M. Roessger writes "Schaffhausen/Switzerland, April 15th, 2005

NanoWorld Holding AG announced that it has acquired 100% of Bulgarian based Innovative Solutions Bulgaria Ltd. (ISB) with its AFM Probes division BudgetSensorsô on April 1, 2005.

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A belated story from The Register: "The [British] government has handed £1m in grants and awards to a nanotech company that has developed a new way of detecting a bioterror attack. The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (Nesta) both contributed to the funding package. The company concerned, Nanosight, is cagey about explaining its technology because its patents are all still under review. What it will say is that it has developed a way of replicating viral antibodies using non-biological means, specifically 'computer and microelectronics technology'." The submittor of this item commented: "The story centers around a bio-weapon detector, however, I feel the promise of non-biological production of viral/bacterial antibodies is much more interesting."

Roland Piquepaille writes "Even if researchers are routinely building all kinds of nanodevices in their labs, the current production process of nanowires or nanosensors is similar to the car manufacturing process before Henry Ford. These nanostructures are almost handmade. Now, researchers at University of California Davis (UC Davis) have adapted a technology developed for Hewlett-Packard Laboratories. And they came with two new ways to massively produce nanowires of precise length. Their 'nanobridges' and 'nanocolonnades' are totally compatible with existing microelectronics fabrication processes. This opens the way for to a wide range of industrial-strength applications, such as bio-chemical sensing, nanoelectronics, nanophotonics, memory and logic devices for future computing. [See also] other details and references."

The original 2004 provisional patent application describing the "Freitas process" proposed for building a working carbon dimer placement tool (DCB6Ge) for diamond mechanosynthesis experimentally — apparently the first patent ever filed on diamond mechanosynthesis — is now available online. In February 2005, a full utility patent was filed with the USPTO on this process. Freitas' 2004 Foresight Conference lecture describing a near-term pathway leading directly to diamond mechanosynthesis, which included a summary of this now patent-pending process, is also online here.

Robert A. Freitas Jr. is Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Molecular Manufacturing (IMM).

Judy Conner brings our attention to a story in Medical News Today: "According to a new study by the Canadian Program on Genomics and Global Health (CPGGH) at the University of Toronto Joint Centre for Bioethics (JCB), a leading international medical ethics think-tank, several nanotechnology applications will help people in developing countries tackle their most urgent problems – extreme poverty and hunger, child mortality, environmental degradation and diseases such as malaria and HIV/AIDS. The study is the first ranking of nanotechnology applications relative to their impact on development; it was published today by the prestigious, open-access, US-based Public Library of Science journal." Foresight participated in the international panel of experts surveyed.

The current issue of NanoNews-Now offers the results of two expert surveys, one on nanotech business and one on nanotech education, both focusing on what kind of training is most in demand. Pamela Bailey of tinytechjobs offers advice on how to get employed in nanotech: Read More for excerpt. (Site is paid subscription, but there's a 90-day free trial.)

euspen vision online writes " Vision on-line ñ Wish List
A Virtual Institute Supporting Industry On-line in precision engineering, micro engineering, microsystems and Nanotechnology

Coordinated by euspen.

VisionOnline is providing a free web-based partnering service enabling companies and research organisations/universities worldwide to share their knowledge in the fields of precision engineering, microsystems and nanotechnology.

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nano@taitra.org.tw writes "Applications are now being accepted to exhibit at Taiwan NanoTech 2005 — Taiwan's first ever nano-technology event that will lead the 4th wave across Asia this September 23 to September 25."

This event brings together years of development of nanotechnology by private, institutional, and government. It underscores the integration of nanotechnology, biotechnology and other high tech industry currently underway at scores of nanotech science parks throughout Taiwan and around the world."

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Those of us needing a quick intro to the topic of protein nanomachines can check out Michael Strong's summary in PLoS Biology: "The work of Yan et al. (2003) has opened up exciting new avenues in the field of nanotechnology and has provided the molecular framework for the construction of dynamic protein-based assemblies. It is foreseeable that variations of these same DNA scaffolds will eventually be used for the design and construction of more complex protein-based assemblies, such as nanoscale ìassembly linesî or periodic arrays of dynamic motor proteins." Unfortunately, though the first two references are available free online, the links in the article do not lead to free versions (try Google).

Nanopolis writes "Nanopolis announces the upcoming second edition of the ìExploring matter with Neutronsî encyclopedia (http://neutrons.nanopolis.net). This huge interactive multimedia volume expands its e-Learning content on the matter exploration at the subatomic scale with valuable new topics: Phase Transitions of matter, the study of matter at High temperatures, High pressures and High Magnetic Fields, Neutrons Detection and Optics and various fields of neutron applications. The 2000 computer animated pages represent the most outstanding information of the world research institutes participating to the Nanopolis challenging consortium. You, as a scientific research institute, industrialist or university representative investing nanoscale science and engineering, are invited to join us at www.nanopolis.net Enjoy the Nanopolis Knowledge World !"

Tomorrow I'm serving on one panel and moderating another at Stanford Law School's event featuring nanotechnology. One issue we'll be examining with panelist Susan Kovarovics of Foley & Lardner is the potential for nanotech export controls: "Nanotechnologies that are likely to come under scrutiny include products that could be used to further or counter chemical and biological warfare and other weapons, Kovarovics said. The broad capabilities of nanotechnology could present problems for regulators or their advisers, she said. The challenge will be ensuring national security while avoiding undue regulation." This is going to be a huge issue, eventually. And it's being looked at now: "A panel that advises President Bush on export issues will explore whether nanotechnology needs regulating…The scope could range from restrictions on international trade to rules on staffing foreign nationals."

EuroNanoForum 2005 will cover a number of advanced topics including "nanorobots in surgery." The timeframe of focus is 2020. Evening activities include a public debate. Read more for their most recent message.

Foresight's Judy Conner points us at an essay by Josh Wolfe at Forbes.com: "Nanotech is still in its infancy, and scientists are just beginning to understand how it can be used to improve products and processes in fields ranging from semiconductors to medicine and energy. The last thing it needs is a 'societal debate' and intense government scrutiny. How can you intelligently discuss and regulate something that is still in the discovery and development stage, before it really exists in a practical manufacturing sense?"

Germany has a traveling nanotech roadshow called the nanoTruck, apparently the brainchild of nanopromoter and Federal Minister for Education and Research, Ms. Edelgard Bulmahn. There's a form to use to request a visit by the nanoTruck — do they ship to the U.S.? (As for who is envious, that would be me.)

Foresight Senior Associate Tihamer Toth-Fejel, a research engineer at General Dynamics, reports that he was able to locate 43 "nanosystems" studies in the list of NNI funded projects, some of which he reports look "somewhat promising" for molecular manufacturing. Read more to see his choice of the top seven projects funded.

In his talk at the recent Nanoethics conference, Michael Bennett of RPI brought our attention to a 1929 essay by J.D. Bernal which predicts a technology where physics, chemistry, and mechanics fuse and result in an ability to build to molecular specifications. Read More for excerpts.

Mihail Roco, Senior NSF Advisor on nanotech, gave a plenary talk at the Nanoethics conference recently. One of his slides was on synthesis and control of nanomachines, and noted that about 300 projects had been funded in 2004. Later he referred me to two websites: the NSE site where he said were listed 50-60 NNI-funded centers focused on 3rd-4th generation nanomachines/nanosystems, and the NNI site where a search on awards would show 300-400 grants with nanomachine or nanosystem in the title or abstract. Read More for the results and request for help.

In a talk at the recent Nanoethics conference, NNI's Mihail Roco described plans for third and fourth generation nanotechnology, and very briefly sketched a fifth generation — robotics and guided assembly. This was supplemented by paper copies of an article he wrote for AIChE Journal. Long-time readers of Nanodot will find the terminology new but the concepts familiar. Read More for a summary.

Nanopolis writes "The "Exploring Nano-Biotechnology" multimedia encyclopedia, the 4th tome of the Nanopolis e-collaborative series will be worldwide available in March 2006. Containing extremely intuitive multimedia explanations of the concepts, improved analytic techniques, deeper understanding of diseases, deciphering of cellular mechanisms, novel drug development techniques, summary charts show the major players associated with each concept along with the references necessary for further insight. These topics along with other 4000 computer generated films and e-courses from the previous volumes on Synchrotron, Neutrons and Nanotechnology will be accesible through the Nanopolis e-learning platform giving European, American and Asian academic environments access to the largest multimedia educational source on nanoscale science and engineering. Hundreds of world-wide actors contribute to its finalizing through the e-collaborative Nanopolis platform at http://www.nanopolis.net"

bhelfrich writes "Nano-Hive version 1.1.0 for win32-x86 is now available for download. *nix distros will be made available in the coming weeks.

This release adds support for running multiple, multi-threaded simulations simultaneously, each able to access multiple Physical Interaction plugins.

We've also added new plugins.

• MPQC_SClib – This plugin encapsulates the functionality of the Scientific Computing Toolkit (SC) used by the Massively Parallel Quantum Chemistry Program (MPQC).
• OpenBabelImportExport – This Data Import/Export plugin adds the ability to read and write many new file types by encapsulating the OpenBabel library.
• SocketsControl – Control Nano-Hive via a TCP socket with this Simulation Control plugin.
• BondCalculator – This Physical Interaction plugin discovers molecules in the simulation space and specifies bonds to describe them.
• BasicCellTraverser – This Entity Traversal plugin divides the simulation space up into sub-cells for multi-threaded calculation.

Also included in this release is an alpha version of the HiveKeeper Graphical User Interface for Nano-Hive (http://www.nano-hive.org/hivekeeper/). The capabilities of the alpha version includes visualization of the molecular structures even while the simulation is running.

Visit http://www.nano-hive.org/ to learn more. Nano-Hive's open source development and distributions are hosted at http://sourceforge.net/projects/nano-hive/"

Editors comment — but when will the software be available for non-windows systems? "*nix" distros in coming weeks sounds rather vague.