Responsible Nanotechnology

Tiny Assembly Lines

From a University of Texas - Dallas press release:

Researchers Drafting Plans for Tiny Assembly Lines

A University of Texas at Dallas team will play a key role in a new $15 million research project designed to enable manufacturing at an almost unimaginably small scale: one atom at a time.

"This breakthrough technology will make it possible to manufacture devices with atomic precision by exploiting our established ability to remove individual hydrogen atoms from a silicon surface using a scanning tunneling microscope," said Robert Wallace, a professor of materials science and engineering in the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science at UT Dallas and a co-principal investigator in the project.

Nanotech TV Series

Two weeks ago, we posted a preview of the new nanotech TV show -- "Nanotechnology: The Power of Small" -- that's coming soon to U.S. public television stations. On Wednesday evening, April 2, the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies and the National Science Foundation will host the Washington, DC, premiere event for the series.

The series’ three programs explore critical questions about nanotechnology’s potential impact on privacy, the environment and human health: Will nanotechnology make you safer, or will it be used to track your every move? Will nanotechnology keep you young, and what happens if you live to be 150? Will nanotechnology help clean up the earth, or will it be the next asbestos?

They've now posted a station locator map (top right corner) that you can use to find out when the show is coming to your area.

To Understand More

Not Necessarily Relevant Quote of the Week:

Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.

— Marie Curie

Feasibility Arguments

Over at Michael Anissimov's Accelerating Future blog, he offers an excellent list of "Feasibility Arguments for Molecular Nanotechnology," with this introduction:

Perhaps you’ve heard of MEMS, microelectromechanical systems, a field being invested in heavily by governments and corporations. In MEMS, the components are usually between 10 and 100 microns in size. Using MEMS, you can build gear systems smaller than a dust mite. The military is looking into MEMS to build spy-bots the size of the smallest bugs.

Beyond MEMS there is NEMS, nanoelectromechanical systems, an area scientists and engineers are just beginning to investigate. NEMS are about a 1000 times smaller than MEMS, with components between 10 and 100 nanometers in size. With NEMS, you could build a complex machine the size of a red blood cell or smaller. Transhumanists hope to use NEMS to improve our health and expand our sensory and motor capabilities.

The Holy Grail of nanotechnology is designing a NEMS that can build other NEMS. This goal has been called molecular nanotechnology (MNT), and it is a topic of controversy within the nanotechnology community. Some futurists and scientists believe MNT is impossible, while others consider it very likely.

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Playing Climate War Games

U.S. foreign affairs and military experts will stage a war game this summer to study and highlight the national security threats posed by global warming.

The exercise, being staged by a coalition of seven think tanks and other non-profits called the Climate Change Consortium, [will] be held in Washington July 27-28 and [will] be the first of two. The second, slated for fall, will be focused on Africa.

"The security ramifications of climate change will affect both the developed and the developing world," said John Podesta, president of the Center for American Progress, a member group of the consortium. "This unique event will challenge participants to confront both the domestic and international security challenges of climate change."

Participants in the game, 40 of them, from the United States, Asia and Europe, will "provide a wide range of perspectives," said the statement, adding the scenario would be based on the recent report, "The Age of Consequences: the Foreign Policy and National Security Implications of Global Climate Change."

Led by the Center for a New American Security, the consortium includes the Center for American Progress, the Heinrich Boll Foundation, the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and Brookings Global Economy and Development.

(Hat tip to Steve Clemons at The Washington Note)

This is an interesting and important project. We're concerned, however, that the planned exercises may not take into account the potentially significant impacts -- both positive and negative -- of emerging technologies, especially molecular manufacturing. If they use today's technology level as a baseline, or even if they project a linear direction of tech development, they are likely to critically limit the value of their outcomes.

CRN urges group members to review the nanotechnology scenario series developed last year by our Global Task Force on Implications and Policy. These eight future projections, most of which include climate change as a key element, would help to inform participants in this war game exercise.

Mike Treder

Space Flight 'Sports Car'

Found on NewScientist:

A sleek craft that may be the first "sports car" of commercial spaceflight was unveiled on Wednesday, in Mojave, California, USA. It is designed to be able to travel to the edge of space and back several times a day.

While Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo will carry eight people, making it more of a space minivan, the Lynx Mark I is only a two-seater and smaller than a private jet.

US Company Xcor Aerospace revealed its plans for the new rocketplane at the company's headquarters, on the edge of the tarmac of the US's first certified private spaceport. SpaceShipTwo is under development just next door.

Xcor say Lynx Mark I will start flights two years from now.

Very, very cool. But I doubt I could afford the ticket price.

Mike Treder

Disruptive Nanotechnology

A California newspaper, Palo Alto Weekly, has a cover story today on nanotechnology.

Scientist Cheri Pereira stood in a lab at Palo Alto-based Nanosys and held up a glass beaker with a half-inch of gold-tinged liquid at the bottom. That half-inch contained around a billion nanowires, she said. . .

"Nano" is a prefix meaning one billionth. Nanotechnology is the science of working with substances around one to one hundred-billionths of a meter in size. It could help cure cancer, make better clean-energy batteries and create computers with nearly unlimited memory, researchers say. . .

Some predict the nano-revolution will dwarf the computer revolution in its scope.

Radical Prosthetic Implants

An article in Scientific American titled "Scientists Set Sights on an Implantable Prosthetic for the Blind" tells about a Boston neuroscientist who is "developing a device that may someday help the blind by sending images directly to the brain."

That's an extraordinary advance, and seems certain to be just the first step toward near-miraculous prosthetic implants that someday soon not only will allow the blind to see, but could restore healthy function to all manner of disabled people.

For example, implantable deep brain stimulation (DBS) approaches already are being used successfully to treat chronic debilitating depression, as well as Parkinson's disease and other movement disorders.

Travel and Appearances

Here is where I will be going over the next several months...

April 11: Environmental Law and Policy Annual Review Conference, Washington DC

• I've been invited to attend this event as an audience member on behalf of CRN with the opportunity to ask questions and participate in dialogue. The morning session will focus on "A Framework Convention for Nanotechnology." This is an invitation-only affair, but the good news is that you can invite yourself. See this page for more information.

July 17-20: Conference on Global Catastrophic Risks, Oxford, UK

• This event, organized by the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University, is built around a new book composed of essays on the full range of global catastrophic risks. Chris Phoenix and I co-authored a chapter on advanced nanotechnology for the book, and we will make a joint presentation at the conference on the subject of "Small Machines, Big Choices: The Looming Impacts of Molecular Manufacturing."

July 26-28: WorldFuture 2008, Washington DC

• The annual conference of the World Future Society, where I have made presentations twice before, in 2005 and 2007. My talk this year, scheduled for 11:00 am to 12:00 pm on Sunday, July 27, will be on "Radical Technologies, Rapid Change, and the Real World." You can download the preliminary conference program here [PDF].

September 3-5: Basque Country Program on Globalization, San Sebastian, Spain

• This is an annual event sponsored by the Basque Savings Bank Federation. In previous years they have covered the digital revolution, sustainable development, demographic evolution, climate change, and other issues. For this year's conference, I've been asked to give a lecture "broadly focused on globalization and nanotechnology."

If you are able to attend any of these events, I look forward to seeing you there!

Mike Treder

Tags: nanotechnology nanotech nano science technology ethics

The Other Half

China is often depicted by the traditional media as a nation with a booming economy, a thriving middle class, and an unlimited future. We're led to expect that it soon will become the world's unchallenged economic and geopolitical superpower.

But there is another side to that narrative, a story of how the other half lives, those many millions who are caught up in the turbulent backwash of industrial and commercial growth. A few days ago, I had the opportunity to see a small masterpiece of a movie called Ling yi ban ("The Other Half") at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.