expect? Here are some potentially important areas:
• Food science at the nanoscale. This is about using a combination of fairly conventional food processing techniques supported by the use of nanoscale analytical techniques to achieve desirable properties. A major driver here will be the use of sophisticated food structuring to achieve palatable products with low fat contents. • Encapsulating ingredients and additives. The encapsulation of flavours and aromas at the microscale to protect delicate molecules and enable their triggered or otherwise controlled release is already widespread, and it is possible that decreasing the lengthscale of these systems to the nanoscale might be advantageous in some cases. We are also likely to see a range of “nutriceutical” molecules come into more general use. • Water dispersible preparations of fat-soluble ingredients. Many food ingredients are fat-soluble; as a way of incorporating these in food and drink without fat manufacturers have developed stable colloidal dispersions of these materials in water, with particle sizes in the range of hundreds of nanometers. For example, the substance lycopene, which is familiar as the molecule that makes tomatoes red and which is believed to offer substantial health benefits, is marketed in this form by the German company BASF.
What is important in this discussion is clarity – definitions are important. We’ve seen discrepancies between estimates of how widespread food nanotechnology is in the marketplace now, and these discrepancies lead to unnecessary misunderstanding and distrust. Clarity about what we are talking about, and a recognition of the diversity of technologies we are talking about, can help remove this misunderstanding and give us a sound basis for the sort of dialogue we’re participating in today.

UAlbany now hosts a career fair four times a year so students can figure out what high tech is all about.
UAlbany Assistant Professor Kathy Dunn said, "They drive by on the street and they can see that we have this big ship building or these beautiful glass buildings, but they don't know what goes on here. And so, to be able to come inside, I mean, I think that's a huge advantage to us."
The National Science Foundation estimates that by the year 2014, there will be a need for over two million nanotech jobs, and UAlbany is hoping to keep a lot of them here.
Dunn said, "We want to keep them here in New York State. This is a great place to be, and it's great that New York State is investing in this."
Though initially kids in middle school are interested in the field, by the time junior high rolls around, the clean room loses some of its appeal.
Dunn said, "We need to get them interested and to get over that barrier of what they think their peers are going to think about what they do and get them really involved in it. We're losing a lot of great minds by just not getting them hooked at an early enough age."
So to keep the kids interested, they break it down to a level that they can understand - like how does nanotechnology play a role in your video games, your iPod, or even your cell phone?
Dunn said, "Real examples like that where you can say something they know in their everyday life - a flu virus, a human hair, any of those things."
And by giving the kids an all-access view of what it all looks like, it seems to be working.
"This is an awesome place," said Hasson, "and I'm glad to be here."
With AMD bringing in an estimated 1,400 jobs in the year 2012, he just might still be.

I recently perused a thick report published by a Japanese marketing research company addressing recent progress with nanotechnology. More than a thousand companies, universities and research organizations dedicate resources toward business applications or R&D activities for nanotechnologies. There are many questionable projects relating to this subject, and I scratched my head and wondered what the phrase "nanotechnology" truly encompasses.
Well, let's break it down. The original designation for "nano" was meant as a prefix to indicate the number of powers used for metric units. Other prefixes are listed below:
* Milli: one thousandth * Micro: one millionth * Nano: one billionth * Pico: one trillionth * Kilo: thousand times * Mega: million times * Giga: billion times * Tera: trillion times.
Most of these prefixes can be attached to units of length or weight as kilograms, milliliters and micrometers. Storage devices in computer desktops and notebooks increased significantly, and a common term to reference their size is giga bytes. As hard drives continue to increase storage capacities, we will probably be measuring them in "tera bytes" soon. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has an even larger word bank of prefixes to measure even smaller or larger items; however, there are limited chances to use them in the real world, and most are reserved for astronomy or particle physics.
Most assume when an industry uses the phrase "nanotechnology," it is referring to a unit of measure (length), specifically a nanometer. While the dictionary does include nanotechnology, the scale for it has no formal definition; however, from an academic standpoint, its meaning is accepted as smaller than 100 nanometers. Generally, we name the range of 100 nanometers to 1,000 nanometers (one micrometer) "submicron," and do not designate them as nanotechnologies.
Nowadays, the line width of wiring in semiconductor devices decreased to 30 nanometers, and can certainly be considered nanotechnology. However, we do not call the traditional sputtering process and the electroless plating process nanotechnologies even though they generate layers thinner than 100 nanometers. Most plastic resins have a molecule size within the 1 and 100 nanometers range, but are not considered nanotechnologies.
All of the projects listed in the report I mentioned earlier have the tag line "nanotechnologies" associated with them, but many have no direct relationship. A senior research manager from a large chemical company explained to me that any new project needs a chic, swank or trendy name to secure a larger budget and reserve more staffing; "nanotechnologies" fits that bill. This overused phrase is thrown around as a way to procure new projects or business for some companies. Unfortunately, continuous employment seems to be the agenda for researchers and professors at large organizations. Most companies save face by declaring they are contributing to the pursuit of discovering new technologies.
I don't think our printed circuit industry needs to address "nanotechnologies" for a while. The majority within the industry is still considering double digit micrometers, and, recently, some leading manufacturers have hinted at single digit micrometers for the finest trace. It may take a few more years before we start to reach submicron range.
Dominique K. Numakura
DKN Research, dknresearch.com

For decades, the remarkable ability of the Gecko lizard to climb effortlessly across any vertical surface (or even upside-down), no matter how smooth (or rough), has both baffled and intrigued scientists. If only humans could harness such adhesive powers, could there finally be an alternative to duct tape and superglue?
Believe it or not, scientists have finally achieved success in this area after several failed attempts.
How Does a Gecko Stick?
By microscopically analyzing the feet of geckos, scientists have come to understand that this lizard's remarkable abilities comes from an unlikely source - tiny (microscopically tiny, in fact) elastic hairs (from 3 to 130 nanometers in length) which split at the ends into even tinier "hooks." Because these hairs are so small, they behave in a manner not dissimilar to Velcro, but on a microscopic level, which allows them to stick to even the smoothest, slickest of surfaces.
It is as a result of these hairs that geckos have the remarkable ability to hang upside from the adhesion of just a single one of their toes!
The Answer: Carbon Nanotubes
Recent advances in nanotechnology (the manipulation of microscopic entities and the creation of structures and materials using nano particles) have allowed a new possibility in this regard. In particular, the answer which has been found by scientists lies in a particular type of nanosctructure called a "carbon nanotube."
The name of this structure is really rather self-explanatory - a carbon nanotube is merely a tube made up of carbon atoms. Carbon has proven itself to be perhaps the most resilient and simple atom to use in nanotechnology because its electron structure is uniquely designed to allow ready and strong bonding with other carbon atoms, which can be used to create large, complex, and useful carbons structures... like tubes.
These nanotubes have now been manipulated in such a way that they essentially mimic the peculiar features of gecko feet, extending microscopically from a surface and then curving into a microscopic "hook."
Using these carbon tubes - which by themselves are considerably stronger than the hairs on gecko feet - scientists have created a dry adhesive (that is, a non-chemical adhesive, like Velcro) which is actually superior to the foot of the gecko, while retaining the features which make it unique: high shear adhesion and low normal adhesion.
Tough as Nails, Easy to Remove
There is an important difference between these two types of adhesion when discussing sticky stuff. One of the qualities which clearly makes gecko feet unique is that while they are clearly very sticky and work incredibly well at keeping the creature stuck to any surface, they also somehow allow the animal to lift their feet back off the wall and walk along easily.
One can imagine that a lizard foot without this quality would be rather useless. Geckos would simply get stuck to the walls forever, unable to move.
The key here is the difference between shear adhesion and normal adhesion. Once again, velcro is a great example of this. When a velcro strap adheres to itself, it provides very strong adhesion indeed, especially when pulled against itself in a way which demonstrates its "shear" strength, but when it is pulled in the right way, such as when pulling apart the velcro on shoes, it actually comes apart rather easily. This is the same sort of phenomenon which is exemplified in gecko feet and, consequently, in the human-created nano adhesive.
The nanotube adhesive created by scientists has proven to maintain incredibly high strength under shear conditions (such as when hanging objects from a wall), but is also very easily removed on such diverse surfaces as PTFE (teflon), rough sandpaper, and glass. It is this fact which makes this product remarkable, and which provides obvious potential for future uses in residential, commercial and industrial uses.
Who knows? Within the next few years carbon nano-tube driven adhesives may become the wave of the future. Look out duct tape!
References:
"Carbon Nanotube Arrays with Strong Shear Binding-On and Normal Lifting-Off." Liangti Qu, Liming Dai, Morley Stone, Zhenhai Xia, Zhong Lin Wang.