Category: Nanotechnology

from the it's-not-a-nightmare-if-you're-awake dept.
Politech gives a pointer to the final report of an NSF conference on "Societal Implications of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, NSF". Politech's editor said "This is an important report, though the Viola Vogel comments are from someone who is in part a nanotechnology critic. For instance, Vogel calls simulating a human mind on a computer a "nightmarish scenario," though it seems to me to be an inevitable and unobjectionable step."

from the well-worth-reading dept.
A Rand Corporation "foresight" report on "The Global Technology Revolution: Bio/Nano/Materials Trends and Their Synergies with Information Technology by 2015" examines the potential effects of several technological trends over the next 15 years.
As described by the authors in their introduction, the report covers "[a] number of significant technology-related trends appear poised to have major global effects by 2015. These trends are being influenced by advances in biotechnology, nanotechnology, materials technology, and information technology . . . [the] implications are varied and can include social, political, economic, environmental, or other factors. In many cases, the significance of these technologies appears to depend on the synergies afforded by their combined advances as well as on their interaction with the so-called information revolution."

Although the authors feel "the present period in molecular manufacturing research is extremely exciting", their basic conclusion about advanced nanotechnology is rather cautious:
"Although molecular manufacturing holds the promise of significant global changes . . . it remains the least concrete of the technologies discussed here. Significant progress has been made, however, in the development of component technologies within the first regime of molecular manufacturing, where objects might be constructed from simple molecules and manufactured in a short amount of time via parallel atomic force microprobes or from simple self-assembled structures. Although the building blocks for these systems currently exist only in isolation at the research stage, it is certainly reasonable to expect that an integrated capability could be developed over the next 15 years . . . A series of important breakthroughs could certainly cause progress in this area to develop much more rapidly, but it seems very unlikely that macro-scale objects could be constructed using molecular manufacturing within the 2015 timeframe."

The full report is available online, and as an Adobe Acrobat PDF file.

from the natural-molecular-manufacturing dept.
William Morgan writes "Just a reminder that there is more than one path…
A press release on EurekAlert describes an article in Science about researchers at UC Santa Cruz who used x-ray crystallography to detail the structure of ribosomes."

In a paper published in the 30 March 2001 issue of Science, the researchers describe the structure of a bacterial ribosome in sufficient detail to begin to understand how it works. "This allows us to see what all the key parts are and how they interact," said Harry Noller, head of the group that obtained the new images. "The ribosome is a molecular machine, and it must have moving parts to accomplish its function. We are now in a position to understand the structural rearrangements of the ribosome during protein synthesis," Noller said. The abstract of the paper is freely available online.

Previous research into the fine structure of ribosomes was covered here in July and August of 2000.

from the Bunny-bemusement dept.
Is a glowing bunny an aesthetic statement? rinkjustice calls our attention to this item, which raises some interesting questions about what happens when genetic manipulation moves beyond basic research and the treatment of genetic diseases into . . . other arenas:
"Chicago-based conceptual artist Eduardo Kac has created a stir when he was prevented from unveiling his latest high tech art named Alba, at an exhibition of digital art in Paris. Alba is a transgenic bunny that glows bright green in blue light. It was the result of splicing the green fluorescent protein from the Aequorea victoria jellyfish into the genes of a rabbit. Some called the denial of his exhibit censorship, while others — horrified at this genetic manipulation — accuse Kac of playing God.
Is Alba legitimate bio-art? Is it an indication of how house pets will be in the future? Kac is already in the process of combining said jellyfish protein with Mexican hairless dogs for a glow unobscured by fur."

from the alternative-chemistries dept.
Brian Wang spotted this interesting item in Electronic Engineering Times on boron nitride nanostructures: "Northwestern University research has delivered the world's first nanotubes, -cones and -spheres constructed from boron nitride rather than the usual carbon. Single-walled boron-nitride (BN) nanostructures are hypothetically stronger and lighter than steel, but were only recently demonstrated here by professor Laurence Marks. Once BN nanostructures are embedded into polymers, they could serve to ruggedize the surface of metal parts, as well as form the basis for oxidation-proof coating. BN nanostructures have been hypothesized since carbon buckyballs were first built in the 1980s. But previous evidence of BN nanostructures was limited to multiwalled nanotubes, concentric fullerenes and nano-arches, the images for which were obtained only after the samples had been exposed to air, contaminating them with artifacts."

from the let-your-imagination-fly dept.
An Anonymous Coward writes "MIT's Technology Review printed an interesting Q&A session with Richard E. Smalley, the founder of the "buckyball" and nanotech guru, asking what he sees in the nanotube future."
Read More for some quotes.

from the bringing-bottom-up-alive dept.
PatrickUnderwood noted a BBC News article "Synthetic Virus Nearing Reality" in which Professor Clyde Hutchinson of the University of North Carolina and The Institute of Genomic Research, speaking at the AAAS meeting, predicts the ability to build a virus from scratch within five years. The article describes how this is a step along the way for the "Minimal Genome Project." The writer spends much of the story trying to link this to concerns about bioweapons, but gets told that "There's enough bad stuff out there now. So far, there is no reason to believe that this technology is going to make things any worse."

from the tinker-toys-taking-off dept.
Charles Vollum writes "Researchers at UCLA have come up with a reconfigurable molecular switch that works in a solid state at room temperature." According to a UPI article. " 'We feel that we truly have a line-of-site toward manufacturing an extremely powerful and efficient molecular based computing machine,' said team leader James Heath, professor of chemistry at UCLA and scientific co-director of the recently created California NanoSystems Institute."

from the twice-as-nice-for-bottom-up dept.
In Wiring Up Nanoelectronics, in MIT's Technology Review, Alan Leo writes "In the race to create ever-tinier electronic devices, nanowires are looking like a better bet. This month a team of Harvard researchers disclosed that they had created several functional nanoscale semiconductor devices, including the world's smallest bipolar transistor. Using silicon nanowires, semiconductive filaments only 20 nanometers wide, researchers in the lab of Harvard professor Charles Lieber also built a nanoscale diode and an inverter, the first devices ever assembled from both positive- and negative-type nanoscale semiconductors."

from the Bt-corn-strikes-again dept.
VAB writes "MSN is running a story about GE planting regulation compliance by farmers. Basically, a survey of 501 farmers revealed that about 29% (or close to a third) of them failed to follow FDA regulations related to their planting of Monsanto's genetically engineered Bt corn. …He notes the earlier problems with Bt corn and asks "Are all of these GE technology stewardship failures a bad sign for the future impact of MNT?"Read more for the rest of his comment.