Nanotech arms race debated

Signal, the publication of the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association, has a Special Report on nanotechnology in their July issue, including: (1) Small Matters: Nanotechnology could lead to the next arms race; experts debate how to prepare, (2) a piece on the New Jersey Nanotechnology Consortium, and (3) a story on photo-activated porphyrin nanotubes. The two “experts” in the first piece are Lawrence Gasman of NanoMarkets (a Foresight Editorial Board member) and me. Most of the quotes sound right (if perhaps a bit too blunt), but I hope I didn’t say “What you’d want is something that has the destructive chemical action of a chemical weapon, which is really easy to do, combined with sensing and computation…” That’s what you don’t want, especially in the wrong hands, but seem likely to get anyway someday. An arms race is the U.S. public’s #2 concern about nanotechnology. –CP