Saturday, December 8, 2007

nano crazy

From Slashdot:

Nanotube-Excreting Bacteria Allow Mass Production
Posted by Zonk on Saturday December 08, @03:23AM
from the building-tech-from-the-ground-up dept.

Biotech
Invisible Pink Unicorn writes "Engineers at the University of California, Riverside have found semiconducting nanotubes produced by living bacteria — a discovery that could help in the creation of a new generation of nanoelectronic devices. This is the first time nanotubes have been shown to be produced by biological rather than chemical means. In a process that is not yet fully understood, the bacterium secretes polysacarides that seem to produce the template for the arsenic-sulfide nanotubes. These nanotubes behave as metals with electrical and photoconductive properties useful in nanoelectronics. The article abstract is available from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences."

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