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Gaming the Future: The Book!

Category: Nanodot

Business Week profiles tech "gurus"

In its 4 January 2002 issue, Business Week magazine profiles a number of "Gurus of Tomorrowís Tech". The researchers profiled include Kaushik Bhattacharya at CalTech ("Materials Made to Order"), a specialist in active materials, some of which employ nanoscale components; and Len Adleman at USC ("Tapping DNA Power for Computers"), who is a leading researcher in the use of DNA molecules for computing.

Templeton: "Open source ape" may become first AI

from the unnerving-thoughts dept.
Senior Associate Brad Templeton, also chairman of Electronic Frontier Foundation, has been thinking about AI through uploading: "However, the uploading scenario presents a rather disturbing conclusion. The first super-beings may not be based on humans at all, but instead may be apes. In the course of modern science, it is always the case that we experiment with animals first, years before we attempt anything on people. It's the ethical way, and in many cases the only legal way. As such, as we develop the technology to scan or convert an existing brain into an artificial form, we'll try this first on animals. We'll start with lower ones, and then work up to our closest relatives, the chimpanzee and bonobo…Indeed, the software of this chimp brain might be made available for free distribution. An "open source" ape, for all to experiment on." He makes a plausible case; worth reading.

Nanotechnology policy and research in Canada

from the World-Watch dept.
While the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) and various state and regional programs in the U.S. tend to dominate the news from North America, there is a very significant and increasingly well-coordinated nanotechnology effort underway in Canada as well.

The primary source for current news about Canadian efforts can be found on the Nanotechnology home page of the Canadian National Research Council (NRC), which includes information about policy, government and industry research activities, and an extensive listing of nanotechnology work at Canadian universities.

The establishment of the Canadian National Institute for Nanotechnology (NINT) at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, part of the NRC system, was covered here on Nanodot on 15 November and 27 August 2001.

Some interesting historical background can be found in the policy discussion that led to the establishment of the NINT:

Pulsating Space Hairs

Rocky Rawstern writes "From Space Daily comes a story about about how artificial "hairs" can provide a precise method for steering small satellites. This technology may be useful with picosatellites. The study is being led by researchers at the University of Washington, and is featured in latest issue of the journal Smart Materials and Structures. The full story is here http://www.spacedaily.com/news/nanosat-02a.html"

[Editor's note: The article actually just reprints this press release from the University of Washington.]

USC lab launches project to create nanobot swarms for ocean research

from the mechanoplankton dept.
According to a press release (9 January 2002), the Laboratory for Molecular Robotics (LMR) at the University of Southern California School of Engineering has received $1.5 million research grant from the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) to create swarms of microscopic robots. The application envisioned for such a system is to monitor potentially dangerous microorganisms in the ocean.

According to Ari Requicha, a USC professor of computer science and the project's principal investigator, the project spans the fields of nanotechnology, robotics, computer science and marine biology, but is centered on the development of the ultra-small robotic sensors and software systems to control them. Requicha said it will be possible to build nanoscale devices with electrical and mechanical components so that the devices could propel themselves, send electronic signals and even compute. While individual nanoscale devices would have limited computing power and capability, the plan is to have vast numbers of them operating in concert.

Requicha said that nanotechnology today is at the same stage of development as the Internet was in the late 1960's. "The idea that we'll have swarms of nanorobots in the ocean is no more far-fetched than the idea of connecting millions of computers was then," he said. "I don't think these robots will be confined to the ocean. We will eventually make robots to hunt down pathogens or repair cells in the human body."

Read more for additional details on this ambitious project.

More on nanotech initiatives in Taiwan, mainland China

from the World-Watch dept.
A brief item from a Small Times correspondent in Taiwan ("Taiwan focuses on nanotechnology, competes and cooperates with China", by Jen Lin-Liu, 9 January 2002) provides additional information on the countryís developing national initiative to concentrate its efforts on nanotechnology. Taiwan has designated nanotechnology as one of three new industries that they will focus on. The other two are information technology and biotechnology. The article also notes that while the governments of Taiwan and mainland China may be rivals politically, nanotechnology could be one area where they can cooperate.

Recent nanotech-related activity in Taiwan and China was noted here on 7 January 2002, and on 20 November and 18 December 2001.

JPL studies autonomous robotic work crews for space

According to a press release (9 January 2002), NASA researchers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California have successfully demonstrated the first use of multiple rovers that work tightly in sync to perform tasks such as coordinated grasping, lifting and moving of an extended payload, while navigating through obstacles on natural terrain. The JPL researchers say the rovers function much like a construction crew without a foreman. They note that once the system has been programmed with basic behaviors and coordination models, it is a truly distributed and autonomous intelligence across the robot team that gets the job done, responding to situations of the minute

For more information, visit the JPL Robot Work Crew website.

Systems analysis of a yeast proteome

The cover story of the 10 January 2002 issue of Nature describes work in the advancing field of proteonmics, the cataloging and functional analysis of the suite of proteins that operate inside an organismís cells. The subject of the report is a pioneering study describing the first draft of a functional map of the yeast proteome. The map visualizes an entire network of protein complexes and their interactions in yeast Saccharomyces cerevisae, forming a basis for the operative organization underlying a cellís activity under different conditions.

The map, developed by a team of scientists from the biotechnology start-up company CellZome and the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), is the first of its kind. The map characterizes the function and interactions of 1,440 yeast proteins comprising 232 multi-protein assemblies, or complexes, which directly affect biological activity.

Interestingly, the EMBL press release describes the work as a large-scale study of the ìmolecular machinesî formed by nearly two thousand proteins in a living cell, including the discovery of over a hundred new protein machines, ranging in size from two to eighty-three molecules (The EMBL press release is also available as a nicely-illustrated 5-page Acrobat PDF document). The Cellzome AG press release emphasizes the work as a major step towards transforming information from genome projects into applications such as the discovery of new drugs.

Yet another perspective is available in an article on the Nature Science Update website ("Proteome reveals promiscuity", by Helen Pearson, 10 January 2002).

"Age of Fear" to drive nanotech funding

from the fear-or-no-fear-nanotech-still-gets-funded dept.
According to John Ellis of Fast Company (Dec. 2001): "Before September 11, the debate among business and financial strategists was, roughly stated, nanotechnology versus genomics/proteomics. Which will be the next big thing? Where would you put your money? The best minds at Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, and Citigroup wrestled with these questions, as did those at the country's venture firms." After Sept. 11: "[The Age of Fear] means that a whole host of new technologies — like nanotechnology — will get more funding from the federal government."

Book describes U.S. copyright law as "an oppressive obsession"

The New York Times has published a laudatory review of Lawrence Lessig's passionate new book, The Future of Ideas: The Fate of the Commons in a Connected World in the 6 January 2002 issue. As the review notes, Lessig argues that America's concern with protecting intellectual property has become an oppressive obsession. "The distinctive feature of modern American copyright law," he writes, "is its almost limitless bloating." As Lessig sees it, a system originally designed to provide incentives for innovation has increasingly become a weapon for attacking cutting-edge creativity.

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