Blog @ NanoVic - Nanotechnology Blog

I will be talking about a number of recent initiatives that I’ve done with NanoVic lately on the Triple R FM science show ‘Einstein a Go Go’.  Up for discussion will be the visit by Sheila Kennedy for Weaving with Light, the recent NanoVic Art Prizes and Utility Fog workshops.  ‘Einstein a Go Go’ is on Sunday 29th April from 11:00 am EST, Triple FM 102.7 Mhz.

I have been appointed to the Board of the Australian Network for Art and Technology (ANAT) temporarily, pending the outcomes of elections in May.  ANAT is running a number of Arts & Science initiatives, one of which is the Still/Open event; a series of workshops in September focusing on the practice and theory of open source approaches as applied through networked art and software development, print and online publishing and in the scientific arena.  Do you know of any scientists who may be interested?  It would be great to have a nanotechnologist involved.  If so, encourage them to apply here.

The winner of the $2000 Artist Prize was Michelle Czech, a design student at RMIT University, for her work titled ‘Magnetic Field’, a hand-made transfer printing on canvas depicting brightly coloured ‘flowers’ inspired by magnetic ferro-fluid.  Michelle brought her canvas (measuring 121 cm by 61 cm) to our announcement at the 5th World Conference of Science Journalists in Melbourne last week.  I really like Michelle’s work because it depicts the ferro-fluids form so accurately, but does it in such a delightful way.  To see ferro-fluid in action, see this YouTube video (one of many).

As you may have seen announced on our main news site, NanoVic has awarded it’s prizes for art in nanotechnology.  The $2000 Prize for Scientists was awarded to Peter Liddicoat of the University of Sydney for his work titled ‘Fluidic Evolution of Nano-Particles’.  The image was obtained through Atom Probe Tomography which enables the decomposition of a speciment atom by atom, followed by its digital recreation.  Peter’s APT image is of an aerospace aluminium allot in concentration mode.  As a judge for the awards, I thought it looked visually stunning in the colours and form, and it’s hard to tell if it’s liquid or solid which adds to a questioning of nanotechnology.  Peter’s artwork was featured in The Advertiser in Adelaide.

Apparently there is a lot more to boiling water than one might think.  Researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NSTI) and Cornell University have uncovered the traces of ephemeral “nanobubbles” formed in boiling water on a microheater.  A unique ultrafast laser strobe microscopy technique was used to observe the process with an effective shutter speed of eight nanoseconds to photograph bubbles growing on a microheater surface about 15 micrometers wide.

These experiments are believed to be the first evidence that nanoscale bubbles can form on hydophilic surfaces and could have immediate implications for inkjet printing and even thermal cancer therapies.

My cup of tea will never look quite the same from now on - and no wonder I feel great after a cup if it contains all these nanobubbles!