Responsible Nanotechnology

Precise Atom Placement Funded

"Can we design and construct a device or scheme that can arrange atoms or molecules according to an arbitrary, user-defined blueprint? This is at the heart of the idea of the software control of matter – the creation, perhaps, of a 'matter compiler' which will interpret software instructions to output a macroscopic product in which every atom is precisely placed."

The above is not CRN's writing – it is, in fact, a product of the EPSRC, the UK's Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. In January of 2007, EPSRC will call together between 20 and 30 interdisciplinary researchers to brainstorm and develop research proposals toward "Software Control of Matter at the Atomic or Molecular Scale."

What's more, EPSRC has already set aside £1.5 million (almost $3 million) to fund whatever research projects come out of the two-day meeting.

The project was proposed by Philip Moriarty and will be overseen by Richard Jones. Both of them have shown a keen interest in molecular manufacturing; Moriarty has begun a collaboration with Robert Freitas, with an eventual goal of demonstrating carbon dimer deposition by scanning probe. (Freitas wants to take that all the way to direct construction of the first tiny nanofactory, and has announced a Nanofactory Collaboration.)

The EPSRC project is not directly focused solely on molecular manufacturing, but it could certainly encompass molecular manufacturing. The project description invokes both the atomic pick-and-place rapid-prototyping approach familiar to diamondoid enthusiasts, and the self-assembly approach favored by bio-philes.

If the "ideas factory" meeting achieves the broad-minded and forward-looking scope that it seems to be trying for, it has a good chance of generating at least some research that is directly relevant to molecular manufacturing. Regardless of whether self-assembly can build macroscopic products in theory, practical nanoscale fabrication techniques will probably benefit from some form of directly programmable manipulation at the nanoscale. The only way I know to make nanoscale manipulation scaleable to macroscopic levels is to use exponential manufacturing. (A possible exception is engineered bacteria, but last I heard they were still extremely hard to program.) It will be interesting to see whether the "ideas factory" considers direct nanoscale manipulation a goal worth planning for at this point. If so, and if they don't manage to find any reasonable alternative to exponential manufacturing, then they just about have to research molecular manufacturing concepts.

When I have contemplated what might kick-start a targeted molecular manufacturing project, I have imagined something very much like this "ideas factory." A few dozen diverse and creative experts, looking for ways to make direct control of atoms work; significant seed funding for whatever concepts they come up with; and all under the umbrella of a large organization (in this case, the UK government).

It remains to be seen how forward-looking the research proposals will be – the group could easily come up with £1.5 million worth of solid, cautious, worthwhile research that would not advance molecular manufacturing much. And it remains to be seen whether the group will end up focusing on the self-assembly side of the goal. But this will be an effort to watch very closely; it appears to have a chance of kick-starting major momentum toward a molecular manufacturing program.

(Hat tip to Richard Jones's Soft Machines blog, which contains a couple of details I didn't find on the EPSRC site.)

Chris Phoenix

Tags: nanotechnology nanotech nano science technology weblog blog

The Design of the World

If you're going to be in the Chicagoland area any time between now and the end of the year, you shouldn't miss the chance to attend the Massive Change exhibition at the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art.

Here's a note about the event from the WorldChanging site, which also includes an interview with Bruce Mau...

Massive Change opened with a bang last weekend at the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art. Bruce Mau, Jennifer Leonard and members of the Institute without Boundaries introduced their project, which is not about the world of design, but about the design of the world. Instead of looking at the traditional disciplines of design, the team surveyed 11 'economies' ranging from movement to the military in attempt to identify the leadership and dominant trends in these fields. They were pleased to report that all of the economies were trending towards sustainability.

Read the interview here. And if you make it to the 16Sep-31Dec exhibition in Chicago, please let us know what you think.

Tags: nanotechnology nanotech nano science technology ethics weblog blog

Emerging Tech - Summary

10:00 PM (back in NYC)

Let me wrap up my coverage of this year's event at MIT with a few general observations...

Overall, I was disappointed that an Emerging Technologies Conference included scant information about emerging technologies. We heard a lot about mature technologies and growing technologies, but little about the cutting edge.

One notable exception was the "$1,000 Human Genome" session, which featured an impressive presentation by Harvard physics professor Jene Golovchenko, whom I later learned is the PhD advisor for my niece, MaryBeth Hughes. MaryBeth, by the way, has just submitted her first lead-authored scientific paper for publication. It's titled "Optical Absorption of DNA-Carbon Nanotube Structures" -- way to go, MB!

The most important session, unquestionably, was the one on "Innovation and the Energy Crisis". With the possible exception of a nano-enabled arms race, the issue of near-term extreme global climate change is the most important question facing humanity. Since we have known about this issue for more than two decades and still have done almost nothing about it, and since the clock is ticking and we may have as liittle as 20 years to radically alter our worldwide energy production and usage paradigms, it's quite easy to be pessimistic.

Some say that molecular manufacturing (MM) will be the magic answer to global warming. But technology does not solve problems by itself. In fact, technology, in the hands of humans, often makes problems worse. Science and technology can give us valuable new tools to deal with our problems, but it is only through human-implemented solutions that those problems actually can be addressed. The greatest challenges are social and political.

Climate change is our biggest present problem; MM may be the only technology that can provide sufficiently powerful tools to combat it; but even if MM is developed in time, we are still far -- very far -- from having workable plans that humans can use to implement the technology safely and responsibly.

Mike Treder

Tags: nanotechnology nanotech nano science technology ethics weblog blog tretc

Emerging Tech LIVE! (8)

1:45 PM

Based on input from readers and my own level of interest, I've decided to report on breakout session A, "Anti-Aging Research."

Panelists are Christoph Westphal, MD PhD, CEO, Sirtris Pharmaceuticals; Leonard Guarente, Professor of Biology, MIT; Richard Weindruch, Professor of Medicine, University of Wisconsin-Madison; and Thomas Perls, Associate Professor, Boston University and Director, New England Centenarian Study.

Richard Weindruch is an expert on caloric restriction (CR). He's pretty skinny. He's talking about the implications of CR in mice for humans, and on potential biomimetic approaches to achieve CR effects. He says "animals stay healthier longer with caloric restriction." He posed the question: "Does CR retard aging in primates?" Nonhuman primates: Unknown (although his company is doing a long-term study on monkeys). Humans: No direct evidence yet, but indirect evidence strongly suggests that it might.

Leonard Guarente also will talk about CR. He's pretty skinny too. His group has done studies with yeast and with roundworms in which a specific anti-aging gene (SIR2) was identified. They think there is a direct relationship between CR and the activation of SIR2. The closest gene in humans is SIRT1, and this gene seems directly correlated with a range metabolic anti-aging activities. The idea, then, appears to be "how can we trigger over-expression of SIRT1 in humans?" He says "we are now in a position to start looking for CR mimitec drugs."

Christoph Westphal runs a company that is trying to develop drugs to stimulate SIRT1 activation. In mice, the current version of the drug appears to nearly replicate a CR diet. Their initial clinical results with humans also look quite promising. Westphal, by the way, is not skinny.

Thomas Perls says he will talk about "Anti-Aging Quackery (Certainly Not Medicine)." He's starting by debunking the claims of anti-aging treatments like HGH, etc. He is quite critical of the 1994 US DSHEA act that legalized and legitimized dietary additives. Perls recommends checking out Quackwatch.com, and he says to watch out for the next quack fad: stem cell injections.

In audience Q&A, Perls just called Aubrey deGrey a "goofball." Guarente says maximum lifespan (100-110 years) in humans probably will never increase, but the average will grow.

That wraps up the major sessions. There's a musical performance coming next, but I have to catch a train back to New York City.

Mike Treder

Tags: nanotechnology nanotech nano science technology ethics weblog blog tretc

Emerging Tech LIVE! (7)

11:15 AM

It's time now for a panel discussion on "Innovation and the Energy Crisis."

What mix of conservation, short-term energy technology and long-term R&D is needed to solve tomorrow’s looming energy challenges? And where will the leadership come from?

Moderator: Robert C. Armstrong, Professor of Chemical Engineering and co-director of the Energy Research Council, MIT
Panelists: Nathan Lewis, Professor, California Institute of Technology; Joseph Romm, Founder and Executive Director, Center for Energy & Climate Solutions; Kelly R. Fletcher, Sustainable Energy Advanced Technology Leader, GE Global Research

With less than 5% of the world's population, the United States uses about 25% of the world's energy supply. China's energy use is rising at 10% per year, and China is expected to double its GDP over the next 10-15 years. Overall, global energy demand is projected to double by the middle of this century.

Joseph Romm has an interesting blog called Climate Progress. He says that by necessity a huge amount of funding will go into climate science over the next several decades; it will be as big as the Internet in economic impact alone. He's now stating some of the most alarming facts and possibilities related to global warming over the next century. Scary stuff. Romm predicts that the US space program will be essentially abandoned by 2025 because we will recognize that every available dollar must be put into combatting the effects of global climate change.

Nathan Lewis says he thinks the problem is perhaps even worse than Romm made it seem. "If we don't cure cancer or AIDS in the next 20 years, the world will, unfortunately, stay the same; it we don't solve the climate change problem in the next 20 years, the world will be changed forever." He says the debate should no longer be about the science of climate change -- because there is no doubt it is happening -- but about risk management. "We are on a market-driven axis of economy that places total value on energy production and none on sustainability."

Kelly Fletcher says he basically agrees with the previous two presenters. He says that market and regulatory conditions are driving energy production and use in the current unsustainable direction, and that it is up to government to fundamentally change their policy paradigms. Uncertainty about policy is paralyzing investment in new technologies. "We need clear signals from government."

Mike Treder

Tags: nanotechnology nanotech nano science technology ethics weblog blog tretc

Emerging Tech LIVE! (6)

9:00 AM

Welcome back to CRN's live-blogging coverage of Technology Review's Emerging Technologies Conference at MIT.

Our first speaker this morning is George Whitesides, a professor at Harvard University. His topic is: "Rising Above the Gathering Storm...Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future,” based on a report on U.S. competitiveness and education from the National Academy of Sciences.

ITEM: The US is now a net importer of hi-tech products.

ITEM: Chemical companies closed 70 facilities in the US in 2004. Of 120 large chemical plants being built around the world today, 1 is in the US; 50 are in China.

Whitesides cited the items above, and others like them, then reviewed the poor status of US education in science and related fields. The issues delineated in Thomas Friedman's book, The World is Flat, were briefly discussed.

The key word in all of this, according to Whitesides, is "jobs." That's the #1 concern of US business and government leaders, with the second biggest concern being energy. He mentioned that China is making rapid strides in many fields, especially nanotechnology, and that the US dominance of science and technology is by no means assured.

Report recommendations:

1. Devote more capital to long-term basic research
2. Create an atmosphere conducive to business and jobs
3. "Vastly improve" K-12 science and math education
4. Fix the US brain drain (?)
5. Create a DARPA-like enterprise based in the US Energy Dept.

Now Whitesides is reviewing details of each recommendation. I won't try to capture all of this.

He says that the White House is very supportive of the report's recommendations. The biggest impediment, however, is that no one has proposed how all of this would be paid for.

Mike Treder

Tags: nanotechnology nanotech nano science technology ethics weblog blog tretc

Student Research Needed: Chem/Mech Properties

The goal of molecular manufacturing is to build a high-performance general-purpose manufacturing system that can build large, high-performance, multi-scale products. So far, the only known way to do that is with exponential manufacturing using nanoscale molecular machines. But what kinds of molecules are usable for building machines, and what kind is easiest/fastest to develop, and how do we get from easiest to best? A little theoretical analysis could go a long way toward producing a molecular manufacturing roadmap.

The chemical system with the highest known mechanical performance is diamondoid machines running in vacuum. It is strongly suspected that this design space includes machines that can build more diamondoid machines that will be suitable for combining into large products. So at some point, molecular manufacturing research will likely develop this capability.

There are a number of chemical systems that might be useful for general-purpose manufacturing of small products. These may be interesting for at least three reasons. One is as enabling technologies for better systems. The second is for whatever products they can build. The third is for proof of concept: the first fully-engineered molecular system of any kind that can build a complete copy of itself under computer control will make a lot of people think hard about where molecular manufacturing is going.

Automated general-purpose manufacturing will require a chemistry that uses a few pre-characterized synthetic operations, repeated many times to build machines. The operations can be linear, producing polymers; two-dimensional, producing graphite (and perhaps other 2D structures); or three-dimensional, producing lattice structures. The 1D and 2D molecules can fold into 3D structures. And once a structure is built, it needs to be joined to other, similarly built structures.

A few of the chemistries that involve multiple building blocks which can be joined by automated processes:

• DNA and RNA
• Protein
• Spiro-linked amino acid derivatives
• Silica
• Alumina
• Buckytubes and graphite
• Diamond
• Molecular building blocks (e.g. POSS, boron nitride, "diamondoids")

Each of these chemistries will have a different set of properties in a number of relevant areas. But there are many questions that must be answered:

1. What solvent(s) are required for the structure and function of this technology?
2. How fast can a machine run efficiently?
3. What other molecular technologies can be combined with this one?
4. What reactions are used to construct the molecules? What kind of machine or environment is required to do the reactions? How fast can they be?
5. What are the mechanical properties, such as stiffness and strength?
6. What actuators are available?
7. Does the design space include electrical conductors, semiconductors, insulators, quantum electronic structures?
8. What interdisciplinary crossovers exist that provide additional capabilities and insights into this technology?

So far, we have (some of) these answers only for a few chemical families. I would like to see answers to these questions for a half-dozen or so of the most promising technologies, compiled into one place. That would make it much easier to know what molecular technologies are useful for general-purpose manufacturing, and whether there are easier ways to get performance within a few orders of magnitude of diamondoid. A few students could make a good start on this project.

Having a list of capabilities and requirements would also provide a foundation for analysis of bootstrapping. If chemistry X can be built by DNA machines, but can work in liquid xenon, and includes machines that can build chemistry Y; and if chemistry Y includes machines that can do diamond-building reactions in vacuum; then a plausible pathway has been found from DNA machines to diamondoid.

Anyone interested in working on this, please email me.

Chris Phoenix

Tags: nanotechnology nanotech nano science technology weblog blog

Tell Me -- Thursday Version

4:53 PM

Oh, yes, one more thing...

Thursday afternoon, during my live-blogging of the Emerging Technologies Conference, I will have to decide again which of four concurrent breakout sessions to attend. If you could choose, what would you most like to hear about?

Session A
Anti-Aging Research
Geneticists and molecular biologists have made startling discoveries about mechanisms of human aging. Anti-aging research won’t let us live forever, but it could mean we healthier as we grow older.

Moderator: David Rotman, Editor, Technology Review
Panelists:Christoph Westphal, MD PhD, CEO, Sirtris Pharmaceuticals; Leonard Guarente, Professor of Biology, MIT; Richard Weindruch, Professor of Medicine, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Thomas Perls, Associate Professor, Boston University and Director, New England Centenarian Study

Session B
Bad Patents and How They Hinder Innovation
“Patent trolls,” entities who sue other companies for copying sometimes dubious “inventions,” are increasingly recognized as a major roadblock to technological innovation. What mix of policy and practice will stem the tide?

Moderator: Declan McCullagh, chief political correspondent and senior writer for CNET’s News.com
Panelists: David Kappos, VP and Assistant General Counsel, Intellectual Property Law, IBM; Don Steinberg, Chair, Intellectual Property Department, WilmerHale; Simeon Simeonov, Technology Partner, Polaris Venture Partners; Jason Schultz, Staff Attorney, Electronic Frontier Foundation

Session C
Making PCs Safe for Hollywood
Hollywood wants a PC that’s hack proof—a machine that can’t be used to “rip” the industry’s latest blockbuster hits, or even record digital television. Will this technology put an end to innovation and kill open source software?

Moderator: Simson Garfinkel, Contributing Writer, Technology Review
Panelists: Andrew "Bunnie" Huang, President, Bunnie Studios; Sean W. Smith, Associate Professor of Computer Science, Dartmouth College; Martin Sadler, Director, Trusted Systems Laboratory, Hewlett-Packard Labs; Brad Hunt, Executive VP and CTO, MPAA

Session D
High-Performance Batteries to Transform Transportation
Experts are turning advances in nanotechnology and materials sciences into light, high-performance batteries that can produce the power of existing hybrid batteries, but at one-fifth the weight.

Moderator: Kevin Bullis, Editor, Technology Review
Panelists: Yet-Ming Chiang, Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, MIT; Angela Belcher, Professor of Biological Engineering and Materials Science & Engineering, MIT; Ted Miller, Technical Specialist, Ford Research and Advanced Engineering; Mark N. Obrovac, Research Specialist, 3M

I'm currently torn between A & B. Is there an argument for C or D? If you were here, which of the four would you attend?

Mike Treder

Tags: nanotechnology nanotech nano science technology ethics weblog blog

Emerging Tech LIVE! (5)

3:30 PM

The next segment of the Emerging Technologies Conference is titled "DARPA Grand Challenge and Beyond -- The winner of DARPA's famed $2 million autonomous vehicle competition discusses the race and the future of robotic vehicles."

Sebastian Thrun, Director of the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at Stanford University, and DARPA Grand Challenge Winner, was a presenter at the Singularity Summit that I covered earlier this year, so I hope he'll have something new to show us or tell us. It's a field that fascinates me, and that could be greatly accelerated by molecular manufacturing.

So far, his presentation seems to be the same one that I saw before. It's highly amusing, though, with a lot of video from the DARPA race. Sebastian's got a lot of talent, even charisma, as a presenter; I could see him becoming a media star like Carl Sagan someday.

As Thrun explains the combination of laser scanning, TV camera vision, and adaptive artificial intelligence that guided his team's robot car, it's clear that innovative new approaches are being developed through this DARPA challenge, and others like them. Next up is the DARPA Urban Challenge, scheduled for November 2007. Thrun is decsribing the new difficulties that robotic vehicles will encounter in an urban setting, as opposed to a desert environment.

He's wrapping up his talk with statistics about the costs of human-caused traffic accidents as well as the potential savings in traffic jam avoidance wth robot control. "Autonomous cars for everyone" is his goal. This truly sounds like a technology whose time has come.

In answering an audience question, Thrun said that the United States has lost its lead in robotics to Japan and Europe, and that, in fact, the only technology application areas in which the US still leads the world are outer space and military.

4:20 PM

The final speaker of the day is Marc Chapman of IBM who is presenting the results from a survey of CEOs and their insights on where business, technology, and innovation are headed. I'm going to skip reporting on this one: it seems to be standard Fortune magazine fare. In fact, a lot of the audience is starting to drift out. If you'd like to learn about this survey, you can Google for it. I think I'm going to join the exodus, and go spend some time with my niece. I'll see you tomorrow morning for Day Two.

Mike Treder

Tags: nanotechnology nanotech nano science technology ethics weblog blog tretc

Emerging Tech LIVE! (4)

2:00 PM

I decided, based on reader input and my own inclination, to attend the $1,000 Human Genome breakout session.

Scientists have finished sequencing a single human genome; however, the most dramatic benefits won’t be realized until we find a way to quickly and cheaply obtain genetic profiles for individuals.

Moderator: Emily Singer, Technology Review
Panelists: George M. Church, Professor of Genetics and Director of the Center for Computational Genetics, Harvard Medical School; George Weinstock, Professor, Departments of Molecular & Human Genetics and Molecular Virology & Microbiology and co-director, Human Genome Sequencing Center, Baylor College of Medicine; Jene Golovchenko, Professor of Physics, Harvard University; Michael Egholm, Vice President of Molecular Biology, 454 Life Sciences

Because this truly is an emerging technology with significant societal implications, the subject arguably is as relevant to CRN's work as is the nanotoxicity session or any of the other breakouts. And besides that, it's a field that my niece, a PhD candidate at Harvard, works in.

The first panelist to present is Dr. George Weinstock, who will introduce the topic. The NIH (US National Institutes for Health) is targetting a $100,000 genome by 2008, and a $1000 genome by 2013. Weinstock says there are many new technology platforms coming online that will support this effort. It's a huge initiative involving many universities and corporations.

Just as important as the ability to inexpensively map an individual human genome is the creation of a catalog or database of common human mutations and variations. We'll need something to compare each genome with, and that project is "a huge job" in its own right.

The next presenter is George Church. He says he has been working on sequencing individual human genomes since 1977, and seems much less optimistic than the previous presenter in reaching the complete $1K goal, at least within the target time frame. On the other hand, he says that if we focus NOW on the "juiciest" 1% of the individual human genome, then we could make rapid progress right away.

Michael Egholm is presenting next. He is describing the challenges of taking an emerging technology, one that is still being developed in the laboratory, and translating it into a commercial product. The work of his company, 454 Life Sciences, is quite impressive. However, his opinions about methods and results in genome sequencing seem to contradict both of the previous presenters. I'm starting to see a great deal of competitiveness in this field, which often can be a good thing, of course, but which also can lead to confusing information for the non-expert. Egholm's company also is the one that is working to sequence the Neandertal genome -- a fascinating project!

The final presenter is Jene Golovchenko. He's posing the question, "Could you build a transistor that could read a human genome?" It's apparently not just a thought question, but actually a radically different non-biological approach to DNA sequencing using a "Nanopore Detector." I won't try to explain it all here, but it appears to be a remarkably ingenious approach, making use of carbon nanotubes as conductors. Wow, very impressive.

My takeaway from this session is that you should expect to see dramatic breakthroughs; we may not be able to specify exactly where or when they will come, but with all this effort and money and brainwork going into it, the field is bound to progress rapidly.

The next session, starting in about 20 minutes, is on the topic of robotic vehicles. Come on, let's go for a ride!

Mike Treder

Tags: nanotechnology nanotech nano science technology ethics weblog blog tretc