If you look at the top right side of this page, you will notice a new button to become a fan of the Georgia Tech Nanotechnology Research Center Facebook page. We will use this social media tool to provide an interactive forum for users, friends, staff, and other interested parties of the NRC. Feel free to post photos, events, links, and other information that you think NRC fans might find useful.
At the same time, I want to give credit to the Mashable website posting 10 Ways Universities Share Information Using Social Media which suggested that Facebook can provide a valuable tool for marketing and public relations. This posting has some interesting concepts that other universities are using to connect constituents and provide information.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Monday, August 31, 2009
Connections: From iTunes to NanoSlang
I used to love watching the PBS series “Connections” hosted by James Burke. Burke’s thesis was that scientific discovery and technology development often do not follow a straight line trajectory, but rather depend upon complex relationships and serendipity. In one memorable episode he explained how Napoleon’s need for food storage led to manned space travel; in another he illustrated how standardizing metals in ancient coins inevitably resulted in the atomic bomb.
In this post, I present my less grand version of this, a series of nanoconnections, and along the way alert you to some interesting nanotechnology resources:
1. I began by listening to one in a series of lectures on nanomanufacturing by A.J. Hart (
2. During his lecture on electrical and optical properties of nanomaterials, Hart reminded the class that a good way to remain informed is to subscribe to news sites and journal contents via an RSS aggregator such as Google Reader. This is more convenient than receiving a barrage of individual emails, and any website can be added to the subscription list, even the one you are reading right now. Shameless plug for Resource #2.
3. Following Hart’s advice, I added some sites to my Google Reader, including the National Cancer Institute (NCI)
4. Now stay with me as things take a turn: I noticed that seven of the eight articles that came from the NCI in August included the term or prefix “nano” in their titles. I could not ignore the use of nanobees, nanoparticle (3 times), nanotubes, nanoflares, and nanotags.
5. I found this curious and interesting, how nano had come to be used as more than a metric prefix meaning one-billionth, so I decided to check an online dictionary to see how many other nano-prefixed words are recognized. At dictionary.com, there were 36 words that included a nano prefix, and only 5 of these were related to a conventional metric unit (curie, gram, liter, meter, second).
6. This was when I discovered that there is nanoslang-- words that have been created using the nano prefix to connote smallness, not for scientific usage but in humorous or unusual ways. My two favorites were found in the online Urban Dictionary:
nanoEinstein: One devoid of general cultural knowledge but possessing extensive learning in an incredibly microscopic field of study.
nanonap: An unintentional, seconds-long nap that you take most often in class or a really boring meeting. So short that usually nobody but you notices.
I imagine that one might take a nanonap while listening to the droning on of a nanoEinstein. In any case, if the measure of a concept’s acceptance into the popular culture is its appearance in the lingo used by the youth of that generation, then all this is good news for the nanologists (a person who studies the infinitesimally small) among us.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Blog on a Blog
If you are a regular reader of this blog, or have heard me speak about nanotechnology, you may remember me mentioning The Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. In its own words, “the Project serves as a neutral, nonpartisan forum for study, discussion, and debate of the issues surrounding nanotechnology policy”. Since you may also know that I love video as an educational medium (see many of my previous posts), it will come as no surprise that I first became aware of this organization when I came across a wonderful explanation of nanotechnology called “The Twinkie Guide to Nanotechnology” (yes, the nuclear war-surviving snack cake). This video seminar is delivered by Andrew Maynard, who is the Chief Science Advisor to the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies.
Dr. Maynard also has his own blog, 2020 Science, where he provides his personal insights about the impact of science, technology, and particularly nanotechnology, on life in the modern world. His selection of topics is broad, including ethics, religion, the environment, communication, and policy along with some specific technical issues such as carbon nanotubes, climate change, geoenginering, and synthetic biology. The opinions in the postings are supported by selections from the scientific literature and popular press, along with a good selection of links to other websites.
Maynard and 2020 Science are also proponents of Twitter and science’s impact on this medium. Even the New York Times reported today that the majority of tweeters (?) are adults, not teens, and that “use of social networking by people aged 35 to 54 grew 60 percent in the last year”, primarily for “professional purposes” according to Twitter co-founder and CEO Evan Williams.
I’ll stick to blogging.
Dr. Maynard also has his own blog, 2020 Science, where he provides his personal insights about the impact of science, technology, and particularly nanotechnology, on life in the modern world. His selection of topics is broad, including ethics, religion, the environment, communication, and policy along with some specific technical issues such as carbon nanotubes, climate change, geoenginering, and synthetic biology. The opinions in the postings are supported by selections from the scientific literature and popular press, along with a good selection of links to other websites.
Maynard and 2020 Science are also proponents of Twitter and science’s impact on this medium. Even the New York Times reported today that the majority of tweeters (?) are adults, not teens, and that “use of social networking by people aged 35 to 54 grew 60 percent in the last year”, primarily for “professional purposes” according to Twitter co-founder and CEO Evan Williams.
I’ll stick to blogging.
Friday, August 14, 2009
Numbers 1 and 9
Occasionally I have some time on my hands. Sometimes this happens while I am eating lunch at my desk and I have already finished the morning crossword puzzle, and sometimes it occurs when I have completed one task and am not quite ready to delve into the next one. So, what does a nanotechnology blogger do when he has nothing to do? He goes to the web to look for ideas.
A few days ago I visited You-Tube and typed in the word, you guessed it, “nanotechnology.” Would you believe that I found a list of 2770 videos all tagged with that word? What I found most interesting however was that #1 in the search results (sorted by relevance) was a video I had seen about six months ago. Back then, I had made a notation that I wanted to share it with readers of this blog. I also realized that the #9 entry was a video I had seen earlier this week when searching the web for nano-related material. Both of these videos have received five-star reviews, but I can’t imagine two presentations of nanotechnology that occupy such extremes in style and content. And I loved them both.
The first video, Nanotechnology Takes Off, is from the public broadcasting station KQED in San Francisco and describes the applications of nanoscience and nanoengineering for an educated public (who else watches PBS?) in accurate, scientific, and sober terms. It features shots of suit and tie wearing scientists at Lawrence-Berkeley National Lab discussing quantum confinement, surface area, and polymer photovoltaics.
The second video, Be Amazing, is an animated, apocalyptic satire of the dangers of nanotechnology in the hands of those with evil intent. You will not be educated, but I promise you will laugh out loud.
Is there a grand conclusion to draw from the juxtaposition of these two presentations? Maybe, but I prefer to think of this as an illustration of Napoleon’s precept: “There is but one step from the sublime to the ridiculous.”
A few days ago I visited You-Tube and typed in the word, you guessed it, “nanotechnology.” Would you believe that I found a list of 2770 videos all tagged with that word? What I found most interesting however was that #1 in the search results (sorted by relevance) was a video I had seen about six months ago. Back then, I had made a notation that I wanted to share it with readers of this blog. I also realized that the #9 entry was a video I had seen earlier this week when searching the web for nano-related material. Both of these videos have received five-star reviews, but I can’t imagine two presentations of nanotechnology that occupy such extremes in style and content. And I loved them both.
The first video, Nanotechnology Takes Off, is from the public broadcasting station KQED in San Francisco and describes the applications of nanoscience and nanoengineering for an educated public (who else watches PBS?) in accurate, scientific, and sober terms. It features shots of suit and tie wearing scientists at Lawrence-Berkeley National Lab discussing quantum confinement, surface area, and polymer photovoltaics.
The second video, Be Amazing, is an animated, apocalyptic satire of the dangers of nanotechnology in the hands of those with evil intent. You will not be educated, but I promise you will laugh out loud.
Is there a grand conclusion to draw from the juxtaposition of these two presentations? Maybe, but I prefer to think of this as an illustration of Napoleon’s precept: “There is but one step from the sublime to the ridiculous.”
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
New Toys, I mean Tools, at the NRC
It is not every day that I get to use the words “fun” and “work” in the same sentence, but every once in a while my regular duties at the NRC require that I be entertained. Last Friday I got to take one of the NRC’s latest instrument acquisitions, the MicroFab jetlab II, on a test drive. The jetlab II is a drop-on-demand microdispensing and printing platform which can be used for a wide variety of applications. Typical “inks” include liquid solder, 
adhesives, polymers, and biological materials (diagnostic reagents, proteins, and DNA). Ink jet dispensing is a non-contact printing process, so its accuracy is not affected by substrate wetting. In addition, the ability to free-fly droplets allows the fluid to be dispensed into and onto non-planar and complex structural features. The NRC staff had several days of training on this new tool, but I had not used it for a real application until printing trans-dermal drug delivery patches with Sonal Saluja of Mercer University. After establishing the proper jetting parameters to create the controlled flow of single 40 micron drops, we were able to use on-the-fly printing to create a 1 cm x 1 cm patch (10,000 
individual spots) of a test solution on a rough polyethylene surface in less than 2 minutes. The ease of implementing this simple application was refreshing, and as the X, Y, and Z stages and piezoelectric dispensing device obeyed our every command, I was reminded that I am a “gadget guy” just like my dad. Marcus Nanotechn ology Building
adhesives, polymers, and biological materials (diagnostic reagents, proteins, and DNA). Ink jet dispensing is a non-contact printing process, so its accuracy is not affected by substrate wetting. In addition, the ability to free-fly droplets allows the fluid to be dispensed into and onto non-planar and complex structural features. The NRC staff had several days of training on this new tool, but I had not used it for a real application until printing trans-dermal drug delivery patches with Sonal Saluja of Mercer University. After establishing the proper jetting parameters to create the controlled flow of single 40 micron drops, we were able to use on-the-fly printing to create a 1 cm x 1 cm patch (10,000 
individual spots) of a test solution on a rough polyethylene surface in less than 2 minutes. The ease of implementing this simple application was refreshing, and as the X, Y, and Z stages and piezoelectric dispensing device obeyed our every command, I was reminded that I am a “gadget guy” just like my dad. Thursday, July 16, 2009
Nano@Tech: Past and Future
It is always difficult to assess quantitatively how you are doing when you undertake an enterprise that involves communication, marketing, and outreach. How many people are receiving your message? How are they responding to it? What is the impact you are making? The answers to these questions can be used to refine your approach, if necessary, and sometimes they even provide you a gentle pat on the back for a job well done.
As Nanotechnology Research Center friends and users know, Nano@Tech is a seminar series, open to the entire community, held at Georgia Tech on the second and fourth Tuesday of each month during the academic year. Since our featured speakers come from all of the disciplines involved in nanotechnology research, education, commercialization, and policy, the seminars provide an excellent opportunity to stimulate interdisciplinary collaboration.
For the last several years, we have videotaped most of these seminars and posted them on the SMARTech website, which is Georgia Tech’s archive of scholarly materials. Since these videos are quite large (some > 100 MB in size), requiring both an interest and commitment to download them for viewing, I was surprised to learn that they have attracted an on-line audience (90% of whom found the site via a Google search). For the 12 seminar videos from the 2008-09 academic year, there have been more than 800 downloads (so far). These statistics suggest that Nano@Tech is making an impact outside our immediate attending audience.
The Fall 2009 series will begin in a few weeks. If you can join us in person, please mark your calendars using the schedule below. More information will be coming for those on the email list, and if you want to get on this list just send me an email at david.gottfried@nrc.gatech.edu.
Aug. 25 - Alan Porter (GT-Public Policy)
Sept. 8 - Tom O'Brien/Swami Rajaraman (Axion Biosystems)
Sept. 22 - Devin Brown (GT-NRC)
Oct. 13 - Jason Nadler (GTRI)
Oct. 27 - Gang Bao (GT-BME)
Nov. 10 - Margaret Kosal (GT-Int'l. Affairs)
Dec. 8 - Gangli Wang (GSU-Chemistry)
As Nanotechnology Research Center friends and users know, Nano@Tech is a seminar series, open to the entire community, held at Georgia Tech on the second and fourth Tuesday of each month during the academic year. Since our featured speakers come from all of the disciplines involved in nanotechnology research, education, commercialization, and policy, the seminars provide an excellent opportunity to stimulate interdisciplinary collaboration.
For the last several years, we have videotaped most of these seminars and posted them on the SMARTech website, which is Georgia Tech’s archive of scholarly materials. Since these videos are quite large (some > 100 MB in size), requiring both an interest and commitment to download them for viewing, I was surprised to learn that they have attracted an on-line audience (90% of whom found the site via a Google search). For the 12 seminar videos from the 2008-09 academic year, there have been more than 800 downloads (so far). These statistics suggest that Nano@Tech is making an impact outside our immediate attending audience.
The Fall 2009 series will begin in a few weeks. If you can join us in person, please mark your calendars using the schedule below. More information will be coming for those on the email list, and if you want to get on this list just send me an email at david.gottfried@nrc.gatech.edu.
Aug. 25 - Alan Porter (GT-Public Policy)
Sept. 8 - Tom O'Brien/Swami Rajaraman (Axion Biosystems)
Sept. 22 - Devin Brown (GT-NRC)
Oct. 13 - Jason Nadler (GTRI)
Oct. 27 - Gang Bao (GT-BME)
Nov. 10 - Margaret Kosal (GT-Int'l. Affairs)
Dec. 8 - Gangli Wang (GSU-Chemistry)
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
So You Want to be in Show Business
A few months ago (May 8), I posted the results of a nanotechnology video contest sponsored by ACS Nanotation. Well all you right brain (creative) types, the next NanoTube Video Contest, with the theme of “How will nano change the world?”, has been announced and is accepting submissions. For details, see the information below from ACS.
In our last video contest "What is Nano?", you showed us that nano is a way of making things smaller, lighter and more efficient, making it possible to build better machines, solar cells, materials and radios. But another question remains: how exactly is "nano" going to impact both us and the world? We want you to think BIG about nano and show us how nano will address the challenges we face today.
- What can nano do for global security?
- What can nano do for the environment?
- What can nano do for sustainable energy?
- What can nano do for fighting disease?
- What can nano do for the products you use?
- What can nano do for YOU?
ACS Nanotation is interested to hear what you think, and to find out, we are sponsoring a video contest. Submit your videos to NanoTube and you could win up to $500 in cash!
The contest will open July 6, 2009 for video submissions and close August 9, 2009. See the contest rules and guidelines or contact acsnano@acs.org with any questions.
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