Category: Nanodot

Foresight's Judy Conner points us at an essay by Josh Wolfe at Forbes.com: "Nanotech is still in its infancy, and scientists are just beginning to understand how it can be used to improve products and processes in fields ranging from semiconductors to medicine and energy. The last thing it needs is a 'societal debate' and intense government scrutiny. How can you intelligently discuss and regulate something that is still in the discovery and development stage, before it really exists in a practical manufacturing sense?"

Germany has a traveling nanotech roadshow called the nanoTruck, apparently the brainchild of nanopromoter and Federal Minister for Education and Research, Ms. Edelgard Bulmahn. There's a form to use to request a visit by the nanoTruck — do they ship to the U.S.? (As for who is envious, that would be me.)

Foresight Senior Associate Tihamer Toth-Fejel, a research engineer at General Dynamics, reports that he was able to locate 43 "nanosystems" studies in the list of NNI funded projects, some of which he reports look "somewhat promising" for molecular manufacturing. Read more to see his choice of the top seven projects funded.

Keep an eye on BIOMACH, a multi-year project funded by the EU: "The primary scientific objective is to achieve scientific prominence in the field of design and handling of nano-scaled molecular machines." They exploit both natural molecular machines and artificial ones: "The synthetic-artificial approach relies on a bottom-up approach to build-up nano-scaled machines by the assembly of simple synthetic bricks. Cutting-edge expertise in supramolecular self-assembly and self-organisation techniques is mandatory to steer the construction process and to control functionality of such de novo designed nanometer scale molecule engines." The long-term goal? Nanorobots, of course.

In his talk at the recent Nanoethics conference, Michael Bennett of RPI brought our attention to a 1929 essay by J.D. Bernal which predicts a technology where physics, chemistry, and mechanics fuse and result in an ability to build to molecular specifications. Read More for excerpts.

Mihail Roco, Senior NSF Advisor on nanotech, gave a plenary talk at the Nanoethics conference recently. One of his slides was on synthesis and control of nanomachines, and noted that about 300 projects had been funded in 2004. Later he referred me to two websites: the NSE site where he said were listed 50-60 NNI-funded centers focused on 3rd-4th generation nanomachines/nanosystems, and the NNI site where a search on awards would show 300-400 grants with nanomachine or nanosystem in the title or abstract. Read More for the results and request for help.

In a talk at the recent Nanoethics conference, NNI's Mihail Roco described plans for third and fourth generation nanotechnology, and very briefly sketched a fifth generation — robotics and guided assembly. This was supplemented by paper copies of an article he wrote for AIChE Journal. Long-time readers of Nanodot will find the terminology new but the concepts familiar. Read More for a summary.

Emeka Okafor writes "Liquid Computing, The New scientist writes about the developments in the field of liquid computing. Andrew Adamatzky of the Intelligent Autonomous Systems Laboratory,Bristol "…has worked out how to make liquid logic gates,building arrays that he believes could lead to powerful processors that are infinitely reconfigurable and self healing…he wants to use his 'gooware' to create a hugely powerful parallel processor: a liquid robot in which metal and wire are replaced by a blob of jelly…"it will be completely flexible," says Adamatzky- an intelligent, shape changing-changing,crawling blob…" via Smartmobs"

The following press release points out the development of the European Nanotechnology Trade Association for purpose of "representing the industry's interests in Europe".

Now of course one might ask at this point in time "What industry?". But one must understand ramp-up strategies. And there must be organizations that support that process. So support for the groups that support the development of the companies that will work in the "industry" is justified.