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Will we soon be plugging our mobile phone into our t-shirt instead of putting in a battery? This vision is not totally out of reach: the first steps in this direction have already been taken.
PHYSorg.com: Nanomaterials News

The National Nanotechnology Initiative has posted a new draft strategic plan and is accepting public comments until November 30, 2010.
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Interaction of nanoparticles with biological systems ranging from biomolecules to biological cells is of importance for a range of applications, such as high-resolution biomedical imaging,1 gene sequencing for molecular diagnostics,2 and sensitive electronic devices.3 In this report, we demonstrate that positively charged cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB), which is a stabilizing agent used to synthesize different metal nanoshapes4-7 (such as rods, spheres, cubes, prisms, stars, and hexagons), is an effective nanoparticle coating for self-assembling an electrically percolating monolayer of different nanoshapes on gram-positive bacterium, such as Bacillus cereus. The versatility of CTAB is especially realized for deposition of nanorods, where we observe 4 orders of magnitude larger conductivity compared to that of nanospheres at 3 times smaller area coverage. For the deposition on a “physical surface”, the rods do not form electrically percolating channels.8 Formation of such a percolating-conducting network on bacterium is attributed to high adhesion that overcomes steric interaction (responsible for liquid-crystalline order (see Figure 1a)), leading to random orientation (see Figure 2a). Furthermore, the strong adhesion (evidenced by conformal deposition of a rod causing bending) lowers the contact resistance, leading to 104 increases in conductivity at 13.5% area coverage compared to spheres with 41% area coverage (see Figure 3). This high conductivity is achieved well below the percolation threshold for random structure at 45% area coverage in two dimensions.9 With only ?10% of bacterium surface covered, the microorganism may remain alive for a time longer than that for >40% coverage systems with nanosphere deposition.10 While CTAB alone is toxic to cells, CTAB-coated nanoparticles are nontoxic.11 Electronic coupling between nanorod monolayers with microorganisms can open the possibility of novel hybrid devices utilizing the machinery of the biological system.
Papers in Nanotechnology

A new PEN report, “Voluntary Initiatives, Regulation, and Nanotechnology Oversight: Charting a Path,” provides the first analysis of the efficacy of voluntary nanotechnology initiatives.
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A porous, disk-shaped “nest” for nanotubes may help magnetic resonance imaging become better than ever at finding evidence of cancer if the results of research led by investigators at Rice University are any indication of future success. The researchers, whose work was published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology, have developed a general method for trapping paramagnetic nanoparticles inside a silicon particle that, when injected into a patient’s bloodstream, would make the nanoparticles up to 50 times more effective at spotting tumors or other signs of disease.
NCI Alliance for Nanotechnology in Cancer – Nanotech News