On January 20, our winter Nano Café explored Nanotechnology in Agriculture & Food.

Citizens brought questions and comments to the Northside Farmers Market to help make sure that citizens "have a voice at the table"!  [MORE]

The first discussion about the challenges and opportunities in university-community engagement in environmental and scientific issues will take place on Friday, January 25 at noon, Room 102 (kitchen), Bradley Memorial Building, 1225 Linden Drive (map).

Mark your calendars: the brownbag series will take place the 2nd and 4th Friday of the month.  [MORE]

On October 23, our fall Nano Café explored Nanotechnology and the Environment.

Spurred by citizens' questions during previous Nano Cafés, the Citizens' Coalition on Nanotechnology (CCoN) and the NSEC held an evening of lively discussion that considered the potential benefits, risks and regulatory issues related to nanotechnology.

Robert Hamers, Chemist and Associate Director of the Nanoscale Science & Engineering Center (NSEC), Joel Pedersen, Environmental engineer in the NSEC, and the Citizen's Coalition on Nanotechnology (CCoN) responded to Madison area residents.  [MORE]

Thrust 4 Joel Pedersen's talk on Engineered Nanoparticles in the Environment was recently highlighted by Bryony Ross on UK SafeNano blog:

"Despite the huge complexity of the concepts Dr Pedersen was conveying (a lot to take on board if you’re as new to the topic as I am!), his talk and research was incredibly interesting. It also reminded me of the enormity of the puzzle that scientists investigating nanotechnology are facing, and what a tiny proportion of this we have tackled so far."  [MORE]

The Midwest Nano Technology Safety Workshop was held at the UW campus May 20th to May 22nd, 2007 This workshop was designed to focus on health and safety practices and featured a mix of nanotech experts and practitioners from select universities and government organizations including Dr. Andrew Maynard of the Woodrow Wilson Institute, Dr. Gurumurthy Ramachandran from the University of Minnesota, and Dr. Mark D. Hoover, from National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.  [MORE]

Through generous funding from the National Science Foundation, this summer's REU in Nanotechnology Program is well under way. This year's program teams up with the UW-MRSEC to include 12 undergraduate students from the US and Puerto Rico. Participants are spending 10 weeks engaged in research projects mentored by UW-NSEC and MRSEC faculty ranging from toxicological studies to carbon nanotube sythesis. Students live together in apartment-style housing, share social events and atttend weekely professional development seminars. On August 1 the program will host an REU Poster Session which will include all MRSEC and NSEC faculty, students and postdocs. Members of the newly formed UW AMIC (Advanced Materials Industrial Consortium) will also attend.  [MORE]

Scientists already know how to take DNA and stiffen it by removing salts from its chemical makeup. But confining the molecule and presenting it for analysis is laborious, engaging armies of lab techs worldwide to prepare DNA samples for their moment in the lab. “To get DNA molecules to do this on surfaces is really hard,” says David Schwartz a researcher in the UW-NSEC. A system developed by Schwartz, Juan de Pablo, Michael Graham and their colleagues could change all of that. By figuring out a way to take individual DNA molecules and present them in a confined, linear fashion, the genetic information encoded in the arrangement of the base pairs that make up the molecule can be scanned and read like a bar code.  [MORE]

Microscopic science is changing what's on store shelves. Nanotechnology is being used to make more and more products. They aren't necessarily labeled, and polls show consumers know little about the emerging technology. Researchers at the UW-Madison are among those exploring the impact this field could have on people's health and the environment -- both good and bad. Shamane Mills reports…  [MORE]

Andrew Greenberg, UW Chemistry staff member and co-leader of the UW NSEC Education and Outreach group, was recently featured in Newsweek for his work developing tools to help vision-impaired students learn about science. This project, funded in part by the UW-Madison Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center, involves using rapid prototyping methods to create three-dimensional tactile models of nanoscale structures and surfaces. The article is in the June 11, 2007 edition of Newsweek, page 14.  [MORE]

Nature News and Views. When it comes to having their conduction properties tweaked, carbon nanotubes are bothersome customers. One way to do it is to incorporate a photosensitive dye into the nanotube's walls.  [MORE]