SMART DUST CHEMICAL SENSORS
How it works: Nanoscale holes in the porous matrix act as concentrators, condensing vapors of the analyte. Catalytic reactions take place in small micellar nanoreactors, converting the analyte into a chemical that can be specifically recognized by the matrix (see J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2000, (22), 5399-5400). The particle has a layered structure that provides an optical code, much like a barcode, that can be read by a remote laser beam. The reactions in the nanoreactors change the code in a predictable fashion, providing a signal that scales with dose. Read articles >>

Sailor Research Group
more on smart dust

Image Credit: Casey Keilty and Michael Szopiak, UCSD

Movie of Smart Dust Crystals Suspended in Water

Image Credit, Tsien Research Group,UCSD

This photograph of a molecular model shows two fibrinogen molecules nestled next to each other the way they pack in the crystal. Fibrinogen is the large protein that occurs in blood plasma and which becomes transformed into a fibrin clot when activated by the enzyme thrombin. Fibrin clots that occur at the wrong time can lead to strokes and heart attacks, the leading causes of death in the western world. The photo will appear on the cover of Biochemistry beginning with the first issue of 2003 and continuing with each weekly issue for the first six months of the year.

Image credit: Dr. Barbara Jones, Richard Puetter, Mike Wang, Randy Campbell

The bright sources in the image are high mass stars, part of a dense young star cluster. The filamentary emission spread throughout the image is from diffuse dust and gas. The resemblance to a creature with head and wings is entirely fortuitous. All the material is spiraling into a black hole of about a million times the mass of the sun, located at the edge of the clump just under the creature's "nose".

This image was taken at the Keck I telescope with the Long Wavelength Spectrometer (LWS) which was constructed at Center for Astrophysics and Space Science at UCSD. The data were taken in the mid-infrared, at a wavelength of 11.7 microns in June 2000. Colors in the image show the intensity of the emission. The field of view is about 20 arc seconds or about 0.8 parsecs (2.5 light years), with north to the bottom left of the field. This region of space is hidden from view at optical wavelengths from the earth's position, which is close to the edge of the milky way galaxy. There is too much obscuring dust along the line of sight. Most of the information we have about our galactic center comes from infrared and radio observations.

Center for Astrophysics and Space Science at UCSD Keck Observatory Long Wavelength Spectrometer Home Page

Image of La Jolla Cove with sine wave superimposed to illustrate the concept of a new NMR technique, developed by Dr. Stan Opella's research group, for determining the length and relative orientation of a-helix segments within membrane proteins.
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read " Dipolar Waves as NMR Maps of Protein Structure"
Opella Research Group

Image of the quasar MG 0414+534, showing multiple images due to gravitational lensing by a foreground galaxy. Read news release >>

Bioreactor 2
Image credit:Ned Jastromb, UCSD

The Very First Protostellar Object
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First Protostellar Object (1)
A slice through the protostellar object determined by Enzo in temperature gradient.

Image credit: Tom Abel

First Protostellar Object (2)

The Very First Protostellar Object A slice through the protostellar object determined by Enzo in density gradient.

Image credit: Tom Abel

Physicists Verify Reversal Of Snell's Law In 'Left-Handed' Composite Material
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Origin Of Salts In The 'Dry Valleys' Of Antarctica Provide Clues to Atmospheric Deposition On Mars.
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