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Gaming the Future: The Book!

Month: August 2001

Nanodot Upgrade Complete

from the better,-late,-than-ever dept.
Foresight CIO Ben Harper and I have finished the long-awaited upgrade of Nanodot to the FreeBSD operating system and Version 2.0 of the Slash weblog software. In the course of the upgrade, we uncovered and corrected a hardware problem that was responsible for several crashes of Nanodot in the preceding weeks.

Ben has commendably corrected the Sendmail malconfig Nanodot had been suffering (by replacing Sendmail with Postfix)… so if you signed up for a Nanodot account and never received your password, you can now use the "Mail Password" facility to get the system to resend your password. (If you don't remember your Nanodot nickname, don't fret… we will do a mass-mailing to all Nanodot users, reminding them of their nicknames and passwords, shortly.)

HP, MIT announce joint project for quantum computing

Hewlett-Packard Company and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) announced on 8 August 2001 the launch of a joint effort aimed at building quantum information systems. According to an HP press release, the project will receive $US 2.5 million in funding over a 4.5 year period. Researchers from HP Labs in Palo Alto and Bristol, U.K., will work with Professors Neil Gershenfeld and Issac L. Chuang the MIT Media Lab, as well as Dr. Seth Lloyd, an Associate Professor at MIT's Mechanical Engineering Department and a leading theorist of quantum computing. "With HP's success in molecular electronics research and MIT's expertise in quantum computing, we have a powerful one-two punch for the advancement of quantum information systems," said HP Fellow Stan Williams, director of quantum science research at HP Labs.

HP was granted another molecular electronics patent in July 2001.

An update on nanotech activity in Japan

from the World-Watch dept.
Concern over Japanís ability to maintain a position in the first rank of nations pursuing nanotechnology research and development was raised in an article in the Japan Times ("Nanotechnology is seen having a massive future", by Yosuke Naito, 8 August 2001). According to the article, "nanotechnology is expected to become a fiercely contested area of global industrial competition in the 21st century."

The piece provides a brief survey of nanotech-related activity in the private, academic and government sectors in Japan, and compares those efforts to those in the U.S. and Europe. The report says, "Amid intensifying global competition, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has designated nanotechnology as a key strategic area of focus for strengthening the fundamentals of the industrial sector."

"Although the framework of cooperation among businesses, academics and the government is being formulated in the nanotechnology field, Japan should quickly see visible results from such cooperation," said Susumu Takahashi, chief economist at Japan Research Institute. "In terms of transforming new technology into business opportunities, Japan is lagging far behind the U.S."

Similar concerns expressed over the last year or so (see Foresight Update 44) have helped prompt greater support for nanotech research in both the public and private sector in Japan

NanoManipulator allows fine touch at nanoscale

from the tools-of-the-trade dept.
An article on the SmallTimes website ("Tools let scientists virtually reach out and touch a nanotube", by Candace Stuart, 9 Augusut 2001) provides an update on the NanoManipulator, an interactive device that coverts data from a scanning probe microscope into sensory information. High-power graphics programs let an operator see the sample three dimensionally and look at it from various perspectives. A control arm that fits in the hand like a pen allows researchers to guide the probe to any spot on the sample to "feel" it, and allows them to exert force on the molecule to move it around.
The NanoManipulator is the result of seven years of research and development by physics and computer science faculty and students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. UNC has created a company called 3rdTech, whose goal is to develop products and spin-off business from research at UNC. 3rdTech is commercializing the NanoManipulator system.

UNM, national labs form nanotech alliance

from the mushrooming-regional-centers dept.
The University of New Mexico and the Los Alamos and Sandia National Laboratories announced on 7 August 2001 the creation of the New Mexico Nanoscience Alliance (NMNA). The alliance will be open to all New Mexico institutions with interests in nanoscience. Its purpose will be the advancement of nanoscience within New Mexico and it will provide a forum for establishing collaborations among all of the research efforts in the state.

Read more for additional details and related news about U.S. legislation to fund a Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies sponsored by New Mexico Senator Jeff Bingaman.

Researchers measure electron waves in nanotubes

from the molectronics dept.
Using a scanning electron probe, a research team led by Cees Dekker of the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands has imaged the undulations of electron waves in carbon nanotubes. In addition to illuminating basic properties of electron conduction in nanotubes, their results also confirm theoretical predictions that electrons in metallic nanotubes moved along two different electron "bands" that can interfere with each other. A member of the research team said it may be possible to manipulate these electrons to make them interfere with each other and create a circuit. The work was reported in the 9 August 2001 issue of Nature.
Additional details are available on the Nature website, and from an article from the Nature Science Update website.

Dekker and his research team also reported in July 2001 that they had created a single-electron transistor (SET) made from a single carbon nanotube,

Researchers reveal structure of DNA repair protein

from the complex-molecular-machines dept.
A collaborative team from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center have produced the first detailed images of a protein that performs the crucial task of detecting and repairing broken strands of DNA. The images show that the protein is constructed to cradle DNA while the DNA is repaired and rejoined with great precision. A brief report appears on the HHMI website, and a research paper appeared in the 9 August 2001 issue of Nature.

The work reveals that the protein complex forms a ring that encircles and ìcradlesî the end of the strand of DNA. The scientists speculate that protein complexes on two broken ends of a DNA strand link to one another to hold the two ends in position for joining the DNA back together. They also found that the repair protein does not bind with the DNA bases, but rather grasps the sugar backbone of the DNA strand ó meaning that the protein does not ìcareî about the sequence of the DNA that it binds. The scientists also have evidence that proteins hold the DNA in precise alignment to allow re-joining by repair enzymes.

Northeastern establishes nanotech research institute

An article in Mass High Tech on 23 July 2001 reports that Northeastern University in Boston has established a Nano Manufacturing Research Institute. The new institute will also receive about $750,000 over four years to seed its research efforts, but will not have a dedicated faculty or laboratory facilities. The funds will allow the group to hire postdoctoral fellows and to attract students interested in nanotechnology. Fourteen Northeastern faculty members will take part in the nanotech institute. In addition, it will collaborate with researchers from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, MIT, University of Tennessee and Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The director will be Ahmed Busnaina, a professor of mechanical engineering at Northeastern.

Software agents make better commodities traders

from the buy-low-and-sell-high dept.
An item from the UK-based New Scientist Magazine reports on research by Jeffrey Kephart at IBM's research center in Hawthorne, NY, that indicates software-based trading agents may be better at trading commodities than humans. In IBM's test, both software-based robotic trading agents (bots) and people had the same set-up, allowing them to trade through an unbiased software-based auctioneer. The auction was designed to mimic the kind of commodities market where buyers and sellers have a fixed amount of time to trade in a single commodity. Six bots and six people traded against each other. Half were buyers and half were sellers. Buyers were given an upper spending limit, while sellers had a minimum sale price. Their goal was to maximise their profit at the end of trading. The software agents made seven per cent more cash than the humans.

Australian firm invests in "dendrimer nanotechnology"

from the long-and-winding-road dept.
During the 1980s and early 90s, starburst dendrimers, a type of complex, tree-like spherical branching polymer molecules, seemed to offer a promising avenue toward nanoscale applications. Enthusiasm has been tempered, at least in part, by the expense and difficulty of synthesizing them. Now, one of the leading researchers in dendrimer chemistry, Dr. Donald A. Tomalia at Central Michigan University, is working with Starpharma, an Australian pharmaceuticals firm, to develop products using "dendrimer nanotechnology". According to a Starpharma press release from 6 August 2001, the company will invest up to US$2.18 million over the next three years in Dendritic Nanotechnologies Limited, a new company which will have its head office in Melbourne and a branch office and laboratory at Central Michigan University. Dr Tomalia and his team of dendritic polymer scientists will be employed by the new company

Additional backgroound on Dr. Tomalia and his work with dendrimers can be found in a lengthy article ("Dendrimer's dad thinks he's finally tamed the money-munching molecule", by Jayne Fried, 26 July 2001) on the SmallTimes website.

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