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Gaming the Future: The Book!

Author: Foresight Editor

Online resources for computational chemistry, nanotech journal

Science and technical publisher Wiley InterScience has announced it will add the Encyclopedia of Computational Chemistry to Wiley InterScienceís growing selection of quality electronic Major Reference Works online. According to the announcement, ìComprising 5 volumes, and equivalent to over 3,500 print pages, the online version of the work now provides computational chemists with unmatched breadth of content together with a dynamic and flexible format, perfectly suited to their progressive discipline.î It also states the Encyclopedia contains over 300 primary articles together with a further 375 definition articles covering all aspects of the field, from ab initio computations to biological and biochemical applications, and contains contributions from more than 300 leading computational chemists. The online version provides fully searchable text, hyper-linked cross-references, and over 300 full color illustrations. Alas, access to the new online reference is NOT free. Further information is available at http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/reference.html.

And Foresight President Chris Peterson sends a reminder that the journal Nanotechnology from the Institute of Physics (IOP) publishing in the United Kingdom now has the policy of making the current issue available free online, in the Adobe Acrobat PDF format (access to back issues requires a subscription). More information about the journal and its access and publication policies can be found in an editorial from February 2002.

Seeing protein structure with an AFM

Gina Miller writes "Physics News Update (26 March 2002) reports that researchers from Case Western Reserve University have developed a computational technique to get a sharper picture of a protein structure from an atomic force microscope (AFM) image. Because the region of an AFM tip that contacts the protein during imaging is typically about the same size as the protein molecule, the image that is obtained is too low resolution to reveal the structure of the molecule. Studying a cartilage protein called aggrecan, the researchers combined in their image processing technique data from the AFM, from the genomic sequence of the protein, and from transmission electron microscopy to yield a refined structure allowing them to identify certain elements of the 3-D structure of the protein.

Superconducting film on carbon nanotube

Gina Miller writes "According to a press release (18 March 2002) from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, UI researchers and their collaborators at Harvard and Rice created superconducting wires using carbon nanotubes as scaffolding to support a molybdenum-germanium film as thin as one nanometer. The researchers demonstrated that the superconduction they observe is due to the film, and not to the nanotube, by using fluorinated carbon nanotubes, which, unlike ordinary carbon nanotubes, are not metallic.
For a report that multi-walled carbon nanotubes might themselves be superconducting at high temperatures, see previous Nanodot post Buckytubes may be high-temp superconductors (28 November 2001)."

InfoWorld report on Drexler

A not-very-informative article in InfoWorld ("CTO Forum: Drexler declares nanotechnology victory", by Mark Jones, 10 April 2002) gives a brief summary of remarks made by K. Eric Drexler, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Molecular Manufacturing and Foresight Board Chair, at the InfoWorld CTO Forum on 9 April 2002. According to the article, "After 30 years, Dr. K. Eric Drexler Tuesday night declared that debate over the validity of nanotechnology [had been] 'won by default'. . . . The Foresight Institute chairman who first coined the term nanotechnology in 1971 dissected what has only until recent times been an overlooked debate. 'It's time to argue for the future with nanotechnology,' he said."

Berkeley researchers work on networked nodes of

Two recent articles describe a project at the University of California at Berkeley to develop 'smart dust' ó sensor-laden networked computer nodes that are just cubic millimetres in volume. While hardly nanoscale, such work is likely to provide useful experience when it comes to developing cooperative swarms of nano-scale devices in the future.

Similar work by a team of researchers at the University of Wisconsin at Madison was noted in a Nanodot post from 20 December 2001.

Chinese Academy of Science assesses nation

from the World-Watch dept.
A rather rambling article that appeared in the China Daily ("Winning a high-profile niche in nano technology", by Bao Xinyan and He Sheng, 26 March 2002) tries to summarize a report issued by the Chinese Academy of Sciences titled "High Technology Development in China, 2002", which includes coverage of advances in nano-scale science, materials and technology. According to the article, the report notes that "Most of the accomplishments were made in areas of research and development of nano materials, whereas advances in the areas of nano-electronics and nano biological research are still rather meager. . . . This is in sharp contrast with research at the forefront of nano technology in the world, which focuses on the research and development of nano-sized machinery and electronics." The article also includes comments from prominent Chinese researchers and administrators.

U of Illinois joins nanoresearch coalition

from the me,-too dept.
For some reason, the University of Illinois felt compelled to issue a press release (5 April 2002) to note the participation of UI researchers from the Frederick Seitz Materials Research Laboratory in collaborative work with two of the U.S. national Nanoscale Science and Engineering Centers established by the National Science Foundation in September 2001 (see Nanodot post from 27 September 2001). The release notes that the NSF Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center for Directed Assembly of Nanostructures is a partnership among the UI, the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y., and the Los Alamos National Laboratory in Los Alamos, N.M.

Audio file of Drexler

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) has posted an audio file of remarks made by K. Eric Drexler, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Molecular Manufacturing and Foresight Board Chair, who spoke on a panel discussion during a symposium on "The War On Terrorism: What Does It Mean for Science?", held on 18 December 2001 in Washington, D.C. (See Nanodot post from 19 December 2001).

Canadians look to long term for nanotech payoff

from the World-Watch dept.
An article in the Canadian National Post ("Nanotech revolution is coming (wait for it)", by Jill Vardy, 29 March 2002) repeats many of the increasingly common shibboleths regarding the emerging nanotech sector, including cautions about nano-hype: "Growing hype and bigger R&D budgets won't change the fact this science is still years away from practical application"

"I think we do have to be careful about managing expectations of the investment community and the public," said Dan Waynor, acting director-general of Canada's new National Institute of Nanotechnology, which is being set up in an engineering school at the University of Alberta's Edmonton campus while it waits for its own building. The $C120-million (about $US 75.3 million) institute, paid for by the federal and Alberta governments and the university, will eventually employ 150 National Research Council staff, 70 professors and 250 students doing nanotechnology research. "It will become a major centre for nanotechnology research on a global scale," Dr. Wayner said. Specifics of the institute's nanotechnology research plans will be unveiled in late April.

"There is a tremendous amount of hype around nanotechnology. But at the same time this is extremely important technology," said James Hollenhorst, director of the Electronics Research Laboratory at Agilent Technologies. "The investment community is interested in really exciting basic science work in universities and other labs … but what's getting attention right now is stuff that for the next 10 years or so will not be ready for real commercial business applications."

Dr. Wayner agrees that we're still years away from the big commercial and medical breakthroughs that nanotechnology promises. "There may be short-term applications of nanotechnology but most experts agree the payoff is 10 to 15 years down the road. We don't know enough about the science of nanotechnology yet to have a clear sense of what the economic impact will be in the next 10 years. But it will be enormous. It will be transformational and revolutionary."

For more information on Canadaís nanotechnology programs, see the Nanodot post from 11 January 2002.

Research reveals details of proton pump enzyme

from the Natural-Nanomachines dept.
According to a press release (7 March 2002), a molecular pump that helps cells produce chemical energy has been visualised by scientists at Imperial College, London. The structure of the pump, a key enzyme in bacterial respiration, reveals the molecular mechanisms that underpins cellular respiration, and confirms a Nobel Prize-winning theory proposed over 40 years ago by Peter Mitchell. Professor So Iwata and colleagues from the Laboratory of Membrane Protein Crystallography, Imperial College Centre for Structural Biology described their study of the structure of the enzyme formate dehydrogenase-N looks at a resolution of 1.6 angstroms in the 7 March 2002 issue of Science.

Their work with the bacteria E. coli provides the first real evidence for the 'chemiosmotic' theory proposed by Dr Peter Mitchell in 1961. Initially dismissed by mainstream science, Mitchell's theory on energy conversion is now accepted as a fundamental principle in the field of bioenergetics, the process by which living cells release energy in a controlled and useable form by converting metabolic energy derived from respiration into a compound called adenosine triphosphate (ATP). "In all cells, metabolites are converted via a series of respiratory enzymes into an electric potential or 'proton motive force' across the cell membrane. This proton motive force drives the generation of ATP," said Professor Iwata.

Professor Iwata and his team are the first to solve the structure of a respiratory enzyme that produces the proton motive force by the "redox-loop mechanism" originally proposed by Peter Mitchell. "Forty years on, this is the first enzyme structure to be determined that shows Peter Mitchell's original hypothesis of how cells convert energy into a usable form is correct," said Professor Iwata.

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