Richard Jones brings to our attention an amusing note on which to end the nanotechnology workweek: A pointer to a Technology Review blog in German by Niels Boeing which compares Drexler to Elvis and the UK’s Software Control of Matter project to the Beatles. Roughly translated: It’s intringuingly reminiscent of the history of pop music,… Continue reading Nanotechnology, Elvis, and the Beatles
A Yale researcher has won the $25,000 Wiley Prize in the Biomedical Sciences for his discovery of natural molecular machine that guides some proteins to fold properly in the warm, crowded environment inside cells: They learned that a large double donut-shaped machine is responsible. They analyzed how that machine uses the energy of ATP and… Continue reading Molecular machine work wins $25,000
Richard Jones and commenters bring our attention to a number of enticing research papers on the use of catalysis and molecular motors to produce movement. One paper mentioned sounds particularly useful: an overview of progress on Synthetic Molecular Motors and Mechanical Machines. From the abstract: The widespread use of controlled molecular-level motion in key natural… Continue reading Nanotechnology leading to molecular machines
We mentioned earlier the Harvard Business Review list of Breakthrough Ideas for 2007. Nanotechnology shows up again in another idea on the list — this one rather more controversial. Phillip Longman observes that falling birthrates lead, over time, to an increase in families with more conservative values, because they reproduce more. Seems plausible. He then… Continue reading Nanotechnology alleged to aid patriarchy
Celebrating its 20th anniversary, the nanotechnology classic book Engines of Creation is out in a new, free e-book version (5.4 MB pdf) from WOWIO. Material added since the original edition includes a Letter from the Author, Feynman’s 1959 talk, Advice to Aspiring Nanotechnologists (very similar to the author’s Foresight Briefing 1: Studying Nanotechnology, a longtime… Continue reading Nanotechnology classic Engines of Creation new edition
The Harvard Business Review has named its top 20 Breakthrough Ideas for 2007, and home-based, atomically-precise manufacturing makes the list. Business in the Nanocosm, by UC Berkeley business prof Rashi Glazer, does a good job of conveying the future of home-based nanomanufacturing. Excerpts: Conventional manufacturing carves or distills a purpose-suited device from a mass of… Continue reading Nanotechnology: Just-in-time nanomanufacturing at home
UK nanotech researcher David Leigh and team have published new work in Nature on a nanotechnology achievement — an information rachet, inspired by Maxwell’s Demon but not violating the Second Law — that sounds possibly important for molecular nanomachines. At rotaxane.net, you can read the full paper (pdf), or a more accessible explanation: Chemists at… Continue reading UK nanotechnology team makes motor-mechanism for nanomachines
Long-time nanotechnology trackers have assumed that nanotech will be useful for chemical and biological defense, and sure enough, at least one national government is exploring this issue. See the website for the Nanotechnology Initiative at the Special Projects Office at the Joint Science and Technology Office for Chemical and Biological Defense, which falls under the… Continue reading Nanotechnology for chemical and biological defense
Alert reader Ron Zilm brings our attention to a nanotechnology research achievement at UC Riverside in California by Ludwig Bartels, originally a physicist in Germany but now in the UCR chemistry department: Walking Molecule Now Carries Packages Molecule walks in a straight line and carries a tiny shopping bag in each hand A research team,… Continue reading Nanotechnology movie: Walking molecule now carries packages
Given our interests in both nanotechnology and open source, we are happy to see that Wikibooks has an open-content textbook called The Opensource Handbook of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology. It includes not just text, but also demonstration experiments and media files. This online book was voted Wikibook of the Month for December 2006. Excerpt on molecular… Continue reading Help write open source nanotechnology textbook
