Fibers Could Replace Camera Lenses

Picture a wall that stares back at you. Or a uniform that shows a soldier a 360-degree view of the battlefield. Both scenarios are possible courtesy of a new generation of flexible, translucent fibers developed by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge. These so-called multimaterial fibers can turn incoming light waves into images without the need for a camera lens. And unlike fiber optic cables, they can transmit images that have been captured across their entire length.
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The multimaterial fibers developed by the MIT team could solve this problem and provide a host of other benefits. The fibers consist of an array of metal electrodes connected to a semiconductor and are covered by an insulating polymer sheath. The semiconductor layer in the fiber detects light and relays signals via the electrodes to a microprocessor, which combines the signals from an array of the fibers to determine the light's intensity, direction, and color. Visualization software then takes that data and recreates the source image and displays it on a monitor screen. And the whole process is accomplished without a lens.

Source

MIT, Portuguese lab form joint nanotech initiative

MIT has announced a collaboration with the International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory in Portugal to create a joint initiative to develop nanotechnology-focused research. Anantha Chandrakasan, director of the MIT Microsystems Technology Laboratories, will serve as MIT’s inaugural director of MIT-INL, along with Carl Thompson, director of the Materials Processing Center.

The MIT-INL initiative will add 10 senior research positions and dedicate $35 million to new research in the program’s first five years at MIT.

According to a joint press release, MIT stands to benefit from INL’s strength in biotechnology, nanotechnology, materials science and engineering. MIT-INL is the first U.S. collaboration for INL, a joint development of Portugal and Spain.

On tap for the first joint projects of MIT-INL are “nanoparticles that can selectively adsorb water contaminants, autonomous microsystems that can move around water supplies and sense contaminants, new materials for energy storage, and revolutionary tools and technologies for monitoring our food supply,” the release reports.

Source

MIT Portugal

Nanotech DNA Building Blocks

The field of DNA nanotechnology has literally gained another dimension.

Using pieces of DNA like so many Legos, researchers made a series of complex, three-dimensional structures. The technique could eventually be used to design custom-shaped, nano-scale drug-delivery systems and diagnostic devices.

“Imagine that you could encode different charge patterns on your Lego bricks, so that they only fit together in a very specific manner,” said molecular biologist William Shih of Harvard Medical School, co-author of a study Wednesday in Nature. “We make linear sequences of DNA, throw them into a pot, and let them find each other.”

Nanotechnologists like Shih use the double-stranded encoder of life’s instructions not for its information-carrying capacity, but the predictable binding tendencies of its four chemical base units. Adenine automatically links to thymine, and cytosine to guanine — A to T, and C to G.

Full article on Wired

Nanometrics (NANO - Nasdaq)

Nanometrics touched new lows this year, but still reacting to the $7.93 support made in the last week of 2006, and probably finding key support at these prices.

Nanometrics widened its losses in the last two quarters, coming from a profitable 2005 year, into a loss in 2006. Maybe 2007 hold better days for NANO but its still a risk buying the stock at these levels, until we see a change in the trend, even if it starts looking to be undervalued.



Meanwhile, the PXN (Powershares Lux Nanotech) etf, is still negative for this year but today's move could represent the end of this recent sell-off. The next days should be important to prove this point:


Technically this etf is getting close to its annual trend line support, and I will update its long term chart later this week.