Transistors made from carbon nanotubes are not new, they were first made in 1998,
but in today's issue of Science researchers from IBM report on a method of making
them that is far more precise and easier to scale up. It's a little ironic that the lead
researcher Phaedon Avouris has always been a vocal skeptic of Nanotechnology,
he now says " in principle we now have the potential for forming an integrated electronics".
In the same issue of Science are two new advances in Stem Cells. In one mouse
embryonic stem cells were induced to turn into insulin producing cells, when transferred
into diabetic mice the mice needed fewer insulin shots to live. In another article a bit a
adult mouse's tail was cut off and the tissue was turned into embryonic stem cells,
then they morphed the stem cells into dopamine producing cells, the sort of cells
that are lost in Parkinson's disease. Both said they would have used Human cells
instead of mouse cells if the government had let them.
Today's New York Times says IBM will spend several billion dollars over the next few
years on something called "Project Eliza". It would enable computers to "use machine
intelligence to adjust to changing workloads, recognize faults and repair themselves
without human intervention".
John K Clark jonkc@att.net
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