AIChE takes a limited look at nanotechnology

from the Nose-to-the-benchtop dept.
The October 2001 issue of Chemical Engineering Progress, a publication of the American Institute of Chemical Engineering (AIChE), has a brief article on nanotechnology, but itís rather limited in scope. Not surprisingly, the emphasis is on nano-structured materials and process chemistry involving nano-scale catalysis, with some attention given to carbon nanotubes; the timeline is rather near-term and little is said about the possibility of nano-scale devices.
Note: Access to the online version of Chemical Engineering Progress is free, but may require registration. The article is an Adobe Acrobat PDF file (about 440 KB).

Article looks at dangers, military uses of nanotech

from the The-future-as-minefield dept.
A rather morbid but informative article about the potential dangers of advanced nanotechnology and the abuse of information technology appeared in the Montreal Gazette ("Cyber-doomsayers offer chilling vision", by Alex Roslin, 14 October 2001). The article leads off with a fictional "grey-goo" meltdown, then recaps the arguments made by Bill Joy over the past year and a half. The article then more usefully focuses on current interest in military applications of micro- and nano-technologies, as well as information systems. The article quotes retired U.S. Army colonel Thomas Adams, who has criticized the U.S. military for its failure to envision the potential consequences of technologies it is helping to develop:

"We are rapidly approaching an event horizon in human development, a point at which the mutually reinforcing trends described here will combine to produce an aggregate result so different from what we now know that it is impossible to guess what it will be."

Ninth Foresight Conference on Molecular Nanotechnology

The Ninth Foresight Conference on Molecular Nanotechnology will be held at the Westin Hotel in Santa Clara, California from 9 -11 November 2001. The keynote speaker will be James Murday of the U.S. Naval Research Lab and Director of the National Nanotechnology Coordination Office. A special conference session on Venture Capital for Nanotechnology and a Nanotechnology Patent Roundtable will be held.

ASME 2001 conference will include nanotech track

from the More-conferences dept.
A reminder: The special nanotechnology track at the 2001 American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) International Mechanical Engineering Conference (11-16 November 2001) will include a keynote panel discussion, three nanotechnology tutorials, and nine conference technical sessions devoted to various aspects of nanotechnology.

NRC issues preliminary report on review of NNI

from the committee-speak dept.
A preliminary report has been issued by a committee organized by the National Research Council (NRC), an independent advisory body under the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS) serving the government, to conduct a review of the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI). The review was initiated in August, and is due to be completed in May 2002. The preliminary report identifies several items deemed critical to the success of the NNI: program management, including interagency coordination and ways of measuring progress; a balanced research portfolio that includes long-term planning, short-term successes, high-risk projects, and ìgrand challengesî; research partnerships with local, state and international entities including academia and the private sector; investment in developing infrastructure, fostering interdisciplinary research, and looking beyond nanoscale research to the creation of macro-scale products using nanotechnology; training of future scientists and engineers and examining societal impacts. (In other words, achieving the goals laid out in the original program are crucial to its success — it took a committee to arrive at this? Hopefully the final report will offer something more substantial.)

The report is available online, but be prepared to be exasperated: It is presented using the OpenBook system, as a series of low-resolution PDF files — one page at a time! Hint: many of the pages are blank; most of the sparse content is in Section 2.

Additional information about the NRC review (project scope, committee membership, meeting agendas, etc.) of the NNI is available at the NRC website.

bioMEMs, capsules cure diabetes in Rats

Brian Wang writes "Pre-cursors of the nanotech medical cures are being tested in rats. Mem capsules with 7 nm holes let out insulin from cells inside the capsule. The holes allow nutrients in to keep the cells alive but keep out the immune system cells to keep the cells alive. Since the cells and the capsules last basically the lifetime of the person, they are effectively a cure. They will take some years to go through long term small animal trials and then to monkey and finally to human trials. The technique can be applied to other diseases. Parkisons, hemofilia etc… http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,47934, 00.html"

Additional information about the device can found in this NSF press release.

Vacuum packed cells survive days to weeks

RobertBradbury writes "A group lead by Fred Levine at UCSD is now reporting in Cryobiology (42:207) that simply drying cells in a vacuum is feasible method for cellular preservation. The highly unexpected discovery is discussed in a New Scientist article from October 22, 2001. This potentially provides a very different approach to cryonic suspensions where you would dehydrate the person first, then lower the temperatures to keep them in stasis. No water means no freezing damage due to ice crystal formation. The question becomes whether or not the extracellular structure of the brain (and other tissues) could survive the dehydration process? The shrinkage due to water loss seems like it would put a fair amount of stress on the proteins that bind the synaptic junctions together."

New website for Chinese nanotechnology network

from the Inscrutable dept.
You might be able to glean some useful kernels of information about nanotech-related research in China from the website of the Nano Science and Technology Network of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CASNANO), although there actually seems to be little substantial content on the site as yet.
The site and program are relatively new efforts; previous coverage of nanotech-related news appeared here on 29 June and 31 July 2001.

NSF examines technology to

from the Information,-please dept.
This tantalizing blurb was posted 21 September 2001 on the website of the California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI):

Martha Krebs to Participate in NSF Workshop in December – Advances in a diverse range of scientific disciplines require a need for better communication among the sciences. The NSF has planned a workshop aimed at improving the exchange of ideas between the rapidly progressing fields of Nanotechnology, Biotechnology and biomedicine, Information technology and Cognitive science (Nano-Bio-IT-Cogno). CNSI Director Martha Krebs will participate in the conference, ìConvergent Technologies for Improving Human Performanceî, held on Dec. 3-4 in Arlington, VA. The conference will address issues set for the short and long term that include enhancing individual capabilities and societal outcomes.

It would be interesting to know more about just what sort of ìperformance improvementsî will be considered during the workshop — however, no further information seems to be available at this time.

CNSI researchers report progress with molectronics circuits

from the Getting-wired dept.
An extensive article on the Small Times website ("UCLA team develops molecular switches", by Jayne Fried, 26 October 2001) describes recent work by James Heath and his coworkers at the California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI) to develop working molecular electronics devices. According to the article, they have have attached molecular switches on a grid as small as 50 nanometers, a significant step forward in the UCLA effort to build a rudimentary molecular computer. "There's a long way to go," Heath said. "Right now we have circuits with molecules on a grid on normal lithographic wires." The goal is that one day the grid would be assembled with carbon nanotubes. More information on the molectronics work at UCLA can be found in Foresight Update #44.

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