Foresight Update 23.14: Quantum computers via molecular machines - April 2, 2009
Discuss these news stories at http://foresight.org/nanodot.
Top News of the Week
A major advance in molecular machine fabrication allows the construction of rotaxane molecular shuttles in which organic and inorganic components are mechanically linked in the same molecular structure. The varied electronic configurations of inorganic elements can therefore contribute a variety of electronic, magnetic, and catalytic properties to these molecular machines, opening the way, for example, to developing faster nanotech computers…
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A conference organized by faculty at California Polytechnic State University, Dartmouth College, the University of Delaware, and Western Michigan University will tackle what they claim is "the single most important issue in science & society in this century." …
…The Futurist believes nanotech, of the near-term applications-oriented kind, is about ready to pick up again. Worth a look.
…Will "real" AI be constrained by the processing power available, and slowly come into being as allowed by Moore's Law? Moravec imagines the course of robotics over the next decades recapitulating the evolution of humans, in similar stages. Or will the discovery of the "secret sauce" of AI burst upon a world where the processing power to run a human is cheap and plentiful, collapsing a catastrophe theory-like overhang? …
…Drs. Erik Winfree and Paul W.K. Rothemund, have extended the scaffolded DNA origami technique invented by Rothemund to use the DNA origami structures as seeds to program the construction of nanotech structures up to 100 times larger…
Everybody knows that the world is running out of oil. The predicted year of the peak varies from 2000 to 2100, but it is generally conceded that it won't last forever. Of course, economists know that when you have a scarce resource, it doesn't just suddenly run out: the price rises, more expensive sources or substitutes come into play, and so forth…
—Nanodot posts by James Lewis and J. Storrs Hall
Foresight Events – Lectures
Foresight Lectures
May 28-29, 2009
1st Annual Center for Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence Symposium
Palo Alto, California
Christine Peterson will speak on beneficial medical nanotechnologies.
Click here for conference details
June 17-18, 2009
Size Matters 2009: the future fields of application, opportunities and ethical challenges of nanoscience
Saarbrücken, Germany
Christine Peterson will speak on Nanotechnology & Open Source Sensing.
Click here for conference details
Advancements in technologies such as nanotech, robotics, and biotech are promising to make major differences in our lives in the not-too-distant future, as the Industrial Revolution did to the agrarian world — to do for the physical world what the computer and Internet have done to the world of information.
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