Responsible Nanotechnology

The Biggest Problem in Physics

Computer simulation shows a view of the multiverse,
in which each colored ray is another expanding cosmos

This article from Discover magazine on the multiverse has next to nothing to do with nanotechnology, but it is such a fascinating subject that I just had to bring it to your attention:

Tweak the laws of physics in just about any way and -- in this universe, anyway -- life as we know it would not exist.

Consider just two possible changes. Atoms consist of protons, neutrons, and electrons. If those protons were just 0.2 percent more massive than they actually are, they would be unstable and would decay into simpler particles. Atoms wouldn’t exist; neither would we.

If gravity were slightly more powerful, the consequences would be nearly as grave. A beefed-up gravitational force would compress stars more tightly, making them smaller, hotter, and denser. Rather than surviving for billions of years, stars would burn through their fuel in a few million years, sputtering out long before life had a chance to evolve.

There are many such examples of the universe’s life-friendly properties -- so many, in fact, that physicists can’t dismiss them all as mere accidents. . . 

Call it a fluke, a mystery, a miracle. Or call it the biggest problem in physics. Short of invoking a benevolent creator, many physicists see only one possible explanation: Our universe may be but one of perhaps infinitely many universes in an inconceivably vast multi­verse. Most of those universes are barren, but some, like ours, have conditions suitable for life.

The idea is controversial. Critics say it doesn’t even qualify as a scientific theory because the existence of other universes cannot be proved or disproved. Advocates argue that, like it or not, the multiverse may well be the only viable non­religious explanation for what is often called the “fine-tuning problem” -- the baffling observation that the laws of the universe seem custom-tailored to favor the emergence of life. . .

READ THE REST

Mike Treder

Friday Seminar on Risks and Resilience

There is still time to register for this important event!

CRN is proud to join with the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies and the Lifeboat Foundation to present an exciting and informative one-day seminar at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California.

Learn about threats to the future of humanity, natural and man-made, and the pro-active steps we can take to reduce these risks and build a more resilient civilization.

AGENDA
8:30am-9am	Registration, Coffee, Bagels
9am-9:15am	Welcome and Introductions
9:15am-10am	Anders Sandberg PhD, Oxford University “Global Catastrophic Risks: An Overview, and Caution about Risk Assessments”
10am-10:30am	Eliezer Yudkowsky, Research Associate. Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence “Cognitive Biases in the Assessment of Risk”
10:30am-11:00am	Feng Hsu PhD, Head, Integrated Risk Management, NASA “Critical Issues of Global Catastrophic Risks - a Worst Case Scenario Assessment”
11:00am-11:30am	Martin Hellman PhD, Professor Emeritus of Electrical Engineering, Stanford University “Risk Analysis of Nuclear Deterrence”
11:30am-12:00am	Bruce Damer, CEO, DigitalSpace & Director, Contact Consortium “Asteroids and Comets: Mitigating Impact Risks and Stepping Stones to a Sustainable Space Program”
12:00am-1:00pm	Pizza Lunch
1:00pm-1:30pm	Mike Treder, Executive Director, Center for Responsible Nanotechnology “Nanotechnology’s Global Risk and Promises of Resilience”
1:30pm-2:00pm	Tad Hogg PhD, Information Dynamics Laboratory, Hewlett Packard “Distributed Surveillance with MEMS or Nano-scale Sensors”
2:00pm-2:30pm	Kattesh V. Katti PhD, Director, Cancer Nanotechnology Platform, Professor of Radiology, University of Missouri “Green Nanotechnology: An Economic And Scientific Initiative For the Future Of Human Civilization”
2:30pm-3:00pm	Alan Goldstein PhD, CEO of Industrial Nanobiotechnology “The A-Prize: Tracking The Global Race To Break The Carbon Barrier”
3:00pm-3:15pm	Coffee Break
3:15pm-3:45pm	J. Storrs Hall PhD, author Beyond AI “The Weather Machine: Nano-enabled Climate Control for the Earth”
3:45pm-4:15pm	George Dvorsky, Director, IEET “Risks Posed by Political Extremism”
4:15pm-4:45pm	Jamais Cascio, IEET Fellow, and research affiliate, Institute for the Future “Building Civilizational Resilience”
4:45pm-5:15pm	James J. Hughes PhD, Exec. Director, Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies “Strengthening Transnational Governance to Mitigate Risks”

This event comes just ahead of -- and is organized with the cooperation of -- the futurist mega-gathering Convergence 08, November 15-16 at the same location.

Plan now to attend both!

Room Temperature Mechanosynthesis

A team of cooperating researchers from Japan, Spain, and the Czech Republic have just published the impressive results of their work aimed at the assembling of complex atomic patterns at room temperature -- apparently the first time this has been achieved.

The group says their success “may bring future atom-based technological enterprises closer to reality.”

CRN Director of Research Chris Phoenix comments:

This sounds like it fully fits the definition of mechanosynthesis. I haven't read the article yet, but the abstract makes it pretty clear that they're moving the scanning probe tip to modify inter-atomic forces and create the chemical reaction (the transfer of the atom).

Several years ago, Oyabu and other researchers were able to remove and replace single atoms of silicon using a technique that may be similar to the one used here -- but there's a big difference between single atoms and complex patterns.

It's especially exciting that they were able to compare theory and experiment. That will let them rapidly improve both, and they'll be able to test wild ideas in simulation before setting up difficult experiments. Any wild idea that works in simulation, they won't easily give up on when they try it in the real world.

Zyvex has been developing a technique called Atomically Precise Manufacturing (APM). APM's product is also complex patterns with atomic precision. The technique and materials are a little different, but the end product is close enough that interest in APM will probably extend to this technique.

Zyvex is presenting APM as a commercially viable technology path, and Zyvex recently got $10 million funding for it. I'd expect that those following the field will thus be looking for practical extensions of this work; it may serve as a bridge between pure research and commercial application.

Combine this group's work with recent government support of molecular manufacturing projects in the US and the UK, and it's clear that momentum is building around the world toward advanced generation nanotechnology.

Mike Treder

Daring To Do the Right

Not Necessarily Relevant Quote of the Week:

Manliness consists not in bluff, bravado, or lordliness. It consists in daring to do the right and facing consequences whether it is in matters social, political, or other. It consists in deeds, not in words.

— Mohandas Gandhi

Limits to Growth?

Which analogy is most apt for humanity in relation to our Earthly home?

1. Alice rapidly growing too large for her house...
2. Villagers destroying the environment of Easter Island...
3. Crowded Europeans fleeing for the wide-open spaces of America...
4. Animals out-populating a grazing or hunting range and starving back to a sustainable level...

Numbers 1 and 3 seem to offer hope for a non-disastrous solution, assuming that we can develop technologies and polities that will allow large numbers of humans to live off-Earth peacefully and sustainably.

Numbers 2 and 4 are bleaker, obviously, but given current trends -- as shown below -- we can be forgiven for not feeling entirely optimistic. [Click here for a larger image and click here for the accompanying article.]

 

We should not wait for advanced nanotechnology to reach the point where molecular manufacturing can assist us in managing the dangerous implications of these upward curves; the situation is too dire for complacency. But while we must not delay acting, we also should emphasize the urgent need for increased funding of nanotechnology research and development.

Any new technology that promises as much power for good as molecular manufacturing should be welcomed and encouraged, assuming that we act simultaneously to limit its potential for damage.

Mike Treder

Progress Toward Nanomedicine

There is still a long way to go, but we are seeing significant progress in enabling technologies that could someday bring about the realization of high-performance nanomedicine.

First, let's define the eventual goal. For that, we'll turn to Robert A. Freitas, author of Nanomedicine, volumes I and II.

His basic definition:

Nanomedicine is the preservation and improvement of human health using molecular tools and molecular knowledge of the human body.

And an expanded definition:

Nanomedicine may be defined as the monitoring, repair, construction and control of human biological systems at the molecular level, using engineered nanodevices and nanostructures.

Basic nanostructured materials, engineered enzymes, and the many products of biotechnology will be enormously useful in near-term medical applications. However, the full promise of nanomedicine is unlikely to arrive until after the development of precisely controlled or programmable medical nanomachines and nanorobots.

The progress I'm referring to today is the development of new navigation techniques for microscopic robots to make their way through the bloodstream:

A microscopic device that could swim through the bloodstream and directly target the site of disease, such as a tumor, could offer radical new treatments. To get to a tumor, however, such a device would have to be small and agile enough to navigate through a labyrinth of tiny blood vessels, some far thinner than a human hair.

Researchers at the École Polytechnique de Montréal, in Canada, led by professor of computer engineering Sylvain Martel, have coupled live, swimming bacteria to microscopic beads to develop a self-propelling device, dubbed a nanobot. While other scientists have previously attached bacteria to microscopic particles to take advantage of their natural propelling motion, Martel's team is the first to show that such hybrids can be steered through the body using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

Although the researchers call these devices 'nanobots', they might might better be called 'microbots', because their features are measured in micrometers (µm), which is a millionth of a meter. By contrast, a nanometer is a billionth of a meter, or a thousand times smaller. 

Still, what they've achieved is impressive, as are these results reported from a different lab:

Scientists are making huge advances in developing special nanotubes which make use of platinum as they target tumour cells or clogged arteries in the body...

Nanomotors, as they are more broadly known, can move forwards through liquid, transporting pharmaceutical agents to specific areas or facilitating the movement of specimen molecules via microchip.

The best-performing of these is a tiny catalytic nanotube which contains platinum at one end and gold at the other and is propelled through a medium that contains the fuel it needs, which is often hydrogen peroxide.

Previously, it could attain speeds of ten to 20 micrometres per second, but now a team led by Joseph Wang at the University of California and Arizona State University has made rapid improvements.

They decided to replace the gold section of the tube with an alloy of silver and gold, and subsequent tests showed that the speed of travel was increased to over 150 micrometres per second.

Commenting on the results, which appear in the journal Angewandte Chemie, Mr Wang said: "These nanorods travel about 75 times their own length in one second. We are approaching the speed of the most efficient biological nanomotors, including flagellated bacteria."

What's described above are genuine nanobots, although of course they are not atomically precise and can't be manufactured cheaply in high volume, as will be possible once molecular manufacturing has been developed. But in order to reach advanced nanotechnology, we've got to move through earlier generations, such as what is being reported here. This is great work and should be applauded.

Mike Treder

The Spirit of Democracy

Not Necessarily Relevant Quote of the Week:

The democratic ideal stems from the ideas of liberty, equality, majority rule through free elections, protection of the rights of minorities, and freedom to subscribe to multiple loyalties in matters of religion, economics, and politics rather than to a total loyalty to the state. The spirit of democracy is the idea of importance and worth in the individual, and faith in the kind of world where the individual can achieve as much of his potential as possible.

— Saul Alinsky

Not Necessarily Relevant Quote of the Week:

The democratic ideal stems from the ideas of liberty, equality, majority rule through free elections, protection of the rights of minorities, and freedom to subscribe to multiple loyalties in matters of religion, economics, and politics rather than to a total loyalty to the state. The spirit of democracy is the idea of importance and worth in the individual, and faith in the kind of world where the individual can achieve as much of his potential as possible.

— Saul Alinsky

Not Necessarily Relevant Quote of the Week:

The democratic ideal stems from the ideas of liberty, equality, majority rule through free elections, protection of the rights of minorities, and freedom to subscribe to multiple loyalties in matters of religion, economics, and politics rather than to a total loyalty to the state. The spirit of democracy is the idea of importance and worth in the individual, and faith in the kind of world where the individual can achieve as much of his potential as possible.

— Saul Alinsky

Not Necessarily Relevant Quote of the Week:

The democratic ideal stems from the ideas of liberty, equality, majority rule through free elections, protection of the rights of minorities, and freedom to subscribe to multiple loyalties in matters of religion, economics, and politics rather than to a total loyalty to the state. The spirit of democracy is the idea of importance and worth in the individual, and faith in the kind of world where the individual can achieve as much of his potential as possible.

— Saul Alinsky

Not Necessarily Relevant Quote of the Week:

The democratic ideal stems from the ideas of liberty, equality, majority rule through free elections, protection of the rights of minorities, and freedom to subscribe to multiple loyalties in matters of religion, economics, and politics rather than to a total loyalty to the state. The spirit of democracy is the idea of importance and worth in the individual, and faith in the kind of world where the individual can achieve as much of his potential as possible.

— Saul Alinsky

Nanobots on Mars

Beginning more than a hundred years ago, science fiction writers, early filmmakers, and, later, serious scientists explored the possibilities of human beings expanding beyond Earth to dwell in the Solar System.

Whether on the Moon, on Mars, in hollowed-out asteroids, or in constructed space stations, the dream of our species breaking free from this wet rock on which we evolved has been a source of fascination.

We're getting closer now to having the technological capability to make the attempt. Some would argue, in fact, that we could have had thriving colonies on the Moon for decades now, had the US and the USSR not cut back on their space programs in the 1970s.

But the Moon is one thing, and Mars is another. The Moon, obviously, is much closer and easier to reach. The problem is that it has no atmosphere, very little water ice (probably), and not much to offer in the way of quality of life.

Mars, by contrast, does have a thin atmosphere, apparently quite a bit of water ice, and possibly organic soil. It even has seasons. There's potential there to make another planet into something Earth-like, a place where humans can feel somewhat at home.

On the other hand, the big problem with Mars is that it is so far away. Even during its closest approach to Earth (opposition), which occurs about every two years, reaching Mars in a spacecraft takes at least six months. Such a voyage could be quite perilous for astronauts, being exposed to solar radiation, cosmic rays, meteors, and more. If something goes wrong, help is very, very far away.

So, maybe the answer is not to send astronauts first. Instead, send an army of machines specially designed to withstand the rigors that might disable humans. Indeed, some scientists propose sending hordes of insect-like robots to do the job:

Recent discoveries of water and Earth-like soil on Mars have set imaginations running wild that human beings may one day colonise the Red Planet. However, the first inhabitants might not be human in form at all, but rather swarms of tiny robots.

“Small robots that are able to work together could explore the planet. We now know there is water and dust so all they would need is some sort of glue to start building structures, such as homes for human scientists,” says Marc Szymanski, a robotics researcher at the University of Karlsruhe in Germany.

Szymanski is part of a team of European researchers developing tiny autonomous robots that can co-operate to perform different tasks, much like termites, ants or bees forage collaboratively for food, build nests and work together for the greater good of the colony.

Of course, for those of us keeping up with the rapid pace of research in advanced nanotechnology, the idea of building all those robots on Earth and then sending them all the way to Mars doesn't make much sense.

Why not just send a nanofactory to Mars and program it to make whatever machines are needed? Those machines could be small and cooperative -- ant-like -- or they could be larger -- tractor-like -- or some of each. And because the nanofactory would be general-purpose, it could be re-programmed from Earth to make whatever new designs might be desired, including more advanced generations of nanofactories.

It is possible that some unmanned construction missions to Mars might be attempted before nanofactories have been fully developed. In that case, perhaps a future version of RepRap might be of use, but we think that true detailed exploration of our Solar System and building of comfortable off-Earth communities for human beings will await the achievement of molecular manufacturing.

Mike Treder