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Gaming the Future: The Book!

Category: Ethics

Nanotechnology DNA sensor promises benefits, possible downsides

We are only in the very early stages of nanotechnology bringing new abilities to DNA reading, but the latest such nanotech advance comes from New Mexico Tech profs Peng Zhang and Snezna Rogelj, described in an article by George Zamora: NM Tech Researchers Develop Nanomaterial Bio-sensor New Mexico Tech researchers have developed a highly sensitive… Continue reading Nanotechnology DNA sensor promises benefits, possible downsides

Nanotechnology advice from philosopher & physicist surprisingly useful

First a confession: I have not, in fact, read the entire article “Living with Uncertainty: Toward the Ongoing Normative Assessment of Nanotechnology” by Jean-Pierre Dupuy and Alexei Grinbaum of the Ecole Polytechnique in France, published in Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology. It is about 10,000 words long and has a great deal of philosophy… Continue reading Nanotechnology advice from philosopher & physicist surprisingly useful

Nanotechnology risks? Ask the economists

Darrell Dvorak at MidwestBusiness.com points out that there’s often some expertise missing from discussions on nanotech risk: Because nanotech operates at the molecular level, there has been much speculation about new, unknown risks of nano products and processes… An encouraging development for a fact-based approach is that regulation has been shown to often hurt more… Continue reading Nanotechnology risks? Ask the economists

Nanotechnology: World Council of Churches promotes UN approval required for all new technologies

[Instapundit readers: you can sign up for nanotech news emails on the right side of this page at “free registration.”] A nanotechnology report has come out from the World Council of Churches titled “Science, Faith & New Technologies: Transforming Life — Volume I: Convergent Technologies.” (PDF) The World Council of Churches is a group of… Continue reading Nanotechnology: World Council of Churches promotes UN approval required for all new technologies

Nanotechnology: Lessons from open source biotech

Roger Brent, director of the Molecular Sciences Institute in Berkeley, is a leader in open source biotech: Putting his patents where his principles are, Dr. Brent’s institute has drafted an “Open Source Policy” which commits to “[making] reagents and methods freely available to the research community.” You can see MSI’s open source policy and a… Continue reading Nanotechnology: Lessons from open source biotech

Think twice before labeling nanotechnology products

[UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers. For free e-newsletter, subscribe at right, part way down, on this blog’s home page.] The ETC Group, recently mentioned here for its PR skills, has announced a contest to design a Nano-Hazard symbol for nanotechnology: Standard setting bodies around the world are now scrambling to agree on nomenclature that can describe… Continue reading Think twice before labeling nanotechnology products

Nanotechnology medicine policy report disputed

The ETC Group has a new 63-page PDF report out titled “Nanotech Rx — Medical Applications of Nano-scale Technologies: What Impact on Marginalized Communities?” Although we at Foresight share ETC’s concern for these communities, we disagree with the report. A couple of excerpts: Can OECD donors who have failed to deliver promised mosquito netting to… Continue reading Nanotechnology medicine policy report disputed

U.S. nanotechnology funds study ethics of human enhancement

Patrick Lin over at the Nanoethics Group let us know that the principals of that group have received a US$250,000 grant from the NSF to study the ethics of using nanotechnology to do human enhancement, through their academic affiliations at Dartmouth and Western Michigan U. The questions to be investigated by the nanoethics research team… Continue reading U.S. nanotechnology funds study ethics of human enhancement

Nanotechnology patents delayed, nanotech public understanding mixed

We don’t usually like to link to subscription sites, but as an editorial advisory board member, I’ll make an exception for Nanotech Briefs (you can download a free sample). The August issue has the usual hard-core technical news: SiGe transistor operates at frequencies above 500 GHz, Method creates hollow nanocrystals, nanopore technique sequences DNA [note:… Continue reading Nanotechnology patents delayed, nanotech public understanding mixed

Making nanotechnology safer through insurance

Bill Joy, we at Foresight, and others have called for the use of insurance as a tool to help reduce the potential risks of nanotechnology. This assumes that the insurance industry is willing to take on the task. So it’s reassuring to see a new report, “Nanotechnology: The Plastics of the 21st Century?”, by Guy… Continue reading Making nanotechnology safer through insurance

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