The Center for Nanotechnology in Society at Arizona State University is one of two centers funded by the National Science Foundation to study nanotechnology in society. One of their tools for studying the impact of nanotech upon society is the National Citizens’ Technology Forum (NCTF). They have recently published the results of their National Citizens’ [...]

H.R. 6661 establishes a prize competition for five key areas of nanotech.

From The Economist, a look at Russia’s technology, including nanotech: After years of high oil prices, money is again no object: in 2007 Russia put 130 billion roubles ($5.5 billion) into a state corporation for nanotechnologies that is being likened to the Manhattan Project… But the big problem for high technology in Russia is neither [...]

A while back Senior Associate Stuart Scott let us know that he had been selected to participate in a National Citizen’s Technology Forum process on nanotechnology, sponsored by Arizona State and University of North Carolina, among other schools. Presumably this is funded by the social science budget of the U.S. National Nanotechnology Initiative, via NSF. [...]

Normally this blog focuses on nanotechnology, but it’s also important to stay on top of major advances in related fields such as robotics; the fields will interact in interesting ways. This video of a DARPA-funded project from Boston Dynamics is a must-see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1czBcnX1Ww Watch the whole thing, and use the YouTube version; the one on [...]

Here at Foresight we try to present a balanced view of nanotechnology, discussing prospective benefits while also acknowledging potential problems. It would be good if the “first major television series to look at the implications of advances in nanotechnology” did the same. But see the description of the upcoming public television series: Nanotechnology: The Power [...]

We’ve been critical in the past of Saudi Arabia’s policy of having women researchers in nanotechnology (and of course other fields as well) work separately from male researchers. Now King Abdullah has moved personally to fund, at the US$10 billion level, a new graduate-level university with a new policy toward women, to be advised by [...]

After several months of public consultation, the European Commission has announced a Code of Conduct for Responsible Nanosciences and Nanotechnologies Research.

Korea.net informs us of challenging nanotechnology goals for that country: An ambitious government plan seeks to make Korea one of the top three countries for nanotechnology by 2020… “By securing more than 50 of the finest international nanotechnologies by 2020, Korea will create a new industry to emerge as a top three nanotechnology power and [...]

For many years, Foresight has been pointing out that nanotechnology will be used for surveillance. Now Kevin Mitnick makes a long-term prediction on nanosurveillance. An excerpt: Warrantless Surveillance: The Worst is Yet to Come …Far from censuring the president, most of Congress seems completely unconcerned by the issue of warrantless surveillance. And telecom companies are [...]

Regular Nanodot readers know that we at Foresight focus more on longer-term nanotechnology, especially atomically-precise manufacturing. Yet, we joined with other nonprofits and industry to call for a better plan to address near-term nanomaterial environmental, health, and safety issues. From today’s joint press release by Environmental Defense and Dupont: (Washington, DC – January 16, 2008) [...]

On January 2 a press release was issued announcing an updated Strategic Plan (PDF) for the U.S. National Nanotechnology Initiative. For those of us interested in molecular nanosystems and atomically-precise manufacturing, it’s disappointing. I haven’t read the whole thing, but this is the closest wording I could find on a quick skim: A key challenge [...]

Nanotechnology is booming in Israel, as we learn from Azonano: Israeli Nanotechnology developed greatly since 2005. In addition to receiving an immense sum of funding (the donation matching model has effectively raised $230 million), and being the number one leader of innovations, Israel was recognized by ISI (the Institute for Science Information) as one of [...]

Everyone is pursuing private donors for their nanotechnology research, and Israel is very serious about it, matching private nanotech fund donations made from outside the country, as reported in EE Times: The country’s nanotechnology program, called the Israel National Nanotechnology Initiative (INNI) provides 3-to-1 matching funds for all private donations to nanotech centers, effectively producing [...]

Alexander Zaitchik writes at Wired.com a piece titled Russia Pours Billions in Oil Profits Into Nanotech Race. I’m quoted: “There’s a lot of technical talent in Russia, but not all of the funds allocated to nanotech will be deployed effectively,” said Christine Peterson, a vice president at the Foresight Nanotech Institute, in an e-mail interview. [...]

Perhaps our headline is a bit overstated…or perhaps not. Jim Lewis brings to our attention an article in Chemistry World on the Royal Society of Chemistry website announcing that, as anticipated, the UK has officially funded a set of projects aimed at developing a nanofactory able to build with atomic precision: UK scientists have been [...]

There’s an arms race between government patent offices and patent filers assisted by private law firms. The folks who work for the former get paid a lot less than the those who work for the latter. This leads to a continual drain away from government review of patent applications toward private generation of patent applications. [...]

The company Nanoscience Instruments in its Scanline newsletter (PDF, Vol. 2, Issue. 2) lets us know that one of their nanotechnology products, the Nanosurf atomic force microscope, is on its way to Mars. Excerpts: Onboard the Phoenix lander is a suite of sophisticated scientific instrumentation including a weather station, an optical microscope, and a high-resolution [...]

Alan Shalleck of NanoClarity writes over at Nanotechnology Now on how the U.S. should go about planning its future federal funding of nanotech. Excerpts: It is time to explore what the next three to five year national nanotechnology funding allocation will look like. We have already benefited from two multiple-year, multibillion-dollar Presidentially-endorsed Federal programs and [...]

Nanoforum.org, a nanotechnology gateway site in Europe, has published results from a workshop “Nanotechnologies for Environmental Remediation” (free reg req’d): The issues of environmental remediation are quite substantial and poorly addressed by conventional technologies. They include access to clean drinking water, removal of airborne pollutants, and the clean-up of industrially contaminated sites (in particular ex-military [...]