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New Technologies: Nanotechnology

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Definitions

A list of terms related to nanotechnology.

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B

Blue goo

See Grey goo.

Bottom-up manufacturing

See top-down manufacturing.

Buckminster fullerene

Also called 'buckyball'. A nanoscale sphere made of 60 atoms arranged in a perfectly symmetrical structure. If buckyballs were as big as footballs, footballs would be as big as the Earth. 
Buckyballs were discovered in 1985 by Robert Curl, Harold Kroto and Richard Smalley, who received a Nobel prize for their achievement in 1996. Buckyballs are named after the American architect Richard Buckminster Fuller for his famous geodesic dome. Click here for an image of a buckyball.

Buckyball

See Buckminster fullerene.

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What's the small idea?

Can nanotechnology help deliver clean water to the developing world? SciDev.Net examines the issues at hand