Now speaking is Christian Joachim of France, who last night was awarded the 2005 Foresight Institute Feynman Prize for Theory. He just finished explaining his uni-molecular “wheelbarrow” and now is covering his molecular Morse manipulator. First he designs and evaluates computationally, then he builds the device. Now he is showing a design for 1/2 of… Continue reading Feynman Prize for Theory: Christian Joachim, France
Liveblogging the Foresight Conference. Today is the last day of the research sessions, and Teri Odom of Northwestern just overwhelmed us with a quick summary of her work, both bottom-up and top-down. Normally I am a bottom-up fan, but I especially like her work using lithography to make pyramidal nanoparticles. Basically you make a layer… Continue reading Nanopyramids from Teri Odom
Liveblogging the Foresight Conference research sessions: Co-chair Bill Goddard dedicated his talk to Eric Drexler for his role in stimulating this field as long as ago as early 1990’s. Dr. Goddard is describing his computations at the nanoscale, for example of the contact resistance at metal-carbon nanotube junctions. Palladium, platinum, and titanium look the best.… Continue reading Goddard on predicting nanostructure properties
Ron Bailey has written up his differences with Alan Goldstein, which were explored at a debate at the Foresight Vision Weekend a few days ago. “Waiting until the ethicists catch up with scientific and technological progress is a recipe for technological stagnation. Slowing innovation is not cost free. It makes a difference to tens of… Continue reading NanoBioEthics: Advancing past the "Carbon Barrier"
Next up is co-chair of the Research sessions, Hiroshi Yokoyama, Director of the Nanotechnology Research Institute, part of AIST in Japan — one of the leaders of nanotech in Japan. He is an expert in liquid crystal nanotech but in this talk he is giving an overview of nanotech in Japan. A survey showed that… Continue reading Nano in Japan
Liveblogging the Foresight Conference: Just finishing up is Jim Von Ehr of Zyvex, introduced as a “rock star of nanotechnology” by Charlie Harris. His goal is molecularly precise manufacturing of products at any length scale. He is agnostic on the method. They just won an R&D 100 award, and have quite a long list of… Continue reading Zyvex: molecularly precise nanomanufacturing
Another view of the clean water panel at the Foresight Conference, from Michael Kanellos of CNET News.com: “What’s the biggest hazard for the future? Global warming? Oil shortages? “A small, but growing number of people think that a looming shortage of drinking water constitutes a much larger crisis. Water consumption is doubling every twenty years,… Continue reading Lack of clean water: the biggest hazard
Now up: “Federal Government Regulation of Nanotechnology: Present and Future Trends” by Nancy White of Central Michigan University. She began with “The government is coming.” Areas likely to be regulated are limitation of self-replication and encryption of software used with nanotech. “Foresight’s policies will probably be used by the Federal government.” This pre-planning “should be… Continue reading The government is coming — nanotech regulation
See Michael Kanellos of CNET News.com’s brief report on the Foresight Conference.
Liveblogging the Foresight Conference. Now in progress is the clean water panel, moderated by Anthony Waitz of Quantum Insight. First up is Fred Tepper of Argonide, which makes nanoalumina filters which look like paper and are made in a paper mill, based on Russian technology. When the nanoalumina reaches 15% weight of the filter, over… Continue reading Nanotech for clean water
