from the Nose-to-the-benchtop dept.
The October 2001 issue of Chemical Engineering Progress, a publication of the American Institute of Chemical Engineering (AIChE), has a brief article on nanotechnology, but itís rather limited in scope. Not surprisingly, the emphasis is on nano-structured materials and process chemistry involving nano-scale catalysis, with some attention given to carbon nanotubes; the timeline is rather near-term and little is said about the possibility of nano-scale devices.
Note: Access to the online version of Chemical Engineering Progress is free, but may require registration. The article is an Adobe Acrobat PDF file (about 440 KB).

from the The-future-as-minefield dept.
A rather morbid but informative article about the potential dangers of advanced nanotechnology and the abuse of information technology appeared in the Montreal Gazette ("Cyber-doomsayers offer chilling vision", by Alex Roslin, 14 October 2001). The article leads off with a fictional "grey-goo" meltdown, then recaps the arguments made by Bill Joy over the past year and a half. The article then more usefully focuses on current interest in military applications of micro- and nano-technologies, as well as information systems. The article quotes retired U.S. Army colonel Thomas Adams, who has criticized the U.S. military for its failure to envision the potential consequences of technologies it is helping to develop:

"We are rapidly approaching an event horizon in human development, a point at which the mutually reinforcing trends described here will combine to produce an aggregate result so different from what we now know that it is impossible to guess what it will be."

The Ninth Foresight Conference on Molecular Nanotechnology will be held at the Westin Hotel in Santa Clara, California from 9 -11 November 2001. The keynote speaker will be James Murday of the U.S. Naval Research Lab and Director of the National Nanotechnology Coordination Office. A special conference session on Venture Capital for Nanotechnology and a Nanotechnology Patent Roundtable will be held.

from the More-conferences dept.
A reminder: The special nanotechnology track at the 2001 American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) International Mechanical Engineering Conference (11-16 November 2001) will include a keynote panel discussion, three nanotechnology tutorials, and nine conference technical sessions devoted to various aspects of nanotechnology.

from the committee-speak dept.
A preliminary report has been issued by a committee organized by the National Research Council (NRC), an independent advisory body under the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS) serving the government, to conduct a review of the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI). The review was initiated in August, and is due to be completed in May 2002. The preliminary report identifies several items deemed critical to the success of the NNI: program management, including interagency coordination and ways of measuring progress; a balanced research portfolio that includes long-term planning, short-term successes, high-risk projects, and ìgrand challengesî; research partnerships with local, state and international entities including academia and the private sector; investment in developing infrastructure, fostering interdisciplinary research, and looking beyond nanoscale research to the creation of macro-scale products using nanotechnology; training of future scientists and engineers and examining societal impacts. (In other words, achieving the goals laid out in the original program are crucial to its success — it took a committee to arrive at this? Hopefully the final report will offer something more substantial.)

The report is available online, but be prepared to be exasperated: It is presented using the OpenBook system, as a series of low-resolution PDF files — one page at a time! Hint: many of the pages are blank; most of the sparse content is in Section 2.

Additional information about the NRC review (project scope, committee membership, meeting agendas, etc.) of the NNI is available at the NRC website.

Brian Wang writes "Pre-cursors of the nanotech medical cures are being tested in rats. Mem capsules with 7 nm holes let out insulin from cells inside the capsule. The holes allow nutrients in to keep the cells alive but keep out the immune system cells to keep the cells alive. Since the cells and the capsules last basically the lifetime of the person, they are effectively a cure. They will take some years to go through long term small animal trials and then to monkey and finally to human trials. The technique can be applied to other diseases. Parkisons, hemofilia etc… http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,47934, 00.html"

Additional information about the device can found in this NSF press release.

RobertBradbury writes "A group lead by Fred Levine at UCSD is now reporting in Cryobiology (42:207) that simply drying cells in a vacuum is feasible method for cellular preservation. The highly unexpected discovery is discussed in a New Scientist article from October 22, 2001. This potentially provides a very different approach to cryonic suspensions where you would dehydrate the person first, then lower the temperatures to keep them in stasis. No water means no freezing damage due to ice crystal formation. The question becomes whether or not the extracellular structure of the brain (and other tissues) could survive the dehydration process? The shrinkage due to water loss seems like it would put a fair amount of stress on the proteins that bind the synaptic junctions together."

from the Inscrutable dept.
You might be able to glean some useful kernels of information about nanotech-related research in China from the website of the Nano Science and Technology Network of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CASNANO), although there actually seems to be little substantial content on the site as yet.
The site and program are relatively new efforts; previous coverage of nanotech-related news appeared here on 29 June and 31 July 2001.

from the Information,-please dept.
This tantalizing blurb was posted 21 September 2001 on the website of the California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI):

Martha Krebs to Participate in NSF Workshop in December – Advances in a diverse range of scientific disciplines require a need for better communication among the sciences. The NSF has planned a workshop aimed at improving the exchange of ideas between the rapidly progressing fields of Nanotechnology, Biotechnology and biomedicine, Information technology and Cognitive science (Nano-Bio-IT-Cogno). CNSI Director Martha Krebs will participate in the conference, ìConvergent Technologies for Improving Human Performanceî, held on Dec. 3-4 in Arlington, VA. The conference will address issues set for the short and long term that include enhancing individual capabilities and societal outcomes.

It would be interesting to know more about just what sort of ìperformance improvementsî will be considered during the workshop — however, no further information seems to be available at this time.

from the Getting-wired dept.
An extensive article on the Small Times website ("UCLA team develops molecular switches", by Jayne Fried, 26 October 2001) describes recent work by James Heath and his coworkers at the California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI) to develop working molecular electronics devices. According to the article, they have have attached molecular switches on a grid as small as 50 nanometers, a significant step forward in the UCLA effort to build a rudimentary molecular computer. "There's a long way to go," Heath said. "Right now we have circuits with molecules on a grid on normal lithographic wires." The goal is that one day the grid would be assembled with carbon nanotubes. More information on the molectronics work at UCLA can be found in Foresight Update #44.

from the Moí-better dept.
The California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI) has redesigned its website, and added a huge amount of new information. The new site is much more accessible, provides more in-depth background information on CNSI goals and programs, more current news on CNSI research activities, and new information on the Instituteís leadership, faculty, and partners in private industry. If you havenít been to the CNSI website recently, the new site is worth a look.

A number of articles on various aspects of self-assembly in chemical and biological systems, and how it might be used to create nanotech devices, have appeared in recent weeks. These include a piece by Philip Ball in the November 2001 issue of Technology Review magazine (Ball also had an article on self-assembly in the 18 October 2001 issue of Nature, but it is not freely available online). Another article ran in the Boston Globe ("No assembly required", by G. Cook, 16 October 2001).
Technology Review also ran an item on its website on self-assembling peptide nanotubes developed by Reza Ghadiri at Scripps, which have potential use as a nano-mechanical antibiotic as reported in July 2001.

from the invitation-for-discussion dept.
JeremyTurner writes:
"October 26, 2001…
Dear Nanodot members and readers,
I was just wondering if the Nanotech initiative will eventually cover an arts/cultural wing? Some individuals such as myself eagerly await the creative benefits towards the Arts and Entertainment industries…In fact, K. Eric Drexler mentioned towards the end of his "Engines of Creation" book that the end-goal of an advanced nanotechnological civilization would be the proliferation of performance and interdisciplinary art. I am worried that due to the recent climate, most of the research will go towards defense and security and little towards health, strategic diplomacy, the environment and culture…Any thoughts on how our country will utilize this emerging technology to our creative benefit? I was also wondering if those outside the United States will benefit and how long would it take for a trickle down effect to occur once corporations such as the Texas-based Zyvex make that ultimate breakthrough?
Best regards,
Jeremy Turner
www.fivethreesix.com"

[Editor's note: the mandate for the U.S. National Nanotechnology Initiative (currently) includes a component to examine the "societal implications" of nanotechnology. To date, the most significant result of this part of the initiative has been a NSF report issued early in 2001.]

from the Miniaturizing-manufacturing dept.
An extensive article in Dallas-Ft. Worth TechBiz ("National grant may help speed up Zyvexís plans", by Pavan Lall, 22 October 2001) provides an in-depth look at how Zyvex and its collaborators will benefit from a $US 25 million cost-sharing program that includes a $12.5 million grant from the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

More information on the NIST grant and development program is available in this Zyvex press release from 12 October 2001. Additional coverage also appeared in the Albany, N.Y. Times-Union ("Tiny robots, tremendous potential", by K. Aaron, 25 October 2001).

Along with university collaborators at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Center for Automation Technologies in Troy, N.Y., the University of Texas at Dallas and the University of North Texas, Zyvex will develop prototypical microscale assemblers using microelectromechanical systems, or MEMS, to assemble nanoscale components. The long-term goal is to develop even smaller nanoscale assembler systems. "Our ultimate goal is adaptable, affordable, molecularly precise manufacturing,'' said Rocky Angelucci, Zyvex's technical liaison and manager of the company's NIST program.

from the Not-quite-Hari-Seldon dept.
A press release from the New Scientist magazine (27 October 2001) reports researchers at Harvard and Ohio State Universities have developed what they term a "conflict barometer" gives a week-by-week measure of the scale of civil unrest. The system is based on a computer program that analyses several thousand news stories from Reuters daily, which classifies events into about 200 categories. These are then used to calculate the proportions of events involving civil protests, repressive government actions and outbreaks of violence. These three factors are fed into an equation to give a nation's "conflict carrying capacity" or CCC. The researchers reported their results in The Journal of Conflict Resolution.

Anybody remember Alba, the glowing transgenic bunny? An item on the Nature Science Update website (24 October 2001) reports an Italian researcher has now created a floral version with daisies that glow under ultraviolet light. While the research was originally aimed at helping to tag plants such as transgenic crops, the glowing daisies were created as an aesthetic project; the technique reportedly could be applied to any white flower. However, due to public hostility toward genetically-modified organisms in Italy, there are no plans to commercialize the glowing flowers. The NSU item also mentions similarly modified pigs with glowing snouts.

from the More-molectronics dept.
A collaborative research team from the University of Arizona and Motorola, Inc. have devised a method to measure the electrical conductivity of a single molecule using contacts bonded to the two ends of an octanedithiol molecule. Many previous efforts to characterize possible molecular wires and other molectronic components have given variable results because the contacts were often simple mechanical contacts, not chemically-bonded connections. In their report in the 19 October 2001 issue of Science, the UA/Motorola team describe a method for creating through-bond electrical contacts with very small (2 nanometer) gold particles bonded to single molecules and the achievement of reproducible measurements of the molecules' conductivity. A schematic image is also available.

A Chicago Tribune article that provides a snapshot of nanotech-related companies and university research programs in the Chicago region ("Nanotech expands its small world", by Jon Van, 22 October 2001) appears on the Small Times website. The article highlights the increasing level of interest in nanotechnology among researchers, investors, businesses and the general public.

from the Reading-minds? dept.
According to a press release (27 September 2001), researchers with the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) scientists have shown that they can tell what kind of object a person is looking at by the pattern of brain activity it evokes. These patterns, which arise in a visual processing area on the bottom surface of the brain, are different for each category of objects. Their research report appeared in the 28 September 2001 issue of Science.

The neuroscientists are looking at how the brain's visual system is able to represent a virtually unlimited number of faces and objects by scanning the activity of the visual cortex. The patterns may provide a key to deciphering the brain's code for recognizing objects and faces, say the researchers. "Brain imaging may be able to show how the brain encodes complex information, such as the appearance of objects, not just where the encoding occurs," said a team leader.

The Institute for Molecular Manufacturing (IMM) has posted responses to a pair of articles in the September 2001 issue of Scientific American which attempt to cast doubt on the feasibility of nonbiological molecular assemblers. The issue devoted six articles and a great deal of text to various perspectives on nanotechnology. The issue included various attacks on the feasibility of molecular assemblers and the work of IMM Research Fellow K. Eric Drexler and his research associates. The responses deal with issues raised in articles by Richard Smalley of Rice University and George Whitesides at Harvard University.