From: Gina Miller (nanogirl@halcyon.com)
Date: Sun Feb 16 2003 - 17:08:33 MST
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 Muséum 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=NR20030215670.4ÿÿÿÿ
_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
nanogirl@halcyon.com
"Nanotechnology: Solutions for the future."
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