It is with great sadness that we report the death of Prof. Arthur Kantrowitz, a founding Advisor of Foresight Institute and an early supporter of molecular nanotechnology concepts when they were first developed at MIT in the late 1970s by then-student K. Eric Drexler. Arthur was an amazingly innovative scientist and technologist, as described in [...]

You might think that by now the definitions of terms like “nanotechnology” and “nanosystems” would be firmly established. In fact the process of arriving at an international consensus is more difficult than you might expect. Representing Foresight in the effort to define these and other terms is David R. Forrest, Ph.D., President of the Institute [...]

Registration is now open to new and renewing Senior Associate members; cost for Senior Associate members to attend the meeting is $65. Space is limited. Join us! —Christine 1st Foresight Unconference to Be Held November 3-4 in Silicon Valley Event will explore nanotechnology, advanced software, life extension, future technologies Palo Alto, CA — Foresight Nanotech [...]

We are very pleased to announce the dates and location of the 2007 Foresight Vision Weekend, to be held November 3-4 in at Yahoo! headquarters here in Silicon Valley. We’ve learned that you demand a highly interactive meeting, so this year we’ll be experimenting with a new format including big chunks of time for the [...]

After a lengthy search, Foresight Nanotech Institute is very pleased to announce our new President, Dr. Pearl Chin. You can see her bio and photo on our website. Welcome to the team, Pearl! —Christine Nanotechnology Think Tank Appoints Dr. Pearl Chin President Foresight Nanotech Institute to further research, policy Palo Alto, Calif. June 8, 2007 [...]

Judy Conner here at Foresight points out that today is Richard Feynman’s birthday — he would have been 88. Sadly, he died at age 69 instead, of cancer. I was fortunate enough to have heard him lecture and interact informally with students at Caltech; he made you understand physics, or at least feel that you [...]

To get a U.S. tax deduction in 2005, visit this page, see how Foresight is doing on our $40,000 Challenge Grant, and give by midnight this Saturday. If taking a 2005 deduction isn’t useful or possible for you, give any time through January 31, 2006, to take advantage of the dollar-for-dollar matching. Thanks for your [...]

For a layperson’s explanation of 2005 Feynman Prize winner Christian Schafmeister’s work, see this piece in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: “Taking this cue from nature, Dr. Schafmeister and his students have spent the last five years concocting their own set of 14 building blocks — the molecular equivalent of Lego pieces. “By his estimation, that’s enough [...]

J. Bonasia of Investor’s Business Daily gives a variety of nanotech perspectives from the Foresight Conference: “For now, green advocates appear to be cautiously optimistic about the technology. Many see it as a way to cut pollution and relieve human suffering. But they want to carefully assess nanotechnology as it evolves. ‘Nanotech is not understood [...]

While most Foresight Conference participants headed for home, the Steering Committee and Working Group of the Technology Roadmap for Productive Nanosystem buckled down for some hard work to kick off the Roadmap process. We are extremely pleased to announce that Sun Microsystems has joined as a corporate sponsor of the Roadmap. It was especially helpful [...]

At last night’s Feynman Prize banquet, we awarded this year’s prizes. The Feynman Theory prize went to Christian Joachim of France, the Feynman Experimental prize to Christian Schafmeister of U. Pittsburgh. The Government Prize, in its first year, went to U.S. Congressman Mike Honda. The Communication Prize was awarded to Rocky Rawstern of Nanotechnology Now. [...]

The Foresight Vision Weekend is off-the-record, so I’m not able to do real liveblogging. At the moment, we’re listening to Patrick Hopkins speak on “Who Will Hate Nanotechnology and Why?” There have been many great talks, but I’ll select just one as an example. Yesterday we heard from Peter Diamandis, Chairman of the X Prize [...]

Whether you’re an experienced podcast listener or a newbie trying it for the first time, check out Foresight president Scott Mize on infoTalk — “Download the fresh voices of Silicon Valley” — hosted by alpha-podcaster John Furrier.

Early registration ends tomorrow, Sept 1, for the Foresight Conference and/or Vision Weekend. We have been asked whether those affected by Hurricane Katrina can get an extension: Yes, of course. We’ve received some registrations covering all five-and-a-half days of this segmented meeting covering Applications, Policy, Research, and Vision. These hearty conference-goers will receive an endurance [...]

Check out the interview of Foresight president Scott Mize over at Nanotechnology Now on the “Technology Roadmap for Productive Nanosystems.” Excerpt: “The ‘Technology Roadmap for Productive Nanosystems‘ will chart anticipated developments in nanotechnology which will be required to take us from current abilities to advanced nanosystems. The Roadmap will examine what can be developed in [...]

We try not to let Foresight’s activities dominate this blog, but for those of you considering attending the 13th Foresight Conference on Advanced Nanotechnology, Oct. 22-27: the deadline is this coming Thursday, Sept. 1, to take advantage of the early registration fee discount. See the speakers, the program, the Research page, and the list of [...]

(This version of our conference desciption emphasizes the Research days. –CP) Researchers doing groundbreaking work in nanotechnology, or who have innovative scientific results relevant to emerging nanotech, are encouraged to submit abstracts by July 31, 2005, for presentation at the 13th Foresight Conference on Advanced Nanotechnology. Unlike special-topic meetings, the Foresight Conference series covers the [...]

We’re adding more speakers continually, but a preliminary list is now posted for the 13th Foresight Conference on Advanced Nanotechnology this Oct. 22-27 in San Francisco. Choose your area(s) of focus: the first two days give the big picture (Vision), the next two are on Applications & Policy, and the last two are on Research. [...]

As we have mentioned previously EurekAlert/AAAS is having monthly chats about nanotechnology. The complete chat log for this month can be found here (though I expect the location may change over the next month). It was an interesting discussion from the perspective of pointing out the mindset of current "nanotechnology" researchers. I suspect the moderator may have been overwhelmed with incoming questions but the following is interesting…

I posted two questions directly comparing biological assemblers with a Drexler type assemblers (I even cited a Science article [Science is published by AAAS] in one of the questions). So I'm rather amazed that they did not make it into the discussion. I had also posted multiple questions regarding whether the people on the panel had ever read Nanosystems or any of the Nanomedicine volumes. None of those appear to have made the cut to be presented to the panel.

from the memetics dept.
Senior Associate Glenn Reynolds writes: The alternative-rock group "Our Lady Peace" has a new CD out called "Spiritual Machines." It's a concept album (well, kinda) based on Ray Kurzweil's work, and features snips of Ray reading from his book. It's pretty cool. (Downloadable music at www.ourladypeace.com)."