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Gaming the Future: The Book!

Author: Allison

Alcor offering vitrification — nanotech not needed?

from the glass-not-ice dept.
sjvan writes "Alcor is now planning on vitrifying rather than freezing all new neurosuspension patients. This represents a major improvement in the quality of preservation, and consequently the probability of recovery. Look here for more details." CP: In that piece, Fred Chamberlain writes that this new procedure may eliminate the need for molecular nanotechnology in reviving these patients.

Encouraging open IP

from the sorry,-that-idea-is-taken dept.
ChrisPhoenix writes "In many technologies of nanotech, including software, patents are frequently used anticompetitively. One solution is to make ideas and technologies publicly available. Open Source is doing this for software. However, more is needed to prevent bad patents from being issued in the first place.

Foresight is thinking of working with IP.com and Santa Clara University Law School to provide a way to inexpensively publish open-sourced technologies where the patent office will see them, in order to clearly establish prior art.

We are also planning one or two IP conferences to be held early next year."
[Read More… for the details.]

Foresight conference stimulates "Future Lust"

from the lusting-for-nanotech dept.
An item by digitech posted on slashdot by Senior Associate Jeff "Hemos" Bates brings our attention to a piece at Reason titled "More More More: Nanotechnology and the Law of Accelerating Returns" by Ronald Bailey on the recent Foresight Conference on Molecular Nanotechnology. Excerpts: "[Kurzweil's keynote] predictions of superfast progress received a sympathetic hearing at this gathering of around 400 nanotechnologists. That's hardly surprising of course: That's exactly what they are working to achieve…the fact is that very few practical nanodevices have made it out of the labs yet. Still, given an inkling of what the future may hold, I suffer not from Future Shock, but Future Lust."

Media Lab "Dreaming About Nano Health Care"

from the health-care-as-media dept.
coljac writes "Wired have posted this article about the Health Special Interest Group gathering held by MIT's Media Lab. The article showcases some recent advances, describes the 'wish lists' of the participants, and focusses on the move to home-based health care." An excerpt: "Perhaps the most far-reaching developments on display were found in the interface between wireless communications, biological sensors and nanotechnology [emphasis added]. The Lab's new recruit, Scott Manalis, now leads the nanoscale sensing vanguard — moving toward remote microscopic laboratories that conduct body chemistry and genetic tests from anywhere, including inside a person's body."

Peter Schwartz in Red Herring on nanotechnology

from the he-sponsored-our-first-nanoconference dept.
Global Business Network chairman and Foresight Advisor Peter Schwartz, author of The Long Boom, writes about nanotechnology in his Scenarios column in Red Herring: "No idea has gone from wild, fringe science to the dead center of mainstream research faster than nanotechnology. Perhaps the impact of nanotechnology will be felt just as rapidly…There are early hints that the first commercial nanotechnologies are not far off. Venture capital is already beginning to flow toward nanotechnology companies…Nanotechnology's development is inevitable: it's only a matter of when and where. Will it be in the United States now, or somewhere else later?" CP: Or somewhere else now? The U.S. lead may not be strong.

Nanomedicine story in Red Herring

from the curing-Martian-cancer dept.
Quite a long story on nanomedicine appears in the "business of technology" magazine Red Herring. The main focus is the collaboration between NASA, the National Cancer Institute, and Caltech: "Nanotechnology–the art and science of the vanishingly small device–used to be easy to dismiss as so much blue sky. It's not so easy anymore, now that three of the nation's biggest scientists have thrown their weight behind a project to create molecule-size medical technologies by 2020, in time for the first manned mission to Mars." CP: Hey, any excuse is fine with us, even Mars. [Errata: Pierluigi Zappacosta wishes to point out that it was Jim Bennett, not himself, who co-founded Foresight Institute, as claimed in their timeline.]

Feynman Prizes in Nanotechnology & Journalism Prize given

from the win-prizes-galore-in-nanotechnology dept.
We tried to wait until after the presidential election was over before sending out this press release. Who could guess that a week later would still be too early? Anyway, here it is: Uzi Landman of Georgia Tech won the Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology (Theoretical) and a team of three won the Experimental Prize: James Heath of UCLA with Phil Kuekes and Stan Williams of HP Labs. On the journalism front, the first-ever Foresight Prize in Communication went to Ron Dagani of Chemical & Engineering News. Harvard's Christopher Love won the Distinguished Student Award. Kudos to all. Read More for the full release.

Nanotech breakthrough made by high school student

from the girls-just-wanna-have-nanofun dept.
The Siemens Westinghouse Science & Technology Competition reports their regional results: "Heidi Hsieh, who competed in the individual category, developed a winning original research project entitled 'The Formation of Nanoscaled Super Zeolite-like Meso-Structures by Various Block Copolymer Matrices'…Her project, which uses nano-technology (smaller than microscopic), organizes structures into formations (similar to ping-pong balls in a package). These organized structures could impact the development of molecular electronics, robots and other molecular-sized machines. 'Miss Hsieh has pushed back the forefront of nano-technology,' said lead judge Richard D. McCullough, head of the chemistry department at Carnegie Mellon University. 'She has found a way to not only make hollow shells of molecules but also put them into ordered structures and change the size of these structures. Her project produced results that until now seemed next to impossible — but she's done it — and it's a real breakthrough!' [emphasis added] CP: If the head of CMU's chemistry dept. says it, I believe it. Good luck to Heidi in the competition finals being held this weekend.

Who can jump the biotech-to-nanotech gap?

from the bio-is-a-subset-of-nano dept.
Lots of folks ask, in which public companies can I invest today in order to ride the nanotech wave as it occurs? Some companies in the biotech sector will be able to make the jump to nanotech as that begins to make sense commercially. An excellent prospect is ArQule, a profitable public company which was named individualinvestor.com's Stock of the Day last Friday. An excerpt from that story on Yahoo: "The company also has announced a venture with privately held Nanosyn, a research consortium concentrating on the still-developing nanotechnology [emphasis added] sector." Disclaimer: the above is personal opinion and does not reflect the opinion of any organization. Moreover, it is the personal opinion of someone who is not rich. Invest at your own risk.

U.S. Nat'l Nanotech Initiative funded at 85% for 2001

from the it's-still-a-lot-of-money dept.
Check out this Nov. 9 slide presentation by NSF's chief nanoadvisor, Mike Roco, entitled National Nanotechnology Initiative: From Vision to Implementation. Note the mentions of "nanosystems" on slides 21-22, and the funding summary on slide 12:
NSF: $97M in 2000; $150M in 2001, up 55%
Dept of Defense: $70M in 2000; $110M in 2001; up 57%
Dept of Energy: $58M in 2000 ; $93M in 2001; up 60%
NASA: $5M in 2000; $21M in 2001; up 320%
Dept of Commerce: $8M in 2000; $10M in 2001; up 25%
Nat'l Inst of Health: $32M in 2000; $39M in 2001; up 22%
TOTAL: $270M in 2000; $423M in 2001; up 57%
Clinton had requested $495 for 2001, so that's about 85% of his target. IMPORTANT: only a fraction of this funding is relevant to molecular machine systems. Care to make any estimates of that fraction?

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