We know that nanobots are possible because, in a very real way, they already exist.

It's a point that's been made before, most famously in the Drexler-Smalley debates, but it bears repeating. Single celled life is "the ultimate existence proof of the feasibility of a molecular assembler." This is not a metaphor. Life is nanotech, literally. Our future nanobots may bear a striking resemblance to yeasts and other single celled life.

Here's a great example:

Salmonella Bacteria Turned Into Cancer Fighting 'Robots' KurzweilAI.net, Mar. 31, 2008

[Notice this is dated March 31 and not the day after.]

University of Massachusetts Amherst researchers are turning Salmonella bacteria into tumor killing "robots" that use their flagella to go deep into tumors where conventional chemotherapy can't reach, and once in place, manufacture drugs that trigger cancer cells to kill themselves.

Normally, mice with tumors all die within 30 days. After receiving this bacterial system and getting a dose of radiation, all the mice in their lab tests survived beyond the 30 days, which could translate into months or years in people.

Posted by Stephen Gordon at 08:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

As Stephen has been mentioning, I had the privilege of attending the Foresight Vision Unconference over the weekend at Yahoo! headquarters in Sunnyvale California. In fact, the event was half conference and half unconference.

The conference half included the following:

A talk from David Friedman on how the technologies of public key encryption and surveillance work together and in opposition to each other to make for some very interesting possible futures.

A presentation from Matthew Francis from the department of chemistry at UC Berkley on using biology to build nanoscale materials. We talked on a recent FFR about how proteins are being used as nano-medical delivery devices. Matt showed how both protiens and viruses can serve as the first generation of true molecular technology. Medicine is part of it, but the really amazing stuff was the example of using a tobacco virus to create nano-solar panels. Wow.

Chris Heyward of Kronos Labs gave a thorough overview of current scientific research in the field of longevity.

A talk from Christine Peterson on the complex relationship between privacy, security, and transparency. Chris makes the case that the tech community -- Silicon Valley in particular -- has the responsibility to keep Washington from overreaching.

The conference portion was the morning half of each day. The sessions were top-notch: fascinating and thought-provoking. But things really got interesting in the afternoon, where the unconference format kicked in. Under the guidance of unconference guru Kaliya Hamlin, those of us who were interested in leading a session announced a topic and put it on the schedule. Here's the list of topics that were discussed. It was quite a challenge deciding which sessions to sit in on!

My talk was during Session 5. It was an expansion of my recent rework of the map of the emerging technology development space. I'll be doing some additional updates based on the great discussion we had over the next few days.

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 09:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Preparing for the Foresight Vision Weekend in Sunnyvale, I've been doing a lot of thinking about my map of the development space for nanotechnology which we revisited in a recent edition of FasftForward Radio.

I've never been completely satisfied with the axes of that diagram. I wanted to show how some developments have this immediate overwhelming impact, while others set the stage to allow for further developments that ultimately have that kind of impact. Still others look like there's something major happening, but it's less than meets the eye. In its new iteration, I am replacing the vertical axis with disruption and the horizontal axis with transformation. Here's my new draft version:

Continue reading "Disruption and Transformation" »

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 08:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This is cool:

Researchers in California today report development of the world’s first working radio system that receives radio waves wirelessly and converts them to sound signals through a nano-sized detector made of carbon nanotubes.

Our cellphones, MP3 players, and radios are already integrating into one device. We'll still have that device - or its equivalent - in twenty years. It'll just be hard to see.

Posted by Stephen Gordon at 12:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Mike Treder has some insights on a subject we definitely want to keep an eye on:

Of the many questions that must be answered about molecular manufacturing, one of the most important is: Who will attain the technology first?

It matters a great deal if this powerful and potentially disruptive new manufacturing technique is developed and controlled by aggressive military interests, commercial entities, Open Source advocates, liberal democracies, or some combination thereof. How each of those disparate groups, with different priorities and motivations, would plan to use and (maybe) share the technology is an issue that bears serious investigation. That's a major purpose behind CRN's project to create a series of scenarios depicting various futures in which molecular manufacturing could be developed.

One likely player in this high-stakes, high-tech drama is Russia.

Recently it was announced that "Russia will pour over US$1 billion in the next three years into equipment for nanotechnology research." (That seems like a lot of equipment, and it may be that the quoted story conflated spending on tools and with spending on researcher salaries or other infrastructure, but in any case, a billion dollars over three years is plenty to get a strong program off the ground.)

Read the whole thing over at Responsible Nanotechnology.

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 02:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Wet, sloppy, and soupy or cut like a diamond (because, you know, it's made of little diamonds)? Christine Peterson says that debate is settled.

Excellent. Now will someone please get to work on my utility fog? Thank you.

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 06:04 AM | Permalink

Carbon Nanotubes, that is:

Pound for pound, carbon nanotubes are stronger and lighter than steel, but unlike other materials, the miniscule cylinders of carbon – which are no wider than a strand of DNA – remain remarkably robust even when chunks of their bodies are blasted away with heat or radiation. A new study by Rice University scientists offers the first explanation: tiny blemishes crawl over the skin of the damaged tubes, sewing up larger holes as they go.

You would think that one would have to design a structure specifically to have this kind of capability, but no. These things are just naturally self-healing. That's pretty cool, seeing as much of our world may soon be made out of them.

Via GeekPress.

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 10:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

...to support nanotechnology in 2006. It's the annual Foresight Nanotech Challenge Grant. I made my usual 11th-hour annual membership pledge last week without even realizing that the money I gave will be doubled thanks to the challenge. So this is your big chance not only to help , but to have your contribution matched dollar for dollar.

What are you waiting for?

(Via some obscure news / politics blog.)

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 12:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

One of these days, nanotechnology is going to take a huge leap forward, when we start developing things like nano-tweezers and bi-pedal walking nanobots, especially if such items can be produced on a molecular assembly line.

Oh, wait. That's right. We're already doing all those things, using DNA:

As if the blueprint for life wasn't busy enough, nanotech researchers are putting DNA to work in tiny mechanical devices and as templates for electronic circuits.

Recent DNA constructions include microscopic patterns, tiny gears and a molecular assembly line. Although still mostly at the demonstration level, DNA nanotech is a rapidly growing field.

In additon to all its other (myriad) applications, DNA-derived nanotech would seem to be the perfect medium for nano-medicine. Imagine how DNA nanotech might work in conjunction with these kinds of developments. Plus, seeing as the potential exists to develop electronic circuits, this technology would appear to be a frontrunner for wiring us up for whatever comes next.

BTW, the title of this entry is deliberately and self-consciously palindromic. Read the entire article to see why.

Via GeekPress.

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 10:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Micah Glasser, visionary or shamless shill for big oil?

So this got me thinking: all that carbon dioxide we keep dumping into the atmosphere via combustion could be a global fortune rather than a disaster. Just imagine molecular manufacturing on a global scale that produced almost every economic good out of carbon directly from the atmosphere while using sunlight as the power.

I'm going with visionary, myself. On the other hand, Micah, if you are shilling, I have now linked you and I want my cut.

But seriously, I like this model. All those years of polluting the atmosphere with carbon turn out to be somewhat akin to a squirrel burying acorns. But wouldn't there also be a danger in taking too much carbon out of the atmosphere -- more than we put in? And then what would we get? An ice age?

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 11:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Roland Piquepaille:

Our cells contain small protein factories which have to deliver materials inside the cell via a network of microtubules. And the transportation is carried out by biomolecular motors. Now, researchers from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands have built a traffic control system able to force individual molecules to choose between 'roads' by applying strong electrical fields locally at Y-junctions. This traffic control system can potentially lead to new nano-fabrication techniques.

Hey, moving individual molecules around...what a great idea! It's too bad these guys are barking up the wrong tree. Everyone knows that moving individual molecules around requires tiny pincers (which could never be built) and is, therefore, impossible.

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 11:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We missed the first wave of essays from the CRN task force on nanotechnology, but we won't make that mistake twice. The complete set of essays, new and old, are listed here:

• Introduction to the first issue
• Kurzweil, Ray - "Nanotechnology Dangers and Defenses"
• Freitas, Robert A. Jr. - "Molecular Manufacturing: Too Dangerous to Allow?" (summary)
• Treder, Mike - "Nano-Guns, Nano-Germs, and Nano-Steel"
• Cowper, Tom - "Molecular Manufacturing and 21st Century Policing"
• Phoenix, Chris - "The Need For Limits"
• Prisco, Giulio - "Globalization and Open Source Nano Economy"
• Broderick, Damien - "Cultural Dominants and Differential MNT Uptake"
• Lin, Patrick & Allhoff, Fritz - "Nanoethics and Human Enhancement"
• Vita-More, Natasha - "Strategic Sustainable Brain"
• Hall, J. Storrs - "Is AI Near a Takeoff Point?"
• Brin, David - "Singularities and Nightmares: The Range of Our Futures"

• Introduction to the second issue
• Bostrom, Nick - "Nanoethics and Technological Revolutions: A Précis"
• Buerger, Michael - "From The Enlightenment to N-Lightenment"
• Freitas, Robert A. Jr. - "What Price Freedom?" (summary)
• Burgess, Steve - "The (Needed) New Economics of Abundance"
• Freitas, Robert A. Jr. - "Economic Impact of the Personal Nanofactory" (summary)
• Vassar, Michael - "Corporate Cornucopia: Examining the Special Implications of Commercial MNT Development"
• Maclurcan, Don - "Molecular Manufacturing and the Developing World: Looking to Nanotechnology for Answers"
• Wang, Brian "Considering Military and Ethical Implications of Nanofactory-level Nanotechnology"
• Osborne, Deborah - "Molecular Manufacturing and the Need for Crime Science"
• Craver, Tom - "Safer Molecular Manufacturing Through Nanoblocks"
• Mulhall, Douglas - "Are We Guardians, Or Are We Apes Designing Humans?"

Or find them all here.

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 09:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Sure, they sound kind of icky...but potentially useful nonetheless:

THE propulsion system used by slime-squirting bacteria could teach rocket scientists and nano-engineers some new tricks.

Myxobacteria are micrometre-scale filament-shaped organisms that glide along surfaces, leaving a trail of slime in their wake. Biologists were convinced the bugs produced the slime as lubricant, but couldn't explain how they generated the force to move.

Now it turns out that the bacteria push themselves along by ejecting the slime from nozzles on their bodies. "They are little rockets," says Andrey Dobrynin, a polymer scientist at the University of Connecticut in Storrs.

Cool.

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 10:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Although we have dedicated no small amount of space to disagreeing with him on certain points over the years, it is beyond question that Richard Smalley, who died on Friday, was an integral leader of and contributor to the emerging field of nanotechnology.

Smalley won a Nobel Prize in chemistry for his discovery of buckminsterfullerene, fondly known as the "buckyball" in industry circles. This discovery represented a watershed moment for nanotechnology; it paved the way for the development of carbon nanotubes, the promise of which would be difficult to overstate.

In recent years, Smalley became a passionate advocate for developing alternative energy sources. He also carried on a long-term debate with K. Eric Drexler about the viability of the idea of nanotech assemblers.

His contributions will be long remembered.

Goodbye, Dr. Smalley. And thank you.

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 12:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Protestors picketed the Chicago Eddie Bauer store in early May for selling stain resistant nanopants. As is the norm these days, the protest involved nudity.

I'm not sure how effective these nude protests are when the protestor is attractive. Is this woman really going to scare customers away from Eddie Bauer? "You mean I can pick up a pair of stain resistant pants AND see a free show? I'm sooo there dude!"

Perhaps if some of us middle-aged male bloggers participated - now THAT would clear the street.

These protestors complain that the long-term effects of this simple form of nanotech is unknown. This is true. It is impossible to know with absolute 100% certainty that any technology will always be 100% safe 100% of the time. The manufacturer responded that:

Nano-Tex's products are independently tested for safety and meet all environmental, health and safety standards mandated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

I'm sure this is true too. Of course this won't satisfy the protestors at all. This is "nanotech," and nanotech is scary.

What the manufacturer can't readily admit is that these nanopants are "fake" nanotech - nanotech as a marketing gimmick. Some of these "nanotech" products are only "nano" in the sense that any chemistry is nano. I ate a drumstick at lunch chock fulla nano goodness! Everything in the universe is made of nanoscale atoms and molecules.

We have new materials tech and product chemistry introduced all the time. There is a small level of risk associated with all of this new technology, but there aren't protests because these products aren't labeled "nano."

Protesting a marketing gimmick is just silly. Not that I'm complaining.

UPDATE: Howard Lovy took this protest a little more seriously.

In any revolution, it's almost always the intellectuals who are first to be carted away.

This may seem a bit overwrought, but he has a point. These protestors are wacky and entertaining, but so were the GM food protestors at first. Those guys set back the GM food industry decades - starving the developing world in the process.

It's crucial for scientists to talk about the real risks and the real benefits of all new technologies. If people who understand these things are silent, then only those who don't understand will be heard.

Posted by Stephen Gordon at 02:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Wouldn't it be great if a strawberry malt was as healthy as a cup of steamed veggies? It could happen. Dr. David Weitz at Harvard University is developing a self-assembling nanoscale capsules called "colloidosomes" that could deliver nutrients, medicine, even tastes at a set time.

The capsules, called "colloidosomes," are made of tiny particles just one-tenth the size of a human cell, that assemble themselves into a hollow, sturdy, elastic shell with holes. "We fabricate colloidosomes by taking small drops of water and immersing them in another fluid which has little particles in it. And the particles… stick to the surface of the water drop, and then we heat them up slightly to make a solid shell of particles around the water drop," Weitz explains.

"By controlling the way we produce the little particles, we can adjust the little holes in the shell that allow small molecules to go in and out of this capsule." By adjusting the size of the holes they would be able to control how long it would take for the drug or nutrient inside to escape, "so we could control the release of these nutrients," he says.

Don't miss the story with video at ScienCentral News.

Posted by Stephen Gordon at 08:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Lord Broers, the President of England's Royal Academy of Engineering, recently said, "Our experience with chemistry and physics teaches us that we do not have any idea how to make an autonomous self-replicating machine at any scale."

Broers didn't say that autonomous self-replicating machines are impossible. Still, this caused a bit of a stir over at Howard Lovy's Nanobot blog where K. Eric Drexler responded (in part):

It is a pity that Lord Broers has joined the parade of denialists who discuss distorted versions of obsolete scenarios to the exclusion of all research in the field since 1990.

This problem - self-replicating machines - is being approached from multiple directions. Adrian Bowyer is working on macro-scale self-replicating machines. Howard Lovy's blog points to a multitude of scientists working on nano-scale inorganic machines. And we've recently had some important news from microbiologists. A team led by Ron Weiss at Princeton University has demonstrated the ability to command bacteria to form complex shapes and even colors. This is done through DNA instructions.

Weiss and his colleagues engineer a special segment of DNA, the blueprints for any cell's operations. The segment is called a plasmid.

"You have a segment of DNA that dictates when proteins should be made and under what conditions," Weiss told LiveScience. The plasmid is inserted into a cell, and "the cell then executes the set of instructions."

These pictures show two of Weiss' bacterial formations - a bullseye and a heart. Weiss believes that this technology could be quickly adapted to detect bioterrorism chemicals. The bacteria could literally form a bullseye around an anthrax microbe.

Long-term applications are even more interesting. Weiss has also shown the feasibility of making bacteria act like networked computers.

The cells, for example, could be made to perform basic mathematical logic and produce crisp, reliable readouts that are more commonly associated with silicon chips than biological organisms...

The creation of patterns, such as the bull's-eye effect, is a key step in one of Weiss' eventual goals, which is to have the cells secrete materials that build physical devices such as antennas or transmitters in places that are hard for humans to reach. Programmed cells also could be used to control the repair or construction of tissues within the body, possibly guiding stem cells to the locations where they are needed for the growth of new nerve or bone cells in a process Weiss called "programmed tissue engineering."

Imagine biological cyborgs - people with networked cells traveling throughout the body with programmed instructions to fix problems. An external server that looks like a nicotine patch could control this activity.

It's true that we have much to learn about autonomous self-replicating machines. Engineered bacteria may dominate the early years of nanotech. There's a precedent: the horse was domesticated before we built a car.

Posted by Stephen Gordon at 09:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Howard Lovy compares two statements made by distinguished British scientists. Chronologically separated by 110 years, these predictions are united in their unabashed eagerness to be proved wrong.

UPDATE: I just did a Google on Lord Kelvin. He died in 1907, four years after Kitty Hawk. Talk about living to see it! Lord Broers was born in 1938. If he lives to be 75 (and, hey, we're all rooting for him) I'd say he has about a 50-50 chance of having to eat his words. If he makes it to 100, I'd call it about a 99% chance.

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 04:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Don't be lost at the next Speculist cocktail party!

New Scientist offers a 1,400 word nanotech primer.

Posted by Stephen Gordon at 02:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Back during the Drexler/Smalley debates, Drexler argued that "The ultimate existence proof of the feasibility of a molecular assembler is life itself."

Smalley responded that life is "wet nano" - that many things that may be possible in molecular biology will prove impossible to duplicate with "dry" nanomaterials. And though I'd love for Drexler to ultimately win this debate, I believe (as I wrote here) that biological systems, either natural or artificial, will have physical limitations that would keep them from being all-purpose nanobots.

While I believe this is true, biological nanobots (biobots) might be able to do much more than refine petroleum.

Researchers from Stanford University have constructed an extremely small transistor from a pair of single-walled carbon nanotubes and organic molecules. A single-walled carbon nanotubes is a rolled-up sheet of carbon atoms.

The transistor is two nanometers wide and regulates electric current through a channel that is just one to three nanometers long. Today's computer chips sport millions of transistors that have 90-nanometer channels.

TRNmag.com via KurzweilAI

To be a practical technology, we'll need a cheap way to assemble and organize billions of these tiny transistors. Organizing organic molecules is exactly the sort of thing that biobots might be good for.

One of the reasons that organic materials haven't already displaced silicon in electronics is that electricity passes faster through silicon than carbon. This disadvantage would be more than compensated for by making transistors 30 times smaller - 90 nanometers v. 3 nanometers. It is also thought that these tiny transistors would be useful in ultra-low-power electronics.

Last April the science journal Nature published a paper explaining how organic electronics could lead to ultrathin and flexible electronic devices.

Posted by Stephen Gordon at 09:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

On Friday, Newsfactor Technology News published an article entitled, "The Bleeding Edge of Computing" which contained this speculation:

Professor Drew Endy in biological engineering at MIT says that soon we will be able to write DNA -- perhaps even building and coding living organisms capable of conducting work for us on the nano-scale. It is even possible that programmers might adopt natural coding as a computer language.

"Synthetic biology" means leveraging natural structures as a way of building things on the molecular scale. "If you can write DNA, you're no longer limited to 'what is' but to what you could make," said Endy. "The science you get out of that is more than 'Here's this gene and what it does.' It's 'What are the physical limitations of biological systems?'"

via KurzweilAI

I would expect biological systems to have some physical limitations that would keep them from being the all-purpose nanobots we futurists like to imagine. But what's to keep an enterprising programmer from writing the code for an organism that eats carbon and excretes petroleum?

Any bets that genetic algorithms won't be an important tool in this emerging field? Technology is coming full circle.

I recently asked:

How much tweaking is required before we consider a formerly natural organism [like yeast] to be an artificial nanobot?

Possible answer: when we move from tweaking natural genes to writing the code ourselves from scratch.

Posted by Stephen Gordon at 01:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Big News:

Scientists from the Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University have created the first reproducible single molecule negative differential resistor and in the process have developed a groundbreaking experimental technique that provides a "roadmap" for designing single-molecule devices based on biochemistry.

Based on biotechnology? Very interesting. Those single-molecule devices will no doubt be used both to treat disease and monitor health.

Among lots of other potential applications, of course.

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 07:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Over a year ago Phil posted "Mapping The Development Space." Phil's post took four categories of possible nanotech developments (as conceived, I believe, by Glenn Reynolds) and put them on a grid:

These four categories are:

1. Fake (where it's basically a marketing term, as with nanopants);
2. Simple: high-strength materials, sensors, coatings, etc -- things that are important, but not sexy;
3. Major: advanced devices short of true assemblers;
4. Spooky: assemblers and related technology (true Molecular Nanotechnology).

At the time that post was written (waaay back in December of 2003) neither Glenn nor Phil believed any nanotech developments fell outside the "fake" quadrant.

We may have just entered a new quadrant.

Self-assembled nano-sized probes allow Penn researchers to see tumors through flesh and skin

PHILADELPHIA – Nano-sized particles embedded with bright, light-emitting molecules have enabled researchers to visualize a tumor more than one centimeter below the skin surface [in rats] using only infrared light...

"We have shown that the dispersion of thousands of brightly emissive multi-porphyrin fluorophores within the polymersome membrane can be used to optically image tissue structures deep below the skin – with the potential to go even deeper," said Michael J. Therien, a professor of chemistry at Penn State. "It should also be possible to use an emissive polymersome vesicle to transport therapeutics directly to a tumor, enabling us to actually see if chemotherapy is really going to its intended target."

...Polymersomes function much like the bilayered membranes of living cells. Whereas cell membranes are created from a double layer of fatty phospholipid chains, a polymersome is comprised of two layers of synthetic co-polymers. Like a living cell, the polymersome membrane has a hydrophobic core. The study shows that the fluorophores evenly disperse within this core, giving rise to a nanometer-sized light-emitting structure.

...Another feature that makes emissive polymersomes so useful is that they self-assemble. Simply mixing together all component parts gives rise to these functional nanometer-sized, cell-like vesicles."

via KurzweilAI

This development involves self-assembled nano-sized structures that emit light. AND scientists "can use these [structures] to target markers on the surface of a specific type of tumor cells" so that they can see the tumor. AND these researchers are hopeful that this same nano-structure will also be useful in delivering chemotherapy.

While there is room for debate over whether this qualifies as "simple" or "major" nanotech (it isn't quite spooky), this development is much more than "fake" nanotech.

Posted by Stephen Gordon at 12:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Mike Treder, Executive Director of the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology has given us permission to republish this thought-provoking essay on how soon we can expect to see molecular manufacturing. How does 20 years sound? Too long? How about 10? Many recent developments, including the progress that Stephen has been tracking in the development of "fab labs" (here and here) makes me optimistic that the 10-year time-frame might be the realstic one. But as Mike points out, looking for a quick arrival of true nanotechnology might be less a matter of optimism and more a matter of being careful what you wish for. We shall see.

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.

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 11:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Where were you on May 19, 1998 when the Galaxy 4 communications satellite failed? If you were answering your pager, grabbing some cash at an ATM, or completing a credit card transaction, you were probably in a state of frustration. That's because, miles above the Earth, microscopic tin whiskers formed a conduit between two metal contacts, short-circuiting the satellite's central processor.

Who knew that metal could grow nano-whiskers? I certainly didn't. I have to admit, the thought conjures up images of 1950s "B" science fiction. Actually, engineers have known about the problem since the 1940s, and they solved it by adding a 2 -3% lead solution to the tin plating used in electronic assemblies.

Lead? Guess they didn't know back then that lead's not conducive to healthy neural pathways, especially juvenile ones.

But it's hard to change habits and improve on the technical experience formed over the last 50 years, especially considering that lead worked really well. And the risks involved in implementing new solutions to get the lead out seem to outweigh the benefits of elimininating from the environment the small amounts of the element in question. But electronic gizmos are proliferating at an astonishing rate, and they eventually end up in landfills.

When you talk to technology corporations about developing lead-free electronics, they cite the huge investments involved in satellite circuitry, or even high-end home electronics like HDTV, and admit that they're leery. They fear that near-term solutions to the metal whisker problem might not hold up for the long run, and could unleash a chain of failures of Y2K proportions.

Regulators with considerable muscle, like the European Union, have set their atomic alarm clocks, however, demanding that a solution to metallic five o'clock shadow be in place by July 1, 2006, when lead-laden electronics will be illegal for sale in member countries.

So stay tuned. And if your high-tech shaver fails, blame it on tin whiskers.

Posted by Kathy at 12:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Chris Phoenix has some sobering thoughts on the potential coming energy crisis...

If oil supply ever does fall below demand, we can expect prices to rise steeply. At this point, it could take years for alternative technologies to come online, no matter how much economic incentive there is--and meanwhile, since oil demand is relatively "inelastic," the price of oil will be bid up until it slows the global economy enough to reduce demand. That's an ugly picture.

...as well as some thoughts on what we might do about it:

So how does this relate to molecular manufacturing? Well, to avoid a "Peak experience," some new technology will have to come online and grow quite rapidly. It will have to support rapid research and development (meaning, rapid prototyping of industrial-scale projects). Then it will have to support rapid trillion-dollar-scale building of infrastructure.

Read the whole thing, including the comments, which feature a lively discussion about alternative oil sources. My favorite has got to be turkey offal, which really is being used today to produce a product not unlike deisel fuel. There is some talk of using agricultural waste (cornstalks) or growing crops (peanuts, sunflower seeds) specifically to convert to oil.

This got me to wondering...if turkey guts could be used to produce oil, why not human waste? I'm sure we produce a lot more of the latter than the former, and we already go to great lengths to collect and process it. This could include not only what we flush down the toilet, but also much of what normally goes out with the trash (or down the disposal): bones, rinds, leftovers, etc.

Not as exciting an a nanotechnology solution, I'll grant you.

Speaking of exciting nanotechnology solutions, Chris also has the scoop on a big breakthrough that took place a decade ago.

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 09:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Here's a major development:

One line of nanotube research has been to find ways to make the tubes grow continuously. Long nanotubes could be used as wires in electronic circuits and woven into macroscopic fibers that could be used to make extremely strong fabrics and rope. One long-range possibility is using ultralong carbon nanotubes fibers to make an elevator to low Earth orbit.

Suddenly that elevator is sounding a lot less far-fetched. Work with me. The article describes how new techniques are producing nanotubes 4 mm in length. It doesn't say how long the nanotubes were to begin with, but let's say they were 400 nanometers. They thus grew by a factor of 10,000. Grow them once again by the same factor and you have nanotubes 40 KM in length. Do it again, and you've got nanotubes 400,000 KM in length. Unless I'm mistaken, that will get us there.

No, I'm not saying it will be easy going from 4 millimeters to 400,000 kilometers. But then, I doubt it was "easy" going from 400 nanometers to four millimeters. The point is, we're on our way.

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 12:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

GeekPress is back, and linking to a fascinating article on squaring circles. I love that we live in a time when a solution has been found to such stubborn old problem. Interestingly, it proved much easier to make a cube out of a sphere than it did a square out of a circle. The article explains:

In the previous year, Tarski and Stefan Banach (1892–1945) had proved a remarkable analog of the same conjecture in three dimensions, showing paradoxically that a sphere can be cut up into a finite number of pieces and rearranged not only into a cube of the same volume but also into a cube of twice the volume. In fact, a sphere sliced up in just the right way could be rearranged into virtually any shape of any size. [Emphasis added.]

This suggets to me that a sphere might be an excellent default shape for a multi-purpose robot (made up of trillions of nanobots) designed to assume whatever shape is necessary for the task at hand. So you've got this sphere that you carry around in your backpack, or that rolls along with you as you go. It starts raining out and poof! The sphere is now an umbrella. You stroll along until the rain stops and poof! The umbrella is a sphere again. You decide that you'd rather be biking than walking, and poof! You get the idea.

There's something charming, very Harry Potter, about this image of a world in which everybody has a magic sphere ready to do their bidding. Somehow, the whole thing sounds less appealing if the default shape is a cube or even an amorphous cloud.

But, hey, that's probably just me.

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 09:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Far better to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory, nor defeat.
Theodore Roosevelt, 1899

Continue reading "A BHAG for Nanotechnology" »

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 08:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It couldn't have gone to a more deserving guy.

Congrats, Howard!

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 09:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Wired Magazine ran a recent piece on K. Eric Drexler, whose relationship to the field of nanotechnology is difficult to characterize — Dean? Founder? — as The Incredible Shrinking Man. There is no question that Drexler's work has been misrepresented and misunderstood, that the term "nanotechnology" has been co-opted by others who then have the audacity to paint Drexler as some kind of outsider or Pariah in the field, or that there is a strong movement within both the business community and the ever-seeking-funding research community to eliminate what Glenn Reynolds has described as the spooky side nanotechnology. Drexler's opponent in the Great Assembler Debate, Dr. Richard Smalley, the Nobel laureate responsible for the discovery of buckyballs, even went so far as to accuse Drexler of frightening the children with his predictions of nano-weapons and grey goo. Spooky, indeed.

It was therefore all the more exciting to see the news that Dr. Peter Diamandis, the Chairman of the X PRIZE Foundation, is going to head up the Foresight Institute's Feynman Grand Prize Steering Committee. The Foresight Institute is an organization founded by Drexler to help prepare the world for the coming age of molecular manufacturing. The institute annually awards Feynman Prizes to major contributors in the field; the grand prize is a $250,000 cash award which will go to the first individual or team to construct a rudimentary nano-scale computer and robotic arm. Diamandis' presence on the committee for the Feynman Grand Prize indicates that the goals of the Foresight Institute are no more "fringe" than were those of the X Prize committee. While the Nano Business Alliance continues to insist that term "nanotechnology" applied only to stain resistant pants and other vital breakthroughs, some researcher or team of researchers is one day soon going to provide Drexler the ulitmate vindication, and open up a new world even more strange and wonderful than the one promised by the triumph of SpaceShipOne.

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 11:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

The Prince of Wales is once again warning about the dangers of nanotechnology:

The Prince acknowledges nanotechnology is a "triumph of human ingenuity".

"Some of the work may have fundamental benefits to society, such as enabling the construction of much cheaper fuel-cells, or new ways of combating ill-health," he says.

But he adds: "How are we going to ensure that proper attention is given to the risks that may... ensue?

Your Highness, maybe you ought to think about joining the Foresight Institute, where they've been planning for nanotechnology for more than a decade — including giving the "proper attention" to the risks involved.

If money is tight, there are several membership options available.

Original Comments

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 07:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)