X-Message-Number: 21189 From: "Gina Miller" <> Subject: The Nanogirl News~ Date: Sun, 16 Feb 2003 16:08:33 -0800 The Nanogirl News February 16, 2003 Nanotechnology could save the ozone layer. Whilst experimenting with nanospheres and perfluorodecalin, a liquid used in the production of synthetic blood, researchers at Germany's University of Ulm have stumbled across a phenomenon that could ultimately help remove ozone-harming chemicals from the atmosphere. The perfluorodecalin, against all expectations, was taken up by a water-based suspension of 60 nm diameter polystyrene particles. (nanotechweb 1/30/03) http://nanotechweb.org/articles/news/2/1/16/1 Twenty Years until Anti-aging Nanotech: Zyvex Head. Stick around 20 years and you could live to see medical nanotechnology battle aging, says the head of a company that's making it happen. "I think nanomedicine has such promise for humanity that I have taken a small portion of my net worth and hired Rob to write a book and to give us some ideas about what might be possible," Texan millionaire Jim Von Her said in Wellington, New Zealand, while attending a nanotechnology conference. "We can't build any of the devices he has designed yet because we don't have atomic precision. But in 20 years we are going to be able to make little devices to go in your body and actually fight diseases and cure some of the aging problems in cells. "The "Rob" Von Ehr refers to is Robert A. Freitas Jr., who is writing the books on nanomedicine, called, appropriately, Nanomedicine. He has currently produced two volumes. (Betterhumans 2/14/03) http://www.betterhumans.com/News/news.aspx?articleID=2003-02-14-2 'Sticky' DNA crystals promise new way to process information. Imagine information stored on something only a hundredth the size of the next generation computer chip--and made from nature's own storage molecule, DNA. A team led by Richard Kiehl, a professor of electrical engineering at the University of Minnesota, has used the selective "stickiness" of DNA to construct a scaffolding for closely spaced nanoparticles that could exchange information on a scale of only 10 angstroms (an angstrom is one 10-billionth of a meter). The technique allows the assembly of components on a much smaller scale and with much greater precision than is possible with current manufacturing methods, Kiehl said. The work is published in a recent issue of the Journal of Nanoparticle Research. (EurekAlert 2/6/03) http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2003-02/uom-dc020603.php Education overhaul urged for nanotech revolution. Nanotechnology is taking on a life of its own, inexorably changing electronics in the same way as the transition from tubes to integrated circuits. But the educational community has yet to respond, and research officials are concerned that the fledgling industry will not grow unless nanotechnology becomes a standard part of the U.S. physics and chemistry curriculum. Academics and research leaders aired their concerns at a workshop devoted to nanotechnologies held here last week in conjunction with the DesignCon 2003 conference. Some asked for nanotechnology to be introduced in a preliminary stage to students at the K-12 level. (EETimes 2/6/03) http://www.eet.com/at/news/OEG20030206S0026 Governor breaks ground on advanced nano-research center at UCLA. Officials broke ground Friday on what was billed as the world's most advanced facility for atomic-level research. The California NanoSystems Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles will explore the power and potential of manipulating atoms to engineer new materials and devices. "Nanotech may be one of the world's smallest sciences, but it has the greatest potential," Gov. Gray Davis said at the ceremony. The state will provide $100 million for the facility, with another $138 million coming from private industry, foundations and federal grants, officials said. (Modbee.com 2/14/03) http://www.modbee.com/state_wire/story/6198548p-7148391c.html Biology to make mini machines. Computers of the future will be built not by factory machines, but by living cells such as bacteria. That at least is the vision which has been outlined by scientists speaking at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting in Denver. They have described how wires can now be made by yeast organisms, and how solar panels could be built using substances produced by sea sponges. (BBC 2/14/03) http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/sci_tech/2003/denver_2003/2765077.stm Race on to build first robot insect. Walking silicon chip only a year away. By 2004 the world's densest computer - 400 of them could fit on the surface of a grain of salt - could be powering the first walking silicon chip, with legs that move like a Mexican wave. If that works, the next step could be a robot insect the size of a housefly. Nanotechnology - the science of materials and machines measuring a billionth of a metre - has become big business, with more than 450 firms, 270 university departments and $4bn ( 2.48bn) worth of investment in the US, Europe and Japan. (Guardian Unlimited 2/15/03) http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,895903,00.html Tiny technologies could help Oregon make it big. With a carefully trimmed beard and wire-rimmed glasses, Kevin Drost seems like an ordinary man with ordinary thoughts -- until the conversation turns to Siamese fighting fish. In his eyes, the exotic fish holds an important key to Oregon's economic future. Scientists believe they can produce a tiny biohazard sensor using unique, toxin-detecting cells in the fish's skin. "If we can do what I think we can do, we can have multiple million-dollar business here," said Drost, co-director of the Microtechnology Breakthrough Lab at Oregon State University. "We are way ahead of everyone else in this particular field." Some of Oregon's most influential residents believe research done at the tiniest of scales -- on molecules one-billionth and one-millionth of a meter in size -- will save the state from its economic tailspin and prop up its business infrastructure for years to come. Oregon has plenty of competition: Dozens of states and individual universities have already delved into so-called nano- and microtechnology research. (billingsgazette.com 2/15/03) http://www.billingsgazette.com/index.php?id=1&display=rednews/2003/02/15/bui ld/business/65-tiny-tech.inc Thousand CDs in a wristwatch. Miniaturization is the buzzword today. Nanotechnology is not simply miniaturization. It is much more in frontier science, with its scope and application limitless and mind-boggling. "1000 compact discs in a wrist watch", that is how Prof. CNR Rao, a noted scientist, terms it...India is one of the few leading countries of the world where work on nanotechnology is progressing at a faster pace in a number of premier scientific institutions. The Minister for Science and Technology, Dr. Murli Manohar Joshi, a physicist by his own right, sums up, 'Nanotechnology could one day unravel the mystery of interconnectivity of the whole universe'. (indiaexpress.com 2/15/03) http://www.indiaexpress.com/news/technology/20030215-0.html Science of the small draws its own skeptics. FEAR OF THE UNKNOWN: Scientists fear that scaremongering by those opposed to the development of nanotechnology could result in a moratorium on research. Scientists and activists are on a collision course over a new technology that operates on a microscopic scale but could have massive ramifications, and the confrontation could derail the rapidly emerging field of nanotechnology, a Canadian study shows. (Taipei Times 2/15/03) http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/biz/archives/2003/02/15/194681 More on this at BBC Nanotech may spark fierce ethical row 2/15/03 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2758191.stm Acid stops bacteria swimming. Microbes' motors are sensitive to their internal pH. Lowering the pH inside a bacterium stops its motor, shows new research. The finding could help those trying to learn how to make microbe-sized machines. Spinning hairs called flagella enable microbes to swim towards nutrients or away from toxins: they turn anticlockwise for forward motion, and clockwise to change direction. Researchers are keen to understand such chemically driven biological motors, which are only millionths of a millimetre across, as electronics do not work on this scale. (nature science update 2/10/03) http://www.nature.com/nsu/030203/030203-13.html After Columbia: Small Tech Can Help Make Space Travel Safer...Ryne Raffaelle, a physics professor and director of the NanoPower Research Laboratory at the Rochester Institute of Technology, is working on several nanotechnology projects at the NASA Glenn Research Center in Cleveland. He said that weight, power and volume are at a tremendous premium in space. The sort of diagnostic devices NASA currently use are much heavier than MEMS sensors. The current crop of diagnostic devices NASA uses are too heavy and require too much power, Raffaelle said. (Small Times 2/14/03) http://www.smalltimes.com/document_display.cfm?document_id=5508 DNA acts like a "piston". Biophysicists have built a DNA nanomolecular device that expands and contracts with the addition of "fuel" DNA. Patrizia Alberti and Jean-Louis Mergny at the Mus um National d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris constructed the piston-like device using a single strand of nucleotides. They believe that it could be used as a structural component in nanomolecular machines (P Alberti and J-L Mergny 2003 Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. to be published) (Physicsweb 2/3/03) http://physicsweb.org/article/news/7/2/1 Chip is 400th the size of grain of salt. A microscopic computer chip so tiny that 400 could fit on a grain of salt will begin to revolutionize electronics next year, scientists said yesterday. Dr James Ellenbogen, a physicist at the Mitre Corporation, a research institute based in Virginia, said a working memory the size of a human cell would be complete by the end of 2004. He told the American Association that it would be "the densest memory ever". "When they introduced the IBM personal computer it came with 16 kilobytes of memory - eight times this," he said. "You would have shrunk the memory of an old IBM PC into the space of about eight human cells. It's awfully small." The memory chip is created from a lattice of minute wires upon which are placed individual molecules capable of storing digital information. Dr Ellenbogen said that by stacking the chips on top of each other it should be possible to store a gigabyte of information on a device the size of a grain of salt. (Hoover's Online 2/15/03) http://hoovnews.hoovers.com/fp.asp?layout=displaynews&doc_id=NR20030215670.4 _b0310007347792e9 Also: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2003-02/aaft-tfo021303.php 'Gadget printer' promises industrial revolution. The idea of printing a light bulb may seem bizarre, but US engineers are now developing an ink-jet printing technology to do just that. The research at the University of California in Berkeley will allow fully assembled electric and electronic gadgets to be printed in one go. The idea was revealed at a December workshop on robotic algorithms in Nice. Instead of creating a casing and then laboriously filling it with electronic circuit boards, components and switches, the plan is to print a complete and fully assembled device. The trick is to print layer upon layer of conducting and semiconducting polymers in such a way that the circuitry the device requires is built up as part of the bodywork. When the technique is perfected, devices such as light bulbs, radios, remote controls, mobile phones and toys will be spat out as individual fully functional systems without expensive and labor-intensive production on an assembly line. (New Scientist Jan. 03) http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99993238 New technology sees through objects. As part of an effort sponsored by the European Space Agency, which works to bring the continent up to speed in outer-space research by coordinating multinational projects, scientists were able to take the first "photographs" using terahertz radiation. Researchers with the StarTiger project released on Tuesday images of a human hand taken through a 15 millimeter stack of paper, as well as pictures taken of the human body through clothing. (CnetAsia 2/13/03) http://asia.cnet.com/newstech/systems/0,39001153,39114080,00.htm Huge progress on tiny scale. In the unlikely setting of the World War II US army base that is now Lower Hutt's Gracefield Research Centre, Dr Andreas Markwitz is at the forefront of a technology that could change the world. He is one of a handful of people worldwide who are working on a commercial process for making tiny slithers of silicon called "nanowhiskers". His field, "nanotechnology", works on a scale of a nanometre - one-billionth of a metre, or about one half-millionth of the size of the full stop at the end of this sentence. -lengthy- (New Zealand News 2/8/03) http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=3100017&thesection=techno logy&thesubsection=general (Artificial Intelligence) Can Sentient Machines Evolve. It's coming, but when? From Garry Kasparov to Michael Crichton, both fact and fiction are converging on a showdown between man and machine. But what does a leading artificial intelligence expert--the world's first computer science PhD--think about the future of machine intelligence? Will computers ever gain consciousness and take over the world? (SpaceDaily 2/12/03) http://www.spacedaily.com/news/robot-03b.html NanoLights! Camera! Action! Tiny semiconductor crystals reveal cellular activity like never before. Last December, Sanford Simon attended a cell biology meeting where researchers presented picture after picture of cells colorfully highlighted by organic dyes or fluorescent proteins. Speakers also debuted movies-featuring proteins as cellular action heroes. In these little dramas, often lasting only seconds, viewers witnessed the complicated molecular actions underlying cancer, diabetes, and other human diseases. (Sciencenews 2/15/03) http://www.sciencenews.org/20030215/bob10.asp The Secret of Life. Future Visions. How will genetics change our lives? TIME invited a panel of scientists and science writers to close their eyes and imagine the world 50 years from now. This is what they see. Comments by: James Watson President: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, David Baltimore: President California Institute of Technology, Francis Collins: Director National Human Genome Research Institute, Nancy Wexler: Professor of Neuropsychology Columbia University, Matt Ridley: Author of Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters, Lee Silver: Professor Department of Molecular Biology, Princeton University, Ray Kurzweil: Inventor and author of The Age of Spiritual Machines, French Anderson: Director Gene Therapy Laboratories, University of Southern California, Kary Mullis: Biochemist and inventor of the Polymerase Chain Reaction, Stanley Prusiner, M.D. Professor of Biochemistry University of California, San Francisco and Hamilton Smith: Nobel Laureate & Scientific Director, Institute for Biological Energy Alternatives. (Time Magazine 2/9/03) http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101030217/scdfuture.html Manipulating Nanoparticles. Focused light beams called optical tweezers excel at trapping and moving micron-sized objects, but nanometer-scale particles generally slip through their grasp. Now researchers calculate that a laser tuned to resonate with the internal energy levels of semiconductor nanoparticles could strengthen its grip up to 100,000 times. A previous study had suggested a similar but much less drastic enhancement. The paper, appearing in the 7 February print issue of PRL, points the way toward size- and shape-selective sorting of building blocks for efficient nano-patterned materials. (Physical Review Focus 2/11/03) http://focus.aps.org/story/v11/st6 (More from CRN) The Center for Responsible Nanotechnology. Patchwork regulation of nanotech could be grave danger, warns CRN. The Center for Responsible Nanotechnology (CRN) is deeply concerned about the potential for abuse of nanotechnology, and also about the serious hazards of unwise regulation. CRN's statement comes in response to a report by the University of Toronto Joint Centre for Bioethics, warning that a backlash against nanotechnology development is gathering momentum and needs to be addressed. (nanotech-now 2/15/03) http://nanotech-now.com/CRN-release-02152003.htm I hope you all had a nice Valentines day! Gina "Nanogirl" Miller Nanotechnology Industries http://www.nanoindustries.com Personal: http://www.nanogirl.com Foresight Senior Associate http://www.foresight.org Extropy member http://www.extropy.org "Nanotechnology: Solutions for the future." Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=21189