2008 Woodie Awards
Thinking beyond small
Zhi Xiong - The Daily Iowan
Issue date: 2/21/08 Section: Metro
In the basement of the Chemistry Building, UI Associate Professor Sarah Larsen keeps a "Nano-to-go" kit. A black, fluid glob sluggishly floated in one tube of clear liquid - until Larsen put a magnet against the glass. Then the dark mass was pulled into a row of spiky, uniform shapes.
It is ferrofluid, which has magnetic properties and is used as a sealant, she explained. It is an example of nanotechnology in action.
Nanotechnology is still a relative newcomer in science, but it seems to have a solid foothold. The public has heard a drone of scientists' excited murmurs about it since the late 1980s, and the technology comes down to this: Such minute particles have different properties from those of other materials.
Traditionally, we recognize materials in terms of their chemical makeup and physical state - gas, liquid, or solid, said Professor Vicki Grassian, the director of the UI Nanoscience and Nanotechnology Institute. The metal gold is yellow in color and malleable as a solid, for instance.
But a nanogold solution is actually red.
"We say Herky on a nanoscale would be red and black," Grassian said.
Larsen, an associate director of the nanoscience institute, focuses on education and outreach. With funding from the National Science Foundation, she and her colleagues incorporated nanosciences into science courses. A few weeks ago she received additional funding from the National Science Foundation to host eight to 10 undergraduate students to do research in nanoscience and nanotechnology.
The nanoscience institute opened in 2006, and last September it helped snag the university's second-largest research grant ever - $33.8 million from the National Institutes of Health. The money goes toward translating laboratory findings into clinical practice and patient care.
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