'What is the greatest discovery made by chemistry in the last 100 years?'

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

At an event marking the five-year anniversary of the Wake Forest University Center for Nanotechnology and Molecular Materials, Wake Forest Professor David Carroll discusses the future of nanotechnology research at the University and around the world.

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.

The Integrated Nanosystems Research Facility at The University of California, Irvine (INRF UCI) is dedicated to developing and promoting micro and nano technology through research, education and outreach. The INRF advances multidisciplinary research through fostering communication between traditionally distant fields such as bioscience and engineering and by enlisting researchers from diverse backgrounds. The facility is a 8600 square foot class 100/1000/10000 clean room equipped with all the major devices for micro and nano fabrication. Capabilities include such diverse disciplines such as MEMS, biology, chemistry, optics and physics equipped with all the major devices for micro and nano fabrication. Our facilities are available to our distinguished faculty and students along with other academic institutions and industry. We welcome you to visit us, take a tour and join us in performing high quality research at our world class facility to engineer the microworld.

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?

In "This Week @Minnesota" for the week of Oct. 10-14, we talk to the Juggling Club as they practice on Northrop Mall, witness the ceremonial groundbreaking of the new Physics and Nanotechnology Building, and learn about wearing pink at this Saturday's volleyball game in support of breast cancer awareness.