Just a reminder that the NSTI Nanotechnology Conference and Trade Show is coming up May 8-12, 2005 at the Anaheim Marriott & Convention Center in Anaheim, California. From the looks of the confirmed speaker list many people who have been mentioned on Nanodot or who have spoken at previous Foresight Insitute Conferences will be there.

Also worth noting is that the super early registration period for the Foresight Institute's 13th annual conference which will be in San Francisco October 22-27th, 2005 ends June 1st. The first two days are essentially what was previously known as the "Senior Associates" conference. The last four days are about busines, policy and R&D progress. This is explained in greater detail in the conference brochure here.

Roland Piquepaille writes "Today, anticancer drugs are delivered to patients in such a way that they can destroy both infected and healthy cells. But now, researchers at the Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (IBN), in Singapore, have designed 'smart' nanocarriers which deliver the drugs exactly where they are needed, reducing side effects and suppressing cancer growth. Their core-shell nanoparticles are both sensitive to temperature — which has been done before — and to acidic levels. When these nanocarriers encounter acidic environments such as tumor tissues, they break apart and release the molecules they contain. So far, this technology has only been tested on mice, but the researchers have filed an application patent in the U.S., so expect to see practical applications in a few years. Read more for other details and references. [Additional note for purists: these nanocarriers are "smaller than 200 nm," which doesn't guarantee they fit within the strict definition of nanotechnology. However, if the Advanced Materials journal thinks these are nanoparticles, who am I to argue?]"

This sounds great: the Biomolecular Nanotechnology program at Arizona State. Work on "logic gates made from single molecules, molecular motors that move fluids in chip-sized laboratories, sensors based on cells interfaced to processors, artificial cells with chemical functionality and solar power" applied to "making molecular processors that can be incorporated directly into clothes, paint or plastics." Solid funding, international travel, industrial internships, attending nanoconferences. Also: "students in our program will explore the political and societal mechanisms by which decisions concerning science funding and policy are made and what impacts these decisions have had on society in the past." They'll need strong stomachs for that part! Making legislation is like making sausage; it can be more comfortable not to know. –CP

Cordis covers a workshop on nanoeducation needs: "While the traditional approach to education can be depicted as an inverted pyramid, with the breadth of study getting narrower as the researcher progresses, head of the Commission's unit on research training networks Bruno Schmitz outlined the need for an hourglass approach to nano training, with the breadth of study widening again as the researcher gains in experience." (Source: ICON) Read more for clarification.

From Spiked: "2005 – announced as Einstein Year – marks the centenary of the publication of Albert Einstein's equation E = mc². To mark this occasion, Sandy Starr at spiked and science communicator Alom Shaha have conducted a survey of over 250 renowned scientists, science communicators, and educators – including 11 Nobel laureates – asking what they would teach the world about science and why, if they could pick just one thing." Foresight's Eric Drexler chooses molecular nanotech, of course. Other familiar names: Richard Dawkins, Freeman Dyson, Harold Kroto, John McCarthy.

Concerned about real or imagined risks in nanotechnology? Check out the report of a European workshop on Risk Perception and Risk Communication in the Field of Nanotechnologies. Excerpt: "There are some peculiarities of Nanotechnology which make the risk assessment challenging. The first aspect is the diversity of Nanotechnology. Because Nanotechnology is mainly defined in terms of size, a huge variety of different techniques, research topics, methods of creating or structuring materials, and manipulating surfaces are summarized under the term of Nanotechnology. Very often, the proponents have quite different things in mind when they are talking about Nanotechnology." Er, indeed so. –CP

It would appear from reports at SpaceDaily and PhysOrg that scientists led by Chongwu Zhou at USC have determined how to grow single walled carbon nanotubes (SWNT) on specific planes of a sapphire crystal. This may have distinct advantages as it potentially allows one to put the wires down first and the computational elements (currently transistors) down second in the production of nanoelectronics. This is generally the inverse of current microelectronic production methods.

From a Northwestern press release: "Researchers at Northwestern University have demonstrated writing at the sub-100 nanometer molecular scale in fountain-pen fashion. They developed a novel atomic force microscope (AFM) probe chip with an integrated microfluidic system for capillary feeding of molecular ink…The Nanofountain Probe (NFP) developed by Horacio D. Espinosa, professor of mechanical engineering, and his colleagues employs a volcano-like dispensing tip and capillary fed solutions to enable sub-100 nanometer molecular writing." (Source: NanoApex)
Nanofountain Probe: clever technology, clever name. I'm betting we'll see a lot more nanotech innovation from mechanical engineers. –CP

Researchers at the Wiezmann Institute of Science in Israel have created a new molecular switch that, for the first time, uses negative differential resistance (NDR) at room temperature, essentially creating a switch with no moving parts. The NDR phenomenon has been used before at the molecular level, but only at extremely low temperatures; this experiment demonstrated the effect, at the molecular level, can be "stable, reversible and reproducible at room temperature." (Credit: KurzweilAI.net)

Registration is required, but is probably worth the trouble over at NanoMarkets, where they have a series of free white papers on nanotech, including "Thoughts on the Economics of Nanosensors" and "Plastics, Nanotubes and the Mobile Displays of the Future", plus multiple reports on nano-enabled drug delivery and drug discovery. Excerpt on sensors: "NanoMarkets believes that nanosensors are unlikely to dominate the sensor market anytime soon. In fact, our forecast of the nanosensors market indicates that nanosensors will likely not achieve a 10 percent penetration of the total sensors market until early 2010. However, in light of the total size of the sensor market, even minimal penetration means that the nanosensor market will be worth a few billion dollars within just a few years, which makes them a market opportunity well worth pursuing." Of course, if you love the free white papers you can buy the big reports for big bucks ($2K+).

Plan now to apply for a unique two-year master's program in nanotech in Europe: "1. The nanosciences are multidisciplinary: the challenge is to instil in the students the power to communicate and think across the boundaries of the traditional scientific disciplines. Notably, the aim is not to educate 'multispecialists'. Students receive a basic training in all disciplines, and choose a specialization within one of these disciplines. Special courses are designed to offer a multidisciplinary view on this research field…3. The EMM-nano is strongly research-connected: students spend at least one fourth of the programme on their own research project in a research environment of internationally renowned quality; course modules are strongly related to ongoing research and are taught by research professionals." Europeans can still apply this year; others must wait until next year. Courses are in English.

A new report from Lux Research and Foley & Lardner, "The Nanotech Intellectual Property Landscape," echos what Foresight members have been hearing from Ted Sabety at both of our 2004 conferences: there's a problem in nanotech patents. "Our comprehensive patent review shows that the patent landscape for these materials is complex and fragmented. Because so many patents have been filed relating to nanomaterials, and so many of them seem to overlap, companies that want to use these building blocks in products will be forced to license patents from many different sources in order to do so"…"nanotech winners and losers could be decided by courts and not consumers." A bad situation.–CP

Adam Keiper points us at an editorial in The New Atlantis titled "Assessing the Nanotech Revolution." The concluding paragraph: "A preliminary report from the [National Research Council] committee is expected in June 2005, with a final report to follow early next year. It is our hope that the committee will offer a clear analysis of the technical potential of molecular manufacturing, and a clear recommendation on whether federal nanotechnology funds should be allocated toward theoretical and practical research into molecular manufacturing. A clear statement from the committee will help resolve the discrepancy between what Congress expects and what federal funds in fact support."

The Nanotech Company has published a white paper titled "Nano-Savvy Journalism – 7 things every reporter should know before writing about nanotechnology and 7 questions to ask every nano company," currently available on request using a button on their homepage. It's good overall but needs at least two key tweaks, one on quantum effects and one on nanoscale robotics. Read more for details.

Physorg.com is reporting that scientists led by Xiang Zhang at UCB have a paper in Science documenting the ability to do "optical" imaging in the range of 40-60nm. They are using 365nm UV radiation and a silver film "superlens" with a negative refractive index to transcend the normal diffraction limits of optical imaging. Their results are nearly an order of magnitude smaller than conventional optical microscopy methods. Optical imaging is faster than electron microscope imaging because you don't have to scan the e-beam across the material being imaged.

One application which may push its development would be the direct imaging of semiconductor chips as the pass through the next two generations of photolithography at 65nm and 45-40nm. It is also worth noting that at these dimensions one could probably make a movie recording the motion of Drexler's classical assembler arm performing assembly processes.

Bob Schreib Jr. writes "Dear Sirs, This is a recap of an idea that I have already submitted to pretty much all of the forensic science sites on the web. The idea is UPC-Bullet-Tagging. That is, let's use Nanotechnology techniques from the microchip industry to etch microscopic UPC (Universal Product Codes)onto tiny sections or micro-rods of ceramic or stainless steel, and install them inside of ALL newly-manufactured bullets."

More…

Science Daily is documenting that Zhiyu Hu and associates, researchers at ORNL has developed a method for binding platinum nanoparticles to glass wool fibers that will enable a nano-catalytic reaction (aren't *all* catalytic reactions "nano-" by definition?) to allow self-combustion of methanol at temperatures ranging from room temperature to 600 deg. C.

A number of sources are reporting (here, here & here) that a group lead by Prof. Massood Tahib-Azar at Case Western Reserve University has developed faster and cheaper methods for growing (and welding?) carbon nanotubes potentially for the purpose of wiring shrinking Microelectronic circuits.

The only problem I see is that although it is widely reported, there appear to be few details on the method(s) other than the fact that they are "growing" the nanotubes from "seeds". In that respect it sounds similar to the methods used to grow silicon nanobridges which were previously discussed on Nanodot.

Nanobreakthrough or nanohype?

Azonano is pointing out here the award of a series of the 2005 NanoVic prizes for innovative nanoscale research in a variety of areas in Australia. These include such areas as surface treatments for wood products, textile applications and solar cell engineering.

They also discuss the NanoSolve^TM additive developed by Zyvex that uses carbon nanotubes for the engineering of stronger epoxy composites as well as a number of other developments in various aspects of nanotechnology R&D.

Betterhmans is reporting on progress of scientists at USC in combining several nanoscale technologies (transferrin based transport vehicles with small interfering RNA segments (siRNAs)) to effectively combat cancer, in this case Ewing's sarcoma, a type of cancer which impacts children. Interfering RNAs are small RNA strands which preferentially bind to complementary messenger RNA (mRNA). This activates cellular processes, presumably evolved to defend against double stranded RNA viruses, that destroy the double stranded RNA effectively reducing or eliminating the activity of the protein normally produced by the specific mRNA targeted by the siRNA.

The article with links to background information is here. There is significant potential for using this type of therapy to combat other types of cancer where the overexpression of a specific gene or protein is the primary cause of the disease.

While this is not diamondoid molecular nanotechnology it it can legitimately be considered molecular nanotechnology because it is nanoscale, it is based on precision activity at the nanoscale level and takes advantage of molecular processes and machinery normally found in cells.