Month: September 2002

from the moving-it-out-of-the-lab dept.
Jerry Soderquist writes that an August 2002 press release by Nanotech Capital, LLC announced that the North Carolina based nanotechnology intellectual property management and development company has just signed an agreement with the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The agreement is the first agreement that the Oak Ridge Laboratory has for the commercialization of nanotechnology research conducted at the Oak Ridge facility.

from the Until-we-get-medical-nanobots dept.
WillWare writes "A novel and promising cancer treatment was mentioned Friday night on 20/20. A young guy with advanced skin melanoma was treated by taking lymphocytes from a tumor biopsy, culturing them in a laboratory to produce large populations of lymphocytes, and transfusing these back into the patient. This work was done by Steven Rosenberg at the National Cancer Institute. Here are some URLs:"

• 20/20's website
• a more technical description provided by the Centre of BioInformatics at Peking University
• NCI press release

"t would be interesting if a vestigial organ like the appendix could be re-engineered to do the work that these researchers are currently doing in the lab."

from the Know-thyself dept.
Gina Miller writes "A small British company Solexa is developing a dense single molecule array, based on nanotechnology, that allows simultaneous analysis of hundreds of millions of individual molecules. It expects to apply this technology to sequencing an individual human genome much more quickly and cheaply than can be done with current methods: Cambridge University Spinoff Devises Array for Swift, Cheap Resequencing. The arrays could also be applied to studying interactions between other large sets of molecules."

from the Bots-in-the-blood dept.
Mr_Farlops writes "Scott Burnell, UPI's science journalist, skillfully (Well, I think it was skillful.) attempts to clear up some of the nanotechnology inaccuracies in the new movie, "Ballistic: Ecks v. Sever.""

from the There's-still-room dept.
Openings are still available for the 10th Foresight Conference on Molecular Nanotechnology and the Tutorials preceding the Conference. To register, the secure Web form may be used through Thursday October 3. The print and fax form may be used through Friday October 4. After Oct 4 registration must be done on site, beginning Thursday, October 10, at the Hyatt Regency Bethesda at One Bethesda Metro Center in Bethesda, MD.

from the Picking-and-placing dept.
Ravi Pandya writes "From Nature, September 12 2002 'Self-healing tweezers' (free registration required):"

The development of optical tweezers for the manipulation of objects at micrometre and submicrometre scales has opened up many new possibilities across the physical and biological sciences. The use of self-reconstructing 'Bessel beams' now extends their potential to allow the simultaneous manipulation of many different objects by a single set of tweezers….

from the I-want-one-of-those dept.
A NASA web page, The Right Stuff for Super Spaceships, touts the benfits of nanotechnology, in combination with information technology and biotechnology, "for making dramatically improved spacecraft possible." The focus is on the advantages of carbon nanotubes as very high-strength, very low-weight structural materials, as building blocks for molecular wires and sensors, as fuel storage elements, and as components of self-healing materials.

from the More-dollars dept.
Stan Hutchings writes "A Senate subcommittee held a hearing examining U.S. investments in Nanotechnology research. http://computerworld.com/managementtopics/manageme nt/itspending/story/0,10801,74341,00.html"

Foresight Advisor Jamie Dinkelacker points to a c|net article Nanotech funding bill in the wings further describing the proposed funding, "Sen. Ron Wyden has big plans for small technology."

from the what-does-it-all-mean? dept.
Long-time Foresight Senior Associate Richard Smith, now with Alternative Futures Associates, has announced a Forum on Nanotechnology Strategy that

… provides a practical understanding of how nanotechnology will impact how you compete, from recent developments to the frontiers of science. The forum gives you the insight of science visionaries and nano-entrepreneurs, business leaders and policy-makers to fully explore what this journey will mean in real terms for your organization. Only the Forum will help improve the return of your strategic investments in nanotech over the next decade.

Rather pricey, but if you happen to be a senior decision maker for an organization with substantial resources ….

from the promises-and-perils dept.
Chris Phoenix wrote Foresight to point out The Ultimate Tool?, the Sept. 9, 2002 issue of The Harrow Technology Report. "The 'Harrow Technology Report' recently included a blurb about nanotech assemblers, including a mention of my 'assembler timeline and weather forecast' [see Nanodot post of July 16, 2002] and a pointer to an article about the risks of assemblers [see Nanodot post of July 15, 2002]. Jeff Harrow appears to care about getting it right: when I wrote to point out that convergent-assembly manufacturing with tabletop factories would be fundamentally safe from gray goo worries (at least of the 'factory becomes rogue assembler' variety), he said he'd include a long clarification comment (more than a paragraph–he wants to give people background info) in the next report."