Responsible Nanotechnology

(Limited) Nano Futures

We've been asked by the Center for Nanotechnology in Society at Arizona State University to bring your attention to a set of "Nano Futures" prepared by their group. They are seeking feedback and offering the opportunity for users to revise the sketches in a wiki format.

Here is the list of the six "fictional scenes" they have developed:

Engineered Tissues

Using tissue printing technology, this system is able to build tissues with a vascular structure enabling the building of new organs.

What are your thoughts on synthetically grown tissues and organs?    

Living with a Brain Chip

This cranial chip features a data feed that puts information into the brain while the user is resting. 

What are your thoughts on using cranial chips to enhance cognition?

Automated Sewer Surveillance

Ultra fast sequencing technology is used to analyze the DNA in harvested waste water, thus screening large populations.  

What are your thoughts on tracking individuals using their genetic material?

Disease Detector

Doc in the Box is a device that tracks an individuals protein levels to monitor changes that imply early stage illness or disease before symptoms emerge.

What are your thoughts on diagnosing disease before you are ill?

Barless Prison

NanoCage has developed a caged drug that is injected into prisoners that becomes activated by radio control if prisons cross designated boundaries.

What are your thoughts on a barless prison?

Bionic Eyes

Opti-scan is an optical implant that looks and functions like a normal eye, yet has new enhancements enabling magnification, visualizing infra-red, and night vision. 

What are your thoughts on visual enhancement?

The group readily acknowledges that these sketches are "extrapolations from current nanoscale research." In other words, they have made no attempt to include the potential of advanced nanotechnology. Thus, what they have produced is quite different from the more fully developed scenarios prepared by CRN's Global Task Force, all of which look toward the emergence of molecular manufacturing.

Still, it's a good effort and we encourage you to look into what they've done and considering giving your input.

Mike Treder

Snarky Quote of the Month

The possibility of $150-$200 per barrel seems increasingly likely over the next six-24 months...

That would mean gasoline prices of $5 to $6 a gallon. Unless of course we permanently suspend the gasoline tax, in which case gasoline prices would only be $5 to $6 a gallon...

...says Joe Romm (hilariously).

The possibility of $150-$200 per barrel seems increasingly likely over the next six-24 months...

That would mean gasoline prices of $5 to $6 a gallon. Unless of course we permanently suspend the gasoline tax, in which case gasoline prices would only be $5 to $6 a gallon...

...says Joe Romm (hilariously).

The possibility of $150-$200 per barrel seems increasingly likely over the next six-24 months...

That would mean gasoline prices of $5 to $6 a gallon. Unless of course we permanently suspend the gasoline tax, in which case gasoline prices would only be $5 to $6 a gallon...

...says Joe Romm (hilariously).

Simple Philosophy

Not Necessarily Relevant Quote of the Week:

I have a simple philosophy: Fill what’s empty. Empty what’s full. Scratch where it itches.

— Alice Roosevelt Longworth

Not Necessarily Relevant Quote of the Week:

I have a simple philosophy: Fill what’s empty. Empty what’s full. Scratch where it itches.

— Alice Roosevelt Longworth

Media Warming Confusion

You may already have seen some of these misleading headlines:

The UK Telegraph says, “Global warming may 'stop', scientists predict” — “… Researchers studying long-term changes in sea temperatures said they now expect a ‘lull’ for up to a decade.”

National Geographic News blares, “Cooler Climate May Hit N. America, Europe Next Decade.”

The New York Times wonders, “Can Climate Campaigns Withstand a Cooling Test?” and says that the Nature study forecast “some Northern Hemisphere cooling in the coming decade.”

Unfortunately, that's not the real story. Those headlines misreport what the cited studies -- and the scientists who performed them -- actually said.

For an explanation, we'll turn to environmental scientist Joseph Romm, author of the Climate Progress blog:

None of these headlines accurately portray what the data presented actually says. Let’s look at the paper’s key figure, the one that looks at past and (forecast) future global temperatures:

[click image to enlarge]

Let me try to explain this complicated figure.

The first thing to know — indeed, one major source of confusion — is that “each point represents a ten-year centred mean.” That is, each point represents the average temperature of the decade starting 5 years before that point and ending 5 years after that point.

Second, the red line is the actual global temperature data from the UK’s Hadley Center for Climate Prediction and Research. Why does the red line stop in 1998 and not 2007? Again, it is a running 10-year mean, and the authors use data from a Hadley paper that ends around 2003 (I believe), so they can’t do a ten-year centered mean after 1998.

Third, the black line is one of the IPCC scenarios, A1B. It is a relatively high-CO2-growth model — but actual carbon emissions since 2000 have wildly outpaced it (see here).

Fourth, the solid green line is the “hindcast” of the authors — how well their model compares to actual data (and the A1B scenario). It is then extended (in dashes) through 2010 and finally to 2025, where it meets up with A1B, since their model only imposes decadal variability on the inexorable climb of human-caused global warming.

Fifth, the short purple line is with radiative forcing (i.e greenhouse gas concentrations) frozen at 2000 levels, which, of course, didn’t happen.

So you can clearly see that the green line rises and then plateaus, repeatedly, until it really starts to take off in the decade of the 2010s. Perhaps the source of much of the media’s confusion is that the authors describe their results in the final line of the abstract this way:

Our results suggest that global surface temperature may not increase over the next decade, as natural climate variations in the North Atlantic and tropical Pacific temporarily offset the projected anthropogenic warming.

But what they mean by that statement is not what a simple reading of that sentence would suggest:  They do not mean that “the global surface temperature may not increase over the next ten years starting now.” What they mean is what the lead author, Dr. Noel Keenlyside, wrote me last night when I asked for a clarification:

Thus, based on our results we don’t expect an increase in the mean temperature of the next decade (2005-2015).

They are predicting no increase in average temperature of the “next decade” (2005 to 2015) over the previous decade, which, for them, is 2000 to 2010! And that’s in fact precisely what the figure shows — that the 10-year mean global temperature centered around 2010 is the roughly the same as the mean global temperature centered around 2005.

The authors have not predicted the next 10 years won’t see any warming...

I recommend you read Romm's whole article if you want to really understand what the data means.

Mike Treder

Horizon Scanning

Lloyd's is the world's largest insurance marketer, providing specialist insurance services to businesses in over 200 countries and territories. A few weeks ago, Lloyd's News Centre reported on a new list of "25 alarming threats to the ecosystem identified by UK environmental scientists and policymakers." (Hat tip to Nanotechnology Now.)

The list, which is the result of an exercise called horizon scanning, also points to hazards associated with climate change such as coastal flooding, increased fire risk, and the growing demand for biofuels and biomass.

Published online in the British Ecological Society's Journal of Applied Ecology, the list came out of a two-day meeting held in Cambridge involving 35 representatives from government, environmental NGOs and academia.

And what do you suppose was the #1 Risk identified by this horizon scanning exercise?

The 25 Threats Identified by Horizon Scanning

1. Nanotechnologies
2. Invasive potential and possible ecosystem impacts of artificial life and biomimetic robots
3. Unintended consequences of pathogens developed by modern biotechnology methods
4. Direct impact of novel pathogens
5. Impacts of control efforts for novel pathogens
6. Facilitation of non-native invasive species through climate change
7. Large-scale restoration for iconic wildlife and habitats
8. Action to facilitate species range change in the face of climate change
9. Frequency of extreme weather events
10. Geo-engineering the planet to mitigate the effects of climate change
11. Implications for biodiversity of the adoption of an ecosystem approach
12. Increased fire risk
13. Increasing demand for biofuel and biomass
14. Step change in demand for food and hence pressure on land for agriculture
15. Ocean acidification
16. Reduction of coldwater continental shelf marine habitats
17. Significant increase in coastal and offshore power generation
18. Extreme high-water coastal events
19. Sea level rise resulting in loss of coastal and intertidal habitats
20. Dramatic changes in freshwater flows
21. Nature conservation policy and practice may not keep pace with environmental change
22. Internet and new e-technologies connect people with information on the environment
23. Decline in engagement with nature
24. Adoption of monetary value as the key criterion in conservation decision-making
25. Public antagonism towards wildlife due to perceived human health threat

Of course, 'nanotechnologies' is a big category, which can include both current threats such as environmental and health risks from nanoparticle exposure, in addition to longer-term risks associated with advanced nanotechnology.

Trevor Maynard, Manager of Emerging Risks at Lloyd’s, says:

“The list produced by the horizon scanning exercise was interesting because it contained threats with obvious implications for insurers – such as an increase in extreme weather events. But it also produced other threats with less obvious implications. For example, the introduction by companies of invasive plant species to meet demands for biofuels and whether any liability issues might arise as a consequence.”

Maynard thinks that the list also poses important questions related to liability and insurability. “The risks attached to geo-engineering – fertilising the oceans to encourage plankton growth and increase the size of the carbon sink, for example – are huge.”

We're pleased to see that many of the concerns expressed by CRN since our founding five years ago seem to be making inroads into conversations at high levels.

(Incidentally, this is not the first time we have talked about horizon scanning here. In fact, we took part last year in a two-hour interview as part of a project supported by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.)

Mike Treder

Risk Delight

Not Necessarily Relevant Quote of the Week:

We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure
but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have
the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless
furnace of this world.

— Jack Gilbert

Geoengineering: Go slow! Carbon reduction: Hurry!

Environmental scientist Joseph Romm, on his Climate Progress blog, tells us that...

...all our dawdling on climate action this decade is having real impact on the atmosphere:

• Concentrations of CO2 jumped 2.4 ppm in 2007, taking us to 385 ppm (preindustrial levels hovered around 280 through 1850).
• That is an increase of 0.6% (or 19 billion tons). If we stay at that growth rate, we’ll be at 465 ppm by 2050 — and that assumes (improbably) that the various carbon sinks don’t keep saturating (see here and here).
• Levels of methane (a far more potent greenhouse gas than CO2) rose last year for the first time since 1998, perhaps an early indication of thawing permafrost.

In Australia, the Sydney Morning Herald describes the unwelcome news with this headline:

Carbon output goes off the chart

In its annual index of greenhouse gas emissions, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) found atmospheric carbon dioxide, the primary driver of global climate change, rose 0.6 per cent, or 19 billion tonnes, last year.

What do they mean by "off the chart"?

First, we can look at this graph (below) from the NOAA, which shows the continuing rise in global carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations. The red line shows the trend together with seasonal variations. The black line indicates the trend that emerges when the seasonal cycle has been removed.

[Click image to enlarge]

But an even more striking way to look at the evidence is to compare today's atmospheric CO2 levels with levels from the last 420,000 years:

Note that the chart above was produced in 1999, and shows modern CO2 levels at less than 300 parts per million (ppm). If you extended the red line to our current level of about 385 ppm, then it truly would be "off the chart."

The alarming correlation with global average temperatures (gold line) suggests that we likely will experience highly dangerous warming conditions over the next several decades -- indeed, unprecedented over the previous half-billion years -- leading to extreme climate chaos.

So, what can be done?

Is geoengineering part of the solution? Should we start making plans, for example, to inject massive amounts of sulphates into the atmosphere to simulate the effects of numerous volcanic eruptions, thereby creating a cooling effect?

No, probably not...

Pumping tiny sulphate particles into the atmosphere to create a sunshield that would keep the planet cool was first suggested as a solution to global warming by Edward Teller, a physicist was best known for his involvement in the development of the hydrogen bomb.

Simone Tilmes of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, US, used computer models to see how a sulphate sunshade would affect the ozone layer, which protects us from harmful UV rays. She says it could have "a drastic impact".

An article from Cosmos magazine reports it this way:

A plan to inject sulphate aerosols into the stratosphere, as a quick fix to counteract global warming, may drastically increase Arctic ozone depletion and slow the recovery of the Antarctic ozone hole, researchers warn. . .

One scheme proposes that the sulphate aerosols could be used to whiten clouds and cool the planet. The idea is based around a cooling effect detected after the 1991 eruption of Mt. Pinatubo, a Filipino volcano that pumped sulphates into the atmosphere.

To probe the idea further, researchers in Germany and the U.S., led by Simone Tilmes at the National Centre for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, analysed atmospheric data following the eruption. But what they found suggested that the sulphates would also react with chlorine in the cold conditions of the Arctic and Antarctic to deplete atmospheric ozone.

The Cosmos article also says:

A number of 'geoengineering' schemes have been proposed in recent years as possible ways for us to deflect the Sun's heat or reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Examples include positioning giant mirrors in orbit around the Earth in order to deflect sunlight, seeding clouds with seawater to increase their whiteness and therefore reflectivity, and 'ocean fertilisation', whereby algal blooms are stimulated to encourage the capture of CO2 from the atmosphere.

None of these plans have been proven on a large scale, and most are infeasible due to high costs or potentially dangerous side effects.

As we have stated before, CRN believes that some geoengineering approaches may have merit, but that they should be studied in great detail before being attempted, and that they should be modeled extensively and, if possible, trial tested. The risk of unanticipated consequences is just too great for us to act precipitously.

Jamais Cascio, CRN's Global Futures Strategist, puts it this way:

Should geoengineering be required, it should be done as carefully and as reversibly as possible. More research into geoengineering is especially important in order to know what not to do.

If climate disaster hits faster and harder than anticipated, desperate people will try desperate measures, including geoengineering. We need to be able to identify the choices that won't just make things worse.

Is all this gloomy enough for you?

We have a serious problem on our hands, and the cure might turn out worse than the disease.

But just to pile things on even more, check this recent news about a stunning climate feedback: Beetle tree kills release more carbon than fires. From Joe Romm:

New reseach published in the journal Nature, “Mountain pine beetle and forest carbon feedback to climate change,” quantifies the current and future impact just from the beetle’s warming-driven devastation in British Columbia:

...the cumulative impact of the beetle outbreak in the affected region during 2000–2020 will be 270 megatonnes carbon... This impact converted the forest from a small net carbon sink to a large net carbon source.

[Picture shows forests turned red by beetle.]

No wonder the carbon sinks are saturating faster than we thought (see here) — unmodeled impacts of climate change are destroying them:

Insect outbreaks such as this represent an important mechanism by which climate change may undermine the ability of northern forests to take up and store atmospheric carbon, and such impacts should be accounted for in large-scale modelling analyses.

This sounds like something from the plot of an apocalyptic eco-disaster novel. Unfortunately, it's not fiction, but fact.

What can we do instead?

If it wasn't before, it should be abundantly clear by now that we need to mount an aggressive, Apollo-like program to convert as much energy production as possible from fossil fuels to clean, renewable sources.

CRN favors deep investments in wind, solar, tidal, wave, and geothermal energy infrastructures. One often overlooked part of the solution is concentrated solar thermal power, and new generations of nuclear energy production should be considered as well.

What we must not do is sit around and wait and debate and delay while CO2 levels grow past the 400 ppm mark over the next eight years. They are going to grow to that level and beyond no matter what we do, of course, but our best hope to stop the increase and keep them below 450 ppm is to get working immediately.

We -- and by that I mean the whole world, but especially the United States -- should have started in earnest long ago. But now, we can't afford to wait any longer.

Mike Treder

Open Source Nanoscience

In an essay on "Our Biotech Future," Freeman Dyson writes:

The domestication of biotechnology in everyday life may also be helpful in solving practical economic and environmental problems. Once a new generation of children has grown up, as familiar with biotech games as our grandchildren are now with computer games, biotechnology will no longer seem weird and alien. In the era of Open Source biology, the magic of genes will be available to anyone with the skill and imagination to use it. The way will be open for biotechnology to move into the mainstream of economic development, to help us solve some of our urgent social problems and ameliorate the human condition all over the earth. Open Source biology could be a powerful tool, giving us access to cheap and abundant solar energy.

What is interesting is that we could easily substitute 'nanotech' for 'biotech' in the above paragraph and give it just as much meaning. Take a look:

The domestication of nanotechnology in everyday life may also be helpful in solving practical economic and environmental problems. Once a new generation of children has grown up, as familiar with nanotech games as our grandchildren are now with computer games, nanotechnology will no longer seem weird and alien. In the era of Open Source nanoscience, the magic of molecular manufacturing will be available to anyone with the skill and imagination to use it. The way will be open for nanofactories to move into the mainstream of economic development, to help us solve some of our urgent social problems and ameliorate the human condition all over the earth. Open Source nanoscience could be a powerful tool, giving us access to cheap and abundant solar energy.

In fact, I'd previously written something quite similar about the "domestication" of nanofactories:

Product design will be made simple by CAD (computer aided design) programs—so simple that a child can do it—and that’s no exaggeration. New product prototypes can be created, tested, and refined in a matter of hours instead of months. No special expertise is needed. Just imagination, curiosity, and the desire to create.

To maximize the latent innovation potential in nanofactory proliferation, and to prevent illicit, unwise, or malicious product design and manufacture, CRN recommends that designers work (and play) with modular "nanoblocks" of various sizes and composition to create products. When combined with automated verification of design safety and protection of intellectual property, this will open up huge new areas for originality and improvement while maintaining safety and commercial viability.

Working with nanoblocks, designers of all ages, nations, and backgrounds can create to their hearts’ content. The combination of user-friendly CAD and rapid prototyping will result in a spectacular synergy, enabling unprecedented levels of innovation and development. Among the many remarkable benefits accruing to humanity from nanofactory proliferation will be this unleashing of millions of eager new minds, allowed for the first time to freely explore and express their brilliant creative energy.

So it appears that we and Dyson are thinking along the same lines, expecting bright futures for these powerful new technologies as they cross the threshold from laboratory to general use.

But still, questions must be raised. Can this be done safely and responsibly?

This is from another part of Dyson's essay:

If domestication of biotechnology is the wave of the future, five important questions need to be answered. First, can it be stopped? Second, ought it to be stopped? Third, if stopping it is either impossible or undesirable, what are the appropriate limits that our society must impose on it? Fourth, how should the limits be decided? Fifth, how should the limits be enforced, nationally and internationally? I do not attempt to answer these questions here. I leave it to our children and grandchildren to supply the answers.

How soon, then, should we begin the process of answering these questions? And in comparing nanotech and biotech, is either more urgent to address than the other?

CRN would contend, of course, that rapid progress being made toward molecular manufacturing makes it imperative that we find answers to many important questions, and that we do it soon -- before the technology catches us unprepared. Especially since the game-changing shift from a pre-nanofactory world to a nanofactory-enabled world could turn out to be sudden, swift, and wrenchingly transformative.

Others might well say the same about biotech and be equally correct. The point is that the future is rushing toward us -- or we toward it -- as though we're driving extremely fast on an unmarked road in the dark with no signs or markers to follow.

Where are we going?

Mike Treder

Distant Futurity

Not Necessarily Relevant Quote of the Week:

Judging from the past, we may safely infer that no living species will transmit its unaltered likeness to a distant futurity. And of the species now living very few will transmit progeny of any kind to a far distant futurity.

— Charles Darwin

Doing the Impossible

IMPOSSIBLE! Preposterous! These words are often thrown about when people declare certain things to be scientifically ridiculous.

Aliens cannot reach the Earth in spaceships, they proclaim, because the distance between stars is too great. Telepathy is impossible since the brain does not emit or receive messages. And it's impossible to instantaneously transport an object from A to B because you cannot know the location and momentum of all its atoms -- teleportation would violate the Heisenberg uncertainty principle.

Yet if you carefully analyse these examples, you realise that they are merely impossible today or in the near future. The real question is, are they impossible with technologies that lie decades, centuries or even millennia beyond ours? Perhaps these "impossibilities" are merely very difficult engineering problems.

So says Michio Kaku, the renowned physicist who was one of the developers of string field theory, in a New Scientist article titled "Impossible physics: Never say never." Kaku then reminds us of Arthur C. Clarke's famous admonition that "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

An accompanying article by Michael Marshall lists ten things "that were once thought scientifically impossible," including heavier-than-air flight, harnessing nuclear energy, space flight, black holes, and many more.

A couple of months ago on this blog, we wrote about a new three-part BBC TV special in which "Michio Kaku explores the cutting edge science of today, tomorrow, and beyond."

In Part 3 of that series, Kaku asserts that we are "on the brink of a revolution which will give us control -- exquisite control -- of our physical world." He says:

Today we can manipulate individual atoms, but this is just the beginning of a journey -- a journey which will ultimately give us the power to manipulate the very stuff of our universe: matter itself.

And later in that program Kaku spends several minutes describing the near-certain and near-future development of personal fabricators, also known as desktop nanofactories.

Impossible? Preposterous? Scientifically ridiculous?

These words were often thrown about just a few years ago by people denying the claims of those who had spent many years studying the physics, chemistry, and engineering concepts behind advanced nanotechnology and molecular manufacturing.

But perceptions can change quickly when science advances rapidly.

And today, what was declared impossible not long ago is starting to enter the mainstream of scientific thought. Broad public acceptance may not be far away. Soon after that, we hope, serious discussions of the many implications of this transformative new technology will take place at the highest levels of governance and at the grassroots as well.

Mike Treder