Keith Powers brings to our attention a claim that the German government has started collecting the chemical profiles of individuals, to be used for political purposes. From The Register in the UK: German police are compiling a Stasi-style “scent bank” database of potentially violent crusty protesters against global capitalism, according to reports. An article in… Continue reading Nanotechnology will read smell records
Since it was the potential environmental benefits of nanotechnology that first drew me (and many others) to an interest in the field, it’s good to see some official notice of that aspect. From Cordis via Nanowerk News: Much has been said about the potential of nanotechnologies to revolutionise the way we live, with the biggest… Continue reading Nanotechnology *for* the environment
Ian Hoffman reports in InsideBayArea.com: Cal scientist heralds era of nanotechnology Chemistry professor wins prestigious award, $500,000 grant Experts said last week that the early days of nanotechnology, when scientists created new materials at the scale of billionths of a meter, is starting to evolve into a new era of tiny yet complex machines. These… Continue reading Prizewinner foresees complex nanotechnology-based machines
Now we can all explore a French version of the Powers of Ten, produced as part of a nanotechnology exhibit by the Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie museum in Paris, brought to our attention by Foresight Senior Associate Gina Miller. Topics covered include Basics, Techniques, Uses, Ethics, “The Debate”, and Nanojourney (the powers-of-ten style… Continue reading Visionary French view of nanotechnology online
I tell audiences that the day is coming when nanotechnology will be able to tell what they ate or smoked. That day is coming closer, according to Nanowerk News: To this day, fingerprints are just the thing when a perpetrator needs to be arrested or a person needs to be identified. British scientists working with… Continue reading Nanotechnology for drug detection
We’ve written here before about the Environmental Defense/DuPont effort to create a framework to deal with nanotechnology environmental, health, and safety (EHS) risks. Now NRDC has issued its own report and framework. An excerpt from the report: The current approach to chemical regulation cannot be relied upon to prevent harm from nanomaterials; it is slow,… Continue reading Competing nanotechnology control frameworks
The ever-busy folks at the Wilson Center’s Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies send word of yet another of their subprojects: a nanotechnology map or “NanoMetro mashup”. Alex Parlini writes: As of this afternoon, I’ve posted a google maps mashup that shows all publicly declared companies, organizations etc working with nanotechnology. To my knowledge, nobody has done… Continue reading Interactive map of U.S. nanotechnology
Nanowerk reports on a new nanotechnology ethics database at IIT: NanoEthicsBank. Perhaps the most interesting aspect is their experiment with participatory tagging: In conjunction with the fixed subject terms used in the NanoEthicsBank, we are also developing an experimental “folksonomy” tagging system for the database. A folksonomy is a user-generated taxonomy that uses open-ended labels… Continue reading Participatory nanotechnology ethics: Join right in
If you’re interested in dipping your toe into academic nanotechnology but don’t have time to go back to school, consider the ASME Nano Training Bootcamp this September. It’s mostly top-down, but includes some bottom-up nanotech such as self-assembly and useful tools such as scanning probes. In addition to the lectures at Santa Clara, you’ll get… Continue reading Three days of nanotechnology bootcamp
Aharia Nair brings to our attention the new term Nubot, for Nucleic Acid Robots. Wikipedia explains: Nubot is an abbreviation for “Nucleic Acid Robots.” Nubots are synthetic robotics devices at the nanoscale. Representative nubots include the several DNA walkers reported by Ned Seeman’s group at NYU, Niles Pierce’s group at Caltech, John Reif’s group at… Continue reading Meet the Nubot: DNA nanotechnology robots
