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Gaming the Future: The Book!

Month: May 2001

Overview of Swiss programs in nanoscience and technology

from the World-Watch dept.
Jeremy Tachau sent notice of an interesting overview of nanoscale science, research and technology development in Switzerland that can be found at the TOP NANO 21 Technology-Oriented Program web site, posted by the Board of the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology. Two graphic charts, with links, (on the web here, and here) show how the program is classifying nanoscale science and research.

Controlled production of carbon nanotubes

bbrelin spotted this item on the Technology Review web site on the work of a team from the University of Cambridge (U.K.) who have developed a method for producing large numbers of uniform nanotubes with predictable properties. According to the article, the "technique for growing nanocrystals yields perfectly aligned, dense groves of single-wall nanotubesóand controls exactly where the crystals are deposited

Example of selective molecular manipulation

from the sorting-things-out dept.
alison writes "A recent posting on the Advanced Light Source website describes how UCSF researchers have figured out the structure and mechanism of selective cell membrane channels in E. coli. The channel in question, called GlpF, admits glycerol and water into cells, but not ions. This research has important implications not only for our understanding of how cells regulate their chemical environment, but also for stimulating new ideas about manipulation and selection of molecules for molecular assembly projects."

Tech Finance News: VC interest in nanotech

from the here-comes-the-nanobubble dept.
Tech Finance News (19Mar01) ran a cover story entitled Nanotechnology Turns Heads: "Anticipated breakthroughs in nanotechnology and their impact on IT are prompting investors to take notice of the fledgling molecular technology companies… Some, who are already convinced of the promise of the nascent technology, plan to step-up or make initial investments in the space. Nanotechnology, in general, treats atoms as computers treat bits of information…" Funders mentioned include Mission Ventures, Cross Atlantic Capital Partners, Amadeus Capital Partners, Charmex Ventures, and Durlacher. Read More for quotes.

Coping with our extreme environment

from the adapting-to-Mother-Earth's-tantrums dept.
Senior Associate Douglas Mulhall has authored Preparing for Armageddon: How We Can Survive Mega-Disasters in the May-June issue of The Futurist: "A host of resilient technologies based on genetics, robotics, artificial intelligence, and nanotechnology — GRAIN for short — will help us adapt to environmental extremes" including possibilities such as rapid-escape vehicles, extreme engineering, robotic work crews, environmentally benign products, and disaster-proof people. Not available online, you'll need to buy a paper copy (neither futuristic nor environmentally benign — why can't The Futurist get online?).

Nanotech session at FutureScope 2001

from the nanotech-for-futurists dept.
A special event at the World Future Society's annual conference, FutureScope 2001, will be Nanotech and MEMS Futures: "This session is based on Eric Drexler's vision of molecular nanotech vs. nanoscale science and technology, including comparisons of Macro, Micro, Meso, and Nano scale and overviews of their potential capabilities." Led by David Keenan (BF Goodrich Advance Micro Machines) and two Senior Associates, Hank Lederer and Steven Vetter (president, Angstrom Tools).

University of Cambridge coffee cam to retire from web

from the end-of-an-era dept.
An article in the June 2001 issue of Technology Review Magazine reports ("Trailing Edge: Coffee Cam") that a venerable icon from the early days of the Web — the coffee cam in the Trojan Room at the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory — will be retired later this year. According to the article, "The University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory will move to new quarters later this year, and the coffeepot and its camera–after 10 years of cult fame–will retire."

The coffee cam, which was the first video feed connected to the Internet, was originally connected to the local network at the lab in 1991, and made its debut on the World Wide Web a few years later.

Fortune examines next generation technologies

from the molectronics dept.
A series of articles in the May 2001 issue of Fortune Magazine ("The New World Order") attempts to highlight the likely next generation of technologies where investors and entrepreneurs can make their own fortunes. In one article ("In Search of the Silver Bullet"), the magazine "paid visits to five in-the-trenches innovators, each on the verge of what could be a breakthrough discovery."

One of the five is UCLA researcher James Heath, whose work in molecular electronics is profiled ("Building Chips, One Molecule at a Time"). According to the article, "Heath thinks he might be able to build a rudimentary computer within a couple of years. "It won't be a computer you'll be proud of," he says, "but it will work." Then, he believes, if he can scale the whole thing up to a capacity of one megabyte . . . molecular computing becomes, as Heath puts it, "an engineering project"–in other words, a technology that companies can begin to muck around with themselves."

Chapter topic list for Engines of Creation 2001

from the please-comment dept.
It's been fifteen years since Engines of Creation (or see free online version) came out — time for a new book looking at coming technologies. Read More for an initial chapter topic list, target readership, and a list of specific items requested from those wishing to help with the book. Comment by posting here on nanodot in the usual way, or you can use Foresight's annotation tool Crit.org to insert comments at specific locations in the text.

New Republic article advocates a ban on human cloning

from the gene-blues dept.
In an extensive article in The New Republic ("Preventing a Brave New World", May 2001), Leon R. Kass considers some of the moral, ethical, philosophical and legal issues surrounding the possibility of human cloning, and argues that it should be banned. "Human nature itself lies on the operating table," Kass asserts, ìready for alteration, for eugenic and psychic 'enhancement,' for wholesale re-design . . . evangelists are zealously prophesying a post-human future."

Kass, a professor at the University of Chicago and co-author of a book on the ethics of cloning, appears to assume that a "post-human future" implies a future without humans (or at least, human values — as he defines them) when he writes, "No friend of humanity cheers for a post-human future." A ban on human cloning, Kass concludes, is necessary because "Now may be as good a chance as we will ever have to get our hands on the wheel of the runaway train now headed for a post-human world and to steer it toward a more dignified human future."

While focused on human cloning and biological procreation, the article provides a possible insight into how some segments of society may react to the development of non-biological enhancements to human beings, as well as entities with artificial intelligence.

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