from the the-race-is-on dept.
A Dow Jones news item reports: "Mitsubishi Corp… will set up an investment fund in April focusing on start-ups working in the field of nanotechnology, where devices are measured in billionths of a meter, The Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported in its Wednesday morning edition. The big trading company will use the $100 million fund to invest in start-ups developing new materials, information technology equipment and medical technology based on nanotechnology, the first fund to specialize in the area." Read More for additional excerpts.

from the redefining-"fluid" dept.
A Georgia Tech press release at EurekAlert describes work by Feynman Prizewinner Uzi Landman: "Landman's research group has reported on the tendency of lubricant molecules such as hexadecane and other molecular fluids to form highly ordered layers in planes parallel to the motion of the confining surfaces. On size scales that approximate multiples of the molecular width, these layered lubricants appear to increase their viscosity, 'becoming, at equilibrium and at various stages of the sliding motion, liquid-like in the plane parallel to the sliding surfaces and solid-like in the direction perpendicular to the surfaces,' Landman said…'We must find clever ways to harness and control these new behaviors in order to realize the opportunities in nanotechnology." " CP: While we do need to know about fluids at nanoscales, do nanomachines need "lubrication" per se?

from the Jurvetson-Wolfe-who's-next dept.
Also from TNT, a pointer to Steve Lenhert's About.com interview of Josh Wolfe, co-founder of Lux Capital. Excerpts: "I don't really think we have pure-play nanotechnology [public] stocks yet… In fact, don't be surprised if some of the more exciting developments and product introductions come from the incumbent chemical manufacturers: Dow, BASF, DuPont…A lot of the really exciting progress that we will see in the next few years will be happening at private startups that seek to emulate Zyvex's high-reaching goals…Nano companies have to be sure to balance the blue-sky research with real demand."

from the clearly-explained dept.
The free email newsletter TNT Weekly points out a good piece in Mechanical Engineering magazine on Hybrid NEMS, covering the work of Carlo Montemagno and Alex Zettl on molecular motors and bearings. TNT says: "This article is not just another rehashing of the same material but gives more technical detail on the biomolecular motor work than we've seen in any review so far, and in a pretty accessible way. The other researcher puts across his view that we will probably eventually create machines based upon what we've learned from the biological ones rather than using the biological ones directly."

from the onwards-to-the-brain dept.
Senior Associate Charles Vollum writes "Looks like there is good news for cryonics in this BBC article. The story states that 'Frozen human ovary tissue – a potential fertility lifeline for hundreds of UK women – has been successfully thawed and revived in mice.' " Another excerpt: "Dr Debra Gook, who led the team at the city's Royal Women's Hospital, said: 'Our study is the first to confirm normal growth and development of human follicles. The high rate of functional preservation of follicles following cryopreservation also suggests that cryopreservation of ovarian tissues has real potential for clinical application.' "

from the it-works! dept.
In a Feb 9, 2001 item in Science entitled "The Real Power of Artificial Markets" (subscription req'd), it is reported that: "Assessing the probabilities of future events is a problem often faced by science policymakers…At the Foresight Exchange (FX) Web site (http://www.ideosphere.com/), traders can actually bet on the outcomes of unresolved scientific questions…But can we place legitimate credence on the accuracy of FX prices, which are determined solely through competition in a play-money market game? To an extent, yes. We find that FX prices strongly correlate with observed outcome frequencies." Bravo to all at FX and to Robin Hanson, Idea Futures originator. Play for *real* money online at the Foresight Senior Associates idea futures market — just think how accurate it will be. We hope to trade in person at the upcoming Gathering.

from the ununquadium-standard dept.
RobertBradbury writes "In this article,"Tangible Nanomoney," Robert A. Freitas, Jr., the Zyvex Research Scientist and IMM Research Fellow, whom we all know as the paradigm defining author of Nanomedicine, outlines possible strategies for developing tangible nanomoney. Are his proposals feasible and desirable? Should we be planning the nanomints of tomorrow?
This was originally published in the Nanotechnology Industries Newsletter. Kudos to Robert Bradbury for helping make it available on the web. Read More for more questions.

from the but-who-gets-first-authorship? dept.
Waldemar Perez noted a New Scientistarticle on silicon scientists. "This fits perfectly with Drexler's automated engineering mentioned in Engines of Creation. This article talks about Inductive Logic Programming. I'm really impressed with the progress of robotics in the last couple of years.
Read More for an initial quote from the article.

from the let-your-imagination-fly dept.
An Anonymous Coward writes "MIT's Technology Review printed an interesting Q&A session with Richard E. Smalley, the founder of the "buckyball" and nanotech guru, asking what he sees in the nanotube future."
Read More for some quotes.

from the choice-of-weapons dept.

There has been much discussion on Nanodot recently about regulating nanotechnology. Some of the scarier scenarios of abuse come from the threat of nanoweapons unleashed by terrorists. Jessica Stern's book, The Ultimate Terrorists, offers a useful framework concerning the choice of weapons by terrorists, within which potential threats from terrorist use of nanoweapons can be considered. - Bryan
Read More for a review.

from the tomorrowland dept.
Bryan Hall writes "Raymond Kurzweil, author of 'The Age of Spiritual Machines' has a new website showcasing the ideas of leading visionaries and breakthrough web technologies. The site is hosted by Ramona, a real-time virtual hostess, using natural language processing, real-time facial animation, and other technologies to answer visitors' questions vocally. Ramona is programmed to verbally explain hundreds of `thoughts' (such as `artificial intelligence') to visitors as well as provide articles, glossary definitions, links, and other information…A major focus of the site is the exponential growth of technology, leading to the 'Singularity,' which Kurzweil described as “future accelerated technological change so rapid and profound that it represents a rupture in the fabric of human history.'' The site's content includes parts of Kurzweil's forthcoming book, “The Singularity is Near.''"

from the read-the-literature dept.
PatrickUnderwood brings to our attention a Reason writeup of the recent AAAS nanotech seminar: "While appreciative of Drexler's pivotal role in nanotech, Whitesides was at pains to disagree with many of his ideas. 'I personally don't think that these kinds of things are going to work,' said Whitesides. 'We already have biological motors'…Whitesides dismissed Drexler's notion of nanotech assemblers…How would one power an assembler, asked Whitesides. How would one get it the information it needs to know what to do? And would it be really be strong enough to break atomic bonds?" CP: How long has Nanosystems been out — eight years, isn't it?…sigh.

from the bringing-bottom-up-alive dept.
PatrickUnderwood noted a BBC News article "Synthetic Virus Nearing Reality" in which Professor Clyde Hutchinson of the University of North Carolina and The Institute of Genomic Research, speaking at the AAAS meeting, predicts the ability to build a virus from scratch within five years. The article describes how this is a step along the way for the "Minimal Genome Project." The writer spends much of the story trying to link this to concerns about bioweapons, but gets told that "There's enough bad stuff out there now. So far, there is no reason to believe that this technology is going to make things any worse."

from the dealing-with-uncertainty dept.
GregEderer writes "An article running in the current issue of American Scientist "Ecology of Transgenic Crops" presents more evidence to the effect that we simply do not know what the human health and environmental impacts of transgenic crops are likely to be. Nevertheless, the engines of transgenic creation continue to steam right along (e.g., ~15 million acres of Bt corn were planted in the US in 1998, et cetera) as though the risks associated with the technology were fully known. In fact, as Dr. Marvier aptly points out, some of the harmful effects may not become apparent for decades, and could not, therefore, be known ahead of time. If nanotech regulation mirrors the regulation of transgenic crops, then there will be practically no regulation at all. This is bad news for those of us who suspect that there might be some dangers associated with advanced nanotech." Read More for Greg's full comment.

from the not-Microsoft-Office dept.
Senior Associate and well-known VC Steve Jurvetson has a CNET think-piece called "The new convergence: Infotech, biotech and nanotech". The closing: "The best way to create a large and complex system is to grow it. It's not a Microsoft Office install. It's not a brain by design. We are entering a period of a profound learning and expansion of our capabilities in both molecular engineering and information processing. By expanding these capabilities, we further expand our ability to learn. It is a period of exponential growth in the learning-doing cycle in which the power of biology, IT and nanotech compounds the advances in each formerly discrete domain. Despite a human tendency to presume a regression to linearity, the pace of progress will continue to accelerate." In an email, Steve said "Special Thanks to [Senior Associate] Robert Bradbury, who is brilliant on these topics, and helped me a lot." Join Steve at the April 20-22 Gathering.

from the glad-I-wasn't-there dept.
An article in the Feb 17 San Jose Mercury News' religion and ethics section entitled Guiding Science covered a debate between Bill Joy and various others including nanotechnologist James Heath: "Bill Joy is once more trumpeting the dangers of technology run amok…" Joy quoted a rabbi: "Zalman said, 'Maybe we should declare that nanotechnology isn't kosher; and maybe the pope should declare it a mortal sin'. I said, 'That's an interesting perspective. Most of the people in my company [Sun Microsystems] don't think like that.' " Heath is quoted as saying that "nanobots" are "science fiction". CP: Sigh — let's have some higher-quality debate on this topic. We'll try at the April 20-22 Foresight meeting.

from the bravo dept.
Biologist Steven Smith, who spoke at the '97 Foresight Conference, has some new work published in Nano Letters : "A Self-Assembling Nanoscale Camshaft: Implications for Nanoscale Materials and Devices Constructed from Proteins and Nucleic Acids". See the illustration, the abstract, and the full paper. Excerpt: "These experiments coupled with the construction of the nanoscale camshaft described above clearly demonstrate that two- and three-address macromolecular assemblies carrying fusion proteins can be produced using the biospecificity of the DNA methyltransferases. With this capacity, it is now possible to consider the construction of materials that self-assemble into two-dimensional and three-dimensional macromolecular arrays."

from the there's-nothing-small-about-nanotechnology dept.
NIH has put out a call for unusually large, longer-term, and team-oriented applications for Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) projects on nanotechnologies useful to biomedicine. "Partners to the small businesses may play important roles in these projects and may receive appropriate support for their efforts…it should be possible to arrange individual atoms and molecules in space with great precision, leading to the fabrication of truly smart biosensors…the properties of DNA to undergo highly controlled and hierarchical assembly makes it ideal for applications in nanotechnology such as molecular sieves, or scaffolds for the assembly of molecular electronic components. Likewise, eukaryotic rotary motors based on ATPase could be employed as generic engines driving other nanodevices for purposes such as highly directed delivery of drugs or other agents…Nanotechnology promises scientific and commercial opportunities that are virtually unimaginable at this time." And individuals can be paid well: "Because the resources required for nanoengineering are relatively scarce, highly specialized, and multidisciplinary, the total amount of consultant costs and contractual costs requested by applicants may exceed the statutory guidelines."

from the worrisome dept.
TNT Weekly brings our attention to an ABCNEWS.com interview of CIA Assistant Director John Gannon. Asked about misuse of nanotech, he says "…we do have to worry about what bad people will do with the same capabilities. And individual governments and the international community need to invest in an effort to understand the implications of these technologies and to take early steps to control potential adverse effects. I would stress that, in the area of new technologies, we do not pretend to know all the answers, which is all the more reason why we need to work together on these challenges. "

from the get-some-TED-for-free dept.
A message from the TED conference: "A FREE hour of the exclusive (impossible to get in) TED11 Conference FREE. Brought to you by Apple's QuickTime group and TED Conferences on Thursday, February 22, 2001 at approximately 8:00 pm EST/5:00 pm PST. [Foresight Senior Associate] Raymond Kurzweil, winner of the National Medal of Technology, in a dramatic, amazing and entertaining presentation complete with singers and dancers will premiere the first complete blurring and image transformation in an astonishing demo of the near future. (This will demonstrate absolutely state-of-the-art digital avatar technology.) This one-hour presentation is not to be missed. Go to http://www.ted.com/webcast.html for specific information on the conference. The webcast will be available by approximately 8 pm EST (5 pm PST) on Thursday, February 22, 2001. The page will be available then at http://www.apple.com/quicktime/qtv/ted11/index.html Higher resolution and better quality video will be posted one day later." Read More for the full email.