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Gaming the Future: The Book!

Category: Nanodot

Brain imaging may reveal when a person tells lies

from the mind-reading dept.
According to a press release, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have found that telling a lie and telling the truth require different activities in the human brain, and this activity can be monitored using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The findings were presented on 13 November 2001 at the national meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in San Diego, CA. By identifying the brain activity associated with deception and denial, the work paves the way for improvements in lie-detection techniques. Additional coverage is available from the Washington Post (11 November 2001) and the New Scientist Magazine.

Regarding this item, RobVirkus writes "This story immediately brings to mind the book 'The Truth Machine' by James L. Halperin and may be of interest to Nanodot readers. Perhaps someday we will all be asked security questions before boarding any form of mass transportation. Why just scan for weapons when they can scan for intentions. Of course, that would not stop any unwilling and unknowing participants in diabolocal acts."

Research firms release yet another nanotech report

from the The-bandwagon-effect dept.
Two high-technology market research firms, Multimedia Research Group (MRG), Inc., based in Sunnyvale, California, and Fuji-Keizai USA, a Japanese firm with an office in New York, released a 150-page report titled U.S. Nanotechnology R&D and Commercial Implications Technologies, Opportunities and Market Forecasts 2001-2005. According to a press release (12 November 2001), the "study reveals what the important areas of research are, provides numerous tables and figures that show who the thought leaders are, what the key patents are, and identifies the planned budgets of government agencies. Also revealed are the intermediate technologies such as MEMS, which may help the computer industry." The report is available for $US 1495.00.

Molecular electronics researchers awarded 2001 Feynman Prizes

The Foresight Institute announced the winners of the 2001 Feynman Prizes in Nanotechnology, which were awarded at a banquet on Saturday, 10 November 2001 during the Ninth Foresight Conference. Each year, two prizes are awarded in the amount of $5,000 each to the researchers whose recent work has most advanced the development of molecular nanotechnology. The separate prizes are awarded for theoretical work and for experimental work.

The winner of the 2001 Feynman Prize (Experimental) is Charles M. Lieber of Harvard University, a leading researcher in field of carbon nanotube applications. On Friday, 9 November 2001, Lieberís research team published a paper in the journal Science describing arrays of nanotubes that form transistors at their junctions.

The winner of the 2001 Feynman Prize (Theoretical) is Mark A. Ratner of Northwestern University, a pioneer in the field of molecular electronics.

Additional details on the awards can be found in this article on the Small Times website.

Bell Labs researchers create single addressable nanotransistors

from the Molectronics dept.
According to a press release (8 November 2001), researchers at Lucentís Bell Laboratories have announced they have succeeded in fabricating an individually addressable transistor whose channel consists of just one molecule. The latest results are a step forward from their work reported in October, in which they announced the creation of the single-molecule transistors. However, they had previously only been able to fabricate these "nanotransistors" as a matrix of a few thousand molecules that worked in tandem. Now, using a new technique, physicist Hendrik Schon and chemists Zhenan Bao and Hong Meng have succeeded in fabricating molecular-scale transistors that can be individually controlled. Their results were reported online in the 8 November 2001 edition of Science Express.

Using two of the nanotransistors, the Bell Labs scientists built a voltage inverter, a standard electronic circuit module that converts a "0" to a "1" or vice versa, creating a NOT gate for computer logic. The Bell Labs device is significantly different from the nanotube-based NOT gate created by IBM researchers announced in August.

Additional coverage is available in this news story from Reuters News Service and this Associated Press news story on the New York Times website.

Iran Nanotechnology Conference

A. Soltani writes of an upcoming "The Nanotechnology conference, the outlook of industrial revolution will be held in March 2002 in Tehran, Iran. You can see more at: http://www.tco.gov.ir/nano/English/events/Conference.htm"

Editor's Note: Be sure to visit the web site of the Iranian government's Nanotechnology Policy Studies Committee. The site offers an extensive amount of material in English (much of which appears to have been . . . er, "borrowed" from other sites on the web.)

Digital Consumers Unions

PatGratton writes "Keeping in mind that digital technology has strong direct and indirect effects on the development of nanotechnology and other transformational technologies… How do we get what we want from the digital industry in regards to: openness, privacy, security, robustness, rapid development, intellectual property distribution, etc.?

To answer this question, I'm writing a book called "Digital Needs" which examines the next 10 years of consumer facing digital technology – from the consumer's point of view. It lays out consumer requirements for hardware convergence, digital publishing, privacy, etc. and then suggests how they might be implemented.

For example, for digital publishing, I require that: Once a consumer has bought a digital good (book, music etc.) from a publisher, he should be guaranteed that he'll be able to access that good for the rest of his life, regardless of: loss of original copy, damage to or destruction of viewing hardware, changes in technology (e.g., html replaced by xml replace by ???), or even demise of the company that sold him the good. I then describe a system that makes this guarantee possible.

To help enforce these requirements, I suggest that commercially motivated Digital Consumers Unions be formed – some focussing on the needs of private consumers, others focussing on the needs of corporate consumers.

That's the brief introduction. For more information, see the Digital Needs Homepage.

Read more for more detailed links.

IBM research director envisions nanotech future

In a keynote address to the International Conference on Computer Aided Design (ICCAD) in San Jose, California on 5 November 2001, Thomas N. Theis, director of physical sciences at IBM's Thomas J. Watson Research Center, predicted that self-assembled nanoscale devices will eventually replace silicon transistor devices. Theis predicted that in 10 years chemically synthesized nano-building blocks will begin to replace semiconductor logic and memory devices, and within 20 to 50 years we should see pervasive use of self-assembly. The address was covered in EE Times ("IBM scientist sees nanotechnology supplanting transistors", by M. Santarini, 6 November 2001).

Update: The EETimes coverage of the ICCAD program also included a panel discussion, in which the panelists were asked to speculate on which applications will make the first use of nanotechnology, how soon nanotechnology will be widely introduced, and how the technology will affect design tools and methodologies. The panelists included Theis, Philip Keukes from HP Labs and Eric Parker from Zyvex.

gold nanowires

frog submitted a brief item from the Scientific American website on the self-assembling gold nanowires covered here on 1 November 2001. frog writes "An AC voltage between two electrodes causes gold nanoparticles in fluid suspension to form into a nanowire between the two electrodes. See http://www.sciam.com/news/110501/1.html from the Scientific American web page."

White paper previews Nanotech Opportunity Report

from the Discount-for-Senior-Associates dept.
CMP Cientifica (based in Spain) and nABUCUS (based in Hong Kong), two nanotechnology-oriented consulting and investment firms, along with the U.S. public relations firm of Niehaus Ryan Wong, have teamed up to prepare the Nanotechnology Opportunities Report (NOR), which is due to be released some time early next year. They have released a free preliminary white paper that aims to "give a comprehensive introduction to the wide variety of technologies that fall under the nanotech umbrella, and to present this in a manner that gives a sense of the areas of our world, and thus the markets, that will be impacted, and when."

As with most of these ìinvestment opportunityî reports, none of the material in the NOR preview white paper is particularly new or unique. However it does provide a succinct basic explanation of the developing excitement in the field for newcomers, and has a more international viewpoint than some of the reports issued by U.S.-based firms. The paper is available as an Adobe Acrobat PDF file (about 1.4 MB) at the website of any of the three firms:

The NOR white paper follows in the wake of a number of similar reports that were released in August and September 2001 (reported here on 3 August, 30 August, and 9 October 2001). The full Nanotechnology Opportunity Report will be available for purchase in January 2002 at a cost of US$1995.

UPDATE: Foresight Senior Associates, and attendees of this week's Ninth Foresight Conference, can get a discount of $200 on the pre-publication price of $1695 on advance orders for the NOR. This offer is good until 30 November 2001. These advance orders should be placed through Foresight, either online (secure web form), or through our office, to get the $200 discount. Contact information for the Foresight office.

Research reveals functional details of ion-channel 'atom-sorter'

from the natural-selection dept.
According to a press release, researchers at the Rockefeller University Laboratory of Molecular Neurobiology and Biophysics have worked out the three-dimensional structure of the inner workings of an ion-channel protein complex. Ion channels act to pass only specific atoms through cell membranes, and thus act as biological ëatom sortersí. The channel examined in this study is specific for potassium ions.
The overall protein consists of four subunits, like four staves of a barrel. Inside the protein is a narrower tube called the selectivity filter where the potassium ion is recognized. The selectivity filter works as a sorter that chemically senses the ions as they go through the channel. When it senses another type of ion inside the channel, the filter prevents it from entering. The researchers discovered the structure of the filter is very finely tuned to pass potassium ions very quickly, but to exclude other kinds of atoms.

The work was reported in two papers in the 1 November 2001 issue of Nature. The Nature Science Update website has a brief summary of the research, with some helpful graphics.

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