Lost amongst the hoopla of the Nobel Prize announcements last week, were the Feynman prizes for nanotechnology – awarded by the Foresight Nanotech Institute.

The experimental prize went to Sir Fraser Stoddart and, in an academic father-son type of thing, the theory prize went to David Leigh from the University of Edinburgh, who got his PhD in Stoddart’s group back in the Sheffield days in the 80s. Communication and student prizes were also awarded – details can be found here.

Another nano-related prize has also been recently announced:

The International Society for Nanoscale Science, Computation, and Engineering (ISNSCE) is soliciting nominations for its annual Nanoscience Prize. The Nanoscience prize is given every year to recognize and encourage outstanding research in all areas of nanoscience. Go to www.isnsce.org and click on News for more information.

Not quite as financially rewarding as the new Kavli nanoscience prize, but yet more recognition for good nano-related research can’t be a bag thing.

Stuart

Stuart Cantrill (Associate Editor, Nature Nanotechnology)

We just put out release v3.11, with some improvements to section pages and publications.

The Blogs homepage is the most obvious change. Blogs continue to be one of the most popular aspects of the site, so we’re keen to do everything we can to show them off. The new-look page now shows a few lines of text from each post, with an improved layout and a section showing the latest comments.

We’ve also altered the way we decide who’s got the most active blog. Previously, we listed them on quantity alone – i.e., who has posted the most. Now we’ve introduced some measure of quality, by taking into account the number of comments each blog is attracting. Well done to Jenny Rohn and Anna Kushnir, whose blogs benefit from the new system.

The release also included an improvement to publications listing. Your publications should now display in chronicological order rather than the order you entered them in.

Finally, the Groups homepage also includes a small tweak to show the latest group memberships.

We ain’t stopping there. Over October, we’re going to be making plenty more changes to the section pages and network snapshot. Stay tuned…