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Gaming the Future: The Book!

Category: Nanodot

MEMS 2002 Conference also looks at nanoscale devices

Amid the conference focused on microdevices, some interesting nanotech-related news emerged from the MEMS 2002 Conference co-sponsored by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the Robotics and Automation Society, and held 20-24 January 2002 in Las Vegas, Nevada. A good general overview of the conference appeared on the Small Times website ("Record numbers at MEMS conference", by Jane Fried, 22 January 2002). Some of the highlights include:

Taiwan formally inaugurates national NT center

from the World-Watch dept.
An article in the Taipei Times ("Nanotechnology Research Center opens in Hsinchu", by Chiu Yu-Tzu, 17 January 2002) reports that the the Hsinchu-based Industrial Technology Research Institute's (ITRI) Nanotechnology Research Center was formally launched on 16 January 2002. According to the article, the center is expected to spend at least NT$10 billion (about US$286 million) in funds allocated by the Ministry of Economic Affairs, from now until 2007.

At the opening ceremony, National Science Council Vice Chairman Wu Maw-kuen said that the draft of the national program had been passed by the NSC on 15 January and a comprehensive project would be available in March or April. "Next year, Taiwan's national nanotechnology program will be formally launched. We believe that the center at the ITRI will play an important role in integrating diverse researches in both the industry and universities," Wu said. The estimated expense for promoting the national program through 2007 will be about NT$19.2 billion (about US$548 million). A Nanodot post from 7 January 2002 provides additional background on the work to develop a national nanotechnology program in Taiwan.

A brief item about the opening of the center from the Asia Pulse news service appeared on the Small Times website.

Article argues against control of nanotech research

An article in the Dallas Business Journal ("Chicken Little is still alive and squawking: New technologies give rise to echoes of old fears", by Bartlett Cleland, 18 January 2002) says "The past 200 years have brought an age of wonder with constant life-changing inventions and mind-stretching advances. But every step forward has had its accompanying Luddites — the skeptics, the fearful and opportunists who express their outrage at progress. Today, their latest fear is nanotechnology."

Cleland, who is director of the Center for Technology Freedom at the Insititute for Policy Innovation in Lewisville, Texas, writes "already the fear-mongers are lining up to proclaim that nanotechnology will bring about the end of all humanity — a familiar refrain from those who fear the future. Much as Chicken Little did, these folks scream that the sky is falling even before they know the facts."

As has been argued elsewhere, Cleland says it is no solution to abandon or relinquish technological research and development: "Technology's track record is one of progress, not destruction. . . . This is not to say that technology is essentially good, but neither is it evil. It is the users of technology who decide whether it is used for good or for evil. . . . The future worth fearing is one where the good guys don't get there first, and the "bad guys" better understand, control and access superior technology. Restraints on the development of technology by the civilized world only give the upper hand to those who are not going to obey the law anyway."

Cleland concludes: "Many will try to regulate the advancement of nanotechnology for their own ends or because of their fears. But policy makers should resist the temptation to regulate nanotechnology. . . . Nanotechnology holds great promise for many areas of life. Those who fear the future will continue to whip up fear and concern rather than to engage in logical and productive analysis. Because to fear the future rather than to shape it correctly is a sure means to a disastrous outcome."

CSM article considers issues in patents debate

An article in the Christian Science Monitor ("Whose idea is it, anyway?", by Ruth Walker, 17 January 2002) presents arguments from many sides of the issue that while patents have been essential to ensuring innovation, the U.S. may now be limiting innovation by putting too many new developments under patent protection.

Among those quoted in the article is Chris Peterson, Foresight Institute President, who "thinks the patent system has been overextended – not just in volume but in kinds of patents. . . . The US economy has prospered, she says, in part because of the strength of its property rights, including patent rights. ' We have deeply learned the lesson of private property … but we've gone too far. As far as I can see, the property rights model works with physical things, but not ideas. We're pretending they can't be shared.' "

The article also notes that "Patent skeptics, such as . . . Peterson, argue that to treat ideas like physical things – "rounding 'em up and branding 'em like cattle" – is to deny everyone the full benefits of an economy based on infinitely sharable ideas. The patent advocates counter that it is precisely because so many of today's new products are almost pure "idea," with little physicality, that robust patent law is necessary."

National Academies report says U.S. should ban human reproductive cloning

According to a press release (18 January 2002), the U.S. National Academies has released a report that says the United States should ban human reproductive cloning aimed at creating a child. The new report considers only the scientific and medical aspects of this issue, plus ethical issues that pertain to human-subjects research. Based on experience with reproductive cloning in animals, the report concludes that human reproductive cloning would be dangerous for the woman, fetus, and newborn, and is likely to fail. The study panel did not address the issue of whether human reproductive cloning, even if it were found to be medically safe, would be — or would not be — acceptable to individuals or society. Enacting a legally enforceable ban that carries substantial penalties would be the best way to discourage human reproductive cloning experiments in both the public and private sectors, the report says. A voluntary measure probably would not be effective because many of the technologies needed to accomplish human reproductive cloning are widely accessible in private fertility clinics and other organizations that are not subject to federal regulations.

Read more for additional details, links to the report online, and related news on the Presidential Council on Bioethics.

Gamete stem cells may also control aging

According to a press release (18 January 2002), researchers at the University of California at San Francisco have found that stem cells for eggs and sperm also control aging in the roundworm C. elegans. The unsuspected role may find parallels in other organisms including humans, they suggest.

The finding shows for the first time that genes act in the adult animal to control its rate of aging. The stem cells, it seems, can modify lifespan even as aging is proceeding. The key stem cells, the scientists found, are not those that actually become egg or sperm, but their sister cells from the same stem cell pool, known as "proliferating germline stem cells," that divide continuously in the animalís reproductive tissues. Their study is reported in the 18 January 2002 issue of Science.

More on DNA-based motor at NYU lab

Vik points to an article in Technology Research News ("Morphing DNA makes motor", by Kimberly Patch, 16 January 2002) on the research by Nadrian Seeman at New York University into DNA-based devices:

"Dr. Nadrian Seeman has created and tested a 4-step DNA motor that can rotate indefinitely. Fuelled by other DNA strands, the molecular motor described in [the] TRN article operates in controllable steps. Dr. Seeman says that the range of motion is from 0.04 to 4 nm, although movement of 35nm has been made using arrays of the devices."

This item was also reported here on 2 January 2002.

NASA project to develop nanocapsules for cancer therapy

A news items from Science@NASA ("Voyage of the Nano-Surgeons", by Patrick L. Barry, 15 January 2002), a news service of the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), describes work at the NASA Ames Research Center to develop "nanoparticles" and "nanocapsules" that will hunt down diseased cells and penetrate their membranes to deliver precise doses of medicines. The hope is that the tiny capsules may someday be injected into people's bloodstreams to treat conditions ranging from cancer to radiation damage.

Read more for details of the project and web links to other resources.

HHMI team reveals structure of chloride ion channel

According to a press release, a team of scientists led by Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) investigator Roderick MacKinnon at The Rockefeller University has determined the three-dimensional structure of the chloride ion channel. Their work was reported in the 17 January 2002, issue of Nature. Additional information is available in a second press release from Rockefeller University, where the MacKinnon lab is located. The same team worked out the details of the function of another type of ion channel, or molecular sorter, for potassium in November 2001.

The researchers discovered the chloride ion channel has a completely different structure from the potassium ion channel. While the potassium ion channel has one large single pore with a water-filled, pyramid-shaped cavity, the chloride ion channel has two pores, each shaped like an hourglass with a narrow constriction at the center. The scientists also discovered the arrangement of the protein subunits that make up the channel are arranged entirely differently in the two types of channels. In the potassium ion channel, four protein subunits contribute to a single pore. In the chloride ion channel, each protein subunit has its own pore and the two halves of the subunit have opposite orientations in whatís called two-fold rotational symmetry. Future experiments in MacKinnonís laboratory will focus on determining how the chloride ion channel opens and closes to maintain the appropriate concentration of ions inside the cell.

Similar work on a membrane channel specific for water molecules was reported here on Nanodot in December 2001.

Near-Earth asteroid traffic heavy during January

from the gotta-get-off-this-rock dept.
According to an article from the Reuters news service ("Two Hefty Asteroids Pass Close to Earth", by Deborah Zabarenko, 16 January 2002), two hefty asteroids passed close to Earth on 16 January 2002, with at least five more set to swing near by January's end. One of the close-approaching asteroids measured between .6 and 1.8 miles in diameter, a big enough space rock to cause catastrophe if it collided with Earth. According to the report, at least five more fairly big asteroids were to pass close to Earth's orbit before Jan. 29, according to NASA's Near Earth Object Program. The article also notes there was some mild consternation over asteroid 2001 YB5, a 1,000-foot wide asteroid that got within 500,000 miles of Earth during the second week of January.

NASA's Near Earth Asteroid Tracking project watches for asteroids .6 miles or more across that have the potential to wreak havoc on Earth if they hit. Of the approximately 1,200 big dangerous asteroids believed to exist, scientists have detected 564. The vast majority of those — 471 — have been discovered since 1990.

Many scientists believe that an asteroid perhaps 3 miles across wiped out the dinosaurs and many other species when it crashed to Earth at the end of the Cretaceous era 65 million years ago. According to another press release (17 January 2002), at team of University of Arizona scientists will begin field work on an international project to core 1.8 kilometers into an immense crater created by the impact of an asteroid or comet 65 million years ago that is thought to be the object responsible for the Cretaceous extinctions. The project, the Chicxulub Scientific Drilling Project (CSDP), is located near Mérida, Yucatan, Mexico.

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