X-Message-Number: 21748 From: "Gina Miller" <> Subject: The Nanogirl News~ Date: Sun, 11 May 2003 14:40:39 -0700 The Nanogirl News May 11, 2003 U.S. House approves $2.4 billion for nanotech research. The U.S. House of Representatives gave a big boost to a tiny technology on Wednesday, voting to increase research funding that could lead to molecule-sized computers and medical robots that travel the human bloodstream. By a vote of 405-19, the House earmarked $2.36 billion over three years to fund research in nanotechnology, the science of manipulating individual atoms to create new materials. (Yahoo 5/8/03) http://in.tech.yahoo.com/030508/137/243bo.html Brave new world or miniature menace? Why Charles fears grey goo nightmare. Royal Society asked to look at risks of nanotechnology. The scenario is a familiar one: scientists open Pandora's box, awaken Frankenstein's monster, or maybe just play God. But this time the menace on the laboratory bench is undetectable with any conceivable optical microscope. It offers a nightmare vision straight out of science fiction - the destruction of the environment, perhaps even of the world, by robots smaller than viruses, able to share intelligence, replicate themselves and take command of the planet. That is the catch with nanotechnology: you cannot see it, so you cannot know how afraid you should be. But if Prince Charles is any guide, environmentalists should be very afraid indeed. (Guardian Unlimited 4/29/03) http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,945498,00.html How to Grab an Atom. Like a diner spearing a morsel of food with the tine of a fork, researchers have used the tip of a microscopic needle to lift a single atom from a surface and then replace it. The experiment, reported in the 2 May PRL, marks the first time single atoms have been manipulated using a purely mechanical technique, rather than one involving electric current. The new method could allow researchers to maneuver single atoms of nonconductive as well as conductive materials, perhaps for nanoscale circuits of the future. (Physical Review Focus 5/3/03) http://focus.aps.org/story/v11/st19 Mighty Mini Motor (video). Nanotechnologists try to create new materials or incredibly tiny machines by manipulating atoms and molecules. One of nanotechnology's biggest dreams is biomedical devices that could travel anywhere inside your body and fix parts that need repair. Today, some scientists have already made a start on this dream. They're making incredibly tiny motors that could drive the world's smallest machines, and help keep us well...At Purdue University's School of Veterinary Medicine, molecular biologist Peixuan Guo thinks that RNA has enormous potential for nanotechnology because it is an extremely flexible molecule. "RNA is much easier to make than protein," Guo explains, "and compared to DNA, it comes in many more sizes and shapes. With DNA, we are limited to its double helix structure." Guo and his research team have discovered that RNA binds adenosine triphosphate, or ATP, the chemical fuel that proteins use in the body to allow muscles to move and nerves to function. "ATP works the way gasoline does in a car," says Guo. "You could not walk or talk or think without the chemical fuel of ATP." (ScienCenteral News 5/1/03) http://www.sciencentral.com/news/articles/view.php3?language=english&type=ar ticle&article_id=218391944 Proteins produce nano-magnetic computer memory. Computer hard drive capacity could be increased a hundredfold by using a common protein to fabricate nano-scale magnetic particles, claims UK company Nanomagnetics. It uses the protein apoferritin, the main molecule in which iron is stored in the body, to create a material consisting of magnetic particles each just a few nanometres in diameter. Each particle can store a bit of information and together they can be packed onto a disk drive at much greater density than is possible using existing hard disk manufacturing methods. (New Scientist 4/27/03) http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99993664 Playing God. Through genetic engineering, you could give birth to an Olympian, a musical prodigy or a genius -- but should you? Bill McKibben is a man on the edge. He lives on the edge of the Adirondack wilderness in New York, where he writes books about the limits of technology. Fifteen years ago, he wrote "The End of Nature," in which he argued, with cogency and foresight, that human dependence on fossil fuels was endangering our relationship to the Earth itself. In his new book, "Enough," McKibben describes a new edge. We've come to a threshold with the emerging technologies of genetic engineering, robotics and nanotechnology, McKibben believes. One more step and we will "call into question our understanding of what it means to be a human being." (San Francisco Chronicle 4.27.03) http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/chronicle/archive/2003/04/27/RV 183594.DTL&type=books (More) 'Please, sir, could I have less? 'Bill McKibben argues that our thirst for technological progress threatens the nature of humanity...Genetic engineering, nanotechnology, robotics, and other related technologies may, he writes, "alter our relationship not with the rest of nature but with ourselves." McKibben argues that this debate is too important to be left to scientists. "Must we forever grow in reach and power?" he asks. "Or can we, should we, ever say, 'Enough'?" (Christian Science Monitor 5/1/03) http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0501/p15s01-bogn.html PSU looks to future with nanotechnology. Proposed program would provide millions in research funds. Portland State University professor Jun Jiao addressed the United States Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation last Thursday regarding the 21st Century Nanotechnology Research and Development Act. Nanotechnology is an emerging field in which matter is manipulated at the atomic level in order to build materials, machines, and devices. Advances in the fields of nanoscience and nanotechnology could lead to breakthroughs in areas such as materials and manufacturing, nanoelectronics, medicine and healthcare, environment, energy, chemicals, biotechnology, agriculture, information technology and national security. (Daily Vanguard 5/8/03) http://www.dailyvanguard.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2003/05/08/3eb9dc05bc25d Interested in finding out what happened at the Foresight Senior Associate Gathering? Read about it at Nanodot. (5/8/03) http://nanodot.org/article.pl?sid=03/05/09/0016206 Nanoscale Networks: Superlong nanotubes can form a grid. For a decade, materials scientists have dreamed of using cylinders of carbon with walls just one atom thick as the building blocks for a new generation of sensors, transistors, and other tiny devices. Before that happens, however, researchers must find better ways to grow and align these carbon nanotubes. Jie Liu and his colleagues at Duke University in Durham, N.C., now report growing the longest individual carbon nanotubes ever and aligning them in a two-dimensional grid. (Sciencenews 5/3/03) http://www.sciencenews.org/20030503/fob2.asp Nanoprobe To Be Developed For A 'Fantastic Voyage' In The Human Body, Finding And Treating Deadly Tumors. A UC Irvine research team has received a five-year, $1.4 million National Institutes of Health grant to develop a microscopic probe for detecting and treating pre-cancerous and malignant tumors in humans. Similar to the miniaturized vessel that explores a human body in the science fiction movie "Fantastic Voyage," this nano-sized probe would be inserted into a patient and then guided through the esophagus, stomach and colon to determine if tumors are growing on the wall of the intestine. The probe would be remotely controlled by a surgeon operating a device called an endoscope. (ScienceDaily 5/9/03) http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/05/030509085108.htm Nanosys raises $30 million. Nanosys Inc., a maker of nanotechnology-enabled systems based in Palo Alto, pocketed $30 million in the first closing of its second round of financing. (bizjournals 4/24/03) http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/stories/2003/04/21/daily52.html On the tube. A new type of computer memory uses carbon, rather than silicon...Carbon comes in many forms. Diamonds and graphite are two of the most familiar ones. A less familiar variety is the nanotube, also known as a "buckytube" after Richard Buckminster Fuller, whose geodesic domes have a framework similar to the arrangement of the atoms in a nanotube. Nanotubes consist of a cylindrical array of carbon atoms whose diameter is only about 1 nanometre (a billionth of a metre). If Nantero, a firm based in Woburn, Massachusetts, proves correct, such tubes will soon be an integral part of computer memories. (The Economist 5/8/03) http://www.economist.com/science/displayStory.cfm?story_id=1763552 Small is beautiful but is it dangerous too?...What does nano mean?...When did it start?...Is it dangerous?...Such as?...Is there a pay-off?...Are there environmental dangers?... (Guardian Unlimited 4/29/03) http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,945499,00.html IBM finds plenty of room at bottom. In an incredibly tiny development which marks a giant leap in nanotechnology - the science of working on the atomic and molecular scale - global computing giant IBM's research division has created the world's smallest solid-state light emitter. The breakthrough is a graphite nanotube - a sheet of graphite (a form of carbon) rolled into a tube - transformed into the world's first, electrically-controlled, single-molecule light emitter. (The Times of India 5/11/03) http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/xml/uncomp/articleshow?msid=46006 004 Atoms Incognito. As with people, some atoms prefer to join in groups, while others insist on going it alone. But when prodded with laser light, inherently gregarious atoms known as bosons can act like loner atoms known as fermions, a duo of theoretical physicists predict in the 18 April PRL. The faux-loner atoms can even form tenuous pairs, much like the electrons in a superconductor, so that they resemble a long-sought new state of matter. (Physical Review Focus 4/18/03) http://focus.aps.org/story/v11/st16 Skin-deep answer will put mobiles into the wrist business. Advances in nanotechnology mean that the lost or stolen mobile phone could become a thing of the past, according to technology research hothouse BTexact. Ian Pearson, Suffolk based BTexact's futurologist believes that the concept of 'active skin' - whereby incredibly small electronic circuits are inkjet printed onto the surface of the skin - could become a reality by 2010. This, he says, will open the way for the integration of electronic devices such as the mobile phones or televisions literally 'into' the human body. (Business Weekly 4/28/03) http://www.businessweekly.co.uk/news/view_article.asp?article_id=7598 Nano and the Professor. In 1959, physicist Dr. Richard Feynman gave birth to the concept of nanotechnology. Feynman described the theoretical approaches to "manipulating and controlling things on a very small scale." For instance, he recognized that computers, then the size of buildings, would need to get continually smaller to become important to our lives. He also predicted advances in medicine and learning. Feynman's only real misjudgment was that he overestimated our ability to figure any of this out. "In the year 2000, when they look back at this age, they will wonder why it was not until the year 1960 that anybody began seriously to move in this direction." (The American Spectator 5/8/03) http://www.spectator.org/article.asp?art_id=2003_5_7_23_37_44 Researchers see the light as they peel away space mystery. Tiny multilayered balls called "carbon onions," produced in laboratory studies, appear to have the same light-absorption characteristics as dust particles in the regions between the stars. "It's the strongest evidence yet that cosmic dust has a multilayered onionlike carbon structure," said Manish Chhowalla, assistant professor of ceramic and materials engineering at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. Chhowalla used transmission electron microscopes to study radiation absorption of the laboratory-produced onions and found characteristics virtually identical to those reported by astrophysicists studying dust in deep space. A carbon onion is a miniscule but intricate component of nanotechnology-the study of structures and devices on a scale that can approach one-millionth the width of a human hair. (ISA 4/30/03) http://www.isa.org/Template.cfm?Section=Professionals_and_Practitioners&temp late=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=26090 Nanotech giving birth to a whole new revolution. Budding science will spur flurry of inventions. In the not-too-distant future, your house could be built with strong tiles that heat the rooms with solar power. Inside you could watch a smooth, flat-panel TV with electronic components built right into the glass instead of a web of wires at the back. Nanosys Inc., a small Palo Alto nanotechnology firm, plans to deliver these and other products within the next three years. Nanosys' inventions arose from the type of industry collaboration with academic labs that Congress has been trying to promote since 2000 through an escalating round of funding for nanotechnology research. (SFGate 5/8/03) http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/05/08/MN171263.DTL&typ e=tech More news re: Nanosys - Nanosys raises $30 million. Nanosys Inc., a maker of nanotechnology-enabled systems based in Palo Alto, pocketed $30 million in the first closing of its second round of financing. (bizjournals 4/24/03) http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/stories/2003/04/21/daily52.html Nanotechnology Leaders to Gather in New York City Next Week for 2nd Annual NanoBusiness 2003 Conference. NanoBusiness 2003, produced by Penton Media (NYSE: PME, http://www.penton.com), will raise the curtain next week on its 2nd annual event focused on the emerging nanotechnology industry. Produced in association with the NanoBusiness Alliance (http://www.nanobusiness.org), the event will be held at the New York Marriott Financial Center in New York City, from May 11-13, and is designed to drive forward the emerging business of microsystems and nanotechnology. Complete information and online registration can be found at http://www.nanobusiness2003.com. (Stockhouse 5/8/03) http://www.stockhouse.com/news/news.asp?tick=PME&newsid=1674276 Advances pave way for 'nanobots'. Despite tantalizing lab results, building robots on a molecular scale would seem to be a futuristic pipe dream. But a research report on robotic technology published by Business Communications Co. Inc. (Norwalk, Conn.) claims that nanobots are "on the cusp," thanks to robust research worldwide on the problem. (EETimes 4/28/03) http://www.eet.com/at/im/news/OEG20030428S0063 Companies bring war to nanoscale to combat unseen bio/chem enemies. One of the many take-home lessons for the United States and its allies after the 1991 Persian Gulf War was a need for better protection against biological and chemical weapons. Years after the conflict, soldiers complained of ailments they believed resulted from exposure to the Iraqi regime's arsenal. More than a decade later, several companies are turning to nanotechnology to counter the threats of biological and chemical warfare. Their efforts range from gloves and gear that block out toxic chemicals and germs to fabrics and powders that deactivate and destroy the deadly agents. Military and university research labs also are developing protective skin creams, emulsions and even drugs to reduce the dangers. (Small Times 5/8/03) http://www.smalltimes.com/document_display.cfm?document_id=5957 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=21748