Foresight and other nanotech NGOs and companies have requested the U.S. House Appropriations Committee, Subcommittee on Interior and Related Agencies, to allocate US$1 million for an EHS (environmental, health and safety) roadmap, to be prepared by the National Academy of Sciences. Organizations and companies participating in the call were: Air Products & Chemicals, Inc., Altair… Continue reading $1 million requested for nanotech EHS roadmap
A message from Cate Alexander, Communications Director of the U.S. National Nanotechnology Coordination Office, about the May 2006 workshop on public participation which included Foresight: We have posted materials from the Public Participation in Nanotechnology workshop at http://www.nano.gov/html/society/home_society.html A few presentations are being converted from Mac to PC format and will be added to the… Continue reading Public participation in nanotech slides posted
Here at Foresight we’ve been doing “public participation” in nanotechnology since long before any national nanotech initiatives were started. So of course we are strongly in favor of nanoliteracy. The more the public understands nanotechnologies and the nanosciences on which they are based, the better, both for the economy and public policy. So it may… Continue reading Reducing bias in public participation in nanotech
Alexander Grigorovich-Barsky has designed a large nanotechnology poster (1.2 MB pdf) which attempts to give an overview of the whole topic, from history to today’s work to tomorrow’s atomically-precise manufacturing. An ambitious goal, but he has prudently asked for your help. I already gave him some feedback and, amazingly, the poster has now been re-designed… Continue reading Help with collaborative nanoposter development
In a release titled First nanotechnology journal from a major publisher to offer open access, Springer announced its new journal “Nanoscale Research Letters (NRL), which will be the first nanotechnology journal from a major commercial publisher to publish articles with open access. The new journal provides an interdisciplinary forum for the open communication of scientific… Continue reading Good news: Springer launches open access nano journal
It had to happen: Royal BodyCare Inc., just renamed RBC Life Sciences Inc., has now enabled all of us to go into the business of selling nanotech directly to the public: About the company: “We are the first company in network marketing to incorporate Nanotechnology into our product line.” About NanoCeuticals™: “RBC Life Sciences®, utilizing… Continue reading Now *you* can sell NanoCeuticals™!
Unhappy about the coming water shortages? Us too — that’s why it’s our #2 Foresight Nanotech Challenge. John Faith brings our attention to a Technology Review story by Aditi Risbud on nanotech for water desalination: Cheap Drinking Water from the Ocean Carbon nanotube-based membranes will dramatically cut the cost of desalination A water desalination system… Continue reading Livermore lab uses carbon nanotubes for cheaper desalination
It had to happen: a book in which German philosophers direct their attention to nanotech. (Ethicists and social scientists too.) Excerpts from the English abstracts (pdf), with my commentary inserted: An account is provided of how the purpose of gaining knowledge is reoriented towards purposes of application. This helps clear up the relation of discovery… Continue reading German philosophers take on nanotechnology
Cees Dekker’s team at the Kavli Institute of NanoScience at Delft University of Technology have produced some intriguing work published in Science (400 KB pdf): Integration of biomolecular motors in nanoengineered structures raises the intriguing possibility of manipulating materials on nanometer scales. We have managed to integrate kinesin motor proteins in closed submicron channels and… Continue reading Dutch team uses molecular motors for sorting
It’s hard for small investors to participate in nanotechnology. Harris & Harris has been one of the few options available. Now there’s another: Nanoventure N.V. ( machine translation of home page) has made an initial public offering on the Frankfurt exchange: Eindhoven, June 13, 2006 – Nanoventure N.V. was successfully listed on the Open Market… Continue reading Small investors get another nanotech option…sort of
