The particles of cobalt-chromium can cause DNA damage even if they do not come physically into contact with the cells. The nano-particles manage to damage the DNA of cells protected by a barrier made up of cellular membranes, without physically entering into contact with the cell, but rather through a multitude of chemical signals. This was found in a study coordinated at the Bristol Implant Research Center, proving that it brings out a new risk associated with nanotechnology, but also the opportunity to exploit this behavior in an innovative way. Nano-particles are now widely used. In surgery, for example, are an integral part of prostheses and implants. The research conducted so far on the risks of nanoparticles, however, relates mainly to the effects of direct exposure, while very little is known about what can cause the indirect exposure. In the new study, researchers have wondered if a barrier device was able to protect cells from the effects of nano-particles consisting of chromium and cobalt in the tissues of the clothes and orthopedic implants. The researchers interposed a barrier between nanoparticles formed out of multilayer chromium-cobalt (in quantities thousands of times greater than those with whom we come in contact normally) and a culture of human fibroblasts (connective tissue cells). Although nano-particles have not managed to cross the membrane, the fibroblasts had DNA mutations which were ten times more than the control fibroblasts. According to scholars, the effect is due to chemical signals between the cell membrane and fibroblasts. If the lines of communication between them are broken, the rate of DNA damage returned to normal.

This study researched killing cancer cells with nano-magnets, with the same principle as a microwave oven. The study of nano-particles applied to biomedicine continues to give interesting results, as research is still in its infancy. Through their work, the chemists from the university of Cagliari are now investigating some of the possibilities opened by this field. One is to use magnetic particles to convey the drugs only to the diseased cells, the other is to drive up the tumor and then force them to oscillate under the control of a variable magnetic field, thereby heating the target cells, just like a microwave oven does with the water molecules contained in food. This second mechanism exploits hyperthermia. It appears that cancer cells can be destroyed by beeing brought to a temperature of 42.5 degrees Celsius for about half an hour. In order arrive at the place desired, the particles must be incorporated into liposomes, hollow microspheres formed by lipid bilayers (for which reason they are called "magneto-liposomes"), which are able to overcome the barrier of cells. They must have a diameter of about 20 nanometers. Larger could indeed block blood vessels, while smaller particles may be "eaten" by macrophage cells which are in charge with the elimination of foreign bodies. Currently, the research team is working on the synthesis of particles and study of their structural and magnetic properties. Currently these are being built in oxide of iron or iron cobalt. The latter are more manoeuvrable, because their magnetic properties depend strongly on the direction along which the field is applied to (property known as magnetic anisotropy).

Italian researcher Alessandra Luchini wins the first edition of "The Prize Award” with a paper of a system to identify those molecules that signal the presence of a tumor (tumor markers) that are beyond the traditional methods of investigation. To do this requires making a hydrogel containing certain microscopic nano-spheres that once inserted in the samples of blood taken for analysis diagnostic trap some markers and protect them from deterioration. "These nano-spheres, made of the same plastic as hydrated soft contact lenses are equipped with special molecules that, once in the blood, snap-specific tumor markers and incorporate them. In this way, they protect them from enzymes that would otherwise deteriorate them. Usually blood tests fail to identify precisely because these markers are destroyed prematurely, " says researcher Alessandra Luchini. "The beauty of this system," says the researcher, "is that it does not need very sophisticated tools, which is simple and economical: with one hundred U.S. dollars we can make nano-spheres for more than two hundred patients." The new method is not going to replace the standard, but acts at a stage prior to analysis by providing a better quality.

The use of an organic material has been put in place a structure capable of transmitting data at rates eight times higher than those of traditional devices . The study of materials capable of transmitting data at ever higher speeds is the constant challenge of the technology of optical communications. The use of a new organic material, tested by a team of U.S. and European research coordinated by Ivan Biaggi of Lehigh University (United States), has enabled to achieve data transfers much higher than that obtained so far with traditional devices. The novelty lies in the combination of structures in silicon with organic material, identified by the initials Ddmebt . This is essentially a kind of "nonlinear" device, able to change its molecular structure to the passage of light, making it propagate at high speed. To minimize interference with the passage of data, researchers have vaporized the organic material and the deposit left on the rails of silicon and in the spaces between them. In this way, explain the authors, the molecules are deposited "like snowflakes", forming a highly homogeneous plastic. It is precisely in the interstices between the rails of silicon, filled with new material, that the light passes at high speed, allowing you to transmit data up to 170 Gigabit per second (with the traditional structures, which consist only of silicon, you can reach a maximum speed around 20-30 Gigabit per second). Combining silicon with an architecture was needed to channel and confine the flow of light within very small spaces (the guide of silicon is separated by a few tens of nanometers).

The new devices can operate at 30 degrees above zero, rather than less than 70. This is the characteristic of the new generation of semiconductors, researched at the Italian Institute for the Physics of Matter (INFM-CNR), and in the Ludwig Maximilian University in Monaco of Bavaria and the ETH Zurich (the study). Today there are two ways to record information on a medium: the electronic format, in which the binary language is the passage of electrons (the transistors) and magnetic (MRAM memory), more recently, in which the binary language is given by state of magnetization. To communicate these two systems could boost significantly the computational schemes, pending the distant quantum computer. Doubling the processing power and memory of a chip while maintaining the size, without the need to go in nano-scale (a scale, that is, a billionth of a meter) are just two of the technology that promises magnetic semiconductors suggest a near future. These devices were made over ten years ago, but so far required temperatures far below zero to work. The problem now seems outdated as the known semiconductors gallium arsenide containing traces of manganese, a metal which has ferromagnetic properties at around 200 degrees below zero. To increase the temperature threshold, above which the ferromagnetic behavior disappears, the researchers deposited on a semiconductor film of iron - metal known for its magnetic properties - the thickness of a few nanometers. Iron and manganese interacted so effectively that the new material, has a ferromagnetic behavior up to 30 degrees above zero, a jump of over a hundred degrees above the starting temperature. This result is a technological response parallel to that of the race to miniaturization and the research was selected the American Physical Society as one of the most important published in Physical Review Letters

A new instrument to simultaneously measure the magnetic field and the atomic structure of matter at the nanoscale has been developed. The applications of this are future generations of high-density memories Snapshots of the weakest and microscopic magnetic fields generated by just a few molecules of a nanometer (billionth of a meter). The researchers have obtained the S3 Center of the National Institute for the Physics of Matter (INFM-CNR) of Modena and the University of Modena . This is a scanning microscope combined with a new highly sensitive magnetic sensor. The microscope scans close with his point - made up of a few atoms - the area of the test and how it relates to the roughness with a resolution of several nanometers. Beside the point, the sensor records the magnetic field intensity, but with high detail ( millionth of a meter). In this way the researchers were able to get together for the first time, images of atomic structure and magnetic properties of a thin layer of nano-magnet on a support of silicon. "The microscope allows us to measure directly the properties of nano-molecular magnets on the surface, even at temperatures close to absolute zero, to minus 270 degrees," says Marco. "Above all," says the researcher, "it helps us to understand the magnetism on the molecular scale."

Researchers have made a fabric, made from polyester fibres which is coated with millions of small silicone filaments. This the most water-resistant clothing which was ever created by man. Because of the nanometre-scaled filaments, a coating which stops water particules from going through the coating to the polyester fibres which are underneath. This mixture between a hydrophobic surface and a nanostructure coating leads to a super-hydrophobic effect. This is similar to the surface of Lotus leaves. There are many applications for this: from stain resistant clothing (see video) to reducing water drag in submarines or swimmers. This could lead in a drag decrease of up to 20%. Here's a little video from the Today Show with a stain resistant shirt which usese nano-technology (Nano-Tex material).

An amazing material was developed by Chinese scientists which is composed of carbon nanotube films and has a possible application (among otther) to produce the world's thinnest speakers. Nanotubes, are a new carbon breed of material, which is 1000 times smaller than the width of a hair and can give sound with the "same quality of conventional speakers". This, however, does not require magnets of any sort or moving parts for that matter at all. You can easilly imagine speakers everywhere: on walls, helmets, thinner ear plugs or even on your shirt. This is possible because very thin carbon nanotube films, with the right frequency of electric currents, can emit sound. It also has a wide frequency response range and high sound pressure. It also turns out that they are practical to build, and are even stretchable. Here is a video with the actual speackers embedded in a flag!

Particles in a confined microscopic space, move in a coordinated manner and can be manipulated and observed with a precision never achieved. A nano-trap can be imagined as a tube the size of a billionth of a meter in which electrons are closed to study their behavior. Thus, scientists from the centers of the Italian Institute for physics of matter of Cnr "S3", Modena and "Nest" of Pisa in collaboration with Columbia University in New York, were able to observe with great precision the behavior of a quartet of electrons confined in one of these structures. Result: the particles move in a coordinated manner and with precise frequencies and can be manipulated. The study was published in Nature Phisics. As it is known, the physics of the matter the size of an atom or less follows different laws than those of classical physics. According to these principles, which fall in quantum physics, the behavior of particles such as electrons can not be described as we are used to (for larger bjects),but it is outlined mainly in terms of probabilistic forecasts. The technique developed by Cnr made it possible to determine the frequency of vibrations of particles through the use of a beam of laser light. The electrons in a nano-trap can only move in a coordinated manner and in accordance with the laws of quantum mechanics, vibrate at frequencies well defined that, thanks to this method, was possible to measure with unprecedented precision.

Infm-Cnr and Federico II University have developed a technique ultra-miniaturized to study the behavior of red blood cells. In the film "Fantastic Journey" of 1966, to study the physiology of the human body some scientists were miniaturized and were injected with their micro-bus, in the bloodstream. Today is, in a sense, the opposite: to understand the behavior of red blood cells reproduces the circulatory network on a device the size of a chip. The device has been developed by researchers of the center Coherentia at the National Institute for Physics of Matter (Infm-Cnr) and the Department of Chemical Engineering University Federico II of Naples. Their results were presented today at the conference "The research ideas to work" in the Corsican town.

Presented today, the Italo-Spanish computer Janus, has a high level of parallelism, in which the architecture of physical connections is established when you run the program! He was baptized Janus, as the Roman god Janus Bifronte, dual supercomputer programmability, where the programmer decides not only what instructions to follow but also, with the same lines of code, which is the exact structure of links physical on which the program should be run.