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We mentioned earlier Adam Keiper's coverage of this meeting on Howard Lovy's Nanobot blog. For another view, see Chris Phoenix on CRN's blog: "As far as I can tell, it went extremely well…The committee focused directly on molecular manufacturing…I'm pretty confident that MM will get a fair hearing…Whatever they produce will be the result of open-minded and very careful study." Encouraging.
Nanobot correspondent Adam Keiper covers today's National Research Council meeting on molecular manufacturing, including many familiar names and some new ones, as well as an audio clip from Foresight co-founder Eric Drexler (in four convenient formats!). Thanks, Adam.
Robert A. Freitas Jr. has announced the release of his report on a Pathway to Diamond-Based Molecular Manufacturing. This documents a possible path to diamondoid mechanosynthesis. The background academic work and studies involved a number of scientists at Zyvex who have filed for a provisional patent on the process.
This is a shortened version of his presentation at the First Foresight Conference on Advanced Nanotechnology in October 2004. Anyone who is seriously interested in the mechanosynthesis path to nanotechnology who did not attend the conference should read this document
Scholars Probe Nanotechnology's Promise and Its Potential Problems surveys the widespread interest in applications based upon the novel characteristics of materials structured at the nanometer scale, and the effort that is being invested in studying environmental and health issues associated with using nanomaterials. The goal is to avoid the public relations problems faced by other technologies that did not take seriously risks and public concerns about those risks. However, "The concern that has generated the most attention in the popular press has been gray goo-self-replicating nanobots that could hypothetically get out of control." Rather than addressing this narrow issue specifically, many mainstream scientists have tried to avoid the issue by making unsupported claims that self-replicating nanomachines can't be made. Eric Drexler is quoted defending the claim that nanoscale machinery capable of making atomically precise products can be manufactured. "Through the quirks of politics, the mainstream has rejected the original goal [the vision Richard Feynman described in 1959]. We are raising a generation of researchers who have been told that molecular manufacturing will threaten their careers."
Getting Molecules To Do The Work surveys half a dozen nanotechnology projects involving self-assembly that are bringing an "era of nano-manufacturing". Although many obstacles remain, the survey concludes optimistically:
Still, "the field is moving very fast," says NYU's Seeman. Only a year ago, he says, he showed his students a top-10 list of major challenges nanotechnology faced. Today, three are already resolved. At this pace, he adds, self-assembly and molecular manufacturing will come into commercial use sooner rather than later.
Dismissing Drexler Is Bad for Business, a Betterhumans column by Simon Smith: "Ignoring the potential of molecular manufacturing won't make it go away, so why is the US nanotech industry painting its advocates as kooks?"
The Dec. 1, 2003, issue of Chemical & Engineering News, the primary newsweekly for chemists, featured not just the Drexler/Smalley debate but also a great illustration of molecular manufacturing on the cover. Enjoy.
HLovy writes "Here we are, through the looking glass, where we ponder the impact of molecular nanotechnology upon the ethical fiber of our society, when we have yet to settle a cosmic bar bet on whether it's possible at all." See "Settle a little bet for me"
from the now-the-boss-will-pay! dept.
Looking for a way to get your company to pay your way to hear about nanotechnology in Vancouver this July? (You should be — Vancouver is wonderful.) Now you can: The dead-tree version of the journal Simulation reports that SCSC 2000 topics include "Nanotechnology and Molecular Manufacturing". The conference website boasts that "The theme for this year's conference is: MAINSTREAM Simulation. SCSC 2000 addresses the MAINSTREAM of simulation…in the MAINSTREAM of world-wide government and industry." (OK, we get the point.) Other topics and meetings held in conjunction help ensure that if you work with computers, you may be able to justify this trip. Can anyone recommend/disrecommend this meeting?
Presenters Andrew Turberfield, University of Oxford Professor of Biological Physics. We work with synthetic biomolecular nanostructures built by self-assembly. Nucleic acid nanostructures are atomically precise and dynamically reconfigurable: by designing synthetic strands of DNA or RNA we can create autonomous molecular systems that sense, compute and actuate. We are developing the physics and technology of… Continue reading Molecular Additive Manufacturing
