Author: Foresight Editor

In a feature cover story for its 23 July 2001 issue, Forbes Magazine highlights nanotechnology, and profiles six research efforts working in various parts of the field ("The Next Small Thing", by Elizabeth Corcoran, 23 July 2001). Those profiled include Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer at IBM, inventors of the scanning transmission microscope (STM) who are now working to apply that technology to very high-density data storage; Harvard chemist George M. Whitesides; Angela Belcher of the University of Texas; Harold Craighead of Cornell's Nanobiotechnology Center; and Stanley Williams of HP Labs, James Heath at UCLA, and Mark Reed of Yale. The research covered ranges from nanobiotech to self-assembly to molecular electronics.

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from the View-from-another-shore dept.
Reason Magazine science correspondent Ronald Bailey makes a rather vituperative commentary ("Nanotech Negativism", 4 July 2001) on a what he terms is a " neo-Luddite report" from the Rural Advancement Foundation International (RAFI) in February ("The ETC Century"). In particular, Bailey expresses concern that the concerns raised by groups such as RAFI, especially gray-goo scenarios, will create a "fear of nanotech will inspire authoritarian repression to monitor or prevent the research from proceeding." After noting ongoing efforts to envision effective countermeasures to abuse and misuse of replicating nanobots, Bailey takes particular exception to a suggestion for an international technology regulatory body: "It doesnít take much of an imagination to realize what such a cumbersome and highly politicized process would do to the pace of technological progress. Not even rampaging nanobots would be able to outgrow an expanding U.N. bureaucracy."

Bailey had similar comments on what he terms "a global anti-technology movement" in February.

from the putting-things-in-perspective dept.
In the wake of an announcement on 6 July 2001 by researchers in the Netherlands that they had created a nanotube based single-electron transistor, Los Angeles Times science writer Charles Pillar offers this commentary that puts the discovery in context ("Tiny Transistors a Big Leap for Technology", 6 July 2001):

ìNanotechnology is being researched by scientists in many parts of the world. The most optimistic researchers project the creation of super-intelligent, microscopic devices that will push computing into futuristic realms. A multitude of micro devices might solve the toxic waste problem by disassembling poisonous molecules, such as dioxin, into the innocuous atoms that compose them, for example. Other scientists remain skeptical, saying that the absence of enabling technologies–such as wireless communications and power supplies–make such advances unfeasible any time soon.î

Piller concludes: "Skeptics contend that practical applications of nanotechnology are still a long way off. But a rush of incremental nanotech advances–such as the Delft University team's transistor–make it clear that nanotechnology is moving out of the realm of science fiction."

from the engineering-the-future dept.
The July 2001 issue of ASME News, a newsletter of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, reports that the ASME Board of Governors has approved development funding for a virtual institute — a clearinghouse for ASME's nanotechnology-related activities.
The purpose of the institute will be to provide international forums for technology transfer in the design, synthesis, manipulation and control of nanoscale systems. A goal for the Institute is support for nanotechnology design and development and the commercialization of the products and processes that use nanotechnology. It will also promote ASME as a leading engineering society for the practical application of nanotechnology as well as for the interdisciplinary engineers and scientists who will serve as the systems integrators.