Volume 4 Issue 8, August 2009

We propose a proactive approach to the management of occupational health risks in emerging technologies based on six features: qualitative risk assessment; the ability to adapt strategies and refine requirements; an appropriate level of precaution; global applicability; the ability to elicit voluntary cooperation by companies; and stakeholder involvement.

Interactions between scientists and artists or designers can be beneficial for both sides and, as Richard Jones reports, offer intriguing glimpses of the future.

Nanodiamonds allow insoluble drugs to be dispersed in water.

Single-electron behaviour has been observed in devices that can be made by simply trapping gold nanoparticles between two droplets of liquid metal.

The scanning tunnelling microscope can image and distinguish individual bases in DNA molecules, thus allowing partial sequencing of the strands.

The atomic force microscope has recently been the subject of a series of exciting developments. The latest advance shows that this instrument can measure the charge state of an individual atom.

The synchronization of four magnetic vortices without the use of a magnetic field has brought nanoscale microwave oscillators one step closer to fruition.

Charge carriers have been confined by exploiting the small difference between the bandgap energies of the two naturally occurring stable isotopes of carbon.

Carbon nanotubes have demonstrated considerable potential as tips for atomic force microscopy (AFM), but they are still not widely used. This article reviews the history and applications of nanotube–based AFM tips, and reports on research to improve their performance.

Experiments on nanoparticles with highly uniform sizes show how acoustic vibrations are damped through a combination of intrinsic and viscous damping by the surrounding fluid.

Tip-enhanced phonon Raman spectroscopy can identify intrinsic ferroelectric domains of individual barium titanate nanocrystals.

A variety of structural changes in few-layer graphene samples can be followed with atomic resolution in real time by using high-resolution transmission electron microscopy.

Electrochemical measurements show that the quantum capacitance of graphene is influenced by scattering from charged impurities, and also suggest that a longstanding puzzle about the interfacial capacitance in carbon-based electrodes has a quantum origin.

The optical-gradient force between two nanophotonic waveguides can be tuned from attractive to repulsive by controlling the relative phase of the optical fields injected into the waveguides.

The flexibility of biomolecules at the microsecond timescale can be monitored under physiologically relevant conditions and with high spatial resolution using a technique based on atomic force microscopy.

It is possible to sequence individual guanine bases in long-chain DNA molecules using a scanning tunnelling microscope by exploiting a distinct electronic state in the base molecule.

Individual zinc oxide nanoparticles are shown to be intrinsically ferromagnetic when they are doped with cobalt, which should prove useful in spintronics and other applications.

A magnetic vortex can be made to gyrate by a d.c. spin-polarized current. Researchers have now demonstrated the synchronization of four magnetic vortices through their interaction with antivortices. This work could lead to improved nanoscale microwave oscillators and a new way to study the behaviour of interacting solitons.