Those of you looking for insights on atomically-precise manufacturing may want to check out the Society of Manufacturing Engineers conference August 23-24, 2006 in Oak Ridge, TN: The Next Industrial Revolution: Nanotechnology & Manufacturing. In addition to plenty of coverage on near-term “top-down” nanomanufacturing, this meeting includes “bottom-up” assembly topics. Some speakers familiar to Foresight… Continue reading Beyond nanomanufacturing, Bottom-to-bottom nanotechnology
The U.S. National Science Foundation funded a report on nanomanufacturing, carried out by the National Center for Manufacturing Sciences. Though an email announcement to participants stated that the full report is available free for download, all I can find is the 12-page abstract (PDF). [UPDATE: here’s the 75-page 1.9 MB pdf full report.] Two excerpts:… Continue reading Manufacturing with nanotechnology: NSF-funded report now out
Of course most Nanodot readers will want to study this 76-page report (PDF) in great detail, but for the few who don’t quite get around to this task, here are some of the more ambitious parts: In the section on 2006 and 2007 Activities by Agency, NIST says they will continue to “devise ways to… Continue reading Highlights of President's 2007 report on the U.S. National Nanotechnology Initiative
In an essay on KurzweilAI.net reprinted from New Scientist, Bill Joy — whose Wired essay titled Why the Future Doesn’t Need Us touched off a big controversy — suggests insurance as a mechanism to reduce risk from powerful technologies including nanotech: We could use the very strong force of markets. Rather than regulate things, we… Continue reading Bill Joy suggests insurance as risk reduction mechanism for nanotechnology
The highly prolific Robert Freitas and colleagues have gathered their work on diamond mechanosynthesis onto one website titled the Nanofactory Collaboration. Enjoy! Includes an introduction to the topic, participant list, publications list, and a description of the technical challenges. Most impressive to me is the publications list. How does he do it? Does he not… Continue reading Diamond mechanosynthesis project site launched
Edward Iwata of USA Today reports that Hotmail founder Sabeer Bhatia has ambitious plans for India: The most ambitious project may be “Nano City,” a $10 billion, environmentally sustainable development unveiled in April by entrepreneur Bhatia and the Haryana state government in northern India. Modeled after Silicon Valley, Nano City will feature R&D and educational… Continue reading Hotmail founder to build Nano City in India
UNESCO’s Division of Ethics of Science and Technology has taken a shot at writing about The Ethics and Politics of Nanotechnology. Nanotechnology Now has a brief critique. David Berube has a longer one. To do a thorough critique here of these kinds of documents would take too long—I’d be blogging all day, every day. Instead… Continue reading UNESCO on nanotechnology ethics & politics
John Faith brings our attention to an item at PhysicsWeb on how to overcome friction in nanosized mechanical devices: Friction is a big problem in nanosized devices because they have huge surface-to-volume ratios, which means that their surfaces quickly wear out and seize up. Traditional lubricants are useless in such machines because they become thick… Continue reading Towards frictionless nanomachines
Nanotech Briefs has announced its annual Nano 50 Awards: the top 50 products, technologies, and innovators. (Disclosure: I was on the judging committee — but only one of many judges, so if you disagree with the list, it’s not my fault!). One concern you may have, with which I would have to agree, is that… Continue reading Annual Nano 50 awards announced by Nanotech Briefs
John Brandon at PC Magazine does a close-up on the NanoRobotics Laboratory at Carnegie Mellon: Tiny robots will someday crawl up your spine—literally. These microscopic critters, currently in a development phase at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, are biomimetic (that is, based on biological principles), have bacteria motors attached to their near-invisible bodies, and can… Continue reading Carnegie Mellon pursues top-down path to nanorobots
