An international team of nanoscience have been working hard at creating useful working nanomachinery. They are using a machine-molecule called rotoxane, and have discovered that it displays a reversible switching phenomena in response to certain chemical stimuli. The odd bit is that they’re not entirely sure why, as the molecule has nothing in it with which to switch.

WorldMapper does very wrong things to maps. Take a geographic map of the world, brightly color-coded by country, and warp it to deform countries based on a statistic (like miles of railway, or attended births, or population in 2300). Fascinating stuff to page through.

I must admit that I don’t entirely grasp the world transforming qualities of thing:link, a site that lets you build web pages about a thing (primarily intended for things you’ve made). I’m sure that’s my lack of imagination, it seems like it ought to be really cool.

Normal nanotubes? Old hat, my friend, last year’s news. Japanese researchers have stumbled across a polygonal spiral shaped varient of the humble ‘tube, and they’re calling them ‘nanocores’. The electron emmission is better, and they’re at least twelve times stronger too.

Having made nanoscale ‘test-tubes’ back in 2004, University of Florida chemistry professor Charles Martin and cohorts have now worked out a way to ‘cork’ nanotubes so they can be used as containers for medicines. This could help focus chemotherapy on the bad cells only, avoiding all the nasty side effects.