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Gaming the Future: The Book!

Month: February 2001

Artificial Virus within 5 Years

from the bringing-bottom-up-alive dept.
PatrickUnderwood noted a BBC News article "Synthetic Virus Nearing Reality" in which Professor Clyde Hutchinson of the University of North Carolina and The Institute of Genomic Research, speaking at the AAAS meeting, predicts the ability to build a virus from scratch within five years. The article describes how this is a step along the way for the "Minimal Genome Project." The writer spends much of the story trying to link this to concerns about bioweapons, but gets told that "There's enough bad stuff out there now. So far, there is no reason to believe that this technology is going to make things any worse."

Transgenic Crops: A Preview of Nanotech Regulation

from the dealing-with-uncertainty dept.
GregEderer writes "An article running in the current issue of American Scientist "Ecology of Transgenic Crops" presents more evidence to the effect that we simply do not know what the human health and environmental impacts of transgenic crops are likely to be. Nevertheless, the engines of transgenic creation continue to steam right along (e.g., ~15 million acres of Bt corn were planted in the US in 1998, et cetera) as though the risks associated with the technology were fully known. In fact, as Dr. Marvier aptly points out, some of the harmful effects may not become apparent for decades, and could not, therefore, be known ahead of time. If nanotech regulation mirrors the regulation of transgenic crops, then there will be practically no regulation at all. This is bad news for those of us who suspect that there might be some dangers associated with advanced nanotech." Read More for Greg's full comment.

Jurvetson on convergence of info/bio/nanotech

from the not-Microsoft-Office dept.
Senior Associate and well-known VC Steve Jurvetson has a CNET think-piece called "The new convergence: Infotech, biotech and nanotech". The closing: "The best way to create a large and complex system is to grow it. It's not a Microsoft Office install. It's not a brain by design. We are entering a period of a profound learning and expansion of our capabilities in both molecular engineering and information processing. By expanding these capabilities, we further expand our ability to learn. It is a period of exponential growth in the learning-doing cycle in which the power of biology, IT and nanotech compounds the advances in each formerly discrete domain. Despite a human tendency to presume a regression to linearity, the pace of progress will continue to accelerate." In an email, Steve said "Special Thanks to [Senior Associate] Robert Bradbury, who is brilliant on these topics, and helped me a lot." Join Steve at the April 20-22 Gathering.

Bill Joy debate on "terrible empowerment of extreme individuals"

from the glad-I-wasn't-there dept.
An article in the Feb 17 San Jose Mercury News' religion and ethics section entitled Guiding Science covered a debate between Bill Joy and various others including nanotechnologist James Heath: "Bill Joy is once more trumpeting the dangers of technology run amok…" Joy quoted a rabbi: "Zalman said, 'Maybe we should declare that nanotechnology isn't kosher; and maybe the pope should declare it a mortal sin'. I said, 'That's an interesting perspective. Most of the people in my company [Sun Microsystems] don't think like that.' " Heath is quoted as saying that "nanobots" are "science fiction". CP: Sigh — let's have some higher-quality debate on this topic. We'll try at the April 20-22 Foresight meeting.

Self-assembling nanoscale camshaft

from the bravo dept.
Biologist Steven Smith, who spoke at the '97 Foresight Conference, has some new work published in Nano Letters : "A Self-Assembling Nanoscale Camshaft: Implications for Nanoscale Materials and Devices Constructed from Proteins and Nucleic Acids". See the illustration, the abstract, and the full paper. Excerpt: "These experiments coupled with the construction of the nanoscale camshaft described above clearly demonstrate that two- and three-address macromolecular assemblies carrying fusion proteins can be produced using the biospecificity of the DNA methyltransferases. With this capacity, it is now possible to consider the construction of materials that self-assemble into two-dimensional and three-dimensional macromolecular arrays."

Nanotech SBIR grants to be extra-large & long-term

from the there's-nothing-small-about-nanotechnology dept.
NIH has put out a call for unusually large, longer-term, and team-oriented applications for Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) projects on nanotechnologies useful to biomedicine. "Partners to the small businesses may play important roles in these projects and may receive appropriate support for their efforts…it should be possible to arrange individual atoms and molecules in space with great precision, leading to the fabrication of truly smart biosensors…the properties of DNA to undergo highly controlled and hierarchical assembly makes it ideal for applications in nanotechnology such as molecular sieves, or scaffolds for the assembly of molecular electronic components. Likewise, eukaryotic rotary motors based on ATPase could be employed as generic engines driving other nanodevices for purposes such as highly directed delivery of drugs or other agents…Nanotechnology promises scientific and commercial opportunities that are virtually unimaginable at this time." And individuals can be paid well: "Because the resources required for nanoengineering are relatively scarce, highly specialized, and multidisciplinary, the total amount of consultant costs and contractual costs requested by applicants may exceed the statutory guidelines."

CIA on nanowarfare: "we do have to worry"

from the worrisome dept.
TNT Weekly brings our attention to an ABCNEWS.com interview of CIA Assistant Director John Gannon. Asked about misuse of nanotech, he says "…we do have to worry about what bad people will do with the same capabilities. And individual governments and the international community need to invest in an effort to understand the implications of these technologies and to take early steps to control potential adverse effects. I would stress that, in the area of new technologies, we do not pretend to know all the answers, which is all the more reason why we need to work together on these challenges. "

Webcast of Kurzweil image transformation demo

from the get-some-TED-for-free dept.
A message from the TED conference: "A FREE hour of the exclusive (impossible to get in) TED11 Conference FREE. Brought to you by Apple's QuickTime group and TED Conferences on Thursday, February 22, 2001 at approximately 8:00 pm EST/5:00 pm PST. [Foresight Senior Associate] Raymond Kurzweil, winner of the National Medal of Technology, in a dramatic, amazing and entertaining presentation complete with singers and dancers will premiere the first complete blurring and image transformation in an astonishing demo of the near future. (This will demonstrate absolutely state-of-the-art digital avatar technology.) This one-hour presentation is not to be missed. Go to http://www.ted.com/webcast.html for specific information on the conference. The webcast will be available by approximately 8 pm EST (5 pm PST) on Thursday, February 22, 2001. The page will be available then at http://www.apple.com/quicktime/qtv/ted11/index.html Higher resolution and better quality video will be posted one day later." Read More for the full email.

East coast Foresight?

from the spreading-geographically dept.
Anonymous Thinker writes "I would like to ask if foresight is planning on having events on the east coast? If not I would like propose starting a local chapter here in Atlanta. The Georgia Institute of Technology has an excellent research center for Nanotechnology and I think that it would be an ideal place to begin spreading and discussing the benifits of nanotechnology on the east coast. thanks, G-Man" CP: The current plan is to alternate U.S. coasts for the Foresight Conferences on Molecular Nanotechnology (East in 2000, West in 2001, etc.). Regarding local chapters, we suggest setting up Nanotechnology Study Groups at universities. Georgia Tech would indeed be a good place to have one of these.

Administering Nanotechnology

from the bell-the-cat dept.
Assuming that complete anarchy is not the optimal result of nanotech, some sort of administration, coordination, policy-making, and regulation seems desirable. An organization that can do this will have to represent governments, corporations, and individuals; balance many issues at once; be credible to, and trusted by, people of widely varying ideologies; act rapidly, yet with prudence… the list goes on.
Read more for an attempt to design such a group.

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