Next News: Building nanostructures.

Researchers at the University of Michigan have discovered a way to "self-assemble" tiny nanoparticles into wires, sheets, and shells by using "sticky patches" that make the particles attract to each other in programmed ways. The results of computer simulations showed that "if surfaces of particles could be patterned with patches of molecules, they could make the particles assemble into different shapes." The patches, made of other molecules, attract and repel specific parts of other particles, much like proteins do in the body.