Welcome to Sustainable Nano!
This blog is an outreach project of the Center for Sustainable Nanotechnology (CSN), a multi-institute Center for Chemical Innovation funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation from 2013-2025. Posts were written by graduate students, undergraduates, faculty, staff, and postdoctoral researchers in the CSN, with a few guest posts along the way.
Does doing SciComm and outreach affect chemistry alumni prospects? We want to find out!
by Abby Stitgen Want to skip right to the survey? Click here! (Must be at least 18 years old and have graduated or be close to graduation from a US academic institution in chemistry …
July 14, 2025
Celebrating Pride in STEM for 2025
by Miriam Krause I feel a mix of celebration, sadness, and defiance as I sit down to write about Pride Month here on the Sustainable Nano blog. Given the current administration’s attacks on people with …
June 27, 2025
Can nanoplastics breach the blood brain barrier?
by Kushani Mendis Plastics are the most common marine waste, coming from both land and ocean sources. They enter water in various ways and never fully break down. Once in the ocean or Great Lakes, …
May 27, 2025
How Organisms Adapt to Climate Change
by Zita Sárközi Our planet’s climate is warming faster than ever before and exceeds known paleoclimate rates of climate change.1 This rapid shift disrupts the delicate balance that allows plants and animals to thrive. As …
February 14, 2025
Colors of the Aurora Borealis: Nature’s Spectroscopic Spectacle
by Bob Hamers Millions of people across the US recently got their first view of the Aurora Borealis, or “Northern Lights”, as the night sky turned a rainbow of unusual colors. When I mentioned the …
December 6, 2024
Carbon Dots and Duckweed: An Artistic Journey
by Chinny Tiu When I received my acceptance to the CSN Summer Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE) Program last spring, I was so excited for the opportunity to immerse myself in a whole new field of …
November 14, 2024
Nano in Food, Inside and Out
by Ravithree Senanayake With the global population at nearly 8 billion, there is a growing demand for a safer and more sustainable ways of food production. New technologies are constantly being developed to help keep …
August 8, 2024
NanoParticles Within Your Grasp: Art as an Educational tool
by Giulia Mantovani In the 17th century when alchemy was at its height, many scientists were convinced that they could use science to turn more ordinary substances into gold. It was a time of transformation …
July 19, 2024
What are Nanoparticle Proteomics?
by Cathy Murphy If you’ve read this blog before, you are likely to know what nanoparticles are: bits of matter on the 1-100 nm scale that have unique properties different from bigger sizes of the …
June 4, 2024
How crochet can be used to model nanoscience
by Abby Stitgen What do silver nanoparticles have to do with snowflakes and crochet? Usually, not much! But recently, scientists have created methods to make snowflake-like shapes out of silver nanoparticles 1, and their methods …
April 11, 2024
Black History Month: All-Stars of Food and Agriculture
by Lindsay Tripplet As part of the observance of Black History Month at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, we created a handout to honor and remember the many foundational contributions made by Black scientists in …
February 29, 2024
Happy Valentine’s Day from our amazing universe!
by Bob Hamers Today’s blog post is a Valentine’s Day message from our universe, sent 7500 years ago from an address 44,000,000,000,000,000,000 (that’s 44 quadrillion, or 4.4×1019) miles away.
February 14, 2024
A Valentine’s Day DIY: nanoscience-inspired rock candy!
by Savannah Phillips With Valentine’s Day fast approaching, you may be looking for an easy, fun, do-it-yourself activity to do with your significant other or friends. Or, you may be interested in an edible science …
February 13, 2024
Why nanoscientists and farmers both care about plant leaves
by Chaoyi Deng As the world’s population grows and climate change messes with how plants grow, scientists are diving deep into ways to make plants healthier and help them grow better. They’re all about finding …
January 31, 2024
Quantum Computing for Everyone
by Jennifer Bjorklund The first quantum revolution occurred almost a hundred years ago and changed the world with the invention of computers, telecommunication, and satellite navigation1. Now, the second quantum revolution is underway, harnessing the …
January 18, 2024
CSN middle school outreach: Teaching nanoscience the fun way!
by Caroline Anastasia (written with help from Ravithree Senanayake) Leading up to our Fall 2023 CSN All-Hands meeting in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, a group of CSN students, post-docs, and faculty arrived at Deer Creek Intermediate School …
December 19, 2023
Recognizing Veterans Day 2023
by Miriam Krause The United States celebrates Veteran’s Day each year on November 11 as a way to recognize and remember those who have served in the Armed Forces. The history of the holiday dates …
November 10, 2023
Light up your Halloween with quantum dots
by Cheng-Hsin Huang On October 4th, the 2023 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Moungi G. Bawendi, Louis E. Brus and Alexei I. Ekimov for their work on quantum dots. These tiny shiny particles …
October 30, 2023
How do CSN experiments become patented technology?
by Christy HaynesEdited by Rayla Vilar How do CSN experiments become patented technology (and potentially products/companies)? In chemistry we often categorize our research as either more fundamental or more applied. Fundamental studies are trying to …
October 24, 2023
National Chemistry Week – The Healing Power of Chemistry
by Denise Williams-Harris It’s National Chemistry Week for 2023! The American Chemical Society is dedicating the whole week of October 15-21 to celebrating this year’s theme — “The Healing Power of Chemistry” (otherwise known as …
October 16, 2023- More Posts
This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under the Center for Sustainable Nanotechnology, grant number CHE-2001611. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed on this web site are those of the participants and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation or the participating institutions.
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