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Archive for June, 2010

Today’s nanotech lets $400 camera see cancer cells

Posted by Christine Peterson on June 29th, 2010

Frequent Nanodot readers know that our main interest is longer-term nanotech, but sometimes what’s happening today gets pretty exciting as well.  A quick summary  of recent advances in nanotech used to fight cancer appears in a Computerworld piece by Sharon Gaudin; some excerpts: Rice University said yesterday that when the nanoparticles deliver dye to the cell, [...]

Finally: all nanotech degree programs listed on one site

Posted by Christine Peterson on June 28th, 2010

For years we’ve watched academic degree programs in nanotechnology being announced piecemeal, or in partial lists.  Now it looks like Nanowerk has stepped up to the task of keeping a complete list, sorted by level of degree and country.  See it here: http://www.nanowerk.com/nanotechnology/nanotechnology_degrees.php A handy chart allows users to click through to see all the [...]

Top-down nanotech marching downwards (in a good way)

Posted by Christine Peterson on June 24th, 2010

Nanowerk brings us news of advances at Singapore’s Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology: Researchers at the Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (IBN) in Singapore have now successfully demonstrated, for the first time, a lithography-free, direct-write technique for fabricating discrete field-effect transistors, as well as digital logic gates on a single nanowire… “Our single-step fabrication technique obviates [...]

Webcast and comment online to President’s Council on nanotech

Posted by Christine Peterson on June 22nd, 2010

Tihamer Toth-Fejel let us know that the public can comment online today, right now, our views on nanotech: http://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/eop/ostp/pcast President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) President’s Innovation and Technology Advisory Committee (PITAC) Golden Triangle1 Workshop 1 Golden Triangle: Research Encompassing Information Technology — Biotechnology — Nanotechnology. June 22, 2010 Webcast at: http://www.tvworldwide.com/events/pcast/100622/ Goal [...]

Open Science Summit to be streamed live

Posted by Christine Peterson on June 21st, 2010

Not able to attend the Open Science Summit on July 29-31 in Berkeley, California? We’ll miss you, but you can watch the conference live at: http://fora.tv/live/open_science/open_science_summit_2010 Put it on your calendar now!  Or we’ll hope to see you in person, especially for the session where I’m speaking: “Safety and Security Concerns, Open Source Biodefense” at [...]

New open-access nanotechnology journal from Beilstein

Posted by Christine Peterson on June 18th, 2010

Those of you with a background in organic chemistry will recognize the venerable name of Beilstein, originally a handbook of organic chemistry which evolved into a database, later combined with Gmelin inorganic data to form the Crossfire database. So the Beilstein brand is a powerful one in chemistry.  Nanowerk brings to our attention that Beilstein [...]

Join us at Singularity Summit, Aug. 14-15 on intelligence augmentation

Posted by Christine Peterson on June 16th, 2010

Many Foresight leaders and members will be gathering at this year’s Singularity Summit in San Francisco, expected to draw up to 1100 participants.  It’s a bit pricey, but it’s for a good cause and there are student and referral discounts plus discounts on the hotel rooms.  I can testify that this is a fun and [...]

Singularity University in the New York Times

Posted by Christine Peterson on June 15th, 2010

Our friends over at Singularity University are described in some detail in a long article in the New York Times.  An excerpt, with names familiar to Nanodot readers as speakers at Foresight conferences: Some of Silicon Valley’s smartest and wealthiest people have embraced the Singularity. They believe that technology may be the only way to [...]

H+ Summit “Rise of the Citizen Scientist” at Harvard

Posted by Christine Peterson on June 9th, 2010

If you can’t make it to Harvard this weekend, June 12-13, you’ll want to catch the live webcast of the H+ Summit: “Rise of the Citizen Scientist”.  No link yet, but presumably they’ll be putting it on the event homepage before it starts.  Also presumably they will post the videos somewhere for longer-term viewing. UPDATE: [...]

Nanotech = Hot job of 2018, says Wall Street Journal

Posted by Christine Peterson on June 7th, 2010

Here at Foresight, we’re always trying to help those looking to move their careers in the direction of nanotechnology. Now the Wall Street Journal is predicting that this should pay off: Kelley McDonald has always loved exploring new terrain. In home videos as early as age 3, “I’m always off by myself, looking under rocks [...]

Seeman, Eigler to share $1 million Kavli nano prize

Posted by Christine Peterson on June 4th, 2010

Foresight Feynman Prize winner Nadrian Seeman will share the $1 million Kavli Prize in nanoscience with IBM’s Don Eigler.  From the SciAm blog by Katie Moisse: Donald Eigler from IBM’s Almaden Research Center in San Jose, Calif., and Nadrian Seeman from New York University will jointly accept the nanoscience prize for illuminating the basic units of [...]

Zyvex founder Jim Von Ehr: “Rudimentary molecular manufacturing by 2020″

Posted by Christine Peterson on June 3rd, 2010

Sander Olson interviewed Jim Von Ehr of Zyvex for the website NextBigFuture.com by Brian Wang.  Here’s an excerpt: We are confident that we will be able to create simple, blocklike objects within the next five years. From that point, capabilities should grow fairly rapidly. Once simple block objects are created, we can programmably assemble them [...]

Vote and comment on IMM/Foresight statement to President’s Council

Posted by Christine Peterson on June 1st, 2010

The U.S. President’s Council on Advisors on Science and Technology requested public input on a number of manufacturing topics including “molecular-level, atomically precise production.” Foresight joined with our sister organization IMM to produce a statement on Atomically Precise Manufacturing, now posted on the OpenPCAST site, with public voting and commenting still continuing, so join in the [...]