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Conventional thinking says that a block of salt can’t stretch, but researchers from Sandia National Laboratories and the University of Pittsburgh are saying they aren’t so sure anymore.

In an article published in Nanoletters, members of the group describe how they were poking around a small piece of salt with an interfacial force microscope when they noticed that salt stuck to the tip of the IFM and clung with it even as the tip was moved away from the main piece of salt. They learned they could stretch the salt nanowire-like tendrils to lengths from 580 nm to 2,191 nm.

“It’s not supposed to do that,” said Sandia principal investigator Jack Houston in a SNL news release. “Unlike, say, gold, which is ductile and deforms under pressure, salt is brittle. Hit it with a hammer, it shatters like glass.”

Houston and the others believe that at the interface between the IFM tip and the salt surface, salt molecules formed a ductile meniscus. Houston said he thinks the reason this is occurring is that because surface molecules don’t have an atomic lattice above them, they are free to be more mobile than interior salt molecules.

The discovery may have application in desalination systems. It may also provide insight on sea salt aerosols. These aerosols are linked to cloud nucleation and lead to environmental problems, such as smog, ozone destruction and asthma.

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Glasstech President and CEO Mark D. Christman, U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis, Ohio Governor Ted Strickland and the Director of Ohio’s Department of Jobs and Family Services Douglas E. Lumpkin (see below).

Four factors led to fly ash spill at Kingston Fossil Plant in Knoxville, TN

NPC to invest $5.9M in fuel cell material development

Department of Defense purchases 19 fuel cell power units from Plug Power

Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis and Ohio Governor Ted Strickland visit Glasstech

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Australia’s national science agency says it has developed a new, strong fire-blocking material. The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization calls the material HIPS (‘hybrid inorganic polymer system’).

According to the Melbourne-based CSIRO, construction materials given a coating of HIPS can withstand temperatures of over 1000°C.

CSIRO describes HIPS as a geopolymer: It contains an inorganic geopolymer resin and small amounts of polymer additives. “Geopolymers are an emerging class of ceramic-like inorganic polymers produced at room temperatures that have the potential to transform the building products industry,” says Damian Fullston, the project leader of the group developing HIPS, in a document on the CSIRO website.

Fullston goes on to note, “[Geopolymers] are not only fire-, blast- and acid-resistant, they are also strong, castable, sprayable and extrudable, making their potential uses almost limitless. The polymer additives in HIPS improve the flexibility and waterproofing properties, and provide stronger adhesion, which are important properties for a coating.”

CSIRO is now looking for partners in the manufacturing sector to develop and market HIPS applications. According to the agency, HIPS is would be ideal for fire-resistant coatings on wood, structural metal and brickwork. It can be applied by means of a brush or spray and cures at ambient temperatures.

The material also seems to be environmentally friendly. The agency says,”HIPS coatings are free of volatile organic compounds, do not burn or produce heat and do not release smoke or toxic chemicals at temperatures up to 1200°C.” Further, the feedstock can be derived from fly ash and blast furnace slag.

CSIRO has a podcast about HIPS.

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Admittedly, we are honking our own horn here, but allow us to brag a little bit about the growing influence of the two peer-reviewed journals of The American Ceramic Society.

The new “Impact Factor” numbers are out and the Journal of the American Ceramic Society remains the highest impact journal in the field. The 2008 ISI Impact Factor grew about 17%, compare last year, to 2.101, extending its lead over its nearest competitor.

The International Journal of Applied Ceramic Technology, which currently occupies third place, increased its Impact Factor by nearly 9% to 1.488

The news is even better using a longer horizon. In the five-year impact measure, the two ACerS journals lead the way.

The JACerS also leads the way in total citations. The articles in the journal collected a total of nearly 27,000 citations in 2008, nearly 38% more than th second-placed journal.

For information on the 2008 materials science Impact Factors, click here.

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Credit: UMASS

According to a press release, researchers at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst have developed a “chemical nose” that can sniff out cancer. It’s a tool that could revolutionize cancer detection and treatment, according to chemist Vincent Rotello and cancer specialist Joseph Jerry.

An article describing the chemical nose method of cancer detection appears in the June 23 issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences online.

The tool contains an array of nanoparticles and polymers that differentiate between healthy and cancerous cells and also between metastatic and nonmetastatic cancer cells. According to the authors, their system is “based on a “chemical nose/tongue” approach that exploits subtle changes in the physicochemical nature of different cell surfaces.”

“Our new method uses an array of sensors to recognize not only known cancer types, but it signals that abnormal cells are present,” says Rotello. “That is, the chemical nose can simply tell us something isn’t right, like a ‘check engine light,’ though it may never have encountered that type before,” he added.

Further, the chemical nose can be designed to alert doctors of the most invasive cancer types, those for which early treatment is crucial.

The study conducted using four human cancer cell lines (cervical, liver, testis and breast), as well as in three metastatic breast cell lines, and in normal cells showed that the new detection technique correctly indicated not only the presence of cancer cells in a sample but also identified primary cancer versus metastatic disease.

In further experiments to rule out the possibility that the chemical nose had simply detected individual differences in cells from different donors, the researchers repeated the experiments in skin cells from three groups of cloned mice: healthy animals, those with primary cancer and those with metastatic disease. Once again, it worked. “ This result is key,” says Rotello. “It shows that we can differentiate between the the three cell types in a single individual using the chemical nose approach.”

Rotello’s research team, with colleagues at the Georgia Institute of Technology, designed the new detection system by combining three gold nanoparticles that have special affinity for the surface of chemically abnormal cells, plus a polymer known as PPE, or poly-para-phenylene-ethynylene.

As the “check engine light,” PPE fluoresces when displaced from the nanoparticle surface.

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