Nanotech in U.S.: Find more molecule geeks soon or lose out

My first column is up over at Always On, and you can rate it on a scale from “Way Off” to “On the $”. Excerpts: “So there’s a big international race on to see which country will lead the Nanotechnology Revolution. How will the U.S. do?…you can have lots of venture capital looking to invest in nanotech, but if you don’t have enough technical talent you’ll still lose out. And that’s the direction the U.S. is heading now…take a look at the list of post-doc and grad students in the top U.S. academic nanotech labs today. Often, most of these young people are from outside the country. Sometimes, all of them are from outside the country. Of course, in many ways this is wonderful…Given all this, where can the U.S find the large numbers of molecule geeks it needs to remain a leader in nanotech? (And I use the term geek in the nicest way here.) We need lots, so we should try lots of ways to get them.”