Since the dawn of humanity, a privileged few have lived in stark contrast to the hardscrabble majority. Conventional wisdom says this gap cannot be closed. But it is closing—fast. In Abundance, space entrepreneur turned innovation pioneer Peter H. Diamandis and award-winning science writer Steven Kotler document how progress in artificial intelligence, robotics, infinite computing, ubiquitous broadband networks, digital manufacturing, nanomaterials, synthetic biology, and many other exponentially growing technologies will enable us to make greater gains in the next two decades than we have in the previous two hundred years. We will soon have the ability to meet and exceed the basic needs of every man, woman, and child on the planet. Abundance for all is within our grasp. …

Providing abundance is humanity’s grandest challenge—this is a book about how we rise to meet it.

A preview of Chapter 1 and other information is available on the Abundance web site. Kudos to Diamandis and Kotler for showing why the future is brighter than it appears, and laying out a roadmap to get there.
—James Lewis

1. Foresight Announces Election of New President Larry Millstein
2. Meet The President: Dinner Reception Monday 12/12, 6:30pm @ Don Giovanni’s in Mountain View, CA
3. Annual Challenge Grant Kickoff: Donate this month for double the value to Foresight!

I. Foresight Announces Election of our New President

Foresight is proud to announce that Larry S. Millstein, Ph.D., J.D. has been elected President of the Institute by the Board of Directors. Larry has been a Foresight member since 1998. He was instrumental in establishing the Foresight Communication Prize in 2000 and in ensuring its funding since then; he has been a member of the Board of Directors since 2009. He has been interested in atomically and molecularly precise technologies for many years – since reading Nanosystems over a decade ago and strengthened by the development of mechanochemistry and the recent commercialization of single molecule DNA sequencing instruments.

“We are thrilled to have persuaded such a technically accomplished and experienced leader to be President of Foresight and to take on the task of accelerating the development of transformative nanotechnologies and their beneficial uses,” said Foresight co-founder and current President Christine Peterson, who will continue to be a member of the Board and active advisor to the Institute and will collaborate closely with senior staff in making the transition.

“I look forward to forging new tools for Foresight to catalyze the development of truly transformative technologies,” Larry says. “Foresight has a key role to play in forcefully communicating the power and potential of atomically precise technologies to transform the world in remarkably beneficial ways, and its activities will be a seminal catalyst for ideas and actions that will — by harnessing the power of atomic precision — realize some of humankind’s most fervently wished for goals.”

Larry has been very active for some time in educating and evangelizing the public on the beauty and power of science, arranging dozens of dinners and lectures with scientists and technologists in the Washington, DC area, particularly at the Cosmos Club. He founded and supports the Zimm Prize in Physical Chemistry at UCSD. He teaches on biotechnology (and on law) at Georgetown University. He developed the Emerging Technologies course there, which recently has been directed to NexGen DNA Sequencing Technologies and Personalized Genomics, and will soon turn to DNA Machines and Synthetic Genomics. He also teaches an introduction to Intellectual Property law to graduate students in the Biotechnology Program at Georgetown.

He is an author of a variety of scientific research articles and an inventor of several nucleic acid amplification methods and of inventions relating to molecular arrays and their manufacture. He has worked with inventors and written and prosecuted many patent applications on inventions in biotechnology and nanotechnology, and he has served in an in-house role for several start up companies.

Larry is a partner in Millen, White, Zelano & Branigan, PC, and Adjunct Professor of Biochemistry, Molecular & Cellular Biology and Chair of the Biotechnology Program Advisory Board at Georgetown University. He also is Treasurer and a member of the Board of the Washington Academy of Sciences and Program Chair, Past President and member of the Board of the Philosophical Society of Washington.

Larry earned his BS at CCNY-CUNY (Chemistry), his MS and PhD at the University of California-San Diego (Chemistry / Molecular Biology) and the Scripps Research Institute (where he did his graduate research with Joel Gottesfeld). He earned his JD at George Mason University, and is a graduate of the GMU Patent Law Specialty Track Program. He was a research professor at the University of Rochester before turning to law. And, as a lawyer, he was an associate at Foley & Lardner, served as Senior Patent Counsel at Human Genome Sciences, founded Millstein & Taylor and merged it a decade later with Holland & Knight, where he was a partner and led the biotechnology practice. He joined Millen White as a partner in 2008.

II. Meet The President: Dinner Reception Monday 12/12, 6:30pm @ Don Giovanni’s in Mountain View, CA

When: Monday December 12th, 2011, drinks/reception at 6:30, Dinner at 7:15pm
Where: Don Giovanni’s, 235 Castro Street, Mountain View, CA, 94041
RSVP: $40 to foresight@foresight.org via Paypal.com by midnight Saturday, 12/10/11
Meal options: List fish, chicken or vegetarian in your Paypal note!

Join us for an informal celebration reception and dinner with incoming Foresight Institute President Larry S. Millstein in Mountain View on Monday, 12 December 2011. We will be welcoming Larry on his first visit to our offices and chatting with him about his experiences, Foresight’s future and the power in transformative nanotechnology. He is looking forward to meeting members old, new, and prospective while he is here, especially Senior Associates. Please join us as we celebrate this year’s progress, present our thoughts on Foresight’s program for next year — and bring your own ideas and your enthusiasm for Foresight!

III. Annual Challenge Grant Kickoff: Donate this month for double the value to Foresight

This year, Foresight has again received a generous $30,000 Challenge Grant, where every dollar you donate between now and December 31st is matched and doubled.

Do you believe in Foresight’s vision of transformative nanotechnology? Did you enjoy the quality of this year’s conference and dinner lectures? Would you like to see us expand our youth outreach? If you would like to see these re-energized programs take off, now is a great time to support us by making your annual donation, or upgrade your membership.

Please send in your check, dated by Dec 31 to the address below, or donate online at:
http://www.foresight.org/challenge

Foresight Institute
PO Box 61058
Palo Alto, CA 94306 USA
main: 650-289-0860
fax: 650-289-0863

Or to find out more on how to help, contact Desiree Dudley at 650-289-0860, x259 or desiree@foresight.org.

We are excited about our coming year. We hope you are, too!

Come help us create the future.

Christine Peterson, Co-Founder/President
Larry Millstein, President-Elect
Desiree Dudley, Director of Development and Outreach

Hope to see you there!  —Christine Peterson, President, Foresight Institute

Thanks to all for a successful summer conference! We’re still hearing about some great connections and synergies made at the gathering that will help further transformative nanotech. With the addition of NASA-Ames Singularity University grad students, as well as 20Under20 Thiel Fellows, there was standing room only on Sunday afternoon; we intimately filled the 236-occupant venue room, with overflow chat in the hall ‘Alley’. Some quotes that rolled in just hours after the conference was over:

• “Great weekend spent with brilliant minds sharing their plans and hopes for nanotech in the future.” —Louise Gold, Institute for Optimal Living
• “Excellent speakers and a great opportunity to share ideas with like-minded attendees.” —Stephen Fowkes, Nanopolymer Systems
• “Great conference, and especially a great set of speakers!” —Bruce Smith, Nanorex
• “Engaging for me, a good two days. Well worth the time and money.” —Robert Chew, Private Investor, Singapore
• “One of the best I have attended – informative, interesting, and definitely worth the trip.” —Ravi Pandya, MS Seattle, donor since 1990
• “Awesome conference. Just about all presentations were top notch. Please keep doing this.” —Peter Voss, Smart Action AI
• “Awesome conference, great discussions with very interesting people!” —Dr. Randal Koene, Halcyon Molecular
• “A very meaty program (with very healthy snacks!)” —John Chisholm, CEO
• “Had an awesome time! +++ will visit another conference from this team!” —Paul Bohm, Founder of Mjam GmbH & BBQ
• “Inspiring!” —Lerwin Liu, Nanostart and Zyvex Asia
• “Best meeting of minds I’ve ever been a part of.” —David Atkins-Maters, Nanomaterials & Nanomedicine Research Lab, UCSD

Want to see the video? We’re in the process of putting together more elegant video for the conference, but in the meantime you can see recordings of the free webcast via Ustream (with ads) here:
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/foresightinstitute

Photos have been posted by Eric Messick here! http://www.syzygy.com/images/2011.06.24_Foresight_25th/images/index.html

Special Thanks again to all the fantastic speakers, supporters, sponsors and also especially volunteers, notably including: Monica Anderson, Chris Rasch, Max Marty, Michael Anissimov, Miron Cuperman, Chris Hibbert, Eric Messick, Peter Norvig and all the Google staff for making a wonderful event.

Want to help with the next conference? We at Foresight are leaning towards a more technical conference/workshop next, and are open to expert suggestions on how to optimally contribute to the field with our activities. Contact desiree@foresight.org to help shape and support our next major event.

… During his subsequent graduate studies at Rutgers University, Hall found the field of nanotechnology. His first book, Nanofuture: What’s Next for Nanotechnology (Prometheus 2005), won the Foresight Institute’s Communications Prize and Drew University’s Bela Kornitzer prize. …

The archive from the appearance last week on Internet radio of Foresight President Christine Peterson and Dr. Hall includes “Some ponderings from J. Storrs Hall in the form of excerpts from his book, Nanofuture.”

This weekend – full of plenary talks, panels, and breakout sessions – is a unique opportunity to be stimulated, enlightened and inspired by direct interaction with ground-breaking movers and shakers in nanotechnology, including:

Keynotes:

- JIM VON EHR – President of Zyvex Labs LLC

Founder of Altsys, the Texas Nanotech Initiative, & the world’s first successful molecular nanotech company

- BARNEY PELL – CoFounder/CTO of Moon Express

Silicon Valley VC best known for AI work on NASA’s Clarissa & Remote Agent, now competing for Google’s Lunar X PRIZE

SingularityU trustee SONIA ARRISON will also emcee panels on:

• The Scientific Challenges of Truly Transformative Nanotech

• From Research to Application: Turning innovation into success

• Funding, Development & the Valley of Death: Transcending entrepreneurial challenges

• Jumpstarting a Career in Nanotech: How to make your move

With speakers and panelists including: Halcyon Molecular CEO WILLIAM ANDREGG, CalTech’s WILLIAM GODDARD, NanoInk CTO MIKE NELSON, Paypal’s LUKE NOSEK, Stanford forecaster PAUL SAFFO, motor-molecule creator SIR FRASER STODDART, Intel’s MIKE GARNER, IBM’s THOMAS THEIS, and more at:

http://www.foresight.org/reunion/schedule.html

Don’t miss our reception Friday night, and Saturday’s 25th Anniversary Banquet.

Register now! Space is limited.

$50 off with code: NANODOT

See you soon!

Desiree D. Dudley
Director of Development and Outreach
desiree@foresight.org

The nanocomputer system we demonstrated is programmable. We showed that multiple logical and arithmetic functions can be programmed and implemented on the same circuit “tile,” which is built from nanometer-scale (i.e., molecular scale) electronic devices integrated on that same scale. The nanodevices on the tile are non-volatile, so the system incorporates memory. Further, the ultra-tiny, ultra-low power system is quite scalable: the device performance and architecture are such that multiple tiles can be linked together to produce more complex and capable nanoprocessors. Additionally, consistent with the Foresight vision, these are designed to be nanocontrollers, tiny computers intended to govern the function of other tiny mechanisms.

Thus, as I first stated in a presentation at the 6th Foresight Conference in November 1998, “There will be nanocomputers and they will be molecular electronic computers.” So now there are.

For me, though, the journey to the realization of the first nanocomputer begins back in 1986, when I first heard Eric on public radio talking about nanocomputers. It took almost 25 years from that initial point of inspiration, but I believe that we have taken a major step on the road to engineered nanosystems governed by other engineered nanosystems. I hope that you find the potential for this innovation to be as exciting as I do.

Best regards,

James
James C. Ellenbogen, Ph.D.
Chief Scientist, Nanosystems Group and Emerging Technologies Division
The MITRE Corporation

Dr. Ellenbogen also writes to clarify the speed of their nanoprocessor, as reported last week, and the potential for further shrinking the dimensions of the nanoprocessor:

You have a link there that suggests the potential for 2 Terahertz switching speeds. That link seems to suggest that our entire nanoprocessor might be sped up to that very high rate. The supplementary material for our paper in Nature does mention the potential for 2 THz switching, but that is for individual nanodevices. That may be misleading, though, if one applies this figure to the entire system. As part of our design simulation process at MITRE, we calculate that with the present devices and the present interconnect strategy, the entire system probably can only be accelerated to operate at about 100 MHz. This is because of all the intrinsic resistances and capacitances in the interconnects and the way they combine in a tiny network. From our point of view this 100 MHz rate of operation will be OK, though, because it is well suited to a tiny controller. The 100 MHz rate is faster than most of the other tiny systems we want to sense and control.

Some better news, though, is that we do not feel quite so constrained when it comes to making the system much smaller in area and much more dense. We calculate that it is probably possible to scale the footprint of the system down by a factor of 600 to 1200 (i.e., 1000 in round numbers). That would provide the present computational functionality of our nanoprocessor tile in a footprint of only approximately 1 sq. micron, instead of the present 1000 sq. micron (e.g., 1 micron by 1 micron, instead of approx. 30 micron by 30 micron).

MITRE also provided a press release describing the work MITRE-Harvard Team Develops First Programmable Nanoprocessor:

MCLEAN, Va., February 10, 2011 — The world’s first programmable nanoprocessor has been developed and demonstrated by an interdisciplinary collaboration between teams of scientists and engineers working at The MITRE Corporation and Harvard University.

The groundbreaking prototype computer system is described in a paper published today in the journal Nature. The system represents a significant step forward in the complexity of computer circuits that can be built from nanometer-scale (i.e., molecular scale) components. It also represents an advance because the ultra-tiny nanocircuits can be programmed electronically to perform a number of different basic arithmetic and logical functions.

The versatile, ultra-tiny circuits are assembled on a tiny “tile” from sets of precisely engineered and fabricated germanium-silicon wires, surrounded by insulating shells of metal oxides, but still having a total diameter of only 30 nanometers. The novel architecture of the tiles allows a number of them to be connected to assemble even more capable nanoprocessors that could, for example, control a complex electromechanical system.

An additional feature of the advance is that the circuits in the nanoprocessor operate using very little power because their component nanometer-scale wires contain transistor switches that are “nonvolatile.” Unlike transistors in conventional microcomputer circuits, once the nanowire transistors are programmed they remember without any additional expenditure of electrical power.

“Because of their very small size and very low power requirements, these new nanoprocessor circuits are building blocks that can control and enable an entirely new class of much smaller, lighter weight electronic sensors and consumer electronics,” according to Shamik Das, lead engineer in MITRE’s Nanosystems Group and chief architect of the nanoprocessor.

Other members of the development team at MITRE—a pioneer in the nanotechnology field since 1992—included nanotechnology laboratory director James Klemic and James Ellenbogen, chief scientist of the Nanosystems Group. The MITRE team collaborated with a five-person team at Harvard, led by Charles Lieber, a world-leading investigator in the field of nanotechnology, especially for nanowire-based innovations such as the new nanoprocessor.

Ellenbogen, who has worked for nearly two decades toward the development of computers integrated on the nanometer scale, including prior collaborations with Lieber, added that, “This new nanoprocessor represents a major milestone toward realizing the vision of a nanocomputer that was first articulated more than fifty years ago by physicist Richard Feynman.”

The research was done by the US Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Princeton University in Princeton, N.J., and Washington State University in Pullman, Washington. It was published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society [abstract].

The graphene is in a one atom thick honeycomb. The nanoparticles used are indium tin oxide (ITO).

“This material has great potential to make fuel cells cheaper and last longer,” says catalytic chemist Yong Wang, who has a joint appointment with PNNL and WSU. “

The platinum is spread over the surface of the honeycomb of graphene mixed with nanoparticles.

Usually fuel cells use platinum on top of black carbon (pencil lead) – but platinum atoms tend to clump on the carbon and water can degrade the carbon away.

The platinum can be placed on top of metal oxides (rust). “But what metal oxides make up for in stability and catalyst dispersion, they lose in conductivity and ease of synthesis,” Pacific Northwest National Laboratory says.

When viewed under high resolution microscopes, it can be seen that without ITO, platinum atoms clump on the graphene surface, but with ITO, the platinum is evenly spread out. …

More details are available in a PNNL press release A paperweight for platinum

The article further states that supercomputer calculations showed that the combination of graphene, platinum, and ITO was more stable that the components alone, that tests showed the combination to be stronger and more durable, and that the material will now be tested on experimental fuel cells. This development is an example in which the integration of computer simulation, atomically precise materials, and other nanostructures is providing an advance in an important application area. We can hope that as successes accrue in applications vital to the global economy that increasing interest and resources will be focused on developing nanotechnology toward atomically precise manufacturing.

Programmable nanoprocessor built from nanowires. In a significant step forward in complexity and capability for bottom-up assembly of nanoelectronic circuits, Yan et al. [abstract] demonstrate scalable and programmable logic tiles based on semiconductor nanowire transistor arrays. The same logic tile, consisting of 496 configurable transistor nodes in an area of about 960 square micrometres, can be programmed and operated as a full-adder or full-subtractor circuit, and used for various other functions including multiplexers. It should be possible in [the] future to cascade these logic tiles to realize fully integrated nanoprocessors with computing, memory and addressing capabilities. Still 1000 times larger than needed for part of the Feynman Grand Prize.
Researchers at Harvard and MITRE produce world’s first programmable nanoprocessor with potential for 2 Terahertz switching

The authors of the Nature paper include Charles M. Lieber, winner of the 2001 Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology in the Experimental category, and James C. Ellenbogen, frequent presenter at the Foresight Conferences on Molecular Nanotechnology and longtime supporter of the Foresight Institute Distinguished Student Award. This discovery was also announced in a press release from the Harvard School of Engineering and Appied Sciences Researchers at Harvard and MITRE produce world’s first programmable nanoprocessor:

… “This work represents a quantum jump forward in the complexity and function of circuits built from the bottom up, and thus demonstrates that this bottom-up paradigm, which is distinct from the way commercial circuits are built today, can yield nanoprocessors and other integrated systems of the future,” says principal investigator Charles M. Lieber …

“This new nanoprocessor represents a major milestone toward realizing the vision of a nanocomputer that was first articulated more than 50 years ago by physicist Richard Feynman,” says James Ellenbogen, a chief scientist at MITRE. …