(credit: Comp. Cog. Neurosci Lab/ Olaf Sporns, Indiana Univ.)

A proposal alluded to by President Obama in his State of the Union address to construct a dynamic “functional connectome” Brain Activity Map (BAM) would leverage current progress in neuroscience, synthetic biology, and nanotechnology to develop a map of each firing of every neuron in the human brain—a hundred billion neurons sampled on millisecond time scales. Although not the intended goal of this effort, a project on this scale, if it is funded, should also indirectly advance efforts to develop artificial intelligence and atomically precise manufacturing. In his blog, Robert L. Blum provides an excellent overview and brief introduction. From “BAM: Brain Activity Map: Every Spike from Every Neuron“:

A recent research proposal called BAM for Brain Activity Map Project generated much excitement. (The BAM proposal, published in Neuron in June 2012 is online, and an earlier draft with far greater detail is also online.)

(Addendum: 18 Feb 2013: I started drafting this story in Nov, 2012. Today it was headline news when it was made public that THIS is the very proposal that President Obama alluded to in his recent State of the Union address. See John Markoff’s NY Times piece. NIH is drafting a 3 billion dollar, 10 year proposal to fund this project. Also see this 25 Feb 2013 NY Times follow-up by Markoff.) …

The essence of the BAM proposal is to create the technology over the coming decade to be able to record every spike from every neuron in the brain of a behaving organism. While this notion seems insanely ambitious, coming from a group of top investigators, the paper deserves scrutiny. At minimum it shows what might be achieved in the future by the combination of nanotechnology and neuroscience. …

The Neuron article cited by Blum argues that in addition to breakthroughs in basic science with large medical and economic benefits, the BAM project will advance technology in terms of important general capabilities.

Many technological breakthroughs are bound to arise from the BAM Project, as it is positioned at the convergence of biotechnology and nanotechnology. These new technologies could include optical techniques to image in 3D; sensitive, miniature, and intelligent nanosystems for fundamental investigations in the life sciences, medicine, engineering, and environmental applications; capabilities for storage and manipulation of massive data sets; and development of biologically inspired, computational devices.

I think the emphasis on nanosystems of nanodevices integrated to provide complex functions is very important, even if many or most of those devices will, in the beginning, not be atomically precise. The more detailed description of the BAM proposal cited by Blum above hints at how nanoparticle-based sensors could be developed to noninvasively provide micrometer-scale spatial resolution and millisecond-scale temporal resolution to groups of millions of neurons deep inside the brain of a living, active animal (or human). The mention combining semiconductor quantum dots and nanodiamonds with organic nanostructures to functionalize them, so that they may be directed to and embedded in neural membranes to monitor synapses. In addition, nanotubes or nanowires could be developed to deliver photons to specific locations, or collect or release specific chemicals. Further, they suggest developing graphene into membrane patches for detailed monitoring of neurons. Taken together, the requirements for this ambitious project entail the need to develop a variety of nanoparticles for specific applications, and then integrating multifunctional nanoprobes, nanoparticles, and nanodevices into large functional systems, and producing such nanosystems en masse.

In his NY Times report John Markoff notes the possible effect of this project on the development of artificial intelligence: “Moreover, the project holds the potential of paving the way for advances in artificial intelligence.” Indeed, the information to be provided by BAM about how circuits of thousands or millions of neurons work should advance Ray Kurzweil’s program of reverse engineering the human brain to develop artificial general intelligence, as described in his new book How to Create a Mind: The Secret of Human Thought Revealed.

The next best thing to large program to develop molecular manufacturing is a large program aimed at other worthy and useful goals that also makes heavy use of nanotechnology and may promote some of the same or similar enabling technologies that will lead toward productive nanosystems.
—James Lewis, PhD

1)Foresighters Christine Peterson and Desiree Dudley will be speaking at NASA-Ames’ Singularity University this Monday night, August 13th, from 8-10pm. Presentations are from 8-9, and a Q&A panel with H+’s Amy Li and SU’s Jose Cordiero 9-10pm! Topics will include nanotech, biotech, life-extension, and our exciting new futurist youth outreach initiative. There will be champagne. Come out and see us! Building 583C.

2)Foresight CoFounder Christine Peterson and Director Desiree Dudley will appear in their role as mentors for the Thiel Foundation’s 20Under20 in CNBC’s documentary “20Under20: Transforming Tomorrow”. See these brilliant young people in CNBC’s upcoming documentary, 9-11pm EDT this Tuesday, August 14th! (It’s a 2-part documentary; the 1st episode actually first airs at 10pm EDT on Monday, but re-airs at 9pm EDT Tuesday before the second part at 10pm EDT.) Video trailer: http://youtu.be/F_YR7sfXjl0

Carl Bass, successor to the successor to the successor to me as CEO of Autodesk got up in front of an audience and spoke on “The Five New Rules of Innovation” among which was nanoscale and bio-inspired structures.

Unlike when I did it all those many years ago, nobody giggled.

And they say there isn’t progress!

Video (17 minutes–the nano bit is short, but it’s there):

John Walker’s thoughts on nanotechnoloogy were published about 22 years ago in a Foresight Briefing “What Next? Nanotechnology for Manufacturing“. The definitive copy of this essay, with the complete set of illustrations, is available on John Walker’s Web site.

… Nanoscale forms of substances like silver, carbon, zinc and aluminum have many useful properties. Nano zinc oxide sunscreen goes on smoothly, for example, and nano carbon is lighter and stronger than its everyday or “bulk” form. But researchers say these products and others can also be ingested, inhaled or possibly absorbed through the skin. And they can seep into the environment during manufacturing or disposal.

Nanomaterials are engineered on the scale of a billionth of a meter, perhaps one ten-thousandth the width of a human hair, or less. Not enough is known about the effects, if any, that nanomaterials have on human health and the environment, according to a report issued by the academy’s expert panel. The report says that “critical gaps” in understanding have been identified but “have not been addressed with needed research.”

And because the nanotechnology market is expanding — it represented $225 billion in product sales in 2009 and is expected to grow rapidly in the next decade — “today’s exposure scenarios may not resemble those of the future,” the report says.

The panel called for a four-part research effort focusing on identifying sources of nanomaterial releases, processes that affect exposure and hazards, nanomaterial interactions at subcellular to ecosystem-wide levels and ways to accelerate research progress. …

A free PDF of the report A Research Strategy for Environmental, Health, and Safety Aspects of Engineered Nanomaterials is available.
—James Lewis

“Christine Peterson, president of the Foresight Institute based in Palo Alto, California, warns that without safeguards, the data we gather about each other might one day be used to undermine rather than to protect our freedom. ‘We are moving to a new level of data collection that our society is not accustomed to,’ she says.” …

“‘We need to look urgently at who is getting the data, what they are doing with it, what it does to our freedoms and whether the information can be abused,’ she says. ‘And we need to think about these things now.’”

Establishing standards now for current and near future widespread sensing based upon smart phones owned by individual members of the public will set precedence for considering the future in which MEMS and nanotechnology will make truly ubiquitous and thorough sensing inexpensive.

Willow Garage, the Menlo Park, California-based consortium of robotics experts, founded by Scott Hassan in 2006 to create or develop hardware and open source software for the advancement of robotics, has announced the release of TurtleBot; a small home use robot for either amusement/entertainment purposes, or for those inclined, to build open source applications to add to the functionality of the new robot.

The idea behind TurtleBot, is to give novice robotics enthusiasts a base upon which to build. Traditionally, those that like to tinker with robots have had to start from scratch every time they wanted to build something; the TurtleBot does away with that concept by supplying users with a base upon which they can build, as the TurtleBot comes fully functional. Out of the box it can map your house with its 3-D vision, bring you food, take 360 degree panorama pictures and follow you around etc. But it also comes with the Robot Operating System (ROS) and associated toolkit, so that if users wish to add or change functionality, they are free to do so, and because its open source, anything they create can be shared with friends or those involved in online robotics communities.

Another objective of the TurtleBot team was to show that such a device could be put on the market for a reasonable price; in this case $500, for a very basic unit, and $1200 for the fully loaded version. Far below what robot enthusiasts have come to expect to pay. …

For more information, see this IEEE Spectrum blog and this Willow Garage overview, where you can alsso preorder for shipment “in early summer”. Willow Garage and open source robotics has been a topic of a number of Nanodot posts since 2009.

Do not rage against the machine. Embrace the machine.

That is the core message of Michio Kaku’s “Physics of the Future.” …

Nanotechnology will be at first rare and expensive and, by the end of the century, commonplace and cheap, largely fulfilling the predictions of pioneering scientists such as Richard Feynman and Eric Drexler. In a world where programmed molecular assembly powered by sunlight can produce almost anything out of raw materials, material wealth will be widespread. …

Prof. Reynolds agrees with Prof. Kaku’s “largely optimistic view” of nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, and the future overall, but points to one disturbing passage that concerns the present—not the future:

The most disturbing passage in “Physics of the Future” doesn’t concern the future; it’s about the present. In that passage, Mr. Kaku recounts a lunchtime conversation with physicist Freeman Dyson at Princeton. Mr. Dyson described growing up in the late days of the British Empire and seeing that most of his smartest classmates were not—as prior generations had been—interested in developing new forms of electrical and chemical plants, but rather in massaging and managing other people’s money. The result was a loss of England’s science and engineering base.

Now, Mr. Dyson said, he was seeing the phenomenon for the second time in his life, in America. Mr. Kaku, summarizing the scientist’s message: “The brightest minds at Princeton were no longer tackling the difficult problems in physics and mathematics but were being drawn into careers like investment banking. Again, he thought, this might be a sign of decay, when the leaders of a society can no longer support the inventions and technology that made their society great.”

The future belongs to those who show up. Mr. Kaku’s description of that future is an appealing one. But will we show up?

Is Prof. Dyson’s assessment an accurate description of the current state of Western civilization in general and the US in particular? My (thoroughly non-scientific and limited) casual observations suggest that it is. The workhorses of the scientific enterprise are postdoctoral research associates (and to a lesser extent, graduate students). When I began my research career in the early 70s most postdocs were American and most of the ones who were not were European. When I (briefly) attempted to get back into research last year nearly all the postdocs I saw were Asian (not Americans of Asian descent, but visitors from Asia). It is wonderful that American universities attract such talented, energetic visitors, but worrisome that we are no longer “growing our own”. Is the US making the necessary effort to “show up” for the future?

J Storrs Hall, president of Foresight joins FFR to continue their special series leading up Foresight 2010. The conference, January 16-17 in Palo Alto, California, provides a unique opportunity to explore the convergence of nanotechnology and artificial intelligence and to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the founding of the Foresight Institute.

10:00 Eastern/9:00 Central/8:00 Mountain/7:00 Pacific.

Blog talk radio Call-in Number: (347) 215-8972

Tonight: Futurist Michael Anissimov and nanotechnologist Ralph Merkle.  10:00 Eastern/9:00 Central/8:00 Mountain/7:00 Pacific.