from the deep-in-the-heart-of-Texas dept.
A profile of Zyvex Corp. appeared in Darwin Magazine ("Small is Beautiful", by Emelie Rutherford, 27 July 2001), focusing on the companyís efforts to develop replicating systems. "It would take forever to produce something that can be seen with the naked eye one molecule at a time," explains Rocky Angelucci, a technical representative at Zyvex, "so these mechanisms will duplicate themselves until there's a big enough array of them to produce building blocks for products." (And, once again, we see another example of the endless inability of the media to verify the correct spelling of the name of Zyvex President and CEO, Jim Von Ehr.)

Von Ehr was also named one of "The Top 25 High Tech Leaders in Dallas" by D Magazine in July.

from the No-more-nano-washing-machines,-please dept.
A leading Chinese nanotechnology researcher has called for a more realistic attitude toward nanotechnology in the face of increasing hype and misdirection about the field, according to a report in the Business Weekly ("Nanotech shrouded in doubt", by Liang Yu, 17 July 2001). Despite being a promising prospect, nanotechnology still has a long way to go in China before it can bring about any fundamental changes to people's lives, cautioned Li Minqian, senior researcher at the Shanghai Institute of Nuclear Research under the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Li is also director of the Shanghai Joint Centre for Nanotechnology. "What the sector really needs now is a cool-headed attitude," noted Li.

from the priming-the-pump dept.
According to a report in the San Jose Mercury News ("Tech talent alarm sounded", by Tia OíBrien, 21 July 2001), foreign countries, not the United States, are increasingly producing the engineers and scientists driving high-tech innovations. The report says the shortage threatens to further slow the U.S. economy and high-tech innovation, as well as the U.S. position as a world technology leader. The article quotes Stanley Williams of Hewlett-Packard Labs and a leading molecular electronics researcher: "Everyone over the age of 45 in my lab was born in the United States. No one under the age of 45 in my lab is from the United States." Williams spoke at the New Democrat Network's fifth annual retreat, which brings Democratic members of Congress west to learn more about Silicon Valley's needs. Many of the legislators present back measures to provide additional funding to U.S. universities to encourage students in science and technology fields.

Similar concerns about a lack of native U.S. scientific talent were raised by the U.S. military in June 2001.

from the World-Watch dept.
The South Korean government has approved initial funding for the countryís ambitious new nanotechnology research program, according to the Korean Chosun newspaper ("W1.4 Trillion Earmarked for Nano-Technology", 18 July 2001). In a meeting of National Science and Technology Committee on 18 July 2001, presided over by President Kim Dae-jung, the government decided to inject a total of 1.485 trillion won (about US $1.148 billion), including W983 billion from the state sector and W501.5 billion from the private sector, into the nanotechnology sector over the next five years to bring the country's technical status in the sector to the level of advanced countries. The funding will go to the fostering the required manpower in the field for a total of 12,600 experts in the next ten years.

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from the The-vision-thing dept.
The medical applications of nanotechnology will change the shape of medicine, said Dr. Carol Dahl, director of the Office of Technology and Industrial Relations at the U.S. National Cancer Institute, according to a report from United Press International ("Nanomedicine: The new frontier", by K. Samson, 23 July 2001). Dahl spoke during a special briefing, titled ìThe Promise of Nanotechnology: The Coming Revolution in Medicine,î presented at the National Health Council on 23 July 2001.

Read more for details and links to additional coverage of the event.

The U.S. National Science Foundation has awarded $1.45 million to scientists at the University of Pennsylvania, establishing a new Nanotechnology Science and Engineering Center that will seek out the building blocks of next-generation nanostructures. The four-year grant will fund research on how simple biological molecules organize themselves into complex structures and the development of synthetic self-assembling molecules. Details are available in this press release from 24 July 2001.

Several articles from the special report on nanotechnology that appeared in Red Herring magazine in early July 2001 are now available online ("Nanotech grows up", 15 June/1 July 2001).

The Silicon Valley Association of Startup Entrepreneurs will present a panel discussion titled "Nanotech Today" on Thursday, 9 August 2001, at 6 pm.The event will be held on the Microsoft Campus in Mountain View, California. The panel will include:
* Jennifer Fonstadt, Partner, Draper Fisher Jurvetson
* Scott Mize, Chairman of the Advisory Board, Nanotechnology Opportunity Report
* Charles Ostman, Senior Fellow, Institute for Global Futures
* Moderator is John Gale, president of Taligo LLC.

More information and an online registration form is avilable at http://www.acteva.com/booking.cfm?bevaID=15623 or the SVASE website. Cost for pre-registered attendees are $25 for SVASE members, $45 for nonmembers. Walk-in rates are an additional $10.

from the roving-reporter dept.
Small Times correspondent Jayne Fried filed a pair of interesting reports from the IBC NanoBiotechnology conference, which was held 16-17 July 2001. The Foresight Institute was a sponsoring organization for the conference.

The first article ("Nanotech's next challege is building a common model, language", 19 July 2001) notes that combining theory and computation with experiment is critical for rapid progress in nanotechnology, and quotes from a presentation by CalTech's William Goddard, who said computational chemistry, computational biology and computational materials science will play an essential role in designing, characterizing and optimizing nanoscale devices and machines.

A second article ("Venture capitalists listen, learn as scientists discuss nanobiotech", 17 July 2001) discusses interest expressed by potential investors who attended the conference on nanobiotechnology.

from the energetic-initiative dept.
An article from the Environmental News Network on nanoscale science and technology research at U.S. national laboratories under the Department of Energy ("U.S. national labs use nanoscience to study how to help environment", 19 July 2001) appears on the Small Times website. It provides a useful overview of work being done as part of the new U.S. Department of Energy's Nanoscience and Nanotechnology Initiative. Facilities covered include the new program at Brookhaven, Oak Ridge, and the new Joint Institute for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (JINN) established by the Pacific Northwest National Lab and the University of Washington.

The PNNL has established an extensive website that provides much useful information about JINN and other nanotech-related programs at the DoE national labs.

from the Is-that-how-it-works? dept.
Stephanie Corchnoy brings our attention to a brief basic introduction to the concepts of advanced molecular nanotechnology ("How Nanotechnology Will Work", by Kevin Bonsor) that appears on the How Stuff Works website. The style is enthusiastic and a bit breathless:
"The promises of nanotechnology sound great, don't they? Maybe even unbelievable? But researchers say that we will achieve these capabilities within the next century. And if nanotechnology is, in fact, achieved, it might be the human race's greatest scientific achievement yet, completely changing every aspect of the way we live."
The piece is a bit out of date, mentioning events that occurred a year or two ago, but nothing more recent.

from the World-Watch dept.
Bob Grahame calls our attention to an article in the Taipei Times in Taiwan ("ITRI preparing nanotech center", 18 July 2001) which reports that the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) is preparing for the establishment of a nanotechnology center to help foster Taiwan's next-generation high technology development. ITRI is planning to establish the Center for Applied Nanotechnology Institutes (CANTI) in January 2002, with an investment of NT$10 billion (US$286 million) in the first five years. According to the report, the new Center will focus its efforts in five major areas: nanomaterials, nanoelectronics, nano opti-electronics, nano chemicals and nano biotechnology.

from the In-the-news dept.
Additional coverage of the molecular electronics patent granted to Hewlett-Packard:

An HP press release (17 July 2001), which quotes HP Labs research director Stan Williams: "We have a strategy to reinvent the integrated circuit with molecular rather than semiconductor components."

An article from the San Francisco Chronicle website ("HP has circuit advance: molecules used as transistors", by Carrie Kirby, 18 July 2001).

And Bob Grahame found this story from The Register in the U.K. ("HP moves towards molecular-scale computing", by Robert Blincoe, 17 July 2001).

from the portable-libraries dept.
The Los Alamos E-Print Archive, an "open source" library of scientific papers which is widely credited with revolutionizing the way physical scientists and mathematicians communicate, is moving from the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in New Mexico to Cornell University. Physicist Paul Ginsparg, who created and maintains the archive, will join the Cornell faculty this fall, and he is bringing the archive with him. It will become a service of Cornell University Library, which has developed several other digital academic resources. Both Ginsparg and library officials express hope that the archive will improve and expand in its new home.

The Los Alamos archive was covered here on nanodot in May 2001 in relation to the movement to establish web-based open public libraries of scientific papers.

from the simulation-and-modeling dept.
The July/August 2001 issue of Computing in Science and Engineering, a joint publication of the IEEE Computer Society and the American Institute of Physics, has a special section devoted to nanotechnology. Specifically, three articles focus on modeling and simulation of nanoscale systems.
An introduction to the special issue by Guest Editors James R. Chelikowsky at the University of Minnesota and Mark A. Ratner at the Northwestern University Institute for Nanotechnology, explaining the basic issues of nanoscience, nanotechnology, and modeling, is available as an Adobe Acrobat PDF file (about 515 KB).
The text of the articles in the issue are only available to members of the Computer Society of the IEEE, but the abstracts can be accessed without membership. The topics covered include:
- Computational Nanotechnology with Carbon Nanotubes and Fullerenes
- Multiscale Simulation of Nanosystems
- Computational Electromagnetics of Metal Nanoparticles and Their Aggregates

from the NT-design-tools dept.
Rob Bishop writes "nanoTITAN, Inc. is pleased to announce the first early access release of nanoML, a markup language for the description and interchange of nanodevices. nanoML includes the molecular components and structure of a nanodevice — as you might expect — but goes well beyond that to include information about the properties, interoperability, operational characteristics, display, safety, and legal status of nanodevices.
It is our hope that nanoML will accelerate development of molecular nanotechnology by providing a common language for researchers, engineers and other interested parties. Our commitment is to evolve nanoML consistent with the needs of the nanotechnology community and to move toward an open standard. We would greatly appreciate a review of our work so far by the knowledgeable readers of nanodot.
More information can be found at:

• nanoTITAN Home Page
• nanoML Product Page
• nanoML FAQ
• nanoML Early Access Program (for access to documentation and the schema)"

from the molectronics dept.
An extensive article in the New York Times ("Clever Wiring Harnesses Tiny Switches", by K. Chang, 17 July 2001) provides an overview of recent advances in the field of molecular electronics. The article focuses on work by Hewlett-Packard Labs. HP was awarded a patent on 3 July 2001 for a wiring strategy that takes describes how to connect molecular-scale devices by essentially assigning each switch a random marker that allows signals to be routed to it. The method is important because, as the NYT states, "conventional wires are too wide to attach to such molecular components, and the prospect of trying to hook together billions of components or more is daunting, if not impossible." The article quotes HP Labs research director Stanley Williams: "The current patent really is the blueprint for the research we're going to be doing for the next four years." HP was awarded another patent on a molecular memory device in October 2000.
Note: Access to content on the NYT website it free, but may require registration.

The article also notes that "researchers have already constructed the tiniest of components — molecules that act as switches — and they are now starting to tackle the harder problem: how to wire the tiny switches together into useful devices." The demonstration in June 2001 of a functional single-molecule switch is highlighted.

from the dollars-and-sense dept.
Two recent articles point out the growing interest among venture capitalists and other investors in the potential of nanotechnology:
The views of venture capitalist (and Foresight Senior Associate) Steve Jurvetson and associate Warren Packard on nanotechnology are profiled in the San Francisco Business Times ("Jurvetson pins big hopes on tiny nanomachines", by M. Calvey, 13 July 2001). The article quotes Jurvetson: "We are entering an era of exponential growth in our capabilities in biotech, molecular engineering and computing . . . The cross-fertilization of these formerly discrete domains compounds our rate of learning and our engineering capabilities." Jurvetson also had an article on nanotechnology in Red Herring Magazine in June 2001.
An article by Jayne Fried at the Small Times website ("Venture capitalists listen, learn as scientists discuss nanobiotech", 17 July 2001) discusses interest expressed by potential investors at a recent conference on nanobiotechnology.

from the not-invented-here dept.
An article on the Small Times website ("NanoTexas: The Land of Big Oil is Now Boomtown for the Tiny", by Candace Stuart, 16 July 2001) provides a useful overview of nanotech-related activity in Texas. The article covers the various Texas institutions and private firms engaged in nanotechnology research and development, and describes some of their work.

Also, in the tradition of Texas tall tales, we again see the dubious claim that "Texas is the birthplace of nanotechnology." The claim is based on the co-discovery of fullerenes by Richard Smalley at Rice University, and the mistaken assumption that the Rice researchers are the only ones who have done interesting work with fullerene nanotubes.

Activity in Texas has recently been covered here on nanodot on 29 June, 13 June, and 30 May in 2001, and 16 August 2000.

from the intelligence-issues dept.
United Press International science correspondent Kelly Hearn recently interviewed artificial intelligence researcher Eric Chown ("Thinking robots coming, but decades away", 14 July 2001). Chown is a professor of computer science at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine. When asked if nanotechnology will help engineers build machines that better mimic the brain's activity, Chown said: "No, I don't think so. Nanotechnology will provide amazing breakthroughs in the medical domain in terms of robotic surgery and such. But in terms of building human-like robots, I don't think it will contribute greatly. I really think that the big breakthroughs will come in terms of better understanding of how the brain works."
On the question of whether the future will bring a merging of flesh and machines, Chown said, "merging man and machine is more a short-term issue than the potential long-term issue of machines actually replacing people. In terms of ethical questions, in the short run, I don't see a big ethical problem. If somebody can't see and an optical implant can help them, that's a good thing. But it doesn't take a great leap to see how it could get out of control. We aren't doing enough in society to consider the ethics of the technologies we're developing."