The College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering ("CNSE") of the University at Albany and the Capital District Transportation Authority ("CDTA") are partnering to publicize the global leadership of the UAlbany NanoCollege and New York State in nanotechnology - as well as the growing impact of nanoscale technologies in the 21st century - through a unique exhibit now on display at the Rensselaer Rail Station.

Field Effect Transistors in microprocessors have halved in scale in the past seven years. Researchers modelling transistor production at the next scale down cannot assume the manufacturing concepts developed in the past will work at the new frontier.

Solar power is becoming less of a luxury

It was once a rule of demography that people have fewer children as their countries get richer. That rule no longer holds true

A new experiment is setting the Amazon on fire

THIS month Jennifer Balch will head into the Amazon rainforest of Mato Grosso state, in Brazil. She intends to set fire to it and find out what happens. When Dr Balch, who is based at Woods Hole Research Centre, in Massachusetts, and her 30 helpers have finished their weeklong task, 50 hectares will have been torched. “It’s pretty darn exciting, and a bit crazy”, she says, “to see a bunch of researchers running around burning down a forest.”

A new way of keeping private correspondence private

The treeless new product from Taiwan requires little energy to produce. It's recyclable—and degradable

Used to be bag options at the store were paper or plastic. Now shoppers can choose cloth bags, too. They may have another alternative: rock. Shopping bags and boxes from gift stores at New York's Museum of Modern Art, bags from personal-care company Erno Laszlo, and packaging of consumer products from Burt's Bees look, feel, and fold like paper, but they're made of crushed stone.