Forbes’ 2006 Top 5 nanotechnology breakthroughs

Forbes announces its top five nanotechnology breakthroughs for 2006, and we’re not surprised to see the winner of this year’s Foresight Institute Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology listed as #1:

1. DNA origami, at Caltech
2. Nanomagnets to clean up drinking water, at Rice
3. Arrays connect nanowire transistors with neurons, at Harvard
4. Single nanotube electrical circuits, at IBM Watson, U. Florida, and Columbia
5. Nanoparticles destroy prostate cancer, at MIT, BWH, Harvard, U. Illinois, Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology (S. Korea), and Dana Farber Cancer Institute

Good to see these near-term nanotech advances. The more near-term success, the more interest the field will get, including in the more dramatic longer-term prospect of atomically-precise manufacturing. —Christine