A team led by a Brown University chemist has created the smallest iron oxide nanoparticles to date for cancer detection by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The magnetic nanoparticles operate like tiny guided missiles, seeking and attaching themselves to malignant tumor cells. Once they bind, the particles emit stronger signals that MRI scans can detect.

Too much of a good thing could be harmful to the environment. For years, scientists have known about silver’s ability to kill harmful bacteria and, recently, have used this knowledge to create consumer products containing silver nanoparticles.

Dutch chemist Kees Baldé has demonstrated that hydrogen can be efficiently stored in nanoparticles. This allows hydrogen storage to be more easily used in mobile applications. Baldé discovered that 30 nanometre particles of the metal hydride sodium alanate make the favourable extraction and storage of hydrogen possible.

The ubiquity of mineral nanoparticles in natural waters, the atmosphere, and in soils and their intriguing properties provide Earth scientists with another dimension in which to understand our planet.

University of Missouri scientist Kattesh Katti recently discovered how to make gold nanoparticles using gold salts, soybeans and water. Katti’s research has garnered attention worldwide and the environmentally-friendly discovery could have major applications in several disciplines.

An international team led by Physics and Chemistry teams from the Faculty of Science and Technology at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) and directed by Professor Jose Javier Saiz Garitaonandia, has achieved, by means of a controlled chemical process, that atoms of gold, silver and copper - intrinsically non-magnetic (not attracted to a magnet) - become magnetic.

Wool skirts and silk ties may avoid those pricey trips to the dry-cleaner in the future and clean themselves, researchers in Australia and China suggest in a study scheduled for the Feb. 26 issue of ACS’ Chemistry of Materials, a bi-weekly journal. It reports development of a nanoparticle coating that could lead to “self-cleaning” wool and silk fabrics.

Scientists at the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) have successfully produced carbon nanotubes (CNTs) in high yields in bulk solid compositions using commercially available aromatic containing resins. The concentration of multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWNTs) and metal nanoparticles can be easily varied within the shaped carbonaceous solid.

Researchers in Australia report development of a new type of gold nanoparticle that destroys the parasite responsible for toxoplasmosis, a potentially serious disease acquired by handling the feces of infected cats or eating undercooked meat.

In a world that constantly strives for bigger and bigger things, Washington University in St. Louis' Pratim Biswas, Ph.D., the Stifel and Quinette Jens Professor and chair of the Department of Energy, Environmental and Chemical Engineering, is working to make things smaller and smaller.

Water chemistry and mineralogy are scientific fields that have been around long enough to develop extensive knowledge and technologies. The boundary of water and rock, however, is not a thin wet line but the huge new field of nanoparticle science.

Researchers in Ohio report the development of magnetic nanoparticles that show promise for quickly detecting and eliminating E. coli, anthrax, and other harmful bacteria.