Responsible Nanotechnology

Network Activity Coordinator

We are pleased to announce the appointment of Martin Coppa to the position of CRN Network Activity Coordinator. In this volunteer role, he will promote opportunities for student research collaborations within educational networks, maintain up-to-date records of C-R-Network membership, and coordinate communication with Network members.

Martin, who lives in San Francisco, is an undergraduate student majoring in chemical engineering. Along with interests in the scientific development of nanotechnology and specifically molecular manufacturing (MM), he is very concerned with the socio-political developments that MM will set in motion. He is committed to assist in any way he can to enable a safe transition into the nano era.

We are excited about the energy and creativity that Martin will bring to his activities with CRN -- Congratulations, and welcome, Martin!

Experiments in Brazil

I considered attending the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil, this year, where I was invited to speak on a panel. It was a tough decision, but I finally decided that the time, expense, and hassle in getting there probably wouldn't be worth it. Maybe next year.

But I'm pleased that one of our favorite thinkers, Lawrence Lessig, whom we have quoted before on this blog, did make the trip. He is reporting his adventures on his own blog, and it's so inspiring that I wanted to pass some of it along.

Referring to an event where Brazilian musician-turned-politician Gilberto Gil gave an impromptu speech, Lessig writes:

Here's a Minister of the government, face to face with supporters, and opponents. He speaks, people protest, and he engages their protest. Passionately and directly, he stands at their level. There is no distance. There is no "free speech zone." Or rather, Brazil is the free speech zone. Gil practices zone rules. . .

I remember reading about Jefferson's complaints about the early White House. Ordinary people would knock on the door, and demand to see the President. Often they did. The presumption of that democracy lives in a sense here. And you never quite see how far from that presumption our democracy has become until you see it, live, here. "This is what democracy looks like." Or at least, a democracy where the leaders can stand packed in the middle of a crowd, with protesters yelling angry criticism yet without "security" silencing the noise. No guns, no men in black uniform, no panic, and plenty of press. Just imagine.

Some other activities Lessig observed:

I visited the Youth Camp at the WSF, where 50,000 tents, and 80,000 kids are participating in WSF events. At the core was a Free Software lab, with about 50 machines, all running GNU/Linux, and constant lessons about how to set the systems up, how do to audio, and video editing, how to participate in free software communities. This was organized totally by the kids who ran it. Machines in shacks, hay on the ground, wires and boxes everywhere.

I got to talk to the organizers of at least one part of the lab for about an hour. JP Barlow and I peppered them with questions as they described their "Thousand points of culture" project -- to build a thousand places around Brazil where free software tools exist for people to make, and remix, culture. The focus is video and audio; no one's much worried about Office applications, or the like. It is an extraordinary, grass roots movement devoted first to an ideal (free software) and second to a practice (making it real).

They have the culture to do it. Again, there were geeks, but not only. There were men, but plenty of women (and lots of kids). They were instructing each other -- some about code, some about culture, some about organizing, some about dealing with the government -- as they built this infrastructure out. Think Woodstock, without the mud, and where the audience makes the music.

As we all know, arguments and conflicts (and lawsuits or worse) over intellectual property rights and patent law will only be exacerbated by exponential general-purpose molecular manufacturing. Imagine being able to make copies of physical products almost as as easily and cheaply as you make copies of computer files!

So the experiments going on now with Open Source, Free Software, and Creative Commons (which Lessig founded) may be important proving grounds for principles that could be applied to make the eventual proliferation of nanofactories less disruptive.

Mike Treder

Cycle of Fear

We've warned before about the prospect of vastly expanded surveillance networks in the near future, particularly if molecular manufacturing is applied. When governments easily can build a network to watch all its citizens all the time, human rights and civil liberties we take for granted may be in jeopardy.

Now the New York Times warns of "Nonstop Scrutiny, as Orwell Foresaw", in its review of Robert O'Harrow Jr.'s new book, No Place to Hide.

One company has come up with a digital identity system that has tagged every adult American with a unique code. Another company is intent on gaining control of all records -- including state and local files, financial information, employee dossiers, DNA data and criminal background checks -- that define our identity. In addition to iris scanners, voice analyzers and fingerprint readers, there now exist face recognition machines and cameras that can identify an individual by how he or she walks. One government group is working on infrared detectors that could register heat signals around people's eyes, indicating an autonomic "fight or flight" response; another federal agency has floated a proposal to assess risk by examining airline passengers' brain waves with "noninvasive neuro-electric sensors."

This surveillance state is not a futuristic place conjured in a Philip K. Dick novel or "Matrix"-esque sci-fi thriller. It is post-9/11 America . . .

No wonder, then, that one scenario described by the U.S. National Intelligence Council, in their "2020 Project" report, is "Cycle of Fear", which:

. . . provides an example of how concerns about proliferation might increase to the point that large-scale intrusive security measures are taken to prevent outbreaks of deadly attacks, possibly introducing an Orwellian world.

Could that come to pass? Has it already begun? One group that is working to stop it is the nonprofit Center for Cognitive Liberty & Ethics (CCLE). They describe themselves as "a network of scholars elaborating the law, policy and ethics of freedom of thought. Our mission is to develop public polices that will preserve and enhance freedom of thought into the 21st Century."

In the pervading climate of fear, their mission, like CRN's, is a steep challenge.

"Cycle of Fear" is a good title for a dystopian, Orwellian future scenario. Indeed, we warn of "vicious cycles" in our current analysis of nanotechnology policy issues.

Groups or companies that would like to learn more about how molecular manufacturing may affect them, and how they can begin preparing for it, should consider booking one of our Nano-Workshops. Vicious cycles -- and how to avoid them -- is among the topics we cover.

Mike Treder

Fast Progress

Pretty amazing advances being reported in medical technology these days. It's not specifically molecular manufacturing, but the ability to create human skin and bones with an inkjet printer is a startling achievement. The BBC report says:

Scientists are developing an inkjet printer that can create "made to measure" skin and bones to treat people with severe burns or disfigurements.

The University of Manchester team say the inkjets will be able to "print out" tailor-made human cells to fit a patient's exact dimensions.

Human cells are suspended in a nutrient-rich liquid before being printed out in several thin layers.

Project leaders say the method could be used to build an organ in a day.

I'm sure the years ahead will hold many more fantastic -- and perhaps sometimes fearsome -- new developments. It's a fascinating time to be alive!

Mike Treder

Looking Ahead

The United States National Intelligence Council (N.I.C.) has released a report of its "2020 Project", which aims at describing the possible configurations of world politics 15 years from now. The report is of great interest to CRN, as our recommendations for policy initiatives concerning advanced nanotechnology must consider not only today's global realities, but tomorrow's as well.

According to an analysis prepared by The Power and Interest News Report (PINR), which they have graciously allowed us to quote, the N.I.C. report constitutes "a sober and realistic warning to decision makers committed to a unipolar vision of the world, in which the U.S. is the arbiter of globalization through wielding preponderant military power or, at the extreme, the first global empire."

Although the report identifies the release of a weapon of mass destruction -- particularly a major bio-terrorist attack -- as the greatest danger to global security, it does not place trends in the "war on terrorism" front and center. That position belongs to economic globalization, the only "mega-trend" named in the report. According to the Council, globalization -- "growing interconnectedness reflected in the expanded flows of information, technology, capital, goods, services, and people throughout the world" -- is "a force so ubiquitous that it will substantially shape all the other major trends in the world of 2020."

Besides economic globalization, we'll note one other force that could "substantially shape all the other major trends in the world" -- and that's exponential general-purpose molecular manufacturing. If it is developed before 2020, as seems possible, it could severely upset both economic and military balances of power.

Not suprisingly, the N.I.C. report points to the East when evaluating potential changes in global strategic relationships. According to PINR:

Its major conclusion is that China and India, along with possibly Brazil and Indonesia, will be "new major global players" that "will transform the geopolitical landscape, with impacts potentially as dramatic as those in the previous two centuries. In the same way that commentators refer to the 1900s as the 'American century,' the 21st century may be seen as the time when Asia, led by China and India, comes into its own."

The result of the rise of Asian powers will be the erosion of U.S. power, although the U.S. "will remain in 2020 the most important single country across all the dimensions of power" -- "an important shaper of the international order," but not its architect.

The relative decline of U.S. power is the most certain political trend identified by the report; it has an air of inevitability that places it beyond decisional control. Here the Council issues an implicit warning to Washington -- attempts to assert U.S. world hegemony are doomed to failure and U.S. interests will be best served by policies of "balancing" and "reconciling" the conflicting interests of other great powers, and moving toward intelligent retrenchment.

It will be interesting to see how these trends develop over the next decade or two; how the U.S. will react to a "relative decline" of power; and how the introduction of molecular manufacturing, if it occurs, may change the picture.

Washington is now constrained to cooperate and compete in the global great game, not as leader, but as the most powerful player. What works most in its favor, according to the Council, is a broadly shared interest by major powers in peaceful economic globalization that militates against "the likelihood of great power conflict escalating into total war."

Otherwise, the picture is more sobering -- the persistence of Islamism, the rising prospects of bio-terror, the possibility of more local wars, the appearance of more failed states, the possibility of nuclear proliferation, possible challenges to globalization in major powers caused by shifts in world labor markets, and conflicts over scarce strategic resources, among many others mentioned in the report, none of which can be managed by Washington alone, and all of which can be addressed successfully only by multinational and international initiatives.

We urge you to read the entire analysis from PINR, excerpted here with their permission, as well as at least the Executive Summary of the N.I.C.'s "2020 Project" report.

Mike Treder

How Science Really Works

This doesn't have anything to do with nanotech, but it made me laugh, and it goes to show that scientific inspiration can come from the darnedest sources...

A new bone replacement material has been developed. Unlike titanium, it actually promotes bone growth. It's made from wool. That made me think of the cartoon engineer Dilbert, who once developed a device that could convert worthless bellybutton lint into a valuable parsley substitute.

But even better than that was the scientist's explanation of how he developed the idea. "One day I was looking at my fingernails, which are made of keratin, and thought this would be an ideal material to use as a bone substitute."

So now we know: scientists don't always get their ideas from the scientific process; sometimes they get them from sitting around and looking at their fingernails. Or maybe drops of water, or anything else that catches their attention and makes them think. Somehow I think Richard Feynman would have loved this example.

Chris

Deep-sub-wavelength Microscope Demonstrated

So much for the diffraction limit.

Way back in the 20th century, it was thought that microscopes could never see anything smaller than half a wavelength of light. That's because an ordinary lens can't focus any better than that.

The first science essay we published, one year ago, described several ways that the diffraction limit could be beaten, or at least stretched. Several of them, in theory, could be used for imaging.

Now there's another to add to the list. It's very useful--and it's been demonstrated. Here's the article.

Plasmons can be created when light interacts with electrons in metal-coated glass. These plasmons are packets of energy derived from photons--but far more compact. So the plasmons can interact with a sample, then bounce back out again, convert themselves back to photons, and be picked up by an ordinary optical microscope. Features 150 nm apart have been imaged. That's about 1/3 the wavelength of the light they used. And they think they can get down to 10 nm.

The sample doesn't require special preparation--just the metallized surface to sit on, and a carefully placed drop of glycerin to help guide the plasmons. (They're already talking about how to eliminate the glycerin.) And the system doesn't need vacuum. That is a significant advantage over electron microscopy. Another advantage is the cost. One of the team members said, "This would move everybody into the world of electron microscopy for the cost of a regular microscope."

The imaging would be fast (unlike near-field scanning optical microscopy) because they can see all the plasmon-derived photons at once, rather than using a scanning technology. If they can use a normal microscope, they can pick up the photons with an ordinary CCD camera. The article didn't say how far off the surface the sample could be. My guess is that with this technology, a single layer closest to the metal could be imaged, with a thickness on the order of the pixel size. But I wouldn't rule out some variant of this being able to get actual 3D images, using other ways of delivering plasmons or photons to the sample. I also wonder whether they'll be able to get spectroscopic data, not just reflectance.

Once this is developed, it will make nanoscale imaging (and sample access/manipulation) vastly easier than it has been. This looks like a major enabling technology for R&D of nanoscale mechanical systems.

Chris

Nanotechnology Timeline

Based on our research, CRN believes that general-purpose molecular manufacturing (MM) could be (not will be, but could be) developed successfully within the next ten years, and almost certainly will be developed within twenty years at most.

Why is our timeline more aggressive than most? In part, because the incentive for development is so great.

Let's look at what's required: Maybe a hundred or so mechanochemical reactions to build the parts; some basic robotics and structural design for the fabricators and the nanofactory; a really advanced CAD program and training to design nanoscale machinery; and a nano-lithography or nano-assembly system that can build the first crude fabricator. All of this is engineering, with no need for unpredictable scientific breakthroughs.

Many of these capabilities are being developed rapidly in other nanotechnologies. Some costs are decreasing exponentially every year or two, like computers to do simulations. We don't know whether it would take a billion, ten billion, or a hundred billion dollars to do it by 2010, but almost certainly by 2020 it will be less than a billion dollars. And general-purpose molecular manufacturing, even in 2020, would be worth hundreds of billions of dollars, maybe trillions. Someone somewhere will find a way to fund it.

It appears quite possible that MM will arrive suddenly, perhaps within the next ten years, and almost certainly within the next twenty. If it takes the world by surprise, we will not have systems in place that can deal with it effectively. No single organization or mindset can create a full and appropriate policy -- and inappropriate policy will only make things worse. A combination of separate policy efforts will get in each other's way, and the risks will slip through the cracks.

By the time this technological capability arrives, we must have accomplished several things that each will take significant time. First, we must understand the risks. Second, make policy. Third, design institutions. Fourth, create the institutions -- at all levels including international levels, where things move slowly. This could easily take twenty years. If advanced nanotechnology could arrive in ten or fifteen years, then we'd better get to work.

Progress in Nanomedicine

DNA molecules are now being used to assemble nanoparticles, which may offer a faster, more efficient way to produce a wide variety of drug delivery systems.

University of Michigan researchers have developed a faster, more efficient way to produce a wide variety of nanoparticle drug delivery systems, using DNA molecules to bind the particles together.

Nanometer-scaled dendrimers can be assembled in many configurations by using attached lengths of single-stranded DNA molecules, which naturally bind to other DNA strands in a highly specific fashion.

Although this clearly is not full-scale molecular manufacturing (MM), it's a significant step toward the realization of nanomedicine. And the lessons learned here also may be applied in developing techniques for building other constructs that might be combined into nanomachinery capable of general-purpose manufacturing. CRN is keeping a close watch on progress in DNA, nucleic acid, and polymer assemblies as enabling technologies for MM.

The Challenge We Face

The challenge of achieving the goals and managing the risks of nanotechnology requires more than just brilliant molecular engineering. In addition to scientific and technical ingenuity, other disciplines and talents will be vitally important. Chemists, political scientists, physicists, lawyers, engineers, economists, sociologists, medical doctors, ecologists, and ethicists will need to work together to ask and answer the right questions.

No single approach will solve all problems or address all needs. There are numerous severe risks -- including several different kinds of risk -- which cannot all be prevented with the same approach. Simple solutions won’t work.

The only answer is a collective answer, and that will demand an unprecedented collaboration -- a network of leaders in business, government, academia, and NGOs. It will require participation from people of many nations, cultures, languages, and belief systems.

Some solutions already have been proposed. For example, CRN issued a study proposing an international networked structure to oversee the safe development and effective administration of molecular manufacturing. More recently, on the Wise-Nano.org collaborative online research project, a treaty organization, the International Nanotechnology Research Consortium, was proposed.

Implementing a solution of this magnitude will be anything but easy. If one of these solutions is found to be the right answer, it must be undertaken right away. And if they are not the right solutions, we must determine something better as soon as possible.

The high stakes will tempt many to shrink from the challenge -- even to declare all this to be impossible. But wishful thinking cannot make either turbulence or technology disappear. Further policy research is urgently needed.

Our task now is to begin building bridges that will lead to safety and progress for the entire world; bridges that will develop common understanding, create lines of communication, and create a stable structure that will enable humankind to pass safely through the transition into the nano era.

Mike Treder