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Beware!

Maybe a newly rediscovered property of Scotch tape is the reason the 3M company has been doing better in the last few months than the rest of the stock market. The discovery/rediscovery, as reported in Nature, is that when you peel adhesive tape off its roll in a vacuum chamber, it emits some strong X-rays. One researcher even made an X-ray image of one of their fingers. The ability of some tapes to unleash visible light when being peeled has been known for sometime and it was always a little bit of a concern to those of us who - in the old days - opened cans of 35 mm film in darkrooms. But it turns out that Russian scientists reported evidence of X-rays from peeling sticky tape off glass a half-century ago.

The new work takes this old research a step further by documenting the strength of the X-rays. “We were very surprised,” said Juan Escobar, a UCLA grad student and one of the authors of the Nature report. “The power you could get from just peeling tape was enormous.” Is there any practicality to this property? Escobar thinks it could be used to make inexpensive and/or portable X-ray machines running with only human power. Escobar and his colleagues have even applied for a patent covering such devices. Escobar says the tape-produced X-rays only occur in a vacuum, so the rest of us are safe when wrapping packages or mending our glasses. “If you’re going to peel tape in a vacuum, you should be extra careful,” he said. “I will continue to use Scotch tape during my daily life, and I think it’s safe to do it in your office.” But, it is a little unnerving that he quickly added, “No guarantees.”

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Microscopic faces of Barack Obama made with nanotechnology.

Perhaps we shouldn’t read too much into the microscopic faces of Barack Obama (shown above) that University of Michigan professor John Hart has created using carbon nanotubes, optical and scanning electron microscope. One has to wonder, however, if Hart’s creations are meant to convey a symbolic message - like the potential that both nanotechnology and the new president offer for finding solutions to some of today’s toughest economic, environmental, health and energy-related problems. While the symbolism question goes unanswered, Hart is quick to tell the world how he created the microscopic faces of Obama. In fact, he’s created a “how-to” website that provides a step-by-step guide for producing the images shown above and other images as well. Hart explains that each face is comprised of about 150 million carbon nanotubes - approximately the number of Americans who voted on Nov. 4th, he says. (We told you symbolism was at play!)

Hart grows the CNTs by a high-temperature chemical reaction, using patterns of nanoscale metal catalyst particles arranged in the shapes of faces, flags, text, etc.  He describes the millions of parallel nanotubes comprising each image as a “forest of trees” standing vertically on their substrates. If each nanotube was a real tree measuring one foot in diameter, Hart says, it would be growing at over 500 miles per hour - and, yet, each nanobama face is only about 0.5 millimeters wide or approximately “ten times as wide as a human hair.” Check it out - Hart’s site does a great job of creating public awareness and a better understanding of nanotechnology. Further, the site’s message comes across loud and clear. Public and private support of research and education programs are absolutely necessary, he says, to enable new technologies - such as nanotechnology - to continue making ”breakthroughs in energy, medicine, communications and other vital areas.”

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This week’s video is actually a three-in-one aerogel feature. Aerogel is wispy, translucent, highly insulating material often described as “solid smoke.” It’s worth noting that aerogel is not a new material and may date back to the 1930s. Many new applications and lower-cost production processes, however, are opening up.

The first part is part of the video is a KQED/Discovery Channel short with the basics on aerogels. The second focuses on some of the applications for the material, including flexible insulating blankets, from Aspen Aerogels. The final part of the video focuses on an offshoot of aerogel – SEAgel – that is an even lighter material and made from agar.

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“Fine ceramics” – a.k.a. advanced ceramics – gets a great boost from a new website launched by Kyocera. If you are expecting an ad blitz from the company, think again. Yes, there are some links to the company’s applications, but  Fine Ceramics World is almost entirely about the ABCs and XYZs of cutting-edge ceramic technology. It really seems to excel in providing both basics and advanced technical information, and offers excellent illustrations, processing work-flow charts, animations and accurate data. Hopefully this will evolve into a growing repository of advanced ceramic knowledge. The site is offered in both Japanese and English versions.

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Apropos of this week’s event in the U.S., this week’s video is based on what’s been called “the best class at Berkeley.” It is taught by Richard Muller, and the approximately one-hour lecture and half-hour Q&A is sponsored by Univ. of California, Berkeley’s Friends of Science. Muller is a professor at Cal where he specializes in particle physics and cosmology. He is a recipient of the prestigious MacArthur Foundation award and is the author of a recently updated book on the same theme as this lecture, “Physics for Future Presidents.” Muller argues that the next president can’t afford to be ignorant about the science behind terrorism, nuclear dangers, energy, space, and global warming. He discusses what it takes to survive in today’s increasingly dangerous world - information essential to the next commander-in-chief. He presented his talk Oct. 13, 2008. Thanks goes to the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab for bringing this to our attention. P.S., Muller’s full-length course is available free online.

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