Nanotechnology Applications

Nanobiotechnology

Nanobiotechnology is the unification of biotechnology and nanotechnology, thus it's a hybrid discipline dealing with the making of atomic-scale machines by imitating or incorporating biological systems at the molecular level, or building tiny tools to study or change natural structure properties atom by atom. This goal can be attained via a combination of the classical micro-technology with a molecular biological approach.



Tiny medical hardware can interact with tissue in the human body at a molecular level to conduct more precise diagnosis and healing of malignancy. Many illnesses and injuries have their origins in nanoscale processes. Accordingly, practical usage of nanotechnology to the practice of medical care and biomedical investigation unlocks opportunities to treat illnesses, repair injuries, and enhance human functioning beyond what is possible with larger scale techniques.

How nanotechnology affects everything

Nanotechnology scientific impact

While there is a commonly held belief that nanotechnology is a futuristic science with applications 25 years in the future and beyond, nanotechnology is anything but science fiction. In the last years over a dozen Nobel prizes have been awarded in nanotechnology, from the development of the scanning probe microscope (SPM), to the discovery of fullerenes. Almost every university in the world has a nanotechnology department, or is expecting the funds to create one.
Nanotechnology offers opportunities in creating new features and functions and is already providing the solutions to many long-standing medical, social and environmental problems. Because of its potential, nanotechnology is of global interest, attracting more public funding than any other area of technology.

There is an unprecedented multidisciplinary convergence of scientists dedicated to the study of a world so small, we cannot see it - even with a light microscope. That world is the field of nanotechnology, the realm of atoms and nanostructures, something so new; no one is really sure what will come of it.

One of the exciting and challenging aspects of the nanoscale is the role that quantum mechanics plays in it. The rules of quantum mechanics are very different from those used in classical physics, which means that the behavior of substances at the nanoscale can sometimes contradict common sense by behaving erratically. You cannot walk up to a wall and immediately teleport to the other side of it, but at the nanoscale an electron can - it's called electron tunneling. Substances that are insulators, meaning they cannot carry an electric current, in bulk form might become semiconductors when reduced to the nanoscale. Melting points can change due to an increase in surface area. Much of nanoscience requires that you forget what you know and start learning all over again.

Signcryption standard increases cyber security

Signcryption, which University of North Carolina at Charlotte professor Yuliang Zheng created, is a technology that protects confidentiality and authenticity, seamlessly and simultaneouslyis and is particularly useful in cloud computing for ensuring confidential, authenticated transmissions. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has published a standard for a public-key technology that combines signing and encrypting a message in a single step.

The first signcryption scheme was introduced by Professor Yuliang Zheng in 1997 and he continued his research in this revolutionary new technology at the College of Computing and Informatics. After nearly a three-year process, the International Organization of Standardization (ISO) has formally recognized his research efforts as an international standard.

News of the ISO adoption comes amidst daily reports of cyber attack and cyber crime around the world. Zheng says the application will also enhance the security and privacy of cloud computing. "The adoption of signryption as an international standard is significant in several ways," he said. "It will now be the standard worldwide for protecting confidentiality and authenticity during transmissions of digital information."

"This will also allow smaller devices, such as smartphones and PDAs, 3G and 4G mobile communications, as well as emerging technologies, such as radio frequency identifiers (RFID) and wireless sensor networks, to perform high-level security functions," Zheng said. "And, by performing these two functions simultaneously, we can save resources, be it an individual's time or be it energy, as it will take less time to perform the task."

There are also many other signcryption schemes that are proposed throughout the years, each of them having its own problems and limitations, while they are offering different level of security services and computational costs.