Today was our last real day at the Sci|Art NanoLab Summer Institute. We mostly just worked on our “Imagine the Impossible” projects, which we are presenting tomorrow. However, this morning we had a quick lecture by Professor Jim Gimzewski, who had just returned from being inducted into the Royal Society. Professor Gimzewski talked about […]
Whether they are printed in a tiny font on a medicine bottle label or rushed through at the end of an advertisement, side effects of medicines seem to not be given much attention. However, they do exist. Today in the lecture, Ron brought up an example with acetaminophen, an ingredient found in aspirin. A study […]
A mind game that uses a brain-scanning headset to measure brainwaves and levitate a ball. A phone that changes shape depending on the task and is self-cleaning. A car whose wheels turn 90 degrees and cabin 360 degrees so the driver faces forward at all times. These are just some of the fascinating futuristic […]
The doors opened slowly, and we entered the “Icons of the Desert” exhibit. On the walls around us hung Australian Aboriginal paintings from a tiny settlement called Papunya. I felt as if I had just gone back in time to the 1970s when the Sydney school teacher Geoffrey Bardon gave the Aboriginal men paint […]
We came up with several ideas for our “Imagine the Impossible” project, yet found that all of them had been already thought of or were in the making. After much frustration, we were happy when we finally came up with our idea– the Nandage. The Nandage would be a more efficient and comfortable alternative […]
What powers a solar calculator, makes a parked car hot, heats water and spaces, causes plants to grow, and can be turned into electricity? Solar energy. Every second, the “sun produces enough energy for almost 500,000 years of the current needs of our so-called civilization.” The energy is free, and there is an unlimited […]
A focus of the day was medicine and nanotechnology, which I found interesting because I might want to study medicine. I have heard that nanotechnology could be the future of medicine, but I did not know what this really meant. A lab visit today provided a perfect example. We all use cell phones for calling, […]
Today we learned about different methods in nanoscience research. The day opened with a presentation by Rita and Gau that focused on visualization, art, and science. Visualization is the technique of creating an image, diagram, or other visual to express an idea. I knew there were multiple methods of producing an image in art such […]