Russ Savage: NanoTech

Wed, 05 Nov 2003 02:04:36 GMT

Nanotech must move fast to allay fears. The European nanotechnology industry needs to discuss its work with the public or face a backlash against it. That was the general view of speakers in a panel discussion about the ethical and regulatory issues surrounding nanotechnology at the World Nano-Economic Congress, Europe, in London on Tuesday. [InfoWorld: Top News]

Mon, 03 Nov 2003 12:34:55 GMT

As Uses Grow, Tiny Materials' Safety Is Hard to Pin Down. Investors and policy makers are finding that pinpointing the potential environmental and health impacts of nanotechnology could take years. By Barnaby J. Feder. [New York Times: Technology]

Name That Cancer in One Molecule. Intel and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center collaborate to develop a nanotechnology that, if it works, will be the most senstive cancer diagnostic tool ever invented. By Kristen Philipkoski. [Wired News]

Wed, 14 May 2003 10:54:08 GMT

Nanotech Gets Down to Business. Venture capitalists, burned by the dot-com debacle, are leery of jumping on the nanotech bandwagon. But several companies and the government are investing in the latest wave of nanotech patents. Patrick Di Justo reports from the NanoBusiness Conference in New York. [Wired News]

Mon, 14 Apr 2003 12:01:43 GMT

Research Shows Hazards in Tiny Particles. A new review of research on nanoscale materials suggests that tiny particles are often toxic because of their size. By Barnaby J. Feder. [New York Times: Technology]

Wed, 19 Mar 2003 13:33:31 GMT

Making mountains out of molecules. At IBM Research, Phaedon Avouris spends his days delving into the basic behavior of matter and takes a no-nonsense approach to nanotechnology. [CNET News.com]

Mon, 17 Mar 2003 12:01:39 GMT

Nanotech's Far-Reaching Promise. Care to head to space on the Starlight Express? Someday -- in the next 10 years -- a carbon-nanotube elevator stretching 62,000 miles straight up into the sky could be a viable means of transport. By Kevin Kelleher from Wired magazine. [Wired News]

Sat, 15 Feb 2003 12:05:11 GMT

Biology to make mini machines. Scientists look to the day when computer components are built not by factory machines but by living cells such as bacteria. [BBC News | Technology | UK Edition]

They have described how wires can now be made by yeast organisms, and how solar panels could be built using substances produced by sea sponges.

Researchers believe these kind of technologies will be essential if we are to continue to shrink the size of electronic devices.

Thu, 13 Feb 2003 13:10:40 GMT

Thinktank predicts nanotechnology backlash. Education: Medical ethics thinktank warns of GM-style clashes over nanotechnology. [Guardian Unlimited]

And the state of the art is -

Wireless Sensor Networks, MIT Technology Review

Great Duck Island, a 90-hectare expanse of rock and grass off the coast of Maine, is home to one of the world's largest breeding colonies of Leach's storm petrels - and to one of the world's most advanced experiments in wireless networking. Last summer, researchers bugged dozens of the petrels' nesting burrows with small monitoring devices called motes. Each is about the size of its power source - a pair of AA batteries - and is equipped with a processor, a tiny amount of computer memory, and sensors that monitor light, humidity, pressure, and heat. There's also a radio transceiver just powerful enough to broadcast snippets of data to nearby motes and pass on information received from other neighbors, bucket brigade-style....

Others are trying to make motes even smaller. A group led by Berkeley computer scientist Kristofer Pister is aiming for one cubic millimeter - the size of a few dust mites. At that scale, wireless sensors could permeate highway surfaces, building materials, fabrics, and perhaps even our bodies. The resulting data bonanza could vastly increase our understanding of our physical environment - and help us protect our own nests.

Mon, 10 Feb 2003 00:32:09 GMT

Scientists of Very Small Draw Disciplines Together. Nanotechnology, biotechnology, electronics and brain research are converging into a field of science vital to the nation's security. By Barnaby J. Feder.

...Nanoscale innovations include novelties like tubes of carbon that are far stronger and lighter than steel and tiny light-emitting structures, called quantum dots, that are being used as identification tags in biological research. But because all the activities of living cells are governed by nanoscale interactions of atoms and small molecules, nanotechnology researchers looking for new ways to make and use nanomaterials are increasingly finding their interests overlapping with experts in biotechnology.

Similarly, electronics experts are looking to biotechnology and nanotechnology as they seek innovations that will allow them to construct far smaller and faster computers than today's silicon processors, and to create equally tiny data storage systems and communications devices....

[New York Times: Business]

Mon, 16 Dec 2002 13:05:58 GMT

In the World of the Very Small, Companies Make Big Plans. This may be remembered as the "Alice in Wonderland" decade for new technology. More and more businesses are moving into the world of nanotechnology. By Barnaby J. Feder. [New York Times: Technology]

Thu, 12 Dec 2002 11:45:04 GMT

Butterflies point to micro machines. Scientists studying the flight mechanics of red admiral butterflies say we are getting closer to the dream of tiny air vehicles. [BBC News | Technology | UK Edition]

Butterflies' Flights Disclose Free Spirits. Scientists at the University of Oxford have taken high-speed digital photographs of free-flying butterflies and the intricate, swirling patterns their wing beats make in wisps of smoke. By James Gorman. [New York Times: NYT HomePage]

Thu, 12 Dec 2002 01:58:53 GMT

Trouble in nanoland
Dec 5th 2002, From The Economist print edition
Plagued by both pessimism and hype, can nanotechnology grow up?

The lack of a clear definition of nanotechnology is hampering meaningful discussion. A hard-core definition would restrict the field to machines that have functional parts on a scale of less than 100 nanometers. At present, little can live up to this. No wonder enthusiasts favour a liberal definition that covers anything involving nanometre-scale particles.

Fri, 06 Dec 2002 18:21:10 GMT

CRYONICS CONFERENCE BRINGS OUT NANOTECH'S EXTREME OPTIMISTS

By Mark Frauenfelder, Small Times Correspondent NEWPORT BEACH, Calif.,

Dec. 6, 2002 - At Alcor's fifth annual Conference on Extreme Life Extension here recently, two well-known scientists presented their visions for the far-out future of nanotechnology.

Ralph Merkle and Robert Freitas of Zyvex Corp., a nanotechnology and MEMS research and development company in Richardson, Texas, asked the 200 or so conference attendees to imagine a time in the coming decades when doctors will routinely inject billions of nanosized robots into patients' bodies.

Thu, 05 Dec 2002 13:33:29 GMT

Perspective: Nano-hype and market reality By Daniel Leff, Cnet, December 5, 2002, 4:00 AM PT

Nano-hype is everywhere, obscuring the real news.
For example:
"Nanobiotechnology is a hybrid discipline that combines biology and nanoelectronics. Nanobiotechnology companies are building a variety of biological diagnostic tools from an array of tiny sensors that can detect specific biological molecules or individual strands of DNA. These devices will provide far faster, cheaper and more comprehensive diagnoses of complex diseases. For example, a single nanochip could provide a comprehensive diagnosis from one drop of blood, while other applications will include new tools for rapid drug discovery."

Wed, 27 Nov 2002 14:40:46 GMT

Growing Smaller
By Caron Carlson, eWeek, November 25, 2002

In "Prey," Michael Crichton's latest novel, to be released this week, the master of technology-run-amok visions sets his sights on nanotechnology and describes a horde of bacterium-size machines that break out of a lab and evolve into flesh-eating, self-reproducing predators. While even experts in nanotechnology consider it "so new that it barely exists," the science already sparks widespread alarm among environmentalists and disarmament proponents, not to mention science fiction writers....

Wed, 27 Nov 2002 12:16:21 GMT

Scientific American: Mud-Loving Microbes May Aid in Manufacture of Nanoelectronics : "Proteins produced by microbes living in extreme environments can be used as building blocks for nanoelectronics. The new technique could help researchers assemble electronics 10 to 100 times smaller than those available today." [[ t e c h n o c u l t u r e ]]