Author: Foresight Editor

from the World-Watch dept.
An brief item item on the eTaiwanNews.com website ("Nanotechnology program aims to make NT$300b", 24 June 2002) says the Taiwan government "will pump NT$23.1 billion (US$679.41 million) into nanotechnology research in the next six years in hopes of creating a NT$300 billion (US$8.82 billion) industry by 2008, the National Science Council said [on 23 June]. Under a National Nanotechnology Initiative, mapped out by the NSC, the government will help more than 800 companies probe the new frontiers of an emerging high-tech industry."

The report also notes: A prominent NNI feature is a national nanotechnology center, which will be one of the world's best institutes of research in that high-tech field. Commercialization of the new technology is expected to begin in 2004, the NSC spokesman said. "In that year," he added, "Taiwan hopes to generate at least NT$70 billion (US$2.05 billion) in sales of nanotechnology products."

Gina Miller writes "Business 2.0 June 2002 issue has a feature called "Untangling the Future". The author, Paul Saffo, discusses the difficulty with predicting future technologies due to his observation of non linear progress. He conjectures that advances are "spawned" and "cross pollinated" by others, with this in mind he has created a pdf map of future technologies with new disciplines — for example, Molecular manufacturing or Cognitronics. Also included, a timeline pdf of these future disciplines and another Business 2.0 article that can be linked to at the bottom of the page called 8 Technologies That Will Change the World."

Gina Miller writes "A story on thePhysical Review web site focuses on research reported in the 8 July print issue of PRL that uses statistical physics techniques to find the optimum technique for building functional devices from nanoscale components that are known to contain a percentage of defective parts. The answer they found "is that no matter how many defective parts you have, it's best to take about half of them" to build your device."

Mr_Farlops writes "Researchers in Finland and the United States have developed a method that may soon cheaply refine highly pure drugs. Using a membrane composed of tailored antibodies bound to the interiors of silca nanotubes, they discovered a way to separate wanted drug molecules from unwanted enantiomers (molecules with the same chemical composition but mirror-imaged structure.) and side products. The process might become commonly used in 5 to 10 years."

Gina Miller writes "A Nanotech Planet.com feature showcased Nanolayers — an Isreali company formed in 2001 to commercialize organic semiconducting materials developed at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The technology involves layering films of molecules on chips, producing organic semiconductors with electron mobility more than 30 times faster than previous methods. Initial applications may include flat-panel displays and semiconductor ICs."

The report containing the review of the U.S. National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) by the National Academies' National Research Council, is now available online. You can view the report, "Small Wonders, Endless Frontiers: A Review of the National Nanotechnology Initiative", on an annoying page-by-page basis on the National Academies Press website, or order the print version.

Additonal information about the NRC review in the Nanodot post from 11 June 2002.

Gina Miller writes "The Chicago Sun-Times has an article ("Baxter, NU to team on nanoscience", June 19, 2002). Deerfield-based Baxter International a health care company has made an agreement to donate up to $2.25 million for nanoscience research at Northwestern University. The $450,000 a year over the next five years will allow Baxter right of first refusal over Northwestern's Institute for Bioengineering and Nanoscience in Advanced Medicine's research in this area. Potential applications are new cancer medical delivery systems not yet practiced."

Tanya writes "Eric Drexler has submitted the following critique:

Wolfram's argument that the properties of certain automata "must almost inevitably succeed in reproducing the fundamental features of relativity theory" (A New Kind of Science, p.520) appears to be misconceived. This may explain why he offers no examples of automata in which particle-like features move, as physical particles do, at a range of relative speeds.

He describes a broad class of automata (yielding "causal invariant" networks) that are insensitive to update order. In these, one can generate an invariant structure by adding nodes in any of many orders — for example, adding parallel layers at one or another angle. Differently angled slices of this sort look a bit like spacelike surfaces in moving frames of reference. Wolfram states (and makes central to his argument) that "one can interpret slices at different angles as corresponding to motion at different speeds" (p.521).

One must ask, however, motion of what? Since these networks are insensitive to update order, differing update patterns can make no difference to structures within a network, hence tell us nothing about the relative motion of any particle-like features it may contain. Angled update slices do not necessarily correspond to motion of anything within the model world.

If causal invariant networks naturally modeled motion, then one would expect Wolfram's book to include pictures showing streaks corresponding to variable-speed particles, but it does not. Offered neither a coherent argument nor a concrete example, we are left with a model of physics that lacks a model of relative motion."

Gina Miller writes "June 18, 2002 Business Week Online carries a special report, Nanotech: Big Dreams, Small Steps. The author, Alex Salkever, paints a picture of nanotechnology making slow progress in the market and that the previously predicted forecast of today, has yet to arrive. Several opinions are voiced on the applications that should arrive in the next five years, such as diagnostic technologies and materials to aid in enabling gene chips. The article goes on to discuss even further timeline applications, such as nanoscale electronics and nanoscale drug delivery systems.

Other stories from Business Week:

• Business Week takes a positive look at nanotech
• Business Week profiles tech "gurus"
• Business Week: "It's a Nano World""

Gina Miller writes "Chemists at Washington University's Buhro group in St. Louis have created what is hailed as boron nanowhiskers. These are the first of these type of crystalline nanowires, using chemical vapor deposition, at a scale of 20 to 200 nanometers. Carbon has been thus far mainly used, but has been limited as a conductor. The new boron produced particles are more consistant and can be doped to increase conductivity, although the results are more varied in size and structure. The researchers have a glint in their eye for creating boron nanotubes, but have yet to figure that out. The application could be another alternative for the potential of nanoscale electronic wires."