This is a follow-up to a sun article that ran on Sept. 8, entitled, “The Mysterious Collapse of the American Honeybee.” It’s based on a story reported in the NY Times.

Each year for the past four years, 20 to 40 percent of US honeybee colonies simply disappeared – a phenomenon that became known as colony collapse disorder (CCD). In a major breakthrough, Army scientists in Maryland and bee entomologists in Montana jointly discovered a perfect correlation between diseased colonies and the presence of a virus and the fungus, Nosema ceranae.

Prof. Juan Hinestroza, fiber science and apparel design, hatched the idea of textile nanotechnology while reading about the 50-year cycles of technological advancements: textiles, railroads, cars, computers, and most recently, nanotechnology. The prospect of merging two revolutions separated by 200 years intrigued him, and he works to generate "revolutionary" fabrics.

The world's reserve of fossil fuels will eventually be exhausted, and the use of oil from the Middle East will not be able to support the world. According to Prof. Frank DiSalvo, chemistry, sun is perhaps one of the best sources of energy that humans can depend on in the future.