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Gaming the Future: The Book!

Month: April 2004

Businessweek on self assembly & molecular manufacturing

Getting Molecules To Do The Work surveys half a dozen nanotechnology projects involving self-assembly that are bringing an "era of nano-manufacturing". Although many obstacles remain, the survey concludes optimistically:

Still, "the field is moving very fast," says NYU's Seeman. Only a year ago, he says, he showed his students a top-10 list of major challenges nanotechnology faced. Today, three are already resolved. At this pace, he adds, self-assembly and molecular manufacturing will come into commercial use sooner rather than later.

VigyaanCD: bio/chemical modeling workbench on PC

PKA writes "Pratul K. Agarwal from Oak Ridge National Laboratory has released VigyaanCD (homepage, mirror). Vigyaan, a Knoppix customization, is an electronic workbench for computational biology and computational chemistry. The user can choose from more than 20 science applications. In addition to bioinformatics software, it provides GROMACS, TINKER for biomolecular modeling and Ghemical, MPQC, PSI3 for quantum chemistry calculations. VigyaanCD is a live Linux CD containing all the software required to boot the PC into workbench environment and is suitable both for beginners (12 demos and tutorials) and experts. Learning computational biology/chemistry has never been easier, so grab the free ISO image from several mirrors around the world and put your PC to work."

University of Texas to offer nanotech PhD

Christine Peterson writes, commenting on the news that UT will offer new nanotechnology doctorate. "Brian Korgel, the education director for the Center for Nano and Molecular Science and Technology, announced the new PhD program. We like his definition: 'Nanotechnology is used to create complex devices at the molecular level'."

Nanosys to go public: $115 million offering

Christine Peterson writes, commenting on the news that Nanosys files papers for IPO. "Nanosys is one of the most prominent nanotech startups, and is planning an IPO, despite having no products: 'We do not anticipate that our first products will be commercially available for at least several years, if at all.' This is probably the beginning of the nano 'boom', which in venture capital cycles is eventually followed by a 'bust'. Let's just hope that it's a normal cycle and not an immense dot.com-style boom/bust."

Nanotechnology initiative at MIT

David Lackner writes with news of the MIT School of Engineering's Tiny Technologies Initiative. In addition to more generic nanoscale science projects, the research includes Nano-Mechanical Systems: "Examples of exciting projects include tiny microturbines, artificial muscles, and a nanorobot designed to manipulate individual molecules on materials' surfaces."

Nanotechnology a high priority for Pentagon

"Pentagon official says nanotechnology a high priority" reports that Clifford Lau, the senior science adviser in the Pentagon's office of basic research, said "Nanotechnology is one of the highest priority science and technology programs in the Defense Department," with the Pentagon spending $315 million in fiscal 2004 on all nanotechnology research. The specific projects cited are all near-term nanoscale science projects, mostly materials, like lightweight, radar-resistant nanocomposite materials for airframes and coatings to eliminate barnacle buildup on submarines. Foresight Founder and President Christine L. Peterson adds "This piece mentions that 'Pentagon interest in nanotechnology dates to the 1980s'. We at Foresight can back this up, as we were the only ones discussing nanotechnology back then, and we did indeed hear from military types quite early on."

New website by Foresight founder Eric Drexler

http://www.e-drexler.com/ "This site focuses on the science behind emerging technologies of broad importance, summarizing research results and offering technical perspectives on research directions. It includes tutorial material, new results, annotated bibliographies and links to external web resources. Initial topics include nanotechnology-based production systems (central to the future of physical technology), and secure, distributed computing (central to the future of informational technology). In both these areas, several widespread assumptions are very wrong. A better understanding can benefit both technical leaders seeking productive directions for research and development, and policy makers aiming to make wise decisions." See especially the animations of molecular machines and the analysis of friction in atomically precise bearings vs. fluid-immersed systems.

Medical nanorobot meeting at USC

BioNEMS Symposium, May 22, 2004, Davidson Conference Center, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA USA. "A one-day symposium on the biomedical applications of nanoelectromechanical systems (bioNEMS), sponsored by the Center for Interdisciplinary Research of the University of Southern California (USC) and the National Cancer Institute (NCI). …The emphasis throughout the day will be on nano (not micro) systems, and in vivo (not in vitro) applications. A full-fledged nanosystem (e.g., a nanorobot) is expected to have overall dimensions on the order of a micrometer but will be made from nanoscale components with sizes ~ 1-100 nm."

Laser based nanoscale milling

RobertBradbury writes "The Univ. of Michigan has announced the ability to do nanoscale milling (down to 20nm) using ultra-short laser pulses. Interestingly according to the abstract they aren't exactly sure how it works. This is a new approach to top-down nanotechnology (lithography is also top-down and is currently pushing towards 70nm). In contrast biotechnology, mechanosynthesis and complex chemical methods can be considered bottom-up methods. From a size scale perspective 20nm is slightly smaller than a ribosome and roughly the diameter of Eric's nanomanipulator arm described in Nanosystems (Figure 13.11). So a top-down milling machine methodology might allow the production of a scaled-up nanomanipulator arm which in turn could be used to produce increasingly smaller versions of itself."

NIH launches nanomedicine initiative

David Lackner writes with news of the project launch meeting for the NIH nanomedicine roadmap initiative: "The goals of the NIH Nanomedicine Roadmap Initiative are to 1) obtain a comprehensive set of measurements on molecules and assemblies of molecules, and use those measurements to understand molecular pathways and networks, and 2) use that knowledge to drive the design and development of new nanomachines and technologies to improve human health."

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