Just received from Steffen Foss Hansen is a paper by his colleague Evan Michelson at the Wilson Center on the tough issue of “Nanotechnology Policy: An Analysis of Transnational Governance Issues Facing the United States and China.” An excerpt: Due to the rapid pace of R&D, discoveries in nanotechnology could come in great, discontinuous leaps… Continue reading Challenges of US/China nanotechnology
The nanotechnology project over at The Wilson Center sent Steffen Foss Hansen, a PhD candidate visiting from his university in Denmark, here to Foresight to interview me for a policy project they are doing on nanotech regulation. Normally these kinds of things don’t seem very useful, but I have to make an exception for this… Continue reading Grueling nanotechnology policy interview pays off
Nanowerk brings to our attention a resolution on nanotechnology by a labor group for food and agricultural workers claiming to represent 12 million people. It has a number of sections, but here’s an example: To demand that national and international patent offices, like the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), decline to register all patent applications… Continue reading Food workers worried about nanotechnology
Engineering News tells of a study by Frost & Sullivan on how nanotechnology can make a difference in addressing the issue of climate change: The report looked at five areas where nanotechnology could be helpful, which included the areas of fuel additives, solar cells, the hydrogen economy, batteries and supercapacitors, and insulation. In terms of… Continue reading Nanotechnology vs. climate change
Since it was the potential environmental benefits of nanotechnology that first drew me (and many others) to an interest in the field, it’s good to see some official notice of that aspect. From Cordis via Nanowerk News: Much has been said about the potential of nanotechnologies to revolutionise the way we live, with the biggest… Continue reading Nanotechnology *for* the environment
We’ve written here before about the Environmental Defense/DuPont effort to create a framework to deal with nanotechnology environmental, health, and safety (EHS) risks. Now NRDC has issued its own report and framework. An excerpt from the report: The current approach to chemical regulation cannot be relied upon to prevent harm from nanomaterials; it is slow,… Continue reading Competing nanotechnology control frameworks
The ever-busy folks at the Wilson Center’s Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies send word of yet another of their subprojects: a nanotechnology map or “NanoMetro mashup”. Alex Parlini writes: As of this afternoon, I’ve posted a google maps mashup that shows all publicly declared companies, organizations etc working with nanotechnology. To my knowledge, nobody has done… Continue reading Interactive map of U.S. nanotechnology
Nanowerk reports on a new nanotechnology ethics database at IIT: NanoEthicsBank. Perhaps the most interesting aspect is their experiment with participatory tagging: In conjunction with the fixed subject terms used in the NanoEthicsBank, we are also developing an experimental “folksonomy” tagging system for the database. A folksonomy is a user-generated taxonomy that uses open-ended labels… Continue reading Participatory nanotechnology ethics: Join right in
Foresight, Battelle, and Working Group members have been working away on our Technology Roadmap for Productive Nanosystems since late 2005. Now the Society of Manufacturing Engineers is pitching in on co-sponsoring the launch conference. Below is the press release; we hope to see you at the conference! —Christine Technology Roadmap for Productive Nanosystems to be… Continue reading Nanotechnology Roadmap launch: Productive Nanosystems Conference, Oct 9-10
If helping the environment is one of your top goals for nanotechnology — as it is for us here at Foresight — you may want to check out this Thursday’s nanotech webcast from the busy folks at the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies at the Wilson Center. They’re releasing a new report titled “Green Nanotechnology: It’s… Continue reading "Green nanotechnology" webcast to highlight environmental benefits
