Category: Media Mentions

from the World-Watch dept.
Bob Grahame calls our attention to an article in the Taipei Times in Taiwan ("ITRI preparing nanotech center", 18 July 2001) which reports that the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) is preparing for the establishment of a nanotechnology center to help foster Taiwan's next-generation high technology development. ITRI is planning to establish the Center for Applied Nanotechnology Institutes (CANTI) in January 2002, with an investment of NT$10 billion (US$286 million) in the first five years. According to the report, the new Center will focus its efforts in five major areas: nanomaterials, nanoelectronics, nano opti-electronics, nano chemicals and nano biotechnology.

from the In-the-news dept.
Additional coverage of the molecular electronics patent granted to Hewlett-Packard:

An HP press release (17 July 2001), which quotes HP Labs research director Stan Williams: "We have a strategy to reinvent the integrated circuit with molecular rather than semiconductor components."

An article from the San Francisco Chronicle website ("HP has circuit advance: molecules used as transistors", by Carrie Kirby, 18 July 2001).

And Bob Grahame found this story from The Register in the U.K. ("HP moves towards molecular-scale computing", by Robert Blincoe, 17 July 2001).

from the not-invented-here dept.
An article on the Small Times website ("NanoTexas: The Land of Big Oil is Now Boomtown for the Tiny", by Candace Stuart, 16 July 2001) provides a useful overview of nanotech-related activity in Texas. The article covers the various Texas institutions and private firms engaged in nanotechnology research and development, and describes some of their work.

Also, in the tradition of Texas tall tales, we again see the dubious claim that "Texas is the birthplace of nanotechnology." The claim is based on the co-discovery of fullerenes by Richard Smalley at Rice University, and the mistaken assumption that the Rice researchers are the only ones who have done interesting work with fullerene nanotubes.

Activity in Texas has recently been covered here on nanodot on 29 June, 13 June, and 30 May in 2001, and 16 August 2000.

from the catching-the-wave dept.
khennes1 writes "Which states will be big in the small-scale nanotech arena? An article from United Press International ("Nanotech hubs spread all over ", by K. Hearn, 11 July 2001) details various nanotech initiatives emerging across the country."

The article covers programs on the U.S. east coast in New York and Pennsylvania (and possibly the Boston and Washington, D.C. areas), as well as in California and Texas.

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.

Note: Access to the magazine content is free, but may require registration.

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.

from the catching-the-wave dept.
In the wake of the U.S. National Nanotechnology Initiative, and the establishment of major nanotechnology programs in California, New York and other states, smaller-scale programs are also springing up in other states and regions of the country. Two recent items from the trend:

• According to a report in Business First, a Columbus-based business journal, Ohio University has received a $1.2 million grant from the National Science Foundation to research nanotechnology ("OU gets grant for nanotechnology research", by C. Hall, 2 July 2001).
• Another item from the Atlanta Business Chronicle, ("It's all about being small: State jumps into 'nanoscience' ", by J. Bryant, 29 June 2001) sums the trend up pretty well: "Sensing what has become a global competition to develop these products, the federal government and universities such as Georgia Tech have suddenly gotten serious about funding nanoscience."

from the wider-audiences dept.
An brief interview with Dr. James R. Baker, Jr., who heads the University of Michigan's Center for Biologic Nanotechnology, appeared in the June 2001 issue of American Demographics ("FutureSpeak: Nanotechnology"). While short on substance, the interview does introduce some interesting aspects of nanotechnology to a different audience (demographers and sociologists, presumably).