What does the retired World War II vessel INS Vikrant have to do with the National Symposium of Chemovation 2010?

INS Vikrant might be an old war ship that now sits idly in the Mumbai museum. But it had its days of glory when nearly 18-20 war crafts would alight on the deck. It earned its crew two Mahavir Chakras and 12 Vir Chakras during the wars against Pakistan and East Pakistan in 1965 and 1971.

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Nanotechnology has finally arrived in classrooms and we are not merely talking theory here. In India, nanoscience education is seen as an option only in the graduate and post graduate levels. And only the creme de la creme have the opportunity to work on nanoscience projects. Take for instance, the IIT students of Kanpur planning to build a nano satellite in association with Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO).

In the west, nanoscience is introduced much earlier in schools. High school grads get to attend nanoscience workshops where they process silicon wafers using photolithography to transfer a pattern of their school logo into a 500 nm aluminum film.  Talk about educational gaps in society.

If you are looking for a link to the nanotech research centres in India, You’ll find a list here

Universities and research centres in India

Meanwhile admissions to Phd programs have started in most IITs in India.

Here’s a link to the Phd announcements at IIT Guwahati

The Electrochemical Materials Science Division of the Central Electrochemical Research Institute in Karaikodi is looking for a Junior Research Scientist.

Required a Junior Research Fellow to work in DST sponsored project on “Development of nanoscale multilayered and nanocomposite super hard coatings by reactive magnetron sputtering for bio medical applications.
Position : JRF (Project)
No. of position : 01
Qualification : I Class M.Sc Chemistry/Physics/Materials Science
preferably with NET /GATE.
Desirable : Preference will be given to those who have research
background and working knowledge in vacuum
coating and characterization of thin films

Stipend : Rs.12,000/-p.m + HRA

Walk in interview will be held at CECRI,Karaikudi on 29-01-2009.

Contact
Dr B.SUBRAMANIAN
Scientist
Electrochemical Materials Science Division
Central Electrochemical Research Institute
 

Always thought materials expand when exposed to heat? Not always.  The all new ultra flexible materials are breaking traditional rules of flexibility and exhibiting properties that defy the old school of physics. 

Here’s a story by the univerity of Cambridge that throws light on how new materials are redefining the rules of physics.

Fuelled by rapidly developing electronics and telecommunications industries, the global demand for high-performance materials is insatiable. In the UK alone, annual turnover associated with the design, manufacture and processing of materials exceeds £200 billion – income that relies on devising smaller, faster, stronger, cheaper and increasingly eco-friendly technologies. The challenge faced by the scientific community is that of meeting this demand by identifying new materials with ever more extreme capabilities.

Dr Andrew Goodwin, a Trinity College Research Fellow in the Department of Earth Sciences, has been tackling this problem by designing materials with ultra-flexible atomic-scale structures. Just as a collapsible toy sphere has entirely different properties from those of the plastic from which it is assembled, so too can these ultra-flexible materials break all the rules that ‘traditional’ systems are forced to obey.
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Thanks to Vaibhav Tidke and his team, rural India need not depend on the empty promises made by politicians to make villages self sustainable. Tidke and his team made it to the top ten in the UNESCO-Daimler ‘Mondialogo Engineering Award’.  Considered the ‘Engineer’s Oscar’, the award is given for creating sustainable solutions for problems in developing countries.Tidke’s team won the prestigious award for developing an energy-efficient solar pond dryer that ensures longer shelf-life for farm produce.  

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Rensselaer professor of nanotechnology moves molecular action out of his lab to the movie screen in his debut film ‘Molecules to the MAX’ and going by the initial feedback and outstanding reviews, it is bound to be as popular as Finding Nemo.

His film is expected to hit the screens this winter, and Siegal is intrigued to see how “Molecules to the MAX” will fare not only against Hollywood blockbusters, but also against the growing cadre of sharks, dinosaurs, insects, historic sites, and heavenly bodies that have become the bread and butter of the giant-screen movie industry.

The movie is a magical, musical adventure into the world of ATOMS and MOLECULES! This Digital-Dome experience takes you on a journey with OXY, HYDRO and HYDRA, an amazing cast of atoms, aboard the most fantastic ship in the Universe: the MOLECULARIUM.

It is the result of an unprecedented collaboration between scientists and artists, educators and entertainers.Molecularium brings kids on a musical cartoon adventure into a NANOSCALE UNIVERSE created from accurate molecular simulations. They learn about the 3 states of matter as they travel into a cloud, watch a snowflake form, and count the number of water molecules in a raindrop.

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