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 [...]

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 [...]

Keith Powers brings to our attention a claim that the German government has started collecting the chemical profiles of individuals, to be used for political purposes. From The Register in the UK: German police are compiling a Stasi-style “scent bank” database of potentially violent crusty protesters against global capitalism, according to reports. An article in [...]

I tell audiences that the day is coming when nanotechnology will be able to tell what they ate or smoked. That day is coming closer, according to Nanowerk News: To this day, fingerprints are just the thing when a perpetrator needs to be arrested or a person needs to be identified. British scientists working with [...]

BusinessWeek.com reports that nanotechnology is the next big thing in Russia: Russia will pour over $1 billion into equipment for nanotechnology research over the next three years as it uses massive oil and gas export earnings to diversify an economy now heavily dependent on raw materials, First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov said Wednesday. “(Nanotechnology) [...]

Though we do not always agree with Gregor Wolbring, his column on nanotech and the military reminds us of a very difficult potential problem: The start of a nano arms race, and the lack of willingness to regulate potential synthetic biology through the modification of existing treaties or the application of existing treaties or the [...]

A new book by German physicist Jürgen Altmann of Dortmund University looks at Military Nanotechnology: Potential Applications and Preventive Arms Control (Routledge, 2006). Both near-term and long-term applications are examined. From the abstract: NT applications will likely pervade all areas of the military…By using NT to miniaturise sensors, actuators and propulsion, autonomous systems (robots) could [...]

Earth & Sky interviewed yours truly on the topic of nanotechnology surveillance and nanoprivacy. It looks as though there are both a transcript and a couple of podcasts (1, 2). Excerpts: Nanotechnology will produce new sensors that can analyze chemical signals in our environment. And of course, we as individuals send off chemical signals that [...]

It had to happen somewhere: the first country to publicly state they are planning to use nanotechnology in weapons is…Israel. Before now, to my knowledge, only defensive uses have been discussed in public. From the Sydney Morning Herald: Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has given the green light for Israel to set up a special office [...]

The U.S. Navy’s Thomas Vandermolen looks at defense aspects of advanced nanotech in a footnoted paper over at Nanotechnology Now. He argues against a do-nothing strategy: Given MNT’s tremendous potential for both peaceful and violent applications, controlling it with a “do nothing” strategy is analogous to providing nuclear reactors to every country under the assumption [...]

The popular NSF-funded Earth & Sky radio series — “illuminating pathways to a vibrant and sustainable future for over six million people daily” — has been focusing on nanotech for quite a while now (see list). Most recently is an interview (description and download) looking at the question of nanotechnology-based sensors and privacy: As technology [...]

From The Chosun Ilbo we learn of a new collaborative effort on nanotechnology between South Korea and…North Korea: South and North Korean scholars are holding a conference on nanotechnology in the North’s Mt. Kumgang resort. For three days from Monday, participants will exchange results of their research and discuss ways to cooperate in improving education [...]

Nanotech Takes on Homeland Terror is the title of a piece by Josh Wolfe and Dan van den Bergh over at Forbes.com. It describes current and near-term applications for nanotech in detecting biowarfare agents and in protecting soldiers: The DOD believed in nano long before the term was mainstream…Current detection tools using nanotechnology allow high-speed [...]

Rocky Rawstern of Nanotechnology Now brings our attention to an article in The Scotsman on the views of Dr. Donald Bruce, head of the Church of Scotland’s Society, Religion and Technology Project. While there is much that we would agree with in Dr. Bruce’s position — for example, a concern about nanotechnology possibly leading to [...]

In an essay on KurzweilAI.net reprinted from New Scientist, Bill Joy — whose Wired essay titled Why the Future Doesn’t Need Us touched off a big controversy — suggests insurance as a mechanism to reduce risk from powerful technologies including nanotech: We could use the very strong force of markets. Rather than regulate things, we [...]

The leading semiconductor equipment industry association has taken a strong stand (one-page pdf) against new U.S. nanotech export controls: “SEMI is concerned about possible new export controls on nanotechnology products and cautions against further controls until this technology is better defined. “Nanotechnology should not be controlled simply because it is nanotechnology. This label is often [...]

Another batch of eleven essays on molecular manufacturing brought to you by CRN: “Nanoethics and Technological Revolutions: A Précis” – Nick Bostrom “From The Enlightenment to N-Lightenment” – Michael Buerger “What Price Freedom?” – Robert A. Freitas Jr. “The (Needed) New Economics of Abundance” – Steve Burgess “Economic Impact of the Personal Nanofactory” – Robert [...]

Now in its sixth revision, the lastest version of the Foresight Guidelines for Responsible Nanotechnology Development was released today (HTML or 116 KB PDF), just in time for a presentation this morning by Foresight Research Associate Dr. David Forrest to the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works’ meeting for nanotechnology stakeholders. Excerpt: “Version [...]

For those of us interested in longer-term nanotechnology issues, CRN has released a set of eleven essays by visionary writers, most of whom will be familiar names from their having participated in Foresight conferences over the years: Kurzweil, Ray – “Nanotechnology Dangers and Defenses” Freitas, Robert A. Jr. – “Molecular Manufacturing: Too Dangerous to Allow?” [...]

Foresight director Glenn Reynolds writes at TCS Daily about a major piece now running at Technology Review on biowarfare and bioterror. Basically it sounds as though we have gotten ourselves into a situation where biotech can now be used pretty easily by terrorists, exotic bioweapons (perhaps targeted on ethnic groups) are within the reach of [...]