from the oil>energy>nanotech? dept.
The Texas Nanotechnology Initiative (TNI) now has a web site, although there is currently not a great deal of information available.
TNI is a consortium of industry, universities, government, and venture capitalists whose goal is to position Texas as the nanotechnology state by recruiting companies, researchers and grant money. It is a state-wide effort to bring nanotechnology companies, researchers, and funding together to create an environment conducive to the rapid commercialization of nanotechnology in Texas.
Currently, the TNI website features some pointers to news coverage, and an FAQ about the initiative and its mission.
To date, the major result of TNI activities has been funding of a nanotech center at the University of Texas-Dallas, reported here on nanodot in May.

from the World-Watch dept.
In the online version of Peopleís Daily, Chinaís Xinhua news agency reports ("China's Bid to Establish Nanotech Research Center", 29 June 2001) that China's Ministry of Science and Technology and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) have unveiled the Shenyang National Laboratory for Materials Science (SYNL), in an effort to push forward advanced research on nano technology.
In April, Jiangsu Province announced research and industrialization of nanometer technology will be one of the main priorities in the province's new century drive to develop its science sector, according to an official from the provincial Development Planning Commission. And the coastal province of Shandong recently worked out its blueprint for developing nano-meter industry.

For some perspective on how nanotechnology fits into Chinaís overall plans to advance its science and technology programs, an interesting commentary from the Chinese National Science and Technology Awards Ceremony appeared in February.

from the fast-spin dept.
Researchers with the California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI) have developed a new way to manipulate optically quantum spin states on ultrafast time scales (femtoseconds). They suggest that the ability to quickly manipulate electron spins could pave the way for all-optical quantum computation in solids by loosening the stringent requirements on coherence times. In a paper published in the 29 June 2001 issue of Science ("Ultrafast Manipulation of Electron Spin Coherence"), a team led by University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB) physicist David Awschalom described their experiments. Awschalom is director of the UCSB Center for Spintronics and Quantum Computation, a central component of the new California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI) located jointly at UCSB and UCLA.

For more information about CNSI, see Foresight Update #43.

from the cold-current- dept.
United Press International reports researchers in Hong Kong have created one-dimensional, single-walled carbon nanotubes that posses superconducting traits, adding to their potential to become the basis of a new generation of ultra-tiny electronics. Z.K. Tang and Ping Sheng, physicists at the Institute of Nanoscience and Technology at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, led a research team that showed single isolated nanotubes can be superconductive. Furthermore, the tubes were one-dimensional. They report on the discovery in 29 June 2001 issue of Nature.
"The isolated, highly aligned and very small diameter — around four angstroms or about the width of four atoms — nanotubes demonstrate a transition to superconducting behavior around 15 degrees Kelvin, a much higher temperature than for superconductivity observed in nanotube bundles," according to a summary of the research.

from the public-affairs dept.
A pair of recent guest editorials in major San Francisco and Seattle newspapers have called for increased focus and greater funding for U.S. nanotechnology programs:

• San Francisco Chronicle columnist Hal Plotkin, who is also the Silicon Valley Correspondent for CNBC.com, writes in his piece ("The Tech Sector Needs A Nanotechnology Target", 21 June 2001): "As a field, nanotechnology is about where rocket science was at the dawn of the Space Age. Huge early investments in the space race yielded technological dividends that are only now beginning to dwindle. A similar race toward inner space will probably lead to even more lasting rewards." Plotkin also notes "Concerns over safety have already led to the creation of a voluntary set of ethical guidelines for nanotechnologists. The proposed rules say a lot about what could happen if something goes wrong", and points to the Foresight Guidelines.
• And in the Seattle Times, Thomas Kalil, a former deputy assistant to the president for technology and economic policy in the Clinton administration, criticizes the Bush Administrationís proposed FY2002 budget (" Cutting-edge small technology deserves big U.S. investment ", 28 June 2001). Even though nanotech-oriented programs in the U.S. National Nanotechnology Initiative saw a 23% increase in the proposed budget, overall funding for many of the agencies involved was cut. Kalil writes: "Unfortunately, the budget the Bush administration has submitted to Congress will make it difficult to significantly expand the NNI. The Bush plan would cut the research budgets of the National Science Foundation, NASA and the Department of Energy, agencies that all play a key role in the NNI . . . For a number of reasons, however, a failure to significantly expand U.S. government funding for nanotechnology would be a serious blow to America's future."
  Kalil concludes, "At a minimum, the Bush administration and Congress should work together to double federal spending on nanotechnology research over the next five years. America's economic and technology leadership in the 21st century will depend on these kinds of farsighted investments."

from the battletech dept.
The U.S. Armyís new Soldier Nanotechnolgies program to create a University Affiliated Research Center (UARC), with industry partners, to develop nanometer-scale science and technology solutions that could be incorporated into a soldier's gear, has attracted considerable attention in the media.

• An article in Interactive Week ("Army To Invest In Cyberuniform Center", by Doug Brown, 25June 2001) reports that with an investment of $10 million annually, the Army is looking to collaborate with a to-be-decided university to start an Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies. This institute will study how to incorporate new technology into the clothes and other equipment troops will carry in the 21st century.
• UPI reporter Kelly Hearn filed three reports: "Army developing high-tech uniform", and "Congressional panel hears plans for nanotechnology in the military", both 27 June 2001. The second article reports on the testimony of Delores Etter, deputy undersecretary of defense for science and technology. Etter, along with chief scientists from other military departments, before the House Armed Services Strategic Subcommittee on the state of military research and development, on 26 June 2001. Prepared statements by Etter and others can be found on the Committeeís website, but these do not contain much explicit mention of nanotechnology. And Hearn also interviewed Dr. Michael Andrews, deputy assistant secretary of the Army for Research and Technology about Army research programs in nanotechnology and robotics.

An Army-sponsored workshop that initiated the program was previously covered here on nanodot.

from the concerned-but-confused dept.
For an interesting example of the distant shores the concept of molecular nanotechnology is washing up upon, and the concerns being raised about nanotech by people and groups not directly connected to the research and development community, take a look at this report issued by the Rural Advancement Foundation International (RAFI): The ETC Century: Erosion, Technological Transformation and Corporate Concentration in the 21st Century, by P.R. Mooney (February 2001). [Note: this is a link to an Adobe Acrobat PDF file, not a web page.]
Although the RAFI author does take note of the potential benefits of nanotechnology, concerns over the potential negative impacts seem more prominent.

RAFI is an international non-governmental organization headquartered in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, dedicated to the conservation and sustainable improvement of agricultural biodiversity, and to the socially responsible development of technologies useful to rural societies. RAFI is concerned about the loss of genetic diversity – especially in agriculture – and about the impact of intellectual property on agriculture and world food security.

from the non-carbon dept.
An extensive article in Chemical and Engineering News ("From Membranes to Nanotubules", by A. Maureen Rouhi, 11 June 2001) describes work with gold template-synthesized nanotubule membranes that are enabling new approaches to separations and analytical sensing. Researchers led by Charles R. Martin, a chemistry professor at the University of Florida, are creating membranes composed of gold nanotubules, and are working to interface the nanotubule membrane architecture with biological recognition agents for applications in chemical separations and single-molecule sensing.

from the World-Watch dept.
Australasian Science, a monthly popular science magazine published by the Australian and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science (ANZAAS), has devoted most of its June 2001 issue to nanotechnology. Although not all the content is online at the AS website, an interesting article ("Nanomachines: The New Industrial Revolution") by Michael Wilson, Professor of Chemistry at the University of Technology in Sydney, is online.

However, you can find most of the rest of the articles from that issue on the SmallTimes website, including one on "Ethics in the Nanoworld", by John Weckert.

An interesting article on dubious patents ("Owning the Future: Patent Pollution", by Seth Shulman) appears in the July/August 2001 issue of Technology Review Magazine.
Shulman points out, "as almost anyone in the intellectual-property game will tell you, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office continues to grant patents that are, well, patently invalid. I'm talking about patents for things that have either already been invented or are so straightforward and apparent they don't meet the patent's law requirements for being novel and nonobvious."
He continues, "For years, people have griped about these bogus patent claims . . . And the patent office has long promised to do better. But now two Web-based ventures, IP.com and BountyQuest, are taking their own steps to rein in bad patentsóeither by stopping them before they are granted or by knocking them out after the fact. What makes these startups really interesting is that they are attracting support across a broad spectrum of intellectual-property players — from patent system boosters to open-source programmers. In the polarized IP field, that is no small feat."

IP.com is a partner with Foresight in the PriorArt.org project, a joint venture that gives open-source and free-software developers the chance to 'defensively publish', and place their innovations in a searchable software database.

from the Open-the-pod-bay-doors,-HAL dept.
Ronald P. Loui, Ph.D., an associate professor of computer science at Washington University in St. Louis, has described a method for using artificial intelligence that incorporates the ability to argue into computer programs. His work is initially focused on legal arguments.

Louiís article, "Logical Models of Argument," consolidates research results from the mid-80s to the present. It appears in the current ACM Computing Surveys.
According to a press release on Loui's work, A.I argument systems permit a new kind of reasoning to be embedded in complex programs. He says the reasoning is much more natural, more human, more social, even more fair. His proposal for A.I. argumentation is based on defeasible reasoning — which recognizes that a rule supporting a conclusion can be defeated. The conclusion is what A.I. specialists call an argument instead of a proof. Defeasible reasoning draws upon patterns of reasoning outside of mathematical logic, such as ones found in law, political science, rhetoric and ethics. Defeasible reasoning is based on rules that donít always hold if there are good reasons for an exception. It also permits rules to be more or less relevant to a situation. In this sense it is like analogy: One analogy might be good, but a different one might be better.

from the preparing-for-the-future dept.
A paper on "Nanotechnology and Societal Transformation" by Michael M. Crow and Daniel Sarewitz appears on the Center for Science, Policy, and Outcomes (CSPO) website. The authors conclude:
"Should nanoscience and nanotechnology yield even a small proportion of their anticipated advances, the impacts on society will be far-reaching and profound . . . We can allow these transformations to surprise and overwhelm us, and perhaps even threaten the prospects for further progress. Or we can choose to be smart about preparing for, understanding, responding to, and even managing the coming changes, in order to enhance the benefits, and reduce the disruption and dislocation, that must accompany any revolution."

The paper was presented at the workshop on the Societal Implications of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology sponsored by the U.S. National Science and Technology Councilís Subcommittee on Nanoscale Science, Engineering and Technology (NSET) in September 2000.

from the on-the-right-wavelength? dept.
Edd writes "I was just wondering if anybody else thought it possible to power nanoscale electronic devices with the ambient RF [radio frequency] signals that are present in our everyday lives. I want to know what are some of the limitations of such a thing (other than it is a really small amount of power). The angle I am coming from is from electromagnetic induction in its simplest form, the idea being that you have electronics that have no onboard power supply, but draw all their electric power needs from RF or other electromagnetic waves that are present in the environment. It would be neat to have a wireless power supply, no?"

from the Molectronics dept.
Researchers led by Paul S. Weiss at Penn State and and James M. Tour at Rice University, report in the 22 June 2001 issue of Science have demonstrated single molecules that switch between "on" and "off" states, and then hold in a state for hours at a time. The function of their molecular switches is based in part on conformational changes — which happen when molecules alter their arrangement by rotation of their atoms around a single bond, effectively changing shape by moving or turning — determine how and when that conductance switching occurs in those molecules. Additional coverage can be found in this article ("Single-molecule computer switches advance", by K. Hearn, 21 June 2001) from United Press International.

As described in their report, they tracked over time the conductance switching of single and bundled phenylene ethynylene oligomers isolated in matrices of alkanethiolate monolayers. The persistence times for isolated and bundled molecules in either the ON or OFF switch state ranged from seconds to tens of hours. When the surrounding matrix is well ordered, the rate at which the inserted molecules switch is low. When the surrounding matrix is poorly ordered, the inserted molecules switch more often. As a result, the team concluded that the switching is a result of conformational changes in the molecules or bundles, rather than electrostatic effects of charge transfer.
Funding for the research was provided by the Army Research Office, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the National Science Foundation, the Office of Naval Research, and Zyvex LLC

Although the Science paper is not freely available on the web, supplemental data and images that show the single and bundled molecules switching on and off within the matrices, are available on the Weiss group website.

from the RNA-World dept.
Researchers at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research have created a custom-designed RNA catalyst, or a ribozyme. The ribozyme can use information from a template RNA to make a third, new RNA. It functions with more than 95 percent accuracy, and most importantly, its ability is not restricted by the length or the exact sequence of letters in the original template. The ribozyme can extend an RNA strand, adding up to 14 nucleotides, or letters, to make up more than a complete turn of an RNA helix. The study also provides some insights into the possibility that RNA catalysts were important in the early evolution of living systems. The results are described in the 18 May 2001 issue of Science.

from the World-Watch dept.
The UK E4: Engineering website ("Little things please learned minds", 18 June 2001) reports scientists in the UK have received a boost of £18 million to set up new research collaborations in nanotechnology. The money will be split between two consortia with one in bionanotechnlogy led by Oxford University, with the Universities of Glasgow and York, and the National Institute for Medical Research. This collaboration also involves links with the Universities of Cambridge, Nottingham and Southampton. The other is in nanotechnology and is led by Cambridge University, with University College London and the University of Bristol.

from the just-a-moment dept.
Researchers have devised a method to determine the alignment of a molecule's axis, the "poles" that govern how a molecule will interact with others. The advancement will help scientists and engineers predict the ways that atoms and molecules exchange energy, possibly enhancing solar energy devices or helping biochemists better understand proteins. The research, appearing in the 4 June 2001 issue of Physical Review Letters, shows how a tightly-focused laser employing a new kind of polarization can produce valuable images of individual molecules in three dimensions.
The new method takes a snapshot of a phenomenon called the "molecular dipole moment." This "moment" is an axis that runs through the molecule like a north and south pole, along which energy is emitted and absorbed. If two molecules are positioned so that their respective poles align, they are more likely to exchange energy. If they are completely misaligned, then an interaction is more difficult. The researchers hope the work may lead to control of the alignment to direct chemical reactions at the atomic level.

from the taking-the-long-view dept.
Many Worlds, a website devoted to technology-related business and investment information, has posted an interesting white paper on "Tracking Emerging Technologies and Trends: Taking Advantage of Technological Acceleration". (Note: this link is to an Adobe Acrobat PDF file of the report, not a web page.)
"We are on the cusp of a breakout in technological acceleration, a discontinuity in human history," the report states. "It will affect business along with the culture as a whole." And it offers some sound advice: "Those businesses that can most effectively grasp the deep undercurrents of technological evolution can use this to their advantage."
After considering a wide variety of emerging technologies, including molecular nanotechnology, nanmedicine and more, the report concludes: "Looking through the technologies noted above, it will become obvious that numerous technological convergences are occurring . . . The once-separate worlds of hardware and software are beginning to blur together to some degree. As matters grows in intelligence with the spread of embedded processors, wireless tracking, and ubiquitous computing, it becomes responsive to human desires and commands. Matter is increasingly becoming programmable like software. If the promises of molecular nanotechnology are realized, this process will be completed."

from the battletech dept.
The National Research Council's Board on Army Science and Technology has released a study ("Opportunities in Biotechnology for Future Army Applications") that recommends the U.S. Army embrace advancements in biotechnology that promise to help soldiers survive and perform better in the 21st century, and seek exemptions from some regulatory approval processes to speed up the development of new medical treatments. The NRC is part of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.
Recommendations in the report stress the importance of developing defensive technologies aimed at improving the survivability and effectiveness of U.S. soldiers. The report specifically does not address the use of biotechnology for offensive applications. The recommended technologies included biosensors, biomaterials, molecular electronics and biological energy sources.
"Although soldiers in 2025 may look much the same as their present day counterparts, they will be drawn from a society that has been armed by biotechnology with increased strength and endurance and superior resistance to disease and aging," the report's executive summary said.

Additional information is available in this UPI article and this press release.

from the in-a-spin dept.
A research team at the University of California at Berkeley has built a scanning tunneling microscope that can measure for the first time the quantum spin of an electronic state of a single atom, in this case an impurity atom embedded in the material. Previously, scientists have had to trap isolated atoms and zap them with a laser to measure their spin state. While the technique already has improved understanding of high temperature superconductors, it also can help probe the spin states of atoms in metals and semiconductors, as well as new materials such as carbon nanotubes or strontium ruthenate superconductors. The researchers also believe their work has potential application in quantum computers. It is thought that quantum computers could take advantage of two-level quantum states such as this to perform calculations far faster than conventional transistor-based computers, and in the process shrink the size of computers immensely. "One of the holy grails of solid state physics is to write and store information in just one atom," said J. C. Seamus Davis, the head of the Berkeley team.

More information is available on the research teamís website.