Month: January 2005

Dr_Barnowl writes "The BBC reports on the upcoming nanotechnologies that we can expect to see in the near future. One interviewee asserts that "As soon as you mention it, people conjure up images of small robots carrying out surgery or things that are not desirable."

Whereas my perception is that as soon as you mention it, people go "Whuh?" Not really anything new or innovative here, but it's always nice to see nanotech mentioned in mainstream media, even if the Drexlerlian vision is being dimissed as sci-fi, as per usual.

Aside from that, there is a link to everyones favourite manifestation of nanotech – NanoPants! "

Nanotechwire is pointing out the forthcoming publication of Nanomedicine: Nanotechnology, Biology, and Medicine by Elsevier who claim that it is to be the world's first peer-reviewed journal devoted to nanomedicine. Robert Freitas is supposed to have an article "What is Nanomedicine?" in the first issue. One would hope that will get the journal off in a good direction. Slowly the mainstream science community seems to be acknowledging that nanotechnology and nanomedicine are not fantasies.

Roland Piquepaille writes "Researchers from the Lawrence Berkeley Lab are using nanotechnology to learn how to clean up environmental contaminants like nuclear waste. They are also using supercomputers and state-of-the-art imaging to predict how quickly pollutants react with minerals in soils and aquifers. This article from the Daily Californian says they are studying kinetics, or rates, of reactions which occur at the earthís surface using a nanoscale approach. They started to look at the reactions that take place at the pore scale and plan to expand their scope from nanometers to meters in the months to come. This research has implications for transport of contaminants, especially of radioactive materials, but also for oil or ore recovery. This overview contains more details, references and a picture of a device used to grow and monitor nanocrystals important for our environment."

SpaceDaily based on UPI is covering how scientists from Luc Jaeger at UCSB to Ned Seeman at NYU (and others) are creating grand plans to use DNA and related chemical molecules to do everything from assembly to analysis.

Sounds like the combination of the fact that the hardware to do the synthesis of these molecules exists and the fact that there are a lot of things these molecules can manage via self-assembly is giving these methods a lead in the "real" molecular nanotechnology arena.

Strategies Unlimited writes "January 18, 2004 ? Mountain View, CA?Companies developing nanophotonic products are aiming collectively at opportunities worth over $30 billion today in large displays and over $3 billion in other photonic applications." More…

The LANL/Sandia "Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies" is providing a database of solicitations for future funding by the government (including DARPA and military) for nanotechnology R&D.

This will give you some idea of where all of those $ billions will be going…

Nanopolis writes "The 1st Nanotechnology multimedia encyclopedia for science and business arrives soon.

From Feynman's visionary predictions to today's applications the "Exploring Nanotechnology" interactive multimedia encyclopedia was conceived to provide an understanding of nanotechnology and their transformative effects on the world as we know it today. Containing extremely intuitive multimedia explanations of the concepts, technological processes and applications of nanotechnology, summary charts show the major players associated with each concept along with the references necessary for further insight.

Hundreds of world-wide actors contribute to its finalizing through the e-collaborative Nanopolis platform at http://www.nanopolis.net"

NanoWorld Group extends radius of action

Schaffhausen/Switzerland, January 7th, 2005 ñ As of January 1st 2005 NanoWorld Holding AG acquired 100% of the German based NanoAndMore GmbH.

This is a first step to extend the NanoWorld Groupís radius of action along the value added chain.

With this acquisition the NanoWorld Group gains access to the greatest end-customer base for Atomic Force Microscope (AFM) related supplies in Europe and benefits even more from the probes supermarket concept that was created and successfully implemented by NanoAndMore GmbH founder and CEO Peer Burshille.

At the same time the acquisition enables the NanoWorld Group to participate more directly in the promising tool business that NanoAndMore successfully started in 2004.

NanoAndMoreís sales expertise and NanoWorld Holdingís strong financial background will enable NanoAndMore to expand the scope of products, service and support.

www.nanoworldholding.com
www.nanoandmore.com