Science reporter Miles O'Brien visited campus to do a segment on the research of Professor Nikhil Koratkar. This video was produced by the National Science Foundation for the Science Channel.

The Toshiba/NSTA ExploraVision is a fun science competition that encourages students of all grade levels to imagine what technology might be like in the future. All it takes is a teacher sponsor like you to get your students excited and fuel their excitement for learning. From water fountains to hearing aids to nanotubes, your teams will choose a technology that is relevant to the world today and then explore what it does, how it works and how, when and why it was invented. Then your teams will imagine their chosen technology 20 years from now and prepare an in-depth report that conveys their visions to others. ExploraVision is a hands-on, minds-on project that simulates real research and development to inspire students and fuel imagination. The ExploraVision program has awarded $4440000 to more than 287000 participants since its inception in 1992; up to $240000 in savings bonds and Toshiba products are awarded each year. Learn more at www.exploravision.org

This is a novel steel in which crystalline plates of bainite have been created on a scale which is finer than that of carbon nanotubes. The exhibit is located at the Science Museum in London www.msm.cam.ac.uk Producer: HKDH Bhadeshia

Your Science Your Say is an attempt at discourse between scientists and the public. Four nanotechnology researchers talk about their work, and you leave a video response, saying which project you think has the most potential for benefit and risk. Responses will help inform Environment Protection Agency policy. yourscienceyoursay.com

The researchers at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland have created a low-cost smart paint that can detect microscopic faults in wind turbines, mines and bridges before structural damage occurs.

12 January 2012 - NICOLA PUGNO Politecnico di Torino After the stone, bronze and iron ages, the new bio-inspired super-materials Man has always drawn inspiration from nature to design new materials and structures. Flight is one example. However, it would not be possible or sufficient to just copy nature (an aeroplane does not beat its wings). On the other hand, drawing inspiration from it, today we can go even further, for example in space. Similarly, observing geckos we could produce super-adherent materials. One example is Spiderman's costume: "gecko" gloves could theoretically bear the weight of 100 people. In addition to imitating the strong adhesion, the challenge is to conciliate it with ease of detachment and self-cleaning, elements that co-exist perfectly in geckos, as in spiders and insects. Imitating the topology of the lotus leaf we can instead create anti-adherent and self-cleaning surfaces. Super-resistant cables based on nanotubes or graphene (a discovery that 2010 won the Nobel Prize for Physics for the Russians André Geim and Konstantin Novoselov), maybe even able to repair itself, could be produced drawing inspiration from spider webs, also making it possible to achieve the dream of the space elevator. The megacable, about 100000 km long, would have a theoretical resistance 100 times than that of steel and would be super-tenacious: with a diameter of only one millimetre, it would be able to stop a Boeing 747. Nanotubes and graphene can also be used to ...

The Space Elevator will reduce the cost of getting from earth to space. It will also allow us to take very large payloads into space very easily, very safely. Because of that, we can build cities on the moon. We can build space stations. We can build large solar arrays in space to collect energy from the sun and beam it down to earth. How would space elevator affect the average person? Through for example much faster telecommunication rates -- you can have any kind of data rates you want, and videophones will be as common as a cell phone. And the solar power energy we'll collect can relieve our dependence on oil. That in itself will change a lot of things it will reduce pollution and it will change world politics, hopefully even stopping some of the conflicts.

Richard Dawkins looks at the incredible discoveries of the last 50 years and reveals where some of the greatest minds of our time think we are heading. Olivia Judson reveals the controversial true story of how Rosalind Franklin's work in crystallography helped Watson and Crick to discover the double-helix structure of DNA, and the wealth of knowledge now gathered about the human genetic blueprint as a result. Jim Al-Khalili charts the career of astronomer Fred Hoyle, who helped to popularise science, worked out that we are all made of star-dust and, ironically, coined the term 'Big Bang' for a theory he rejected. James Dyson explores a revolutionary new discovery - carbon nanotubes - which, as well as being the toughest material known to man and 50000 times thinner than a human hair, offer potential applications from cheap and super-efficient solar power to building a 'space elevator'. To end this documentary, Stephen Hawking and Richard Dawkins ask each other the questions they really want answered: Is there life on other planets? Why are you so obsessed with God?

Read more: www.newscientist.com Carbon material gives more grip than gecko feet. Deepest-living fishes caught on camera for the first time. Digital zebrafish embryo provides the first complete developmental blueprint of a vertebrate.

Beauty and form combining to provide hot water. This shower's sculptural form heats the water without using any electricity or fuel. The Piezo Shower uses selectively narrowed bore tubes to pressurise water combining it with groundbreaking developments in nano generators transforming pressure into heat. Design: Sebastian Jansson, Fernanda Pizà, Victor Stelmasuk, Natalie Weinmann