Jeremy Hobson interviews Prof. Sangeeta Bhatia about her work 3-D printing tiny human livers on NPR’s Here and Now. The livers are, “about the size of the pin of a needle, and they allow us to do drug testing to test if drugs would be safe when they got into humans,” Bhatia explains.
ArchDaily reporter Karissa Rosenfield reports on plans to construct a new facility on the MIT campus for nanoscience and nanotechnology research. “Centrally located at the heart of MIT, the new glass-encased, four-story structure will house two floors of high-performance cleanrooms, as well as imaging and prototyping facilities that are all designed to foster innovation through cross-discipline collaboration,” writes Rosenfield.
Kath Xu writes about plans for the new MIT nanotechnology facility in an article for The Tech. “For a long time, [nanotechnology] was just science and we were playing in the lab and doing measurements and it was really fun,” Professor Polina Anikeeva told The Tech. “But now it’s exploding and it’s really becoming its own field… Nanotechnology has entered every part of engineering.”
MIT.nano "will break down barriers traditionally separating subjects in the name of nanoscale research,” writes Chemistry World reporter Andy Extance, who quotes MIT’s Moungi Bawendi as explaining: “It is a shared space in a state-of-the-art building that will house state-of-the-art instrumentation. I expect there will be many new activities fostered by this new space.”
The Associated Press reports on the 200,000-square-foot nanotechnology research facility to be constructed in the heart of the MIT campus. “An estimated 2,000 MIT researchers may ultimately use the building in fields including energy, health, life sciences, quantum sciences, electronics and manufacturing,” the AP reports.
The Boston Globe's Carolyn Johnson reports on how MIT is building a new space specifically devoted to nanotechnology research. The building will, "double the size of the nanotechnology clean room and imaging facilities at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology," Johnson reports.
John Daly writes about new research from MIT that shows organic materials could be used to conduct electricity and emit different colors of light. The research could have major implications for the development of photovoltaic cells and solar energy
The Guardian reports on new MIT research that shows that adding carbon nanotubes to plants can enhance the natural photosynthesis process. The bionic plants could be used to harvest sunlight or detect environmental pollutants.
“Living materials based on bacteria and grown in a Boston lab could point to a greener way of manufacturing,” writes BBC News reporter Roland Pease of new MIT work to develop living materials.
“Now researchers at MIT have devised a way to combine a living E. coli cell with inanimate building blocks, like gold nanoparticles and quantum dots, to create a hybrid ‘living material,’” writes Dexter Johnson in IEEE Spectrum.
Nadia Drake writes in Wired about MIT researchers developing living materials. “By tricking E.coli into incorporating gold nanoparticles or quantum dots into their proteins, the team has crafted biofilms with a range of crazy capabilities,” Drake reports.
Los Angeles Times reporter Amina Khan reports on how MIT researchers are creating living materials by incorporating inorganic matter into bacterial cells. The living material could be used to make batteries, solar cells or even biomedical devices.
Writing for USA Today, Karen Weintraub reports on Professor Michael Strano’s work to give plants the ability to serve as sensors, antennae and power plants thanks to carbon nanotubes embedded inside the plant.
Writing for Scientific American, Geoffrey Giller explores a new device developed by MIT researchers that combines elements of both photovoltaic cells and solar-thermal thermal systems to generate power from the sun.
“Researchers at MIT are giving plants super powers by placing tiny carbon nanotubes deep within their cells,” writes Deborah Netburn in a Los Angeles Times piece on bionic plants developed by MIT researchers.