Month: January 2005

As pointed out by BetterHumans.com, the group led by Geoffrey Ozin have produced "Synthetic-Self-Propelled Nanorotors" (Abstract). They also have a number of other interesting nanoscale projects.

While this is still seems to be manufactured with "bulk" scale chemistry perhaps combined with other methods it seems to be approaching the stage (as is the case with the other several examples of human engineered molecular motors) of having a certian amount of "technology" at nanoscales (< 100 nm).

If someone has access to Chemical Communications perhaps they could comment on the exact dimensions of the nanorotors (in nm) and the methods by which they are assembled.

HLovy writes "
HoweStreet.com declares that "Robert A. Freitas Jr. is one of the best-known nano-scientists …" Well, not to take anything away from Freitas, but the fact that he has a better-recognized name among the general public than any other nanoscientist out there speaks volumes about how far nanotech researchers need to go before they're recognized outside their own circles… More…

gotjosh writes "The EU nanoforum reports that Japanese scientists have used nanowires to create atomic switches and demonstrate basic logic cuircuts! Tsuyoshi Hasegawa of the National Institute for Materials Science claims that their atomic scale switches will improve performance over today's mechanical semiconductor devices (possibly by several orders of magnitude depending on wire capacitance) . More information (such as the elecrolytes they used and that the researchers reported their work in /Nature/) is available here without a login."

As was pointed out in this article brought to our attention by Christine Peterson, Europe seems to be picking up the nanotech pace in a serious way.

We can divide the world up in terms of expertise. Perhaps the U.S. has the crown with inventiveness. But Europe has the Ariane (which still happens to be flying), Mercedes, Bentleys and Rolls (all of which are very good examples of fine engineering). The Asian collective has a unique ability to turn ideas into mass appeal products and make them affordable enough that they can sell millions.

[*Yes*, I am grossly generalizing here but please take it within the context of the conversation.]

So the question becomes — *who* will be the developers of and subsequently who will dominate the nanotech markets?

EurekaAlert/AAAS will be having an online chat/conference Jan. 12 2005 from 10-12 AM EST. The URL: http://www.eurekalert.org/nanotalk.

You can submit questions before the chat session.

The panel they have assembled appears to involve several well informed experts from a biomedical standpoint — whether they are well informed from a nanomedical standpoint could be a provocative topic for conversation.

Even if you cannot make the conversation please do submit your questions for discussion.

Anything and all we can do to engage and/or educate the the more classic academic school is time well spent.

Roland Piquepaille writes "This sounds almost too good to be true — at least for some time. Physicists from Boston University have fabricated nanomechanical switches which promise fantastic advances in data storage. Their nanodevices will have densities exceeding by orders of magnitude existing storage devices. They will deliver data at speeds in the megahertz (and possibly gigahertz) range, also exceeding by far the few hundred kilohertz of our current hard drives. And finally, they will only use some femtowatts of power each, leading to hard drives consuming maybe a million times less electricity than existing devices. So, where's the catch? Will we ever see hard drives built with these nanomechanical switches? Honestly, I don't know, but read more for other details and references."

Carsten Zander writes Intelligent nanoparticle systems? Here is an (hypothetical) example:
An "intelligent" nanoparticle unit could imitate a neural network. It could be a simple mixture of a few nanoparticles N and o:

N o N o N
o N o N o
N o N o N
o N o N o
more….

HLovy writes "
What's important to note about the big nanotube/fullerene corporate love match announced this week is what CSixty is bringing to bulk materials supplier Carbon Nanotechnologies Inc. — some important drug-delivery technology and a partnership with Merck & Co.

more…

Gina Miller writes "Government Support for Nanotechnology in Silicon Valley with Congressman Mike Honda presented by IEEE SF Bay Area Nanotechnology Council will be held January 18, 2005 in San Jose, California, USA. Email: [email protected] to RSVP or with questions."