Nanowerk brings our attention to a new report by the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress titled Nanotechnology: The Future is Coming Sooner Than You Think (pdf), apparently authored by Senior Economist Joseph V. Kennedy and sponsored by Rep. Jim Saxton (R-NJ). On molecular nanosystems: At this stage a single product will integrate a [...]

For many years we’ve been asked, “How will molecular machines be controlled inside the body?” In a nanotechnology advance that is getting wide attention, University of Tokyo researchers have found a way to build molecular-scale scissors — only 3 nanometers long — and control them with light. As explained at Physorg.com: Researchers in Japan have [...]

In The Examiner, An Army of Davids author Prof. Glenn Reynolds makes nanotechnology one of his four technologies that deserve speeding up: Nanotechnology — a technology for making and engineering things on the molecular scale — is already a force in many areas, but at the moment it’s mostly a source of high strength materials, [...]

Work at Purdue and The Catholic University of America has clarified how a natural nanotechnology motor works to “pump” DNA into the head of a virus. From Small Times: The virus consists of a head and tail portion. The DNA-packaging motor is located in the same place where the tail eventually connects to the head. [...]

Foresight members have long been interested in physical/mechanical control of the positions and reactivity of molecules, as a pathway to advanced molecular nanotechnology and atomically-precise contruction of large products. This connection is described on Wikipedia in the mechanochemistry entry. Now at team at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign led by chemistry prof Jeffrey Moore has [...]

Tom Moore has set up the Machine Phase blog to chronicle his nanotechnology adventures designing molecular machines using the NanoEngineer-1 software from Nanorex. Read the whole thing starting on March 3 in the archives. Some of the images are still shots; others turn into animations when you click on them. It’s quite impressive considering that [...]

Finally, some decent swag for us here at Nanodot: We have received a review copy of the Italian book Blow-up: Images from the Nanoworld mentioned here earlier. It lives up to its advertising, being a beautiful collection of nanoscale (and microscale) images by Lucia Covi, including AFM tips, nanodevices, quantum dots, nanowires, DNA, nanotubes, and [...]

Small Times reports that nanotechnology medical applications are expected to climb immensely: U.S. demand for nanotechnology medical products will increase over 17 percent per year to $53 billion in 2011, says The Freedonia Group, Inc., a Cleveland-based industry research firm. Afterwards, the increasing flow of new nanomedicines, nanodiagnostics, and nanotech-based medical supplies and devices into [...]

USA Today covers the challenging but environmentally important issue of making batteries: inefficient, nasty things today that need to get a lot better and cheaper. And they will, with nanotech developed by these two MIT professors: [Prof. Angela] Belcher’s virus-assembled batteries are thin, transparent sheets that look like plastic wrap. They could be used to [...]

Richard Jones brings to our attention an amusing note on which to end the nanotechnology workweek: A pointer to a Technology Review blog in German by Niels Boeing which compares Drexler to Elvis and the UK’s Software Control of Matter project to the Beatles. Roughly translated: It’s intringuingly reminiscent of the history of pop music, [...]

A Yale researcher has won the $25,000 Wiley Prize in the Biomedical Sciences for his discovery of natural molecular machine that guides some proteins to fold properly in the warm, crowded environment inside cells: They learned that a large double donut-shaped machine is responsible. They analyzed how that machine uses the energy of ATP and [...]

A recent study by Yale Law School on how people’s views on nanotechnology change when they learn more information found that people seem to use whatever they are told to reinforce what they expect to hear. See the graph and analysis on this page: There were even more dramatic differences in the reactions of subgroups [...]

Richard Jones and commenters bring our attention to a number of enticing research papers on the use of catalysis and molecular motors to produce movement. One paper mentioned sounds particularly useful: an overview of progress on Synthetic Molecular Motors and Mechanical Machines. From the abstract: The widespread use of controlled molecular-level motion in key natural [...]

Now, kids around the world can benefit from the nanoeducational prowess of Singapore. (Or at least rich kids can.) The ever-vigilant website Nanowerk brings word of three Nano-Bio educational kits available for ordering from Singapore. They’re perhaps a bit more bio- than nano-oriented, but whatever gets kids doing science and technology is helpful: One of [...]

A while back I offered to write more about Health and Nanotechnology: Economic, Societal, and Institutional Impact, a report from a conference convened with the cooperation of the U.S. Dept. of State and the European Commission, part of a series called Perspectives on the Future of Science and Technology, which has a ten-year time horizon. [...]

Paul Holister, winner of the 2003 Foresight Prize in Communication, has an upcoming book on nanotechnology and energy to be published by John Wiley. While we wait for that, we can read this interview at InvestorIdeas.com. Excerpt: At the other extreme of nanotech impact, you have solar energy. We are children in this area, and [...]

Environmental Defense and DuPont are pleased to announce the public release of a DRAFT version of their Nano Risk Framework — a framework for the responsible development, production, use and disposal of nanoscale materials. They’d appreciate your feedback so that they can make this framework as effective, practical, and useful for as wide an audience [...]

Nanowerk covers a February 2007 report from the U.S. Defense Science Board titled 21st Century Strategic Technology Vectors (pdf). Excerpts: DOD must also keep abreast of the most rapidly changing and emerging technologies as a necessary complement to the mission-driven perspective that is the focus of this report. Today these include bio-, info-, and nano-technologies. [...]

By now we’ve all seen AFM images of individual atoms — in black and white. Why only B&W? Why can’t the AFM show us the atoms in color, having each color indicate a different chemical element, as in our molecular modeling images? Now it can, and at room temperature, not only super-low temps as before. [...]

A recent issue of the useful journal Nanotechnology Law & Business includes a review (pdf) by Daniel Moore of J. Storrs Hall’s book Nanofuture: What’s Next for Nanotechnology. The conclusion: Nanofuture: What’s Next for Nanotechnology will be of interest to those looking for an introduction to the concepts of nanotechnology and molecular manufacturing. It is [...]