Like me, perhaps you normally prefer more traditional art: oil paintings, perhaps. But new art can have an important societal purpose beyond its aesthetic value, and artist Nina Waisman has taken on a key nanotech issue to raise in her work: the relation between nanotechnology, sensing, and privacy. From SignOnSanDiego: If airport security were run… Continue reading Artist takes on nanotechnology and privacy
The Heritage Foundation portrays itself as a conservative think tank, and by gosh, they are! Specifically, they are conservative on the longer term prospects for nanotechnology: In the more distant future, combining nanocomputers, sensors, and nanomechanical architectures into one system would make possible autonomously targeted and guided projectiles, such as bullets and rockets. Nanotechnology could… Continue reading Heritage Foundation: Conservative on nanotechnology too
The company Nanoscience Instruments in its Scanline newsletter (PDF, Vol. 2, Issue. 2) lets us know that one of their nanotechnology products, the Nanosurf atomic force microscope, is on its way to Mars. Excerpts: Onboard the Phoenix lander is a suite of sophisticated scientific instrumentation including a weather station, an optical microscope, and a high-resolution… Continue reading Nanotechnology tool sent to Mars
Alan Shalleck of NanoClarity writes over at Nanotechnology Now on how the U.S. should go about planning its future federal funding of nanotech. Excerpts: It is time to explore what the next three to five year national nanotechnology funding allocation will look like. We have already benefited from two multiple-year, multibillion-dollar Presidentially-endorsed Federal programs and… Continue reading The next national nanotechnology program
Forbes.com did a poll to find out what human body enhancements their readers would most like. The poll seems to be gone, but nanotechnology commentator Gregor Wolbring quotes it in his own column: Smarter brain (403 votes – 29 %) Wings (230 votes – 17 %) Breathe underwater (147 votes – 11 %) Stylish, furry… Continue reading Nanotechnology: Enhancement goals for human body
For your nanotech weekend viewing enjoyment, we bring to your attention a free webcast posted by Institute of Nanotechnology (UK) of a lecture by Sir Fraser Stoddart entitled Chemistry and Molecular Nanotechnology for Tomorrow’s World. The IoN webcast system gives you video, audio, and his slides all together at one time. It worked pretty well… Continue reading Feynman prize finalist Fraser Stoddart in nanotechnology webcast
In case you are not on Foresight’s nanotechnology email list, be aware that Monday is the last day to save a great deal of money — $300 — on the 14th Foresight Conference on advanced nanotech: the Productive Nanosystems Conference, held jointly with SME this year. By registering on or before this Monday, Sept. 17,… Continue reading Deadline Monday: Atomically-precise nanotechnology
Our friends over at Nanowerk have put together a light-hearted little nanotechnology IQ test which nanotech trackers might enjoy. Some questions are fun: Question 12: Which of these well-known phrases from Star Trek depends on the (fictional) use of nanotechnology? Some not so much: Question 19: A silver coin with a diameter of 4 cm… Continue reading Test your nanotechnology IQ
Caltech nanotechnology researchers have come up with a new way to fuel synthetic molecular motors for nanotech, as described by Physorg.com: “This study provides a proof of principle that DNA hybridization can be used to power autonomous molecular locomotion,” said Pierce. “Researchers at the NSF Center for Molecular Cybernetics, of which our team is a… Continue reading Caltech makes new molecular motor for nanotechnology
Babak Parviz of University of Washington, named by Technology Review as one of this year’s outstanding innovators under the age of 35, writes in the Sept/Oct issue (free reg req’d) about self-assembly: In nature, components “self-assemble” to yield complex functional systems. Inspired in part by this observation, a number of research groups are working to… Continue reading The future of manufacturing: Nanotechnology
