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Gaming the Future: The Book!

Category: news

Lux Capital forms partnership for nanotech merchant bank

According to a press release on 10 September 2001, Lux Capital, a venture capital firm based in New York with a strong emphasis on nanotechnology, and McGovern Capital LLC have partnered to form Angstrom Partners LLC, a merchant bank providing intellectual property, corporate advisory and investment banking services to clients in the emerging nanotechnology industry. Angstrom Partners was formed as a Joint Venture between Lux Capital and McGovern Capital, a Greenwich and New York-based investment firm focused on capital formation, strategic transactions and alliances, and intellectual property.

Lux also released a major investor-oriented report on nanotechnology in August 2001.

Superconducting buckyballs

brian wang writes "Lucent scientists have inserted chloroform and bromoform between buckyballs and got them to superconduct at 117K. Up from 55K with previous mixes of buckyball. Read about it here."

Additional coverage of this research is available on the PhysicsWeb site.

Canada to create national center for nanotechnology

from the World-Watch dept.
With funding provided by the Canadian federal and the Alberta provincial governments, Canada will create a National Research Centre facility devoted to nanotechnology. The new NRC facility will be located at the University of Alberta in the provincial capital of Edmonton. Funding for the center will total about $CN 100 million, with roughly equal contributions from federal and provincial sources.

National and political motivations played a large role in the decision to establish the center in Alberta, which does not currently have a NRC facility. However, the University of Alberta is a good choice: UA already has made nanotechnology research a priority, and has 60 faculty members with expertise in the area — more than any other Canadian university.

Read more for links to press coverage of the announcement.

IBM researchers create nanotube-based NOT gate

from the circuit-logic dept.
Researchers at IBM have created and demonstrated the world's first logic-performing computer circuit within a single molecule, according to an IBM press release. The device, based on a carbon nanotube, functions as a voltage inverter and thus acts as a NOT gate — one of the three fundamental binary logic circuits that are the basis for digital computers. They encoded the entire inverter logic function along the length of a single carbon nanotube, forming the world's first single-molecule logic circuit.

The achievement was announced on 26 August 2001 at at the 222nd National Meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS) held in Chicago. The full research paper describing the device is available in the online ACS journal, Nano Letters ("Carbon Nanotube Inter- and Intramolecular Logic Gates")

In April 2001, the same IBM team became the first to develop a technique to produce arrays of carbon nanotube transistors, bypassing the need to separate metallic and semiconducting nanotubes. The team used these nanotube transistors to make the NOT circuit.

NSF will sponsor nanoscience symposium

from the wonk-session dept.
The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) will is sponsoring a day-long symposium titled "Small Wonders: Exploring the Vast Potential of Nanoscience" on Thursday, 13 September 2001 at the Ronald Reagan Building & International Trade Center, Large Amphitheater, in Washington D.C., from 8:30 a.m. – 5:30 p.m. A Program, Speakers & Exhibitors List is available online. Featured speakers will include NSF Director Rita Colwell, Senator Joseph Lieberman, Richard Smalley of Rice University, and Chad Mirkin of NWU Institute of Nanotechnology.

The event is open to the public, and apparently is free (no registration fee is mentioned). An invitation form is available as an Adobe Acrobat PDF. Attendees are requested to respond to [email protected] by 7 Spetember 2001.

Red Herring to sponsor nanotech briefing

from the For-VC-wonks dept.
Red Herring Magazine will hold it's first Nanotechnology Briefing on 24 September 2001 at the The Fairmont Copley Plaza, Boston, MA.

Red Herring ran a special issue on nanotechnology in July 2001.

Read more for a list of speakers for the briefing.

UNM, national labs form nanotech alliance

from the mushrooming-regional-centers dept.
The University of New Mexico and the Los Alamos and Sandia National Laboratories announced on 7 August 2001 the creation of the New Mexico Nanoscience Alliance (NMNA). The alliance will be open to all New Mexico institutions with interests in nanoscience. Its purpose will be the advancement of nanoscience within New Mexico and it will provide a forum for establishing collaborations among all of the research efforts in the state.

Read more for additional details and related news about U.S. legislation to fund a Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies sponsored by New Mexico Senator Jeff Bingaman.

Australian firm invests in "dendrimer nanotechnology"

from the long-and-winding-road dept.
During the 1980s and early 90s, starburst dendrimers, a type of complex, tree-like spherical branching polymer molecules, seemed to offer a promising avenue toward nanoscale applications. Enthusiasm has been tempered, at least in part, by the expense and difficulty of synthesizing them. Now, one of the leading researchers in dendrimer chemistry, Dr. Donald A. Tomalia at Central Michigan University, is working with Starpharma, an Australian pharmaceuticals firm, to develop products using "dendrimer nanotechnology". According to a Starpharma press release from 6 August 2001, the company will invest up to US$2.18 million over the next three years in Dendritic Nanotechnologies Limited, a new company which will have its head office in Melbourne and a branch office and laboratory at Central Michigan University. Dr Tomalia and his team of dendritic polymer scientists will be employed by the new company

Additional backgroound on Dr. Tomalia and his work with dendrimers can be found in a lengthy article ("Dendrimer's dad thinks he's finally tamed the money-munching molecule", by Jayne Fried, 26 July 2001) on the SmallTimes website.

Researchers intend to implant human clones

An Italian doctor and a U.S. researcher have announced that they intend implant cloned human embryos in 200 women volunteers within the next few months. This would be the first known attempt at human cloning. One of the researchers, Professor Severino Antinori of Rome, is scheduled to speak on 7 August 2001 at a daylong panel on Scientific and Medical Aspects of Human Cloning at the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in Washington, DC. Critics of the effort are said to be worried it may create a backlash against ongoing efforts to advance stem cell research in the United States, according to a report from United Press International.

Stem cells used to produce heart, insulin-producing cells

from the progress-and-paranoia dept.
Pointing up some of the reasons why many researchers are excited about the prospect of using embryonic stem cells to produce different types of tissues — such as heart tissue to repair damaged hearts — two teams of scientists at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Israel have produced tissue cells derived from human embryonic stem cells.
One team of researchers has for the first time succeeded in growing precursors of heart cells from human embryonic stems cells, puting the researchers considerably closer to clinical application in humans. Their report appears in the August 2001 issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation. In a second study, another team demonstrated that human embryonic stem cells can produce insulin, a result that could signal an important step toward a cure for type 1 diabetes. Their research was published in the August 2001 issue of Diabetes.

Additional coverage can be found in this article from United Press International.
An interesting editorial commentary appeared in the Los Angeles Times on 29 July 2001: "Science is far ahead of the public debate, and scientists need to educate the public about what they are doing. Otherwise the public debate will be fueled by fear."

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