Author: Foresight Editor

from the technology-for-all-not-just-the-rich dept.
Senior Associate BryanBruns reports "A well-written white paper on Transgenic Plants and World Agriculture argues that farmers in poor countries need better access to plant biotechnology. A working group from the US National Academy of Sciences the Royal Society of London, and scientific academies in other nations prepared the paper. (See also stories in the Washington Post and NandoTimes). This paper offers good examples of thinking through how to steer technology so it can benefit farmers and others in poor countries, not just commercial interests in wealthy countries. The report encourages better sharing of intellectual property. The whole report is worth reading, if you are interested in preparing society for advanced technologies, but if you're pressed for time you could look at the summary and the chapter on intellectual property".Read More for Bryan's full post.

from the those-clever-Canadians dept.
Senior Associate GinaMiller points out a report from the NRC on their breakthrough work using a scanning probe to stimulate the automatic self-assembly of organic molecules into lines on a chip surface: While much work remains to be done, they are optimistic about the prospects of nanotechnology…"The appeal of the technique is that we've limited the need for arduous atom-by-atom crafting of structures with an STM, and unleashed a spontaneous process to automatically drive nanostructure growth…" See their animation.

from the Rice-calls-it-"Moleware" dept.
TomKalil writes "DARPA has recently released a call for proposals in molecular electronics (MoleTronics). One of the technical goals of the program is to demonstrate densities of 10¹¹ devices/cm². See link for a description of existing DARPA-funded research on molecular electronics at HP and UCLA, Rice, Notre Dame, Harvard, Penn State, etc." From the call for proposals: "The second task is hierarchical self-assembly, i.e., bridging the nano- to the micro-worlds. This can be described as a set of processes that will first assemble individual devices, then create functional nano-blocks (e.g., memory and/or logic) from those devices, and finally the interconnection amongst said nano-blocks to form computationally functional circuits (modules) with a reasonable input and output methodology. Innovative interconnect and input/output concepts (e.g., multiplexing and demultiplexing schemes) are solicited."

from the Japan-moves-forward?-downward?-or-is-it-upward? dept.
Senior Associate BrianWang writes: An article at NEC discusses their work on atomic beam holography: "In a recent experiment, the joint research team succeeded in making real-time changes in the patterns of neon atoms by applying a bias voltage to an electrode array controlling the hologram. This experiment was a giant step towards the fabrication of complex, three-dimensional, nanometer-order structures. [emphasis added] The goal of our holographic atom manipulation is the nanofabrication of complex semiconductor structures. The technique will involve directly piling germanium and aluminum atoms on the substrate. In addition to increasing density, the new process will save time by eliminating the resist and etching steps in the lithography process."