IEEE Calls For MM Funding

Tech Talk is a blog that offers "insights into tomorrow's technology from the editors of IEEE Spectrum," a monthly magazine published by the IEEE, described as "the world's largest professional technology association."

Through its global membership, IEEE is a leading authority on areas ranging from aerospace systems, computers and telecommunications to biomedical engineering, electric power and consumer electronics among others.

So it's definitely worth paying attention when such a large and respected organization publicly takes a stand calling for funding of research related to molecular manufacturing (MM), also known as molecular nanotechnology.

A recent article on the Tech Talk blog states:

Proposed funding for further research into the potential of molecular nanotechnology is overdue and hopefully will lead to some productive research in this field.

This is in response to our publication of eight nanotechnology scenarios, about which their blog says:

Four recent announcements have reignited some proponents of molecular nanotechnology, most notably the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology (CRN), to examine scenarios of what will happen to the world when desktop nanofactories are available in 15 years, which is “arguably optimistic”, according to CRN.

The four recent developments are:

• The release by US National Research Council last year calling for more funding or experimental research in molecular manufacturing
  
• A request for proposals last July by DARPA for developing tip-based nanofabrication
  
• The UK Government in October providing grants into developing nanomachines that can build materials molecule by molecule
  
• The release last week of the Technology Roadmap for Productive Nanosystems

It's interesting -- and gratifying -- that the IEEE chose to highlight the identical list of developments we provided in our press release about the scenarios.

After reviewing a few specific strengths and weaknesses of the above-mentioned Roadmap, the Tech Talk blog article concludes with:

Hopefully, the combination of announced funding and a research agenda will remove much of the speculation and acrimony that seems to have surrounded molecular nanotechnology and just bring it to where it should have been all along: a field of scientific endeavor.

We couldn't agree more.

Mike Treder

Tags: nanotechnology nanotech nano science technology ethics blog