Responsible Nanotechnology's topics - tribe.net

My Opinon is No!

2009-07-18T15:04:58Z

I joined this tribe so i could say that no further discussion necessary.

Peace Choice Freedom Respect, Natural medicine 1st Technology should be last resort

posted in Responsible Nanotechnology - 0 replies

Weigh in... your opinion, that is

2008-06-05T20:33:25Z

Discuss some interesting topics on CreateDebate like these:

http://www.createdebate.com/debate/show/What_is_the_most_promising_aspect_of_nano-technology

http://www.createdebate.com/debate/show/What_life_form_prevails

http://www.createdebate.com/debate/show/Is_it_possible_to_dig_ourselves_out_of_this_technological_hole

http://www.createdebate.com/debate/show/Can_Artificial_Intelligence_ever_catch_up_to_the_level_of_performance_of_the_human_brain

http://www.createdebate.com/debate/show/Top_10_most-used_websites

http://www.createdebate.com/debate/show/Do_you_believe_there_will_be_a_technological_Singularity

posted in Responsible Nanotechnology - 0 replies

Donate to Foresight deadline Sunday

2006-12-30T06:52:53Z

www.foresight.org

Advancing Beneficial Nanotechnology

Foresight is the leading think tank and public interest institute on nanotechnology. Founded in 1986, Foresight was the first organization to educate society about the benefits and risks of nanotechnology. At that time, nanotechnology was a little-known concept.

Today, with the basic framework of public understanding in place, we are refocusing our efforts on guiding nanotechnology research, public policy and education to address the critical challenges facing humanity.

Foresight’s new mission is to ensure the beneficial implementation of nanotechnology.

Foresight is accomplishing this by providing balanced, accurate and timely information to help society understand and utilize nanotechnology through public policy activities, publications, guidelines, networking events, tutorials, conferences, roadmaps and prizes.

Foresight is a member-supported organization. Our membership, including over 14,000 individuals and a growing number of corporations, is diverse demographically and geographically. They are interested in ensuring that the future of nanotechnology unfolds for the benefit of all. These concerned individuals include scientists, engineers, business people, investors, publishers, artists, ethicists, policy makers, interested laypersons, and students from grammar school to graduate level.

Foresight ® is a 501c3 nonprofit organization. Donations are tax-deductible in the US to the full extent provided by law.

http://www.foresight.org/members/index.html

posted in Responsible Nanotechnology - 1 reply

Telomolecular Corp

2006-07-13T20:03:29Z

http://www.504bank.com/telodpo.asp

anyone familiar with this company?
http://www.telomolecular.com/

posted in Responsible Nanotechnology - 1 reply

C-R-Newsletter #38

2006-03-01T19:15:46Z

The latest edition of the C-R-Newsletter has been posted on our main website.

CONTENTS OF THIS ISSUE:

- WorldChanging Interview
- CRN Goes to Switzerland
- From Heaven to Doomsday
- The Future And You
- CRN Task Force Essays
- Developing Countries and Nano Law
- Nanotech Basics for Students
- A New Definition of Nanotechnology
- Sander Olson's Interviews
- CRN Goes to Spain
- Nanomanufacturing Conference
- Feature Essay: Who remembers analog computers?

Read the whole newsletter — http://crnano.org/archive06.htm#38

Sign up for a free subscription — http://crnano.org/contact.htm#Newsletter

Mike Treder
Executive Director
Center for Responsible Nanotechnology
http://CRNano.org
http://CRNano.typepad.com

posted in Responsible Nanotechnology - 0 replies

Some nano tech in action: NASAs Aerogel

2006-01-20T11:44:12Z

Here is an article with photos about how NASA used a nanostructure called Aerogel to catch dust particles in a comet's tail (and more). Its really interesting to take a fact (like this gel is a nano-structure of silicone that is spongelike and contains over 99% air) and actually see it and see how it works...check it out. I'll post the photo of the stuff in the album, too.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/stardust/mission/aerogel-index.html

posted in Responsible Nanotechnology - 0 replies

C-R-Newsletter #36

2006-01-01T17:21:56Z

We wrap up our third year, appropriately, with monthly newsletter #36. Here’s wishing all our readers a prosperous and joyous 2006!

CONTENTS

- CRN Goes to Yale
- New President at Foresight
- CRN Task Force Progress
- Bragging About Blogging
- A Global Surge Protector?
- Inside CRN, Parts 1-5
- Milestones & Moving Forward
- Feature Essay: Simple Nanofactories vs. Floods of Products

To read this month's C-R-Newsletter, go to http://www.crnano.org/archive05.htm#36

REMINDER: Every month this newsletter gets you up to date on recent events, but to follow the latest happenings on a daily basis, be sure to check our Responsible Nanotechnology weblog at http://CRNano.typepad.com/

posted in Responsible Nanotechnology - 0 replies

C-R-Newsletter: SPECIAL ISSUE

2005-11-30T19:05:39Z

C-R-Newsletter #35: November 30, 2005

To read this on the Web, with nice formatting and hyperlinks, go to http://www.crnano.org/archive05.htm#35

NOTE: In the items below, links are indicated with [brackets], and shown at the end of each section.

Editor's Note

On December 30, 2004, [we wrote] in our blog: "Things are really starting to heat up around nanotechnology. It looks to us as if 2005 is going to be a huge year for tiny tech."

That prediction was right on the mark. The last 11 months have seen tremendous progress in nanoscience and technology. In this *Special Issue* of the C-R-Newsletter, we’ll highlight a few of the remarkable developments that have made 2005 the Year of Nano.

http://crnano.typepad.com/crnblog/2004/12/nanobot_talk.html

CONTENTS

- Two Major MM Papers from Chris Phoenix
- CRN Inspires Research on DNA
- Nanoscale Engineering at Northwestern
- Building Molecular Machines at Rice
- Pitt Goes Top-Down & Bottom-Up
- Nanotech Roadmap Update
- CRN Task Force Progress
- Milestones & Moving Forward
- Feature Essay: Notes on Nanofactories

Every month this newsletter gets you up to date on recent events, but to follow the latest happenings on a daily basis, be sure to check our Responsible Nanotechnology weblog at http://CRNano.typepad.com/

==========

Two Major MM Papers from Chris Phoenix

Earlier this year, CRN's Director of Research Chris Phoenix produced two important papers. "Developing Molecular Manufacturing" was published in March, and then in May, Chris released the findings of a study he performed for NASA's Institute for Advanced Concepts

The [first paper] proposes that the development of molecular manufacturing can be an incremental process from today's capabilities, and may not be as distant as many believe. Three stages for the development of molecular manufacturing, each with specific milestones, are identified: 1) computer-controlled fabrication of precise molecular structures; 2) exponential growth of the manufacturing base using nanoscale tools to build more tools; 3) integrating nanoscale products into large structures, leading to desktop 'nanofactories' that could build advanced products.

The [second work], titled "Molecular Manufacturing: What, Why and How," provides a new analysis of existing technological capabilities, including proposed steps from today's nanotech to advanced molecular machine systems. Chris describes two approaches for building the initial basic tools with current technology. Other sections outline incremental improvement from those early tools toward the first integrated nanofactory, and analyze a scalable architecture for a more advanced nanofactory. Product performance and likely applications are discussed, as well as incentives for corporate or government investment in the technology. Finally, considerations and recommendations for a targeted development program are presented.

http://www.crnano.org/developing.htm
http://wise-nano.org/w/Doing_MM

CRN Inspires Research on DNA

Inspired by one of CRN's [Thirty Essential Studies] — [Study #10], "What will be required to develop nucleic acid manufacturing and products?" — Frank Boehm wrote "An Investigation of Nucleic Acid/DNA-Based Manufacturing." In a 26-page paper with 242 references, [published online] in April at the Wise-Nano.org website, Boehm describes many different kinds of tools in the DNA device toolbox, and shows how rapidly development is occurring in this field.

http://www.crnano.org/studies.htm
http://www.crnano.org/study10.htm
http://wise-nano.org/w/Boehm_DNA_Study

Nanoscale Engineering at Northwestern

One path to molecular manufacturing would use a traditional machining approach to build small systems that can perform increasingly precise operations, similar to what was originally proposed by [Richard Feynman]. Current university research may be significantly improving the chances of success for this approach.

In September, [we reported] that researchers at Northwestern had designed a tiny sensitive system for applying and sensing force, welded samples to the device using a new and very powerful nanoscale manufacturing system, then put the device in a tunneling electron microscope (TEM), and watched the tube while they pulled it apart.

Although nothing in this work is atomically precise (with the possible exception of the TEM microscopy), it is getting close. The ability to integrate MEMS, nano-manipulation, FIB, and SEM in a single manufacturing system opens a vast new array of experiments and adds a powerful new part to the [nanotech toolbox].

http://www.zyvex.com/nanotech/feynman.html
http://crnano.typepad.com/crnblog/2005/09/nanoscale_engin.html
http://crnano.typepad.com/crnblog/2004/08/nanotechnology__1.html

Building Molecular Machines at Rice

Is anyone doing actual lab work on molecular manufacturing? We're often asked that question, and now we have a positive answer: A research group at Rice University that produced the [nanocar]. Their reported goal is to "build tiny trucks that could carry atoms and molecules around in miniature factories."

[Dr. James Tour], one of the two lead researchers at Rice, says, "The synthesis and testing of nanocars and other molecular machines is providing critical insight in our investigations of bottom-up molecular manufacturing. We'd eventually like to move objects and do work in a controlled fashion on the molecular scale, and these vehicles are great test beds for that. They’re helping us learn the ground rules."

http://crnano.typepad.com/crnblog/2005/10/nanofactory_tru.html
http://crnano.typepad.com/crnblog/2005/10/us_scientists_d.html

Pitt Goes Top-Down & Bottom-Up

In a span of two weeks in late October, we read a remarkable pair of reports about important nanotechnology work taking place at the University of Pittsburgh's Institute of NanoScience and Engineering.

The [first account] told of Pitt scientists using an advanced nanofabrication system to create the world's smallest chess pieces, approximately 400 nanometers wide. Although this new top-down technology is not quite atomically precise, it does use an electron beam focused to less than two nanometers, allowing researchers to create nanometer-scale structures.

In the [second instance], we learned more about the impressive progress being made by Christian Schafmeister, assistant professor of chemistry at the University of Pittsburgh. His experimental work—designing modular molecules that link together in predictable ways with pairs of stiff bonds—will enable, for the first time, the quick manufacture of sturdy, predictable nanostructures. Because the molecules are large enough to have interesting functions and rigid, designed shapes, they hold great promise as nanoscale parts for future atomically precise nanoscale machines.

http://crnano.typepad.com/crnblog/2005/10/accelerating_te.html
http://crnano.typepad.com/crnblog/2005/11/atomically_prec.html

Nanotech Roadmap Update

Last summer, the Foresight Nanotech Institute and the [Battelle] research organization announced that they would work together to produce a Technology Roadmap for Productive Nanosystems. This effort is being funded in part by the Waitt Family Foundation, as well as by corporate supporters including Sun Microsystems. The published [Roadmap Background] states a clear intention to close the “implementation gap” separating today’s nanostructures from the “complex productive nanosystems of the future.”

They say that biopolymers (DNA, protein) can provide a basis for the design and fabrication of atomically precise, self-assembling composite structures—forming molecular components that bind and organize diverse nanostructures (nanotubes, macromolecules) to form molecular machine systems. Further steps are expected to show the way from the production of 1-dimensional polymers to 2- and 3-dimensional covalent structures, from self-assembly to simpler, mechanical construction methods, and from microscopic systems to desktop-scale factories.

Ultimately, these advanced productive nanosystems (molecular manufacturing systems) should enable the fabrication of large, complex products cleanly, efficiently, and at low cost. According to [Eric Drexler], one of the lead researchers on the Roadmap project, nanofactory products could include:
· Desktop computers with a billion processors
· Inexpensive, efficient solar energy systems
· Medical devices able to destroy pathogens and repair tissues
· Materials 100 times stronger than steel
· Superior military systems
· Additional molecular manufacturing systems

http://www.battelle.org/
http://www.foresight.org/roadmaps/prod_nano.html
http://www.e-drexler.com/

CRN Task Force Progress

The July announcement of an initiative to create a Technology Roadmap for Productive Nanosystems (see above) motivated CRN to organize a parallel process of study and action: the CRN Global Task Force on Implications and Policy. Bringing together a diverse group of world-class experts from multiple disciplines, CRN is leading an historic, collaborative effort to develop comprehensive recommendations for the safe and responsible use of molecular manufacturing.

We now have more than [50 participants] from six different countries on the CRN Task Force. Currently, the group is working on a series of short essays to identify specific concerns that must be addressed. When these are published in anthology form early next year, we will ask for feedback on our ideas, as well as public input on additional concerns.

http://www.crnano.org/CTF.htm

Milestones & Moving Forward

As CRN approaches our 3rd anniversary, we are proud of what we’ve accomplished so far, but mindful that greater challenges await us in 2006. This is important work that few others are doing. To keep moving forward, we will need to grow fast.

A [new page] on our website lists some of the significant milestones from CRN’s first three years. That page also outlines our current priorities—including research, outreach, and development—and suggests several ways in which you can help advance this work.

http://www.crnano.org/milestones.htm

Feature Essay: Notes on Nanofactories
Chris Phoenix, Director of Research, Center for Responsible Nanotechnology

This month's science essay is prompted by several questions about nanofactories that I've received over the past few months. I'll discuss the way in which nanofactories combine nanoscale components into large integrated products; the reason why a nanofactory will probably take about an hour to make its weight in product; and how to cool a nanofactory effectively at such high production rates.

In current nanofactory designs, sub-micron components are made at individual workstations and then combined into a product. This requires some engineering above and beyond what would be needed to build a single workstation. Tom Craver, on our [blog], suggested that there might be a transitional step, in which workstations are arranged in a two-dimensional sheet and make a thin sheet of product. The sheet of manufacturing systems would not have to be flat; it could be V-folded, and perhaps a solid product could be pushed out of a V-folded arrangement of sheets. With a narrow folding angle, the product might be extruded at several times the mechanosynthetic deposition rate.

http://crnano.typepad.com/crnblog/2005/11/what_does_extre.html#comment-11311211

Although the V-fold idea is clever, I think it's not necessary. Once you can build mechanosynthetic systems that can build sheets of product, you're most of the way to a 3D nanofactory. For a simple design, each workstation produces a sub-micron “nanoblock” of product (each dimension being the thickness of the product sheet) rather than a connected sheet of product. Then you have the workstations pass the blocks "hand over hand" to the edge of the workstation sheet. In a primitive nanofactory design, much of the operational complexity would be included in the incoming control information rather than the nanofactory's hardware. This implies that each workstation would have a general-purpose robot arm or other manipulator capable of passing blocks to the next workstation.

After the blocks get to the edge of the sheet, they are added to the product. Instead of the product being built incrementally at the surface of V-folded sheets, the sheets are stacked fully parallel, just like a ream of paper, and the product is built at the edge of the ream.

Three things will limit the product ‘extrusion’ speed:

1) The block delivery speed. This would be about 1 meter per second, a typical speed for mechanisms at all scales. This is not a significant limitation.
2) The speed of fastening a block in place. Even a 100-nanometer block has plenty of room for nanoscale mechanical fasteners that can basically just snap together as fast as the blocks can be placed. Fasteners that work by molecular reactions could also be fast.
3) The width (or depth, depending on your point of view) of the sheet: how many workstations are supplying blocks to each workstation-width edge-of-sheet. The width of the sheet stack is limited by the ability to circulate cooling fluid, but it turns out that even micron-wide channels can circulate fluid for several centimeters at moderate pressure. So you can stack the sheets quite close together, making a centimeter-thick slab. With 100-nanometer workstations, that will have several thousand workstations supplying each 100-nanometer-square edge-of-stack area. If a workstation takes an hour to make a 100-nanometer block, then you're depositing several millimeters per hour. That's if you build the product solid; if you provide a way to shuffle blocks around at the product-deposition face, you can include voids in the product, and 'extrude' much faster; perhaps a mm per second.

Tom pointed out that a nanofactory that built products by block deposition would require extra engineering in several areas, such as block handling mechanisms, block fasteners, and software to control it all. All this is true, but it is the type of problem we have already learned to solve. In some ways, working with nanoblocks will be easier than working with today's industrial robots; surface forces will be very convenient, and gravity will be too weak to cause problems.

On the same blog post, Jamais Cascio [asked] why I keep saying that a nanofactory will take about an hour to make its weight of product. The answer is simple: If the underlying technology is much slower than that, it won't be able to build a kilogram-scale nanofactory in any reasonable time. And although advanced nanofactories might be somewhat faster, a one-hour nanofactory would be revolutionary enough.

http://crnano.typepad.com/crnblog/2005/11/what_does_extre.html#comment-11299571

A one-kilogram one-hour nanofactory could, if supplied with enough feedstock and energy, make thousands of tons of nanofactories or products in a single day. It doesn't much matter if nanofactories are faster than one hour (3600 seconds). Numbers a lot faster than that start to sound implausible. Some bacteria can reproduce in 15 minutes (900 seconds). Scaling laws suggest that a 100-nm scanning probe microscope can build its mass in 100 seconds. (The non-manufacturing overhead of a nanofactory--walls, computers, and so on--would probably weigh less than the manufacturing systems, imposing a significant but not extreme delay on duplicating the whole factory.) More advanced molecule-processing systems could, in theory, process their mass even more quickly, but with reduced flexibility.

On the slower side, the first nanofactory can't very well take much longer than an hour to make its mass, because if it did, it would be obsoleted before it could be built. It goes like this: A nanofactory can only be built by a smaller nanofactory. The smallest nanofactory will have to be built by very difficult lab work. So you'll be starting from maybe a 100-nm manufacturing system (10^-15 grams) and doubling sixty times to build a 10^3 gram nanofactory. Each doubling takes twice the make-your-own-mass time. So a one-hour nanofactory would take 120 hours, or five days. A one-day nanofactory would take 120 days, or four months. If you could double the speed of your 24-hour process in two months (which gives you sixty day-long "compile times" to build increasingly better hardware using the hardware you have), then the half-day nanofactory would be ready before the one-day nanofactory would.

Tom Craver pointed out that if the smaller nanofactory can be incorporated into the larger nanofactory that it's building, then doubling the nanofactory mass would take only half as long. So, a one-day nanofactory might take only two months, and a one-hour nanofactory less than three days. Tom also pointed out that if a one-day tiny-nanofactory is developed at some point, and its size is slowly increased, then when the technology for a one-hour nanofactory is developed, a medium-sized one-hour nanofactory could be built directly by the largest existing one-day nanofactory, saving part of the growing time.

In my "primitive nanofactory" paper, which used a somewhat inefficient physical architecture in which the fabricators were a fraction of the total mass, I computed that a nanofactory on that plan could build its own mass in a few hours. This was using the Merkle pressure-controlled fabricator, [see "Casing an Assembler"], with a single order of magnitude speedup to go from pressure to direct drive.

http://www.foresight.org/Conferences/MNT6/Papers/Merkle/

In summary, the one-hour estimate for nanofactory productivity is probably within an order of magnitude of being right.

The question about cooling a nanofactory was asked at a talk I gave a few weeks ago, and I don't remember who asked it. To build a kilogram per hour of diamond requires rearranging on the order of 10^26 covalent bonds in an hour. The bond energy of carbon is approximately 350 kJ/mol, or 60 MJ/kg. Spread over an hour, that much energy would release 16 kilowatts, about as much as a plug-in electric heater.

Of course, you don't want a nanofactory to glow red-hot. And the built-in computers that control the nanofactory will also generate quite a bit of heat--perhaps even more than the covalent reactions themselves. So, fluid cooling looks like a good idea. It turns out that, although the inner features of a nanofactory will be very small--on the order of one micron--cooling fluid can be sent for several centimeters down a one-micron channel with only a modest pressure drop. This means that the physical architecture of the nanofactory will not need to be adjusted to accommodate variable-sized tree-structured cooling pipes.

In the years I have spent thinking about nanofactory design, I have not encountered any problem that could not be addressed with standard engineering. Of course, engineering in a new domain will present substantial challenges and require a lot of work. However, it is not safe to assume that some unexpected problem will arise to delay nanofactory design and development. As work on enabling technologies progresses, it is becoming increasingly apparent that nanofactories can be addressed as an integration problem rather than a fundamental research problem. Although their capabilities seem futuristic, their technology may be available before most people expect it.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

FUNDRAISING ALERT!

Recent developments in efforts to roadmap the technical steps toward molecular manufacturing make the work of CRN more important than ever.

It is critical that we examine the global implications of this rapidly emerging technology, and begin creating wise and effective solutions. That's why we have formed the CRN Task Force.

But it won't be easy. We need to grow, and rapidly, to meet the expanding challenge.

Your donation to CRN will help us to achieve that growth. We rely largely on individual donations and small grants for our survival.

To make a contribution on-line click this link > https://secure.groundspring.org/dn/index.php?aid=5594

This is important work and we welcome your participation.

Thank you!

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The Center for Responsible Nanotechnology(TM) is an affiliate of World Care(R), an international, non-profit, 501(c)(3) organization. All donations to CRN are handled through World Care. The opinions expressed by CRN do not necessarily reflect those of World Care.

Sign up for a FREE subscription to the C-R-Newsletter -- http://www.crnano.org/contact.htm#Newsletter

posted in Responsible Nanotechnology - 0 replies

Weather Modification through nanotech

2005-11-01T02:15:25Z

Sorry about making this a multiple posting but I consider the subject too important.

I first presented this idea informally on Gina's forum back in '99 and again later in 2000. I have talked only slightly about it because I consider exactly what is described in this article to be leading to disaster.

I consider weather modification done by any single nation to be a de facto act of aggression because there is no way that weather modification is not going to have global consequence. But of course I consider it possible and ironically these folks have most of it correct. It is a very similar approach to what I have already suggested way back when.

There are many aspects of this article that are over simplistic or gross generalizations but the basic idea of using remotely controlled nanoparticles to seed and control cloud charge is valid. The *smart dust* could be field manipulated by ground transmitters and powered by a number of different forces from electrostatic and solar to chemical.

The point is that no one makes it rain in one place without a consequence somewhere else and this technology absolutely needs to be controlled by global governance or it will lead to conflict not resolve it.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20051031/sc_space/usmilitarywantstoowntheweather

U.S. Military Wants to Own the Weather

Leonard David
Senior Space Writer
SPACE.com
Mon Oct 31,10:00 AM ET

The one-two hurricane punch from Katrina and Wilma along with predictions of more severe weather in the future has scientists pondering ways to save lives, protect property and possibly even control the weather.

While efforts to tame storms have so far been clouded by failure, some researchers aren’t willing to give up the fight. And even if changing the weather proves overly challenging, residents and disaster officials can do a better job planning and reacting.

In fact, military officials and weather modification experts could be on the verge of joining forces to better gauge, react to, and possibly nullify future hostile forces churned out by Mother Nature.

While some consider the idea far fetched, some military tacticians have already pondered ways to turn weather into a weapon.

Harbinger of things to come?

The U.S. military reaction in the wake of Hurricane Katrina that slammed the U.S. Gulf coast might be viewed as a harbinger of things to come. While in this case it was joint air and space operations to deal with after-the-fact problems, perhaps the foundation for how to fend off disastrous weather may also be forming.

Numbers of spaceborne assets were tapped, among them:

Navigation and timing signals from the Global Positioning System (GPS) of satellites;
The Global Broadcast Service, a one-way, space-based, high-capacity broadcast communication system;
The Army’s Spectral Operations Resource Center to exploit commercial remote sensing satellite imagery and prepare high-resolution images to civilian and military responders to permit a better understanding of the devastated terrain;
U.S. Air Force Space Command’s Space and Missile Systems Center Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) satellites that compared "lights at night" images before and after the disaster to provide data on human activity.

Is it far-fetched to see in this response the embryonic stages of an integrated military/civilian weather reaction and control system?

Mandate to continually improve

The use of space-based equipment to assist in clean-up operations -- with a look toward future prospects -- was recently noted by General Lance Lord, Commander, Air Force Space Command at an October 20th Pacific Space Leadership Forum in Hawaii.

"We saw first hand the common need for space after the December 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean," Lord said. "Natural disasters don’t respect international boundaries. Space capabilities were leveraged immediately after the tsunami to help in the search and rescue effort…but what about before the disaster?"

Lord said that an even better situation is to have predicted the coming disaster and warned those in harm’s way. "No matter what your flag or where you waive it from...the possibility of saving hundreds of thousands of people is a mandate to continually improve," he advised.

The U.S. Air Force is also looking at ways to make satellites and satellite launches cheaper and also reduce the amount of time it takes to launch into space from months to weeks to days and hours, Lord said. Having that capability will increase responsiveness to international needs, he said, such as the ability to send up a satellite to help collect information and enhance communications when dealing with international disasters.

Thunderbolts on demand

What would a military strategist gain in having an "on-switch" to the weather?

Clearly, it offers the ability to degrade the effectiveness of enemy forces. That could come from flooding an opponent’s encampment or airfield to generating downright downpours that disrupt enemy troop comfort levels. On the flipside, sparking a drought that cuts off fresh water can stir up morale problems for warfighting foes.

Even fooling around with fog and clouds can deny or create concealment – whichever weather manipulation does the needed job.

In this regard, nanotechnology could be utilized to create clouds of tiny smart particles. Atmospherically buoyant, these ultra-small computer particles could navigate themselves to block optical sensors. Alternatively, they might be used to provide an atmospheric electrical potential difference -- a way to precisely aim and time lightning strikes over the enemy’s head – thereby concoct thunderbolts on demand.

Perhaps that’s too far out for some. But some blue sky thinkers have already looked into these and other scenarios in "Weather as a Force Multiplier: Owning the Weather in 2025" – a research paper written by a seven person team of military officers and presented in 1996 as part of a larger study dubbed Air Force 2025.

Global stresses

That report came with requisite disclaimers, such as the views expressed were those of the authors and didn’t reflect the official policy or position of the United States Air Force, Department of Defense, or the United States government. Furthermore, the report was flagged as containing fictional representations of future situations and scenarios.

On the other hand, Air Force 2025 was a study that complied with a directive from the chief of staff of the Air Force "to examine the concepts, capabilities, and technologies the United States will require to remain the dominant air and space force in the future."

"Current technologies that will mature over the next 30 years will offer anyone who has the necessary resources the ability to modify weather patterns and their corresponding effects, at least on the local scale," the authors of the report explained. "Current demographic, economic, and environmental trends will create global stresses that provide the impetus necessary for many countries or groups to turn this weather-modification ability into a capability."

Pulling it all together

The report on weather-altering ideas underscored the capacity to harness such power in the not too distant future.

"Assuming that in 2025 our national security strategy includes weather-modification, its use in our national military strategy will naturally follow. Besides the significant benefits an operational capability would provide, another motivation to pursue weather-modification is to deter and counter potential adversaries," the report stated. "The technology is there, waiting for us to pull it all together," the authors noted.

In 2025, the report summarized, U.S. aerospace forces can "own the weather" by capitalizing on emerging technologies and focusing development of those technologies to war-fighting applications.

"Such a capability offers the war fighter tools to shape the battlespace in ways never before possible. It provides opportunities to impact operations across the full spectrum of conflict and is pertinent to all possible futures," the report concluded.

But if whipping up weather can be part of a warfighter’s tool kit, couldn’t those talents be utilized to retarget or neutralize life, limb and property-destroying storms?

All-weather worries

"It is time to provide funds for application of the scientific method to weather modification and control," said Bernard Eastlund, chief technical officer and founder of Eastlund Scientific Enterprises Corporation in San Diego, California.

Eastlund’s background is in plasma physics and commercial applications of microwave plasmas. At a lecture early this month at Penn State Lehigh Campus in Fogelsville, Pennsylvania, he outlined new concepts for electromagnetic wave interactions with the atmosphere that, among a range of jobs, could be applied to weather modification research.

"The technology of artificial ionospheric heating could be as important for weather modification research as accelerators have been for particle physics," Eastlund explained.

In September, Eastland filed a patent on a way to create artificial ionized plasma patterns with megawatts of power using inexpensive microwave power sources. This all-weather technique, he noted, can be used to heat specific regions of the atmosphere.

Eastlund’s research is tuned to artificial generation of acoustic and gravitational waves in the atmosphere. The heating of steering winds to help shove around mesocyclones and hurricanes, as well as controlling electrical conductivity of the atmosphere is also on his investigative agenda.

Carefully tailored program plan

Eastlund said that the reduction in severity or impact of severe weather could be demonstrated as part of a carefully tailored program plan.

"In my opinion, the new technology for use of artificial plasma layers in the atmosphere: as heater elements to modify steering winds, as a modifier of electrostatic potential to influence lightning distribution, and for generation of acoustic and gravitational waves, could ultimately provide a core technology for a science of severe weather modification," Eastlund told SPACE.com.

The first experiments of a program, Eastlund emphasized, would be very small, and designed for safety. For example, a sample of air in a jet stream could be heated with a pilot experimental installation. Such experiments would utilize relatively small amounts of power, between one and ten megawatts, he pointed out.

Both ground-based and space weather diagnostic instruments could measure the effect. Computer simulations could compare these results with predicted effects. This process can be iterated until reliable information is obtained on the effects of modifying the wind.

Computer simulations of hurricanes, Eastlund continued, are designed to determine the most important wind fields in hurricane formation. Computer simulations of mesocyclones use steering wind input data to predict severe storm development.

After about 5 years of such research, and further development of weather codes, a pilot experiment to modify the steering winds of a mesocylone might be safely attempted. Such an experiment would probably require 50 to 100 megawatts, Eastlund speculated.

"I estimate this new science of weather modification will take 10 to 20 years to mature to the point where it is useful for controlling the severity and impact of severe weather systems as large as hurricanes," Eastlund explained.

Inadvertent effects?

Another reason for embarking on this new science could be to make sure inadvertent effects of existing projects, such as the heating of the ionosphere and modifications of the polar electrojet, are not having effects on weather, Eastlund stated.

As example, Eastlund pointed to the High frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP). This is a major Arctic facility for upper atmospheric and solar-terrestrial research, being built on a Department of Defense-owned site near Gakona, Alaska.

Eastlund wonders if HAARP does, in fact, generate gravity waves. If so, can those waves in turn influence severe weather systems?

Started in 1990, the unclassified HAARP program is jointly managed by the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory and the Office of Naval Research. Researchers at the site make use of a high-power ionospheric research instrument to temporarily excite a limited area of the ionosphere for scientific study, observing and measuring the excited region using a suite of devices.

The fundamental goal of research conducted at the facility is to study and understand natural phenomena occurring in the Earth’s ionosphere and near-space environment. According to the HAARP website, those scientific investigations will have major value in the design of future communication and navigation systems for both military and civilian use.

Messing with Mother Nature

Who best to have their hands on the weather control switches?

The last large hurricane modification experiments -- under Project Stormfury -- were carried out by the U.S. Air Force, Eastlund said. "It is likely the Department of Defense would be the lead agency in any new efforts in severe storm modification."

Additionally, federal laboratories with their extensive computational modeling skills would also play a lead role in the development of a science of weather modification. NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) would find their respective niches too. The satellite diagnostic capabilities in those agencies would play a strong role, Eastlund suggested.

It appears that only modest amounts of government dollars have been spent on weather modification over the last five years.

"Hurricane Katrina could cost $300 billion by itself," Eastlund said. "In my opinion, it is time for a serious scientific effort in weather modification."

"Global warming appears to be a reality, and records could continue to fall in the hurricane severity sweepstakes," Eastlund said. "When I first suggested the use of space-based assets for the prevention of tornadoes, many people expressed their displeasure with ‘messing with Mother Nature’. I still remember hiding in the closet of our house in Houston as a tornado passed overhead. It is time for serious, controlled research, with the emphasis on safety, for the good of mankind," he concluded.

This article is part of SPACE.com's weekly Mystery Monday series.

posted in Responsible Nanotechnology - 0 replies

C-R-Newsletter #33

2005-09-01T13:31:36Z

Center for Responsible Nanotechnology Newsletter #33
August 31, 2005

To read this on the Web, with nice formatting and hyperlinks, go to
http://www.crnano.org/archive05.htm#33

CONTENTS

- CRN Forms Policy Task Force
- Eric Drexler Joins Nanorex
- Connecticut Schools Go Nano
- NASA Website Covers CRN Work
- CRN Goes to Vermont
- CRN Goes to Chicago
- CRN Goes to Bootcamp
- Dimensions of Development
- 13th Foresight Conference
- Feature Essay: Molecular Manufacturing Design Software

==========

We’re a little late getting the C-R-Newsletter out this month, but as
you can see, we’ve been extremely busy. To keep up with the latest
happenings on a daily basis, be sure to check our Responsible
Nanotechnology weblog at http://CRNano.typepad.com/

NOTE: In the items below, links are indicated with [brackets], and shown
at the end of each item.

CRN Forms Policy Task Force

The big news this month is that [CRN announced] the formation of a new
Global Task Force to study the societal implications of advanced
nanotechnology. Bringing together a diverse group of world-class experts
from multiple disciplines, CRN will lead an historic, collaborative
effort to develop comprehensive policy recommendations for the safe and
responsible use of molecular manufacturing.

Just [two weeks] after the initial announcement, which mentioned four
“charter members” of the CRN Task Force, we're up to 39 participants
from six different countries. In addition, three organizations are
publicly supporting this effort: the Society of Manufacturing Engineers,
the Society of Police Futurists International, and the Nanotechnology
Now web portal.

Several online planning sessions have been held, and the CRN Task Force
is now beginning its initial task: to itemize the necessary information
that must be available in order to design wise and effective policy.

http://www.crnano.org/PR-charter.htm
http://crnano.typepad.com/crnblog/2005/08/crn_task_force_.html

Eric Drexler Joins Nanorex

Nanorex, a molecular engineering software company based in Michigan, has
named [Dr. K. Eric Drexler] as the company’s Chief Technical Advisor.
[The company] said that Drexler will play a leading role in shaping
Nanorex's product strategy and advancing the company’s academic outreach
programs.

Often described as the 'father of nanotechnology', Eric Drexler is on
the [Board of Advisors] for CRN. His groundbreaking theoretical research
has been the basis for three books, including [“Nanosystems: Molecular
Machinery, Manufacturing, and Computation”], and numerous journal
articles. Last year, he collaborated with Chris Phoenix, CRN's Director
of Research, on [“Safe Exponential Manufacturing”], published in the
Institute of Physics journal “Nanotechnology.”

In 1986, Drexler founded the [Foresight Nanotech Institute], a
non-profit think tank and public interest organization focused on
nanotechnology. He was awarded a PhD from MIT in Molecular
Nanotechnology (the first degree of its kind). Drexler is expected to be
deeply involved in the project to develop a [Technology Roadmap for
Productive Nanosystems], recently announced by Foresight and the
Battelle research organization.

http://e-drexler.com/p/idx04/00/0404drexlerBioCV.html
http://www.nanorex.com/
http://www.crnano.org/about_us.htm#Advisors
http://www.crnano.org/5min.htm
http://www.crnano.org/papers.htm#Goo
http://www.foresight.org/
http://www.foresight.org/cms/press_center/128

Connecticut Schools Go Nano

Connecticut Governor M. Jodi Rell has enacted a [new law] requiring the
Commissioner of Higher Education in her state to review the inclusion of
nanotechnology, molecular manufacturing and advanced and developing
technologies at institutions of higher education.

CRN is pleased to note that this measure specifically designates
molecular manufacturing as something that should be studied for
inclusion in the curriculum at institutions of higher education. We
encourage other states -- and indeed, other countries -- to follow
Connecticut's lead.

http://tinyurl.com/aljbt

NASA Website Covers CRN Work

The NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC), an independent,
NASA-funded organization located in Atlanta, Georgia, was created to
promote forward-looking research on radical space technologies that will
take 10 to 40 years to come to fruition. Last year, NIAC [awarded a
grant] to Chris Phoenix, CRN’s Director of Research, to conduct a
feasibility study of nanoscale manufacturing.

On NASA’s website, [an article] titled “The Next Giant Leap” highlights
the work NIAC is funding in nanotechnology research, and includes a
description of the 112-page report Chris presented to them. We
congratulate Chris on this much-deserved recognition.

http://crnano.typepad.com/crnblog/2004/09/niac_funds_crn_.html
http://tinyurl.com/94luq

CRN Goes to Vermont

In late July, CRN principals Mike Treder and Chris Phoenix were invited
to participate in a [special workshop] on ‘geoethical nanotechnology,’
held at a beautiful mountain retreat in Vermont. Our gracious host was
Martine Rothblatt, CEO of United Therapeutics Corporation, and founder
of the [Terasem Movement Foundation.]

Among those [making presentations] were Ray Kurzweil, CEO of Kurzweil
Technologies; Professor Frank Tipler of Tulane University; Douglas
Mulhall, author of “Our Molecular Future”; and Dr. Barry Blumberg, a
Nobel Prize-winner in medicine and Founding Director of the NASA
Astrobiology Institute. CRN’s PowerPoint presentation for the event is
available online [here.]

Geoethical nanotechnology is defined as: the development and
implementation under a global regulatory framework of machines capable
of assembling molecules into a wide variety of objects, in a broad range
of sizes, and in potentially vast quantities.

http://crnano.typepad.com/crnblog/2005/07/about_geoethica.html
http://terasemfoundation.org/about.htm
http://crnano.typepad.com/crnblog/2005/07/applications_an.html
http://www.terasemfoundation.org/webcast/ppt/Treder.ppt

CRN Goes to Chicago

Also in July, CRN Executive Director Mike Treder gave talks at two
events in Chicago. First, at a special [nanotech symposium], Mike
delivered a presentation called [“The Flat Horizon Problem:
Nanotechnology on an Upward Slope”].

Then, during the annual conference of the World Future Society, Mike
made a speech titled, [“Do Sweat the Small Stuff: Why Everyone Should
Care About Nanotechnology”]. The conference, [WorldFuture 2005:
Foresight, Innovation, and Strategy], was managed excellently and
enjoyed huge attendance.

http://www.crnano.org/SymposiumonNanotechnology_July05,Chicago_.pdf
http://www.crnano.org/Speech%20-%20Upward%20Slope.ppt
http://www.crnano.org/Speech%20-%20WFS%20-%20Web%20Version.ppt
http://crnano.typepad.com/crnblog/2005/08/wfs_conference_.html

CRN Goes to Bootcamp

In mid-July, CRN Research Director Chris Phoenix spent four days in
Washington DC at a [Nano Training Bootcamp] sponsored by the ASME. He
called it “quite a brain-stretcher.” Topics included quantum mechanics,
optics, thermoelectrics, nanolithography, and much more. Chris provided
us with extensive blog reports during the event, so you can read about
all the tech-talk from [Day One], [Day Two], [Day Three], and [Day Four].

http://www.asmeconferences.org/nanobootcamp05/speakers.cfm
http://crnano.typepad.com/crnblog/2005/07/nano_training_b.html
http://crnano.typepad.com/crnblog/2005/07/asme_nano_bootc.html
http://crnano.typepad.com/crnblog/2005/07/asme_nano_bootc_1.html
http://crnano.typepad.com/crnblog/2005/07/asme_nano_bootc_2.html

Dimensions of Development

Many factors will determine how soon and how safely molecular
manufacturing is integrated into society, including where, how openly,
and how rapidly it is developed. Because nanotech manufacturing could be
so disruptive and destabilizing, it is essential that we learn as much
as possible about those factors and others. The more we know, the better
we may be able to guide and manage this revolutionary transformation.

Mike Treder’s [latest essay] for “Future Brief” describes six different
dimensions — Number, Style, Venue, Approach, Program, and Pace — along
which molecular manufacturing may be developed. Making effective policy
for the safe and responsible use of advanced nanotechnology will require
a deep and comprehensive understanding of all six dimensions. To be
effective, a coordinated and integrated strategy of multiple
complimentary policies must be designed and implemented. (Note: At the
time the essay was published, the [CRN Global Task Force on Implications
and Policy] had not yet been announced.)

http://www.futurebrief.com/miketrederdimensions004.asp
http://www.crnano.org/PR-charter.htm

13th Foresight Conference

CRN is proud to be a media sponsor for the [13th Foresight Conference]
on Advanced Nanotechnology. The title of the conference this year is
"Advancing Beneficial Nanotechnology: Focusing on the Cutting Edge," and
it will be divided into three stand-alone, complementary sessions —
Vision, Applications & Policy, and Research — spread over six days.

The conference is October 22-27, 2005, in San Francisco, California.
They've got a great lineup of speakers, so we hope to see you there.

http://foresight.org/conference2005/index.html

Feature Essay: Molecular Manufacturing Design Software
Chris Phoenix, Director of Research, CRN

Nanofactories, controlled by computerized blueprints, will be able to
build a vast range of high performance products. However, efficient
product design will require advanced software.

Different kinds of products will require different approaches to design.
Some, such as high-performance supercomputers and advanced medical
devices, will be packed with functionality and will require large
amounts of research and invention. For these products, the hardest part
of design will be knowing what you want to build in the first place. The
ability to build test hardware rapidly and inexpensively will make it
easier to do the necessary research, but that is not the focus of this
essay.

There are many products that we easily could imagine and that a
nanofactory easily could build if told exactly how. But as any computer
programmer knows, it's not easy to tell a computer what you want it to
do—it's more or less like trying to direct a blind person to cook a meal
in an unfamiliar kitchen. One mistake, and the food is spilled or the
stove catches fire.

Computer users have an easier time of it. To continue the analogy, if
the blind person had become familiar with the kitchen, instructions
could be given on the level of “Get the onions from the left-hand
vegetable drawer” rather than “Move your hand two inches to your
right... a bit more... pull the handle... bend down and reach forward...
farther... open the drawer... feel the round things?” It is the job of
the programmer to write the low-level instructions that create
appliances from obstacles.

Another advantage of modern computers, from the user's point of view, is
their input devices. Instead of typing a number, a user can simply move
a mouse, and a relatively simple routine can translate its motion into
the desired number, and the number into the desired operation such as
moving a pointer or a scroll bar.

Suppose I wanted to design a motorcycle. Today, I would have to do
engineering to determine stresses and strains, and design a structure to
support them. The engineering would have to take into account the
materials and fasteners, which in turn would have to be designed for
inexpensive assembly. But these choices would limit the material
properties, perhaps requiring several iterations of design. And that's
just for the frame.

Next, I would have to choose components for a suspension system,
configure an engine, add an electrical system and a braking system, and
mount a fuel tank. Then, I would have to design each element of the user
interface, from the seat to the handgrips to the lights behind the dials
on the instrument panel. Each thing the user would see or touch would
have to be made attractive, and simultaneously specified in a way that
could be molded or shaped. And each component would have to stay out of
the way of the others: the engine would have to fit inside the frame,
the fuel tank might have to be molded to avoid the cylinder heads or the
battery, and the brake lines would have to be routed from the handlebars
and along the frame, adding expense to the manufacturing process and
complexity to the design process.

As I described in lat month’s essay, most nanofactory-built human-scale
products will be mostly empty space due to the awesomely high
performance of both active and passive components. It will not be
necessary to worry much about keeping components out of each other's
way, because the components will be so small that they can be put almost
anywhere. This means that, for example, the frame can be designed
without worrying where the motor will be, because the motor will be a
few microns of nanoscale motors lining the axles. Rather than routing
large hydraulic brake lines, it will be possible to run highly redundant
microscopic signal lines controlling the calipers—or more likely, the
regenerative braking functionality built into the motors.

It will not be necessary to worry about design for manufacturability.
With a planar-assembly nanofactory, almost any shape can be made as
easily as any other, because the shapes are made by adding sub-micron
nanoblocks to selected locations in a supported plane of the growing
product. There will be less constraint on form than there is in sand
casting of metals, and of course far more precision. This also means
that what is built can contain functional components incorporated in the
structure. Rather than building a frame and mounting other pieces later,
the frame can be built with all components installed, forming a complete
product. This does require functional joints between nanoblocks, but
this is a small price to pay for such flexibility.

To specify functionality of a product, in many cases it will be
sufficient to describe the desired functionality in the abstract without
worrying about its physical implementation. If every cubic millimeter of
the product contains a networked computer—which is quite possible, and
may be the default—then to send a signal from point A to point B
requires no more than specifying the points. Distributing energy or even
transporting materials may not require much more attention: a rapidly
rotating diamond shaft can transport more than a watt per square micron,
and would be small enough to route automatically through almost any
structure; pipes can be made significantly smaller if they are
configured with continually inverting liners to reduce drag.

Thus, to design the acceleration and braking behavior of the motorcycle,
it might be enough to specify the desired torque on the wheels as a
function of speed, tire skidding, and brake and throttle position. A
spreadsheet-like interface could calculate the necessary power and force
for the motors, and from that derive the necessary axle thickness. The
battery would be fairly massive, so the user would position it, but
might not have to worry about the motor-battery connection, and
certainly should not have to design the motor controller.

In order to include high-functionality materials such as motor arrays or
stress-reporting materials, it would be necessary to start with a
library of well-characterized “virtual materials” with standard
functionality. This approach could significantly reduce the functional
density of the virtual material compared to what would be possible with
a custom-designed solution, but this would be acceptable for many
applications, because functional density of nano-built equipment may be
anywhere from six to eighteen orders of magnitude better than today's
equipment. Virtual materials could also be used to specify material
properties such as density and elasticity over a wide range, or
implement active materials that changed attributes such as color or
shape under software control.

Prototypes as well as consumer products could be heavily instrumented,
warning of unexpected operating conditions such as excessive stress or
wear on any part. Rather than careful calculations to determine the
tradeoff between weight and strength, it might be better to build a
first-guess model, try it on increasingly rough roads at increasingly
high speeds, and measure rather than calculate the required strength.
Once some parameters had been determined, a new version could be
spreadsheeted and built in an hour or so at low cost. It would be
unnecessary to trade time for money by doing careful calculations to
minimize the number of prototypes. Then, for a low-performance
application like a motorcycle, the final product could be built ten
times stronger than was thought to be necessary without sacrificing much
mass or cost.

There are only a few sources of shape requirements. One is geometrical:
round things roll, flat things stack, and triangles make good trusses.
These shapes tend to be simple to specify, though some applications like
fluid handling can require intricate curves. The second source of shape
is compatibility with other shapes, as in a piece that must fit snugly
to another piece. These shapes can frequently be input from existing
databases or scanned from an existing object. A third source of shape is
user preference. A look at the shapes of pen barrels, door handles, and
eyeglasses shows that users are pleased by some pretty idiosyncratic
shapes.

To input arbitrary shapes into the blueprint, it may be useful to have
some kind of interface that implements or simulates a moldable material
like clay or taffy. A blob could simply be molded or stretched into a
pleasing shape. Another useful technique could be to present the
designer or user with several variations on a theme, let them select the
best one, and build new variations on that until a sufficiently pleasing
version is produced.

Although there is more to product design than the inputs described here,
this should give some flavor of how much more convenient it could be
with computer-controlled rapid prototyping of complete products. Elegant
computer-input devices, pervasive instrumentation and signal processing,
virtual material libraries, inexpensive creation of one-off
spreadsheeted prototypes, and several other techniques could make
product design more like a combination of graphic arts and computer
programming than the complex, slow, and expensive process it is today.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

FUNDRAISING ALERT!

Recent developments in efforts to roadmap the technical steps toward
molecular manufacturing make the work of CRN more important than ever.

It is critical that we examine the global implications of this rapidly
emerging technology, and begin designing wise and effective policy.
That’s why we have formed the CRN Task Force.

But it won’t be easy. We need to grow, and rapidly, to meet the
expanding challenge.

Your donation to CRN will help us to achieve that growth.
We rely largely on individual donations and small grants for our survival.

To make a contribution on-line click this link >
https://secure.groundspring.org/dn/index.php?aid=5594

This is important work and we welcome your participation.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The Fine Print:

The Center for Responsible Nanotechnology(TM) is an affiliate of World
Care(R), an international, non-profit, 501(c)(3) organization. All
donations to CRN are handled through World Care. The opinions expressed
by CRN do not necessarily reflect those of World Care.

Sign up for a FREE subscription to the C-R-Newsletter -- http://crnano.org/contact.htm#Newsletter

posted in Responsible Nanotechnology - 0 replies

New Task Force to Study Nanotech Implications

2005-08-16T15:01:27Z

CRN Announces Formation of New Task Force to Study Societal Implications

Today the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology (CRN) announced the charter members of a new Task Force convened to study the societal implications of this rapidly emerging technology. Bringing together a diverse group of world-class experts from multiple disciplines, CRN will begin a historic, collaborative effort to develop comprehensive policy recommendations for the safe and responsible use of molecular manufacturing.

Nanotechnology is the projected ability to make things from the bottom up, using techniques and tools that are being developed today to place every atom and molecule in a desired place. When this form of molecular engineering is achieved, it will result in a manufacturing revolution — with more promise for society than the computer revolution, but with potentially serious economic, social, environmental, and military implications.

Mike Treder, Executive Director of CRN, made the following statement:

"Progress toward developing the technical requirements for desktop molecular manufacturing is moving faster than it was when we founded CRN two years ago. The recent announcement of a Technology Roadmap for Productive Nanosystems, to be organized by the Battelle research organization and the Foresight Nanotech Institute, has highlighted the urgent need for parallel policy discussions at the highest levels. We must not allow efforts to effectively prepare for the impacts of nanotechnology to lag behind advances on the technical side.

"All of our research to date shows that molecular manufacturing will have a transformative impact on our society, industry, the environment, and geopolitics. Without adequate preparation and study, the effects could be dangerously disruptive.

"CRN is honored today to announce the charter members who will head the important work of the Task Force. They share our vision that it is critical to begin this dialogue and to include people with expertise and worldviews spanning the globe. In addition, we are proud to have both the Society of Manufacturing Engineers and the Society of Police Futurists International as organizational participants."

Charter members of the Task Force include:

· Nick Bostrom, Ph.D. -- Director, Future of Humanity Institute, Oxford University
· David Brin -- Author, The Transparent Society
· Jerome C. Glenn -- Director, United Nations University's Millennium Project
· Ray Kurzweil -- Founder and CEO, Kurzweil Technologies, Inc.

Treder continued, "We look forward to working together with all these leaders in their respective fields to establish a factual foundation for advanced nanotechnology; identify potential problems arising from the technology and its administration; design recommendation for global solutions; plan and strategize the implementation of the solutions; and communicate our findings to where they need to be heard.

"Without mutual understanding and cooperation in making policy, the hazardous potentials of advanced nanotechnology could spiral out of control and deny any hope of realizing the benefits to society. The CRN Task Force, led by this talented group of charter members, is poised to begin this important work."

The Center for Responsible Nanotechnology (http://CRNano.org) is a non-profit research and advocacy organization concerned with the major societal and environmental implications of advanced nanotechnology. CRN promotes public awareness and education, and the crafting of effective policy to maximize benefits and reduce dangers. Headquartered in New York, CRN is an affiliate of World Care, an international, non-profit, 501(c)(3) organization.

RELEASE ONLINE: http://www.crnano.org/PR-charter.htm

posted in Responsible Nanotechnology - 0 replies

C-R-Newsletter #32

2005-07-14T14:29:03Z

To read this on the Web, with nice formatting and hyperlinks, go to http://www.crnano.org/archive05.htm#32

CONTENTS
- Nanotech Roadmap Initiative
- New Nano Movie
- Russian CRN Site Online
- Nanotech Q&A for Russia
- Nano-techno-logy
- State of the Future 2005
- Nanotechnology Workshop Webcast
- CRN goes to Chicago
- Feature Essay: Fast Development of Molecular Manufacturing Products

==========

Things are moving very quickly throughout the nano-world and at CRN. We’ll recap some of the highlights here — but to keep up with the latest developments, be sure to check our Responsible Nanotechnology weblog at http://CRNano.typepad.com/

NOTE: In the items below, links are indicated with [brackets], and shown at the end of each paragraph.

Nanotech Roadmap Initiative

Foresight Nanotech Institute, in cooperation with Battelle, a global research organization, [has announced] its intent to develop a "Technology Roadmap for Productive Nanosystems." CRN strongly encourages a cooperative program to map all the steps that will lead to molecular manufacturing. We have even outlined a [series of studies] that could go a long way toward meeting this goal. A combined effort — involving business, government, academic, and nonprofit participants — appears safest to us. This is especially true if numerous international partners are included, the more the better.

In principle, [we support the idea] of a collaborative technical roadmap project. It’s not yet clear, however, if the Foresight announcement meets our description. We look forward to hearing more about it in the near future.

http://www.foresight.org/roadmaps/prod_nano.html
http://www.crnano.org/studies.htm
http://crnano.typepad.com/crnblog/2005/06/nanotech_roadma.html

New Nano Movie

A new “must-see” short film has been produced using computer animation to assist in visualizing nanosystems and molecular manufacturing. Productive Nanosystems: from Molecules to Superproducts, is a collaborative effort of animator and engineer [John Burch] and pioneer nanotechnologist [Dr. K. Eric Drexler], made possible through a challenge grant from [Mark Sims and NanoRex]. The four-minute film depicts an animated view of a nanofactory and demonstrates key steps in a process that converts simple molecules into a billion-CPU laptop computer. The movie file is 86.1 MB, [available here]. It will take a while to download, but it’s definitely worth it.

http://www.lizardfire.com/
http://www.foresight.org/FI/Drexler.html
http://www.nanorex.com/
http://www.nanoengineer-1.com/mambo/

Russian CRN Site Online

CRN is very pleased to announce that several pages from our main website have been translated into the Russian language and [are posted] on the Internet. [Denis Tarasov], a Research Scientist in the Biology Department of [Kazan State University] in Russia, did most of the translation work. We are grateful for his assistance.

We now have CRN web pages available in five languages: [English], [Chinese], [Spanish], [Portuguese], and [Russian]. If you think you can help with other languages, please [let us know].

http://www.compnera.com/crnanorus/index.htm
http://www.compnera.com/sybin/index.html
http://www.ksu.ru/
http://www.crnano.org/index.html
http://www.tainano.com/CCRN/index.htm
http://babyurl.com/TUPH61
http://babyurl.com/ajVOfb
http://www.compnera.com/crnanorus/index.htm
Email to: info@CRNano.org

Nanotech Q&A for Russia

Last month, NanoNewsNet, a web portal for nanotechnology news and research in Russia, interviewed CRN Executive Director [Mike Treder] for their site. The interview is [posted online] in the Russian language. We have an English translation [here].

http://crnano.org/about_us.htm#Principals
http://babyurl.com/Wkrf37
http://crnano.typepad.com/crnblog/2005/07/a_few.html

Nano-techno-logy

Three Greek words — nano (dwarf or tiny), techne (craft or skill), and logos (science or learning) — combine to make nano-techno-logy: applying science at a tiny scale to the craft or skill of building. Miracle predictions about nanotech’s potential are common, as are dire warnings about the technology’s risks. So, are the pessimists or the optimists right?

To find out, read this [new essay] by Mike Treder, published by Future Brief.

http://www.futurebrief.com/miketrederchanges003.asp

State of the Future 2005

Many people still do not appreciate how fast science and technology will change over the next 25 years, and given this rapid development along several different fronts, the possibility of technology growing beyond human control must now be taken seriously, according to [a new report] produced by the United Nations University's [Millennium Project].

“State of the Future 2005” analyzes current global trends and examines in detail some of the present and future challenges facing the world. As a consultant to the UN University's Millennium Project, CRN’s Mike Treder was involved with developing [some of the findings] contained in the report.

http://babyurl.com/EzQHoR
http://www.acunu.org/millennium/
http://crnano.typepad.com/crnblog/2005/06/state_of_the_fu.html

Nanotechnology Workshop Webcast

The Terasem Movement, Inc., a non-profit foundation focused on geoethical nanotechnology, has announced that an [interactive webcast] featuring Ray Kurzweil, Frank Tipler, James Hughes, Max More, Doug Mulhall, Mike Treder and others at its [Geoethical Nanotechnology Workshop] will be openly accessible from 8AM-6PM EST on Wednesday, July 20th.

Viewers of the interactive webcast are invited to email or IM (instant-message) questions directed to the presenters throughout the meeting. Each hour, some of these will be selected for the featured speakers to answer. The webcast will feature simultaneous transmission of audio, video, and PowerPoint presentations.

Geoethical nanotechnology is the development and implementation under a global regulatory framework of machines capable of assembling molecules into a wide variety of objects, in a broad range of sizes, and in potentially vast quantities.

http://www.terasemfoundation.org/workshop.htm
www.terasemfoundation.org/webcast

CRN goes to Chicago

CRN’s Mike Treder is speaking at two events in Chicago later this month. On Friday, July 29, at a special [Symposium on Nanotechnology], Mike will deliver a presentation called “The Flat Horizon Problem: Nanotechnology on an Upward Slope.”

The next day, Saturday, July 30, during the annual conference of the World Future Society, Mike is giving a talk titled, “Do Sweat the Small Stuff: Why Everyone Should Care About Nanotechnology.” The conference, [WorldFuture 2005: Foresight, Innovation, and Strategy], is at the Chicago Hilton and Towers. If you’re going to be there, make sure to say hello to Mike.

http://www.crnano.org/SymposiumonNanotechnology_July05,Chicago_.pdf
http://www.wfs.org/2005main.htm

Feature Essay: Fast Development of Molecular Manufacturing Products
Chris Phoenix, Director of Research, Center for Responsible Nanotechnology

The extremely high performance of the products of molecular manufacturing will make the technology transformative—but it is the potential for fast development that will make it truly disruptive. If it took decades of research to produce breakthrough products, we would have time to adjust. But if breakthrough products can be developed quickly, their effects can pile up too quickly to allow wise policymaking or adjustment. As if that weren't bad enough, the anticipation of rapid development could cause additional problems.

How quick is “quickly?” Given a programmable factory that can make a product from its design file in a few hours, a designer could create a newly improved version every day. Today, building prototypes of a product can take weeks, so designers have to take extra time to double-check their work. If building a prototype takes less than a day, it will often be more efficient to build and test the product rather than taking time to double-check the theoretical design. (Of course, if taken to extremes, this can encourage sloppy work that costs more time to fix in the long run.)

In addition to being faster, prototyping also would be far cheaper. A nanofactory would go through the same automated operations for a single prototype copy as for a production run, so the prototype should cost no more per unit than the final product. That's quite a contrast with today, where rapid prototyping can cost thousands of dollars per component. And it means that destructive testing will be far less painful. Let's take an example. Today, a research rocket might cost hundreds of dollars to fuel, but hundreds of thousands to build. At that rate, tests must be held to a minimum number, and expensive and time-consuming efforts must be made to eliminate all possible sources of failure and gather as much data as possible from each test. But if the rocket cost only hundreds of dollars to build—if a test flight cost less than $1000, not counting support infrastructure—then tests could be run as often as convenient, requiring far less support infrastructure, saving costs there as well. The savings ripple out: with less at stake in every test, designers could use more advanced and less well-proved technologies, some of which would fail but others of which would increase performance. Not only would the product be developed faster, but it also would be more advanced, and have a lot more testing.

The equivalence between prototype and production manufacturing has an additional benefit. Today, products must be designed for two different manufacturing processes—prototyping and scaled-up production. Ramping up production has its own costs, such as rearranging production lines and training workers. But with direct-from-blueprint building, there would be no need to keep two designs in mind, and also no need to expend time and money ramping up production. When a design was finalized, it could immediately be shipped to as many nanofactories as desired, to be built efficiently and almost immediately. (For those just joining us, the reason nanofactories aren't scarce is that a nanofactory would be able to build another nanofactory on command, needing only data and supplies of a few refined chemicals.) A product design isn't really proved until people buy it, and rolling out a new product is expensive and risky today—after manufacture, the product must be shipped and stored in quantity, waiting for people to buy it. With last-minute nanofactory manufacturing, the product rollout cost could be much lower, reducing the overhead and risk of market-testing new ideas.

There are several other technical reasons why products could be easier to design. Today's products are often crammed full of functionality, causing severe headaches for designers trying to make one more thing fit inside the package. Anyone who's looked under the hood of a 1960 station wagon and compared it with a modern car's engine, or studied the way chips and wires are packed into every last nook and cranny of a cell phone, knows how crowded products can get. But molecular manufactured products will be many orders of magnitude more compact; this is true for sensors, actuators, data processing, energy transformation, and even physical structure. What this means is that any human-scale product will be almost entirely empty space. Designers will be able to include functions without worrying much about where they will physically fit into the product. This ability to focus on function will simplify the designer's task.

The high performance of molecularly precise nanosystems also means that designers can afford to waste a fair amount of performance in order to simplify the design. For example, instead of using a different size of motor for every different-sized task, designers might choose from only two or three standard sizes that might differ from each other by an order of magnitude or more. In today's products, using a thousand-watt motor to do a hundred-watt motor's job would be costly, heavy, bulky, and probably an inefficient use of energy besides. But nano-built motors have been calculated to be at least a million times as powerful. That thousand-watt motor would shrink to the size of a grain of sand. Running it at low power would not hurt its efficiency, and it wouldn't be in danger of overheating. It wouldn't cost significantly more to build than a carefully-sized hundred-watt motor. And at that size, it could be placed wherever in the product was most convenient for the designer.

Another potential advantage of having more performance than needed is that design can be performed in stages. Instead of planning an entire product at once, integrated from top to bottom, designers could cobble together a product from a menu of lower-level solutions that were already designed and understood. For example, instead of a complicated system with lots of custom hardware to be individually specified, designers could find off-the-shelf modules that had more features than required, string them together, and tweak their specifications or programming to configure their functionality to the needed product—leaving a lot of other functionality unused. Like the larger-than-necessary motor, this approach would include a lot of extra stuff that was put in simply to save the designer's time; however, including all that extra stuff would cost almost nothing. This approach is used today in computers. A modern computer spends at least 99% of its time and energy on retroactively saving time for its designers. In other words, the design is horrendously inefficient, but because computer hardware is so extremely fast, it's better to use trillions of extra calculations than to pay the designer even $10 to spend time on making the program more efficient. A modern personal computer does trillions of calculations in a fraction of an hour.

Modular design depends on predictable modules—things that work exactly as expected, at least within the range of conditions they are used in. This is certainly true in computers. It will also be true in molecular manufacturing, thanks to the digital nature of covalent bonds. Each copy of a design that has the same bond patterns between the atoms will have identical behavior. What this means is that once a modular design is characterized, designers can be quite confident that all subsequent copies of the design will be identical and predictable. (Advanced readers will note that isotopes can make a difference in a few cases, but isotope number is also discrete and isotopes can be sorted fairly easily as necessary to build sensitive designs. And although radiation damage can wipe out a module, straightforward redundancy algorithms can take care of that problem.)

With all these advantages, development of nano-built products, at least to the point of competing with today's products, appears to be easier in some important ways than was development of today's products. It's worth spending some thought on the implications of that. What if the military could test-fire a new missile or rocket every day until they got it right? How fast would the strategic balance of power shift, and what is the chance that the mere possibility of such a shift could lead to pre-emptive military strikes? What if doctors could build new implanted sensor arrays as fast as they could find things to monitor, and then use the results to track the effects of experimental treatments (also nano-built rapid-prototyped technology) before they had a chance to cause serious injury? Would this enable doctors to be more aggressive—and simultaneously safer—in developing new lifesaving treatments? If new versions of popular consumer products came out every month—or even every week—and consumers were urged to trade up at every opportunity, what are the environmental implications? What if an arms race developed between nations, or between police and criminals? What if products of high personal desirability and low social desirability were being created right and left, too quickly for society to respond? A technical essay is not the best place to get into these questions, but these issues and more are directly raised by the possibility that molecular manufacturing nanofactories will open the door to true rapid prototyping.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

FUNDRAISING ALERT!

Recent developments in efforts to roadmap the technological steps towards molecular manufacturing make the work of CRN even more important.

It is critical that we examine the global implications of this rapidly emerging technology, and CRN continues to be in the forefront of this discussion.

But we need to grow, and rapidly, to meet the expanding need.

Your donation to CRN will help us to achieve that growth. We rely largely on individual donations and small grants for our survival.

To make a contribution on-line click this link > https://secure.groundspring.org/dn/index.php?aid=5594 . This is important work and we welcome your participation.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The Fine Print:

The Center for Responsible Nanotechnology(TM) is an affiliate of World Care(R), an international, non-profit, 501(c)(3) organization. All donations to CRN are handled through World Care. The opinions expressed by CRN do not necessarily reflect those of World Care.

posted in Responsible Nanotechnology - 0 replies

Excellent Nano-medicine application

2005-06-17T15:00:43Z

This is pretty good stuff.

"University of Michigan scientists have created the nanotechnology equivalent of a Trojan horse to smuggle a powerful chemotherapeutic drug inside tumor cells – increasing the drug's cancer-killing activity and reducing its toxic side effects."

http://www.med.umich.edu/opm/newspage/2005/nanoparticles.htm

There some groups in France and Belgium who have done some fantastic work... its nice to see some good things happening in the USA as well.

The Journal of Controlled Release is a good source for related articles.
Poupaert and Couvreur, JCR, 92, 19-26, 2003.
Vauthier et al, JCR, 93, 151-160, 2003.

posted in Responsible Nanotechnology - 0 replies

C-R-Newsletter #31

2005-06-13T01:09:34Z

To read this on the Web, with nice formatting and hyperlinks, go to
http://crnano.org/archive05.htm#31

CONTENTS
- NanoWorld Weapons Warning
- Citizen Conferences on Technology
- CRN Policy Debate
- Nanofuture: What's Next for Nanotechnology
- CRN goes to Baltimore
- Russian Translation Coming Soon
- Reminder about Symposium on Nanotechnology
- Feature Essay: Sudden Development of Molecular Manufacturing
- FUNDRAISING ALERT!

==========

Even more than usual, things are happening fast at CRN. We’ll recap some of the highlights here—but to keep up with the latest developments, be sure to check our Responsible Nanotechnology weblog at http://CRNano.typepad.com/

NOTE: In the items below, links are indicated with [brackets], and shown at the end of the paragraph.

NanoWorld Weapons Warning

"Nano could lead to new WMDs"

Does that sound like one of CRN's warnings? Not this time. It's the headline on a recent UPI article by [Charles Choi], in which he interviews scientists from the University of Mexico and the University of California.

The scary thing is that [they aren't focusing] on advanced nanotechnology -- destructive new devices produced in mass quantity with molecular manufacturing -- because they don't have to. They make a convincing point just talking about improved (is that the right word?) chemical and biological weapons.

Already we're hearing sabers rattle and drums beat with the proposed [weaponization of space]. From there, it's a short step to [military use] of molecular machine systems with exponential manufacturing potential -- and at that point we're right on the edge of a very steep cliff.

http://crnano.typepad.com/crnblog/2005/05/world_war_when.html
http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20050520-114429-1570r.htm
http://crnano.typepad.com/crnblog/2005/05/space_weapons_r.html
http://www.crnano.org/dangers.htm#arms

Citizen Conferences on Technology

An [innovative way] to “stimulate broad and intelligent social debate on technological issues,” pioneered in the 1980s by the Danish Board of Technology, is now getting underway [in the UK], with a focus on nanotechnology.

We think this is a good sign. [Public involvement] in determining safe development and responsible use of advanced nanotechnology will be vital. [CRN research] suggests that these issues are likely to arise sooner than many expect. The surest way to avoid the worst dangers is to understand them in advance and take assertive action to prevent them.

http://www.loka.org/pubs/techrev.htm
http://crnano.typepad.com/crnblog/2005/06/policy_recommen.html
http://www.rachel.org/library/getfile.cfm?ID=518
http://www.crnano.org/overview.htm

CRN Policy Debate

After reading Executive Director Mike Treder’s essay on "War, Interdependence, and Nanotechnology," C-R-Network member Steve Burgess engaged Mike in a friendly email “debate” on nanotechnology policy. The discussion revolved around instituting fair distribution of nanotech-produced abundance as a way of preventing an uncontrollable arms race.

Issues covered were: 1) How can such distribution be imposed with a minimum of force and conflict? 2) Is it even ethical to attempt to impose a global system of abundance, superseding national sovereignties? 3) Even if the basis for a society based on lack of scarcity exists in the future, will evolved human psychology be able to make the transition without widespread fighting?

We posted the back and forth responses [on our blog].

http://www.futurebrief.com/miketrederwar002.asp
http://crnano.typepad.com/crnblog/2005/05/policy_debate.html

Nanofuture: What's Next for Nanotechnology

Flying cars, space travel for everyone, the elimination of poverty and hunger, and powerful new tools to combat disease, and even aging. These are some of the amazing predicted developments of nanotechnology, the coming science of designing and building machines at the molecular and atomic levels. Will this new scientific revolution be for better or worse?

That’s from the publisher’s description of [Nanofuture: What's Next for Nanotechnology], a new book by Dr. J. Storrs (Josh) Hall. We haven't read it yet, but based on the description and the [rave reviews], this looks like a must-read. We wish Josh great success with his book.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1591022878/002-8677950-1437662?v=glance

http://crnano.typepad.com/crnblog/2005/06/nanofuture_what.html

CRN goes to Baltimore

About 50 engineers and other interested people attended an [Emerging Technologies Forum] titled “The Next Industrial Revolution: Molecular Nanotechnology and Manufacturing” in Baltimore last week. CRN Executive Director Mike Treder was asked to moderate the event, which was sponsored by the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME). Speakers included Scott Mize, president of the [Foresight Institute], Dr. Joseph Jacobson from the [Center for Bits and Atoms] at MIT, Kevin Lyons of the [National Science Foundation], Dr. Dennis Swyt of the [NIST], and Dr. Richard Colton from the [U.S. Naval Research Laboratory].

This forum was the second in a series intended to educate the manufacturing sector about what they can expect from advanced nanotechnology. CRN’s Chris Phoenix spoke at the [first event], which was last month in Minneapolis, Minnesota. We applaud SME for being forward-looking and helping to prepare their members for the next industrial revolution.

http://www.sme.org/cgi-bin/get-evdoc.pl?&&001572&000007&019666&&SME
http://www.foresight.org/about/index.html
http://cba.mit.edu/about/index.html
http://www.nist.gov/
http://www.nrl.navy.mil/
http://www.crnano.org/new_news.htm#30Minnesota

Russian Translation Coming Soon

We are excited to announce that a volunteer is translating several of CRN's web pages into the Russian language. Other volunteers from Russia’s [Nanotechnology News Network] are helping to edit and verify the translation.

When this is completed, we will have CRN web pages in [Chinese], [Spanish], [Portuguese], and Russian, in addition to English. Next, we'll be looking for people to help with translations into Arabic, Bengali, French, German, Hindi, Japanese, and perhaps other languages. We want everyone to learn about responsible nanotechnology!

http://www.nanobot.ru/
http://www.tainano.com/CCRN/index.htm
http://www.euroresidentes.com/futuro/nanotecnologia/nanotecnologia_responsable/nanotecnologia_responsable.htm

http://www.euroresidentes.com/futuro/nanotecnologia/nanotecnologia_responsavel/nanotecnologia_responsavel.htm

Reminder about Symposium on Nanotechnology

In connection with their hugely popular annual conference, the World Future Society has announced "an exploration series designed to provide an outline of several critical new fields with the potential for significant impact on the social, economic, and cultural fabric of modern society." For this year, they have organized a [Symposium on Nanotechnology], which CRN’s Mike Treder will assist in presenting. It’s happening in Chicago on July 29, 2005. Hope to see you there!

http://www.crnano.org/SymposiumonNanotechnology_July05,Chicago_.pdf

Feature Essay: Sudden Development of Molecular Manufacturing
Chris Phoenix, Director of Research, Center for Responsible Nanotechnology

Development of molecular manufacturing technology probably will not be gradual, and will not allow time to react to incremental improvements. It is often assumed that development must be gradual, but there are several points at which minor improvements to the technology will cause massive advances in capability. In other words, at some points, the capability of the technology can advance substantially without breakthroughs or even much R&D. These jumps in capability could happen quite close together, given the pre-design that a well-planned development program would certainly do. Advancing from laboratory demos all the way to megatons of easily designed, highly advanced products in a matter of months appears possible. Any policy that will be needed to deal with the implications of such products must be in place before the advances start.

The first jump in capability is exponential manufacturing. If a manufacturing system can build an identical copy, then the number of systems, and their mass and productivity, can grow quite rapidly. However, the starting point is quite small; the first device may be one million-billionth of a gram (100 nanometers). It will take time for even exponential growth to produce a gram of manufacturing systems. If a copy can be built in a week, then it will take about a year to make the first gram. A better strategy will be to spend the next ten months in R&D to reduce the manufacturing time to one day, at which point it will take less than two months to make the first gram. And at that point, expanding from the first gram to the first ton will take only another three weeks.

It's worth pointing out here that nanoscale machinery is vastly more powerful than larger machinery. When a machine shrinks, its power density and functional density improve. Motors could be a million times more powerful than today's; computers could be billions of times more compact. So a ton of nano-built stuff is a lot more powerful than a ton of conventional product. Even though the products of tiny manufacturing systems will themselves be small, they will include computers and medical devices. A single kilogram of nanoscale computers would be far more powerful than the sum of all computers in existence today.

The second jump in capability is nanofactories—integrated manufacturing systems that can make large products with all the advantages of precise nanoscale machinery. It turns out that nanofactory design can be quite simple and scalable, meaning that it works the same regardless of the size. Given a manufacturing system that can make sub-micron blocks (“nanoblocks”), it doesn't take a lot of additional work to fasten those blocks together into a product. In fact, a product of any size can be assembled in a single plane, directly from blocks small enough to be built by single nanoscale manufacturing systems, because assembly speed increases as block size decreases. Essentially, a nanofactory is just a thin sheet of manufacturing systems fastened side by side. That sheet can be as large as desired without needing a re-design, and the low overhead means that a nanofactory can build its own mass almost as fast as a single manufacturing system. Once the smallest nanofactory has been built, kilogram-scale and ton-scale nanofactories can follow in a few weeks.

The third jump in capability is product design. If it required a triple Ph.D. in chemistry, physics, and engineering to design a nanofactory product, then the effects of nanofactories would be slow to develop. But if it required a triple Ph.D. in semiconductor physics, digital logic, and operating systems to write a computer program, the software industry would not exist. Computer programming is relatively easy because most of the complexity is hidden—encapsulated and abstracted within simple, elegant high-level commands. A computer programmer can invoke billions of operations with a single line of text. In the case of nanofactory product design, a good place to hide complexity is within the nanoblocks that are fastened together to make the product. A nanoblock designer might indeed need a triple Ph.D. However, a nanoblock can contain many millions of features—enough for motors, a CPU, programmable networking and connections, sensors, mechanical systems, and other high-level components.

Fastening a few types of nanoblocks together in various combinations could make a huge range of products. The product designer would not need to know how the nanoblocks worked—only what they did. A nanoblock is quite a bit smaller than a single human cell, and a planar-assembly nanofactory would impose few limits on how they were fastened together. Design of a product could be as simple as working with a CAD program to specify volumes to be filled and areas to be covered with different types of nanoblocks.

Because the internal design of nanoblocks would be hidden from the product designer, nanoblock designs could be changed or improved without requiring product designers to be retrained. Nanoblocks could be designed at a functional level even before the first nanofactory could be built, allowing product designers to be trained in advance. Similarly, a nanofactory could be designed in advance at the nanoblock level. Although simple design strategies will cost performance, [scaling laws] indicate that molecular-manufactured machinery will have performance to burn. Products that are revolutionary by today's standards, including the nanofactory itself, could be significantly less complex than either the software or the hardware that makes up a computer—even a 1970's-era computer.

http://www.crnano.org/essays04.htm#Scaling

The design of an exponential molecular manufacturing system will include many of the components of a nanofactory. The design of a nanofactory likewise will include components of a wide range of products. A project to achieve exponential molecular manufacturing would not need much additional effort to prepare for rapid creation of nanofactories and their highly advanced products.

Sudden availability of advanced products of all sizes in large quantity could be highly disruptive. It would confer a large military advantage on whoever got it first, even if only a few months ahead of the competition. This implies that molecular manufacturing technology could be the focus of a high-stakes arms race. Rapid design and production of products would upset traditional manufacturing and distribution. Nanofactories would be simple enough to be completely automated—and with components small enough that this would be necessary. Complete automation implies that they will be self-contained and easy to use. Nanofactory-built products, including nanofactories themselves, could be as hard to regulate as Internet file-sharing. These and other problems imply that wise policy, likely including some global-scale policy, will be needed to deal with molecular manufacturing. But if it takes only months to advance from 100-nanometer manufacturing systems to self-contained nanofactories and easily-designed revolutionary products, there will not be time to make wise policy once exponential manufacturing is achieved. We will have to start ahead of time.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

FUNDRAISING ALERT!

Recent developments in efforts to roadmap the technological steps towards molecular manufacturing make the work of CRN even more important.

It is critical that we examine the global implications of this rapidly emerging technology, and CRN continues to be in the forefront of this discussion.

But we need to grow, and rapidly, to meet the expanding need.

Your donation to CRN will help us to achieve that growth. We rely largely on individual donations and small grants for our survival.

To make a contribution online, CLICK THIS LINK -- https://secure.groundspring.org/dn/index.php?aid=5594

This is important work and we welcome your participation. Thanks!

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

posted in Responsible Nanotechnology - 0 replies

what is nanotechnology

2005-06-02T14:32:34Z

this came from the new york times circuits newsletter that is sent out every thursday.
---
What Is Nanotechnology?

A couple of Sundays ago, "CBS News Sunday Morning" ran my segment about the coming era of nanotechnology. During the preparation of the story, I had two great experiences.

At one point, I set out to illustrate an interview subject's comment that the earliest fruits of this technology are pretty mundane. One of his examples was "nanotechnology pants," which turned out to be Dockers Stain Defenders slacks; as a gag, I put them on and prepared to dump a cup of coffee onto my own thigh to see just how well they'd resist staining.

I warned the camera crew, though, that this would have to be a one-take deal; once the pants were wet, I figured, you'd see the dark spot and we couldn't do a retake. Imagine my shock, though, when the coffee rolled off as though from a duck's back, leaving the pants not only unstained, but completely dry! (The pants don't feel any different from any other cotton pants.) We wound up filming the dump-the-coffee shot six times, and the pants never did get wet. Man, remind me to wear them next time I'm on a plane flight with children.

My other favorite moment was interviewing Steve Jurvetson, managing director of a Silicon Valley venture-capital firm that invests heavily in nanotech companies. Since only a couple of his sound bites made it onto the show, I thought you might get a kick out of reading a longer excerpt.

David Pogue: Everybody's heard of nanotechnology, but not many people know what it is. What is it?

Steve Jurvetson: We define nanotechnology as the manipulation and control of matter at the nano scale, nano scale being a billionth of a meter. It's about 70,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair. It's smaller than the wavelength of light, something you would normally not ever be able to see. And it's much smaller than anything we manufacture today.

The reason that it's so exciting, though, is not just that it's small. It's that everything changes at that scale. The physics you may have learned in school is completely different. In fact, it's wrong and doesn't apply at that level. Notions like temperature and electricity and magnetism are completely different.

For example, if you take a simple aluminum can, a Coke can, and grind it down to the nano scale, to a 20-nanometer particle, it would spontaneous explode in air. It becomes rocket fuel.

The nano scale is relevant if it somehow aggregates up to something we care about. You might start small, but these small things may start to glom together into larger things, like a memory chip or a solar cell. And that would be something you would see and use as a product. So nanotech is an entirely new way to make products and services that'll change the world.

DP: Where are we on the road there? How early is this?

SJ: Comparing to the auto industry, it's before the Model T. It's people tinkering in research labs around the country. Raising money for further development of their products.

DP: How big are the investments being made? How big is the excitement?

SJ: The government is a great example. Right now, nanotech is second only to the space race for Federal funding of basic research and development. So the US government absolutely believes that this is the future technology wave. The National Science Foundation of the US estimates it will be a trillion-dollar market.

And I might point out the internationally, the U.S. is not number one or number two. We're number three, if you consider the EU as an entity and if you consider Japan as an entity.

And we, for one, see it as an incredible boom in innovation. We think it'll be more important than the industrial revolution itself, restructuring not only the bases of many industries, but the fabric of society itself. That'll take some time, but it has that potential.

DP: And what percent sure are you that it's real?

SJ: I'm 100 percent sure it's real. The really difficult question is when. If you go out 100 years, there's no question. This is an inevitable trajectory of miniaturization that's going on in all of the sciences. It's sort of a crossroads of the chemists and the physicists and the geneticists. So I think there's no question that's where science is heading.

I'd say most of what the average person has heard of in nanotech will take 50 to 100 years: their bloodstream robots, the fanciful notions of the future. And much more, frankly industrial and mundane products — solar cells, memory chips — those'll be within 10 years.

DP: Now, I understand that nanotech involves manipulating individual atoms. And I understand these incredible possible results. But I'm missing how we get from there to there. Can you give us one example from energy or medicine or manufacturing?

SJ: Sure. The one that jumps to mind is the memory-chip industry. Computers, cell phones and electronic equipment need memory chips that keep getting cheaper and faster, and have higher storage.

But right now, we are at the teetering edge of our capabilities to build chips, because of waste heat. Our current computers are incredibly inefficient. They're like toaster ovens that happen to compute on the side as a by-product.

Enormous effort is put into fans and heat and cooling solutions for existing semiconductors. Some estimates by Intel show that if we don't change the way we build chips, we will have chips that are hotter than the surface of the sun in 10 years. That's just an untenable trajectory. Something radical has to change, or the industry will come to a grinding halt.

For example, there's a company in Denver that takes a molecule that's similar to chlorophyll, the chemical in plants that helps convert sunlight into energy. Modifies it in a way that helps store information for a memory chip. They take an otherwise standard chip from the manufacturing facility. And rather than replace everything on a portion where you want memory, they splash a beaker of these molecules on 'em. They self-assemble, meaning they attach automatically to exposed silicon or exposed aluminum, whichever you might need. Anywhere you had exposed metal, you've got a memory cell. You splash and rinse, and you've manufactured a memory chip on an otherwise normal chip.

The customer who buys a computer wouldn't know there's nano inside, if you draw an analogy to Intel inside. All they know is their memory chips were cheaper, faster, lower power.

DP: Now, this term self-assembly is making me a little nervous, because Michael Crichton tells us that if things go wrong, these self-assembling nano-factories will take over and merge with biology and reduce the world to grey goo.

SJ: I really enjoy reading his books. Just like "Jurassic Park," a very colorful nightmare. So should we be worried about that? No. I think there's a big difference between a self-assembly technique and autonomous agents that run amok. That's in the domain of science fiction.

The self-assembly I've been describing in these products are more like, you know, crystallizing salt from a beaker of salt water. Yeah, the crystal self-assembles, but that doesn't mean it has any ability to do anything other than form salt. It's about that simple.

And I think the regulatory regimes we have and frankly, a history of societal debate, that groups are springing up this early, long before there's any product that's actually a threat, is a good sign. Because I think it means people's eyes will be opened and they'll be participating in debates. So I'm fairly confident we as a society can navigate that. But it doesn't mean we should be complacent and not have plenty of people thinking about it.

posted in Responsible Nanotechnology - 3 replies

Great site for all to see

2005-05-17T02:53:03Z

http://www.wired.com/news/planet/0,2782,67512,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_5

posted in Responsible Nanotechnology - 0 replies

C-R-Newsletter #30

2005-05-12T14:25:06Z

To read this on the Web, with nice formatting and hyperlinks, go to — http://crnano.org/archive05.htm#30

CONTENTS:
- CRN goes to Minnesota
- Moving Closer to a Manufacturing Revolution
- War, Interdependence, and Nanotechnology
- Nanotechnology Research Discrepancy?
- Responsible Nanotechnology Report Issued
- Reminder about WFS Seminar & Conference
- Feature Essay: Molecular Manufacturing vs. Tiny Nanobots
- CRN Needs Your Help!

==========

As usual, things are happening fast at CRN. We'll recap most of the highlights here—but to keep up with us on a daily basis, be sure to check our Responsible Nanotechnology weblog at http://CRNano.typepad.com/

CRN goes to Minnesota

Last week, CRN Director of Research Chris Phoenix, made a presentation at a [unique new conference] sponsored by the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME). His talk, "Molecular Manufacturing: Beyond Nanomanufacturing," was based on a 50-page paper (see below) prepared especially for this event.

As far as we know, this is the first meeting ever presented by and for the manufacturing sector to focus specifically on what they can expect from advanced nanotechnology. The one-day conference, called "Molecular Nanotechnology and Manufacturing: The Enabling Tools and Applications," took place May 4 at the Minneapolis Convention Center.

http://www.sme.org/cgi-bin/get-event.pl?--001566-000007---SME-

Moving Closer to a Manufacturing Revolution

Nanotechnology's long-expected transformation of manufacturing has just moved closer to reality. A [new analysis] of existing technological capabilities, including proposed steps from today's nanotech to advanced molecular machine systems, has been released by CRN.

The study, "Molecular Manufacturing: What, Why and How," which was conducted by CRN Director of Research Chris Phoenix, shows how existing technologies can be coordinated toward a reachable goal of general-purpose molecular manufacturing. Results are available online at Wise-Nano.org.

Chris describes two approaches for building the initial basic tools with current technology. Other sections outline incremental improvement from those early tools toward the first integrated nanofactory, and analyze a scalable architecture for a more advanced nanofactory. Product performance and likely applications are discussed, as well as incentives for corporate or government investment in the technology. Finally, considerations and recommendations for a targeted development program are presented.

http://wise-nano.org/w/Doing_MM

War, Interdependence, and Nanotechnology

From the dawn of the nuclear age until the present day, we have relied on two mechanisms to protect us from World War III: the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD), and the growing interdependence of nations. In the very near future, we may not be able to count on these controls. The tenuous balance of MAD and the worldwide network of commercial trade are both threatened by the rise of advanced nanotechnology.

"War, Interdependence, and Nanotechnology" is the title of a [new essay] from CRN Executive Director Mike Treder, published recently by Future Brief. The essay ends with a warning that the disruptive and destabilizing implications of advanced nanotechnology must not be underestimated. This is balanced, however, with recommendation for studies that may allow many of the near miraculous benefits to be realized without the worst-case disasters occurring.

http://www.futurebrief.com/miketrederwar002.asp

Nanotechnology Research Discrepancy?

An important editorial in the [current issue] of The New Atlantis describes what they see as a "discrepancy between what Congress expects (from nanotechnology research) and what federal funds in fact support."

In reviewing the activities of a National Research Council committee tasked to evaluate the [goals and progress] of the U.S. National Nanotechnology Initiative, the editorial says...

It is our hope that the committee will offer a clear analysis of the technical potential of molecular manufacturing, and a clear recommendation on whether federal nanotechnology funds should be allocated toward theoretical and practical research into molecular manufacturing.

[CRN believes] that any serious, unbiased investigation into the steps required to move from today's nanoscale technologies to exponential general-purpose molecular manufacturing will conclude that the matter raises serious implications, and that actions heretofore ignored should be undertaken with urgency. By that, we mean a well-funded, dedicated program of inquiry something like our [Thirty Essential Studies].

We hope the NRC committee will agree, and that their recommendation will spur similar—or, better yet, coordinated—actions from other major governmental and civil society organizations around the world.

http://www.thenewatlantis.com/archive/8/la.htm
http://www.crnano.org/us-policy.htm
http://crnano.typepad.com/crnblog/2005/04/nano_research_f.html
http://www.crnano.org/studies.htm

Responsible Nanotechnology Report Issued

CRN's quarterly Responsible Nanotechnology Report has been delivered to members of the [C-R-Network]. Interested parties from 19 nations on six different continents received the report. Some of the countries include: Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Czech Republic, Egypt, Finland, France, India, Iran, Ireland, Nigeria, Russian Federation, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, and others, including the U.S., Canada, and the U.K.

If you would like to receive our quarterly report—in print, via email, or both—just sign up for the [C-R-Network]. It's free, and we welcome everyone's participation.

http://www.crnano.org/contact.htm#Network

Reminder about WFS Seminar & Conference

In connection with their hugely popular annual conference, the World Future Society has announced "an exploration series designed to provide an outline of several critical new fields with the potential for significant impact on the social, economic, and cultural fabric of modern society." For this year, they have organized a [Symposium on Nanotechnology], which CRN’s Mike Treder will assist in presenting. It’s happening in Chicago on July 29, 2005. Hope to see you there!

http://www.crnano.org/SymposiumonNanotechnology_July05,Chicago_.pdf

Feature Essay: Molecular Manufacturing vs. Tiny Nanobots
Chris Phoenix, Director of Research, Center for Responsible Nanotechnology

A few days ago, a high-ranking official of the National Nanotechnology Initiative told me that statements against "nanobots" on their website had been intended to argue against three-nanometer devices that could build anything.

This is frustrating, because no one has ever seriously proposed such devices.

A three-nanometer cube would contain a few thousand atoms. This is about the right size for a single component, such as a switch or gear. No one has suggested building an entire robot in such a tiny volume. Even ribosomes, the protein-constructing machinery of cells, are more like 30 nanometers. A mechanical molecular fabrication system might be closer to 100 or 200 nanometers. That's still small enough to be built molecule-by-molecule in a few seconds, but large enough to contain thousands or millions of components.

Nanosystems a few hundred nanometers in size are convenient for several other reasons. They are small enough to be built error-free, and remain error-free for months or years despite background radiation. They are large enough to be handled mechanically with high efficiency and speed. They are smaller than a human cell. They are large enough to contain a complete CPU or other useful package of equipment. So it seems likely that designs for molecular manufacturing products and nanofactories will be based on components of this size.

So much for size. Let's look at the other half of that strawman, the part about "could build anything." There has been a persistent idea that molecular manufacturing proposes, and depends on, devices that can build any desired molecule. In fact, such devices have never been proposed. The idea probably comes from a misinterpretation of a section heading in Drexler's early book Engines of Creation.

The [section in question] talked about designing and building a variety of special-purpose devices to build special molecular structures: "Able to tolerate acid or vacuum, freezing or baking, depending on design, enzyme-like second-generation machines will be able to use as 'tools' almost any of the reactive molecules used by chemists - but they will wield them with the precision of programmed machines. They will be able to bond atoms together in virtually any stable pattern, adding a few at a time to the surface of a workpiece until a complex structure is complete. Think of such nanomachines as assemblers."
http://foresight.org/EOC/EOC_Chapter_1.html#section06of10

Unfortunately, the section was titled "Universal Assemblers." This was misread as referring to a single "universal" assembler, rather than a collective capability of a large number of special-purpose machines. But there is not, and never was, any proposal for a single universal assembler. The phrase has always been plural.

The development of molecular manufacturing theory has in fact moved in the opposite direction. Instead of planning for systems that can do a very broad range of molecular fabrication, the latest designs aim to do just a few reactions. This will make it easier to develop the reactions and analyze the resulting structures.

Another persistent but incorrect idea that has attached itself to molecular manufacturing is the concept of "disassemblers." According to popular belief, tiny nanomachines will be able to take apart anything and turn it into raw materials. In fact, disassemblers, as [described in Engines,] have a far more mundane purpose: "Assemblers will help engineers synthesize things; their relatives, disassemblers, will help scientists and engineers analyze things." In other words, disassemblers are a research tool, not a source of feedstock.
http://foresight.org/EOC/EOC_Chapter_1.html#section09of10

Without universal assemblers and disassemblers, molecular manufacturing is actually pretty simple. Manufacturing systems built on a 100-nanometer scale would convert simple molecular feedstock into machine parts with fairly simple molecular structure—but, just as simple bricks can be used to build a wide variety of buildings, the simple molecular structure could serve as a backbone for rather intricate shapes. The manufacturing systems as well as their products would be built out of modules a few hundred nanometers in size. These modules would be fastened together to make large systems.

As I explained in my recent fifty-page paper, ["Molecular Manufacturing: What, Why, and How,"] recent advances in theory have shown that a planar layout for a nanofactory system can be scaled to any size, producing about a kilogram per square meter per hour. Since the factory would weigh about a kilogram per square meter, and could build a larger factory by extruding it edgewise, manufacturing capacity can be doubled and redoubled as often as desired. The implications of non-scarce and portable manufacturing capacity, as well as the high performance, rapid fabrication, and low cost of the products, are far beyond the scope of this essay. In fact, studying and preparing for these implications is the reason that CRN exists.
http://wise-nano.org/w/Doing_MM

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

CRN NEEDS YOUR HELP!

Since our founding two years ago, the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology has accomplished a great deal. We have published research papers, spoken at conferences, sent out press releases, and created a sizable presence on the web.

As a result of these efforts, we have seen a considerable increase in awareness of the implications of advanced nanotechnology. This is vital work that few others are doing, despite its critical importance.

Unfortunately, we're near the end of our current funding stream and virtually operating out of our own pockets. Unless we can quickly raise the funds necessary to support our growth, CRN's work will be severely hindered.

If we are to continue, we need to aggressively seek other sources of funding, and that includes contributions from committed individuals such as yourself.

Please consider making a generous contribution to CRN. Your check, in any amount, will make a real difference in helping us to build this organization and continue to inspire meaningful dialogue about our future in a world where molecular manufacturing is a reality.

To make a tax-deductible contribution, please go to our website (http://CRNano.org) and click on the "Donate to CRN" button.

OR…you can mail a check, made out to "CRN/World Care," addressed to:

CRN/World Care
P.O. Box 64001
Tucson, AZ 85728

CRN is a program of World Care, an international, non-profit, 501(c)(3) organization.

Many thanks in advance for all the help you can give. Please feel free to contact us at info@CRNano.org if you have any questions.

We sincerely appreciate the people who already have donated. You are truly making the world a better and safer place.

Mike Treder
Executive Director
Center for Responsible Nanotechnology
http://CRNano.org
http://CRNano.typepad.com

posted in Responsible Nanotechnology - 0 replies

C-R-Newsletter #29

2005-04-15T10:40:52Z

The latest edition of the C-R-Newsletter has been posted on our website.

CONTENTS OF THIS ISSUE:

- New Research on DNA
- Molecular Manufacturing, Step by Step
- Nanotech High Beams
- Information Week does CRN
- Chris Phoenix Interviewed
- Military Uses of Nanotechnology
- CRN goes to San Diego
- CRN goes to Minneapolis
- Feature Essay: Protein Springs and Tattoo Needles
- CRN Needs Your Help!

Read the newsletter here -- http://CRNano.org/archive05.htm#29 -- and sign up for a free subscription here -- http://CRNano.org/contact.htm

See you in the future!

Mike Treder
Executive Director, Center for Responsible Nanotechnology - http://CRNano.org/
Research Fellow, Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies - http://ieet.net/
Advisory Board, Global Risks Council - http://riskgroupllc.com/
Editorial Advisory Board, Nanotech Briefs - http://nanotechbriefs.com/
Consultant, AC/UNU Millennium Project - http://www.acunu.org/
Consultant, Future Technologies Advisory Group - http://futuretag.com/

posted in Responsible Nanotechnology - 0 replies

Check out the event posting

2005-03-30T05:45:08Z

Check out the posting for the October event in San Fran

PEACE

posted in Responsible Nanotechnology - 0 replies

C-R-Newsletter #28

2005-03-11T20:30:31Z

This month's edition of the C-R-Newsletter has been posted on our website.

CONTENTS OF THIS ISSUE:

- CRN goes to Washington
- CRN goes to Italy
- SciDev.net addresses Nanotechnology
- UK Government responds to Royal Society
- CRN says "Nanobots Not Needed"
- Talking with Economists about Nanotechnology
- Talking with Chemists about Nanotechnology
- Feature Essay: Information Delivery for Nanoscale Construction

Read the latest newsletter here -- http://www.crnano.org/archive05.htm#28 -- and sign up for a free subscription here -- http://www.crnano.org/contact.htm

See you in the future!

Mike Treder
Executive Director
Center for Responsible Nanotechnology

posted in Responsible Nanotechnology - 0 replies

new tribe

2005-03-01T01:22:42Z

Hey there idea people! Anyone want to help out with this?

intheyear2525.tribe.net

posted in Responsible Nanotechnology - 0 replies

C-R-Newsletter #27

2005-02-05T14:31:55Z

This month's edition of the C-R-Newsletter has been posted on our website.

CONTENTS OF THIS ISSUE:

NAS Workshop
Expert Group Meeting
Network Activity Coordinator
Events Coordinator
Nano-Workshops
Symposium on Nanotechnology
New Paper Posted
Feature Essay: What Is Molecular Manufacturing?

Read the latest newsletter here -- http://crnano.org/archive05.htm#27 -- and sign up for a free subscription here -- http://crnano.org/contact.htm#Newsletter

See you in the future!

Mike Treder
Executive Director
Center for Responsible Nanotechnology
http://CRNano.org

posted in Responsible Nanotechnology - 0 replies

C-R-Newsletter 26

2005-01-04T13:43:32Z

This month's edition of the C-R-Newsletter has been posted on our main website.

CONTENTS OF THIS ISSUE:

Happy Birthday to CRN!
X Prize Proposals
CRN Blog Highlights
Nano-Workshops
Staff Positions Available
Year in Review
Feature Essay: Advantages of Engineered Nanosystems

Read the whole newsletter —www.crnano.org/archive05.htm#26

Sign up for a free subscription —www.crnano.org/contact.htm#Newsletter

posted in Responsible Nanotechnology - 0 replies

Please Join Foresight www.foresight.org

2004-12-14T08:17:30Z

You can become a member for cheap if you join before Dec 31 2004.

For more info please go to
http://www.foresight.org/holiday/index.html

Regular Membership

25% Off $60 Regular Membership

Give a Regular Membership to a nanotechnology novice. Ignite the thrill of discovery for a friend, student or associate. We'll extend your greetings in an electronic card.

Holiday Special: $45

posted in Responsible Nanotechnology - 0 replies

Speaking of Nanotechnology

2004-10-11T13:16:57Z

I will be giving talks on the responsible use of advanced nanotechnology at three different conferences over the next few weeks. If you are attending any of them, or if you live in the area, I hope to see you there...

First International Seminar on Nanotechnology, Society, and the Environment - Sao Paolo, Brazil, October 18-19, 2004
http://www.fflch.usp.br/seminanosoma/english/index2.htm

International Congress of Nanotechnology - San Francisco, CA, November 7-11, 2004
http://www.ianano.org/

Nanotechnology: Innovation, Opportunity, and Commercialization - Rensselaer Polytechnic Insitute, Troy, NY, November 15-16, 2004
http://www.alumni.rpi.edu/nanotech.html

In addition, the co-founder of CRN, Chris Phoenix, will give two talks at this conference --

1st Conference on Advanced Nanotechnology: Research, Applications, and Policy - Washington, DC, October 22-24, 2004
http://www.foresight.org/Conferences/AdvNano2004/index.html

See you in the future!

Mike Treder
Executive Director, Center for Responsible Nanotechnology (CRN)
http://CRNano.org

posted in Responsible Nanotechnology - 0 replies

C-R-Newsletter 23

2004-10-01T15:18:17Z

This month's edition of the C-R-Newsletter has been posted on our main website.

CONTENTS OF THIS ISSUE:

SAGE Crossroads Webcast Features Mike Treder
CRN Creates Wise-Nano.org Collaborative Website
Chris Phoenix Receives NIAC grant
CRN Given Consultant Status on Millennium Project
Mike to Work Full-time for CRN
CRN Speaks
- Chris to address engineers at Stanford
- Mike to speak at conference in Brazil
- Chris to make two presentations at Foresight’s Washington DC conference
- Mike invited to Italy in February for Expert Group Meeting on "North-South Dialog on Nanotechnology"
Feature Essay: Coping with Nanoscale Errors

Read the whole newsletter — http://www.crnano.org/archive04.htm#23

Sign up for a free subscription — http://www.crnano.org/contact.htm#Newsletter

posted in Responsible Nanotechnology - 0 replies

Policy Input Requested (x/post)

2004-07-13T11:24:16Z

The Center for Responsible Nanotechnology (CRN) has taken the preliminary position that cooperative international development of molecular manufacturing (MM) capability is the safest course to avoid an unstable arms race and/or extreme economic upheaval, while providing the greatest benefits to the greatest number.

http://www.crnano.org/development.htm

However, this course is by no means guaranteed. It appears more likely that the United States or some other nation (or bloc of nations) will achieve MM through independent programs.

http://crnano.typepad.com/crnblog/2004/07/the_arms_race_h.html

Assuming that a push for international development does not succeed, would unilateral development by the U.S. be the next best option? Or would development by some other entity (India? China? Russia?) be more likely to avoid the gravest dangers?

http://www.crnano.org/dangers.htm

Who should get it first?

CRN welcomes your serious consideration of these questions and requests your input in our process of deliberation and policy recommendation.

http://crnano.typepad.com/crnblog/2004/07/policy_input_re.html

posted in Responsible Nanotechnology - 0 replies

Putting 'grey goo' in perspective (x/post)

2004-06-09T12:01:52Z

Below is the text of a press release from CRN announcing an important new article. The release can be viewed online at http://www.crnano.org/PR-IOP.htm

Mike Treder
Executive Director
Center for Responsible Nanotechnology

==================

TITLE: Leading nanotech experts put 'grey goo' in perspective

A paper published today in the journal Nanotechnology warns that fear of runaway self-replicating machines diverts attention away from other more serious risks of molecular manufacturing. The paper, "Safe Exponential Manufacturing", published by the Institute of Physics, was written by Chris Phoenix, Director of Research at the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology (CRN), and Dr. K. Eric Drexler, a pioneering nanotechnology theorist and founder of the Foresight Institute.

Drexler had cautioned against self-replicating machines in his 1986 book Engines of Creation. The idea became known as 'grey goo' and inspired a generation of science fiction authors. In this article, Phoenix and Drexler show that nanotechnology-based fabrication can be completely safe from out-of-control replication. However, they warn that for other reasons misuse of molecular manufacturing remains a significant danger.

"So-called grey goo could only be the product of a deliberate and difficult engineering process, not an accident," said Phoenix. "Far more serious is the possibility that a large-scale and convenient manufacturing capacity could be used to make incredibly powerful non-replicating weapons in unprecedented quantity. This could lead to an unstable arms race and a devastating war. Policy investigation into the effects of advanced nanotechnology should consider this as a primary concern, and runaway replication as a more distant issue."

Contrary to previous understanding, self-replication is unnecessary for building an efficient and effective molecular manufacturing system. Instead of building lots of tiny, complex, free-floating robots to manufacture products, it will be more practical to use simple robot arms inside desktop-size factories. A robot arm removed from such a factory would be as inert as a light bulb pulled from its socket. The factory as a whole would be no more mobile than a desktop printer and would require a supply of purified raw materials to build anything.

"An obsession with obsolete science-fiction images of swarms of replicating nanobugs has diverted attention from the real issues raised by the coming revolution in molecular nanotechnologies," said Drexler. "We need to focus on the issues that matter — how to deal with these powerful new capabilities in a competitive world."

Mike Treder, Executive Director of CRN, said, "We hope that this article will advance the discussion of the actual implications of molecular manufacturing. There is no need for panic, but there are urgent concerns that must be addressed before the technology arrives."

The Center for Responsible Nanotechnology is headquartered in New York. CRN is an affiliate of World Care, an international, non-profit, 501(c)(3) organization. For more information on CRN, see http://www.crnano.org/.

posted in Responsible Nanotechnology - 0 replies

A Gathering of Minds

2004-05-21T18:36:54Z

Last weekend, I flew to California for the Foresight Institute’s annual Senior Associates Gathering, which is a unique event. I have never experienced anything quite like it, and I’ve attended dozens of conferences over the last 25 years.

What makes this one special is the impressive collection of progress-oriented thinkers -- including world-class scientists and engineers, educators, writers, venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, and social activists -- all gathered in one place. The event is designed to be informal, with lots of open dialogue encouraged, which is refreshing. But the organizers did a great job of staying on schedule and keeping the sessions flowing smoothly from one into another.

There were numerous people there that I had the opportunity to meet in person for the first time: scientists like Ralph Merkle, Robert Freitas, and J. Storrs (Josh) Hall; Neil Jacobstein, Chairman of the Institute for Molecular Manufacturing; Steve Jurvetson, Managing Director of Draper Fisher Jurvetson; Brad Templeton, Chairman of the Electronic Frontier Foundation; and Luke Nosek, co-founder of PayPal.

I also renewed acquaintances with top minds like Ramez Naam, CEO of Apex NanoTechnologies; Eliezer Yudkowsky, Research Fellow at the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence; Wrye Sententia, co-director of the Center for Cognitive Liberty & Ethics; and, of course, K. Eric Drexler, founder of the Foresight Institute.

It was a pleasant surprise to find that CRN is quite well known and respected within the Foresight community. My opinion was often sought during group discussions and many references were made to the important work that CRN is doing.

Some of the talks and breakout sessions concerned technical advancements, but most were focused on the societal implications and policy issues associated with molecular manufacturing. I had the privilege of delivering the final plenary presentation, on the topic of "Challenges of Nanotechnology".

Many attendees told me they enjoyed my speech, but not everyone was convinced that the challenges of nanotechnology would require the kind of international cooperative administration recommended by CRN. Naturally I did not expect complete agreement, and I’m pleased to have had the opportunity to present our concerns to such a large and potentially influential audience.

Mike Treder
Executive Director
Center for Responsible Nanotechnology
http://CRNano.org

posted in Responsible Nanotechnology - 0 replies

Bush-League Lysenkoism

2004-05-19T23:36:43Z

The following is a statement from the editors of Scientific American:

==============================

Starting in the 1930s, the Soviets spurned genetics in favor of Lysenkoism, a fraudulent theory of heredity inspired by Communist ideology. Doing so crippled agriculture in the U.S.S.R. for decades. You would think that bad precedent would have taught President George W. Bush something. But perhaps he is no better at history than at science.

In February his White House received failing marks in a statement signed by 62 leading scientists, including 20 Nobel laureates, 19 recipients of the National Medal of Science, and advisers to the Eisenhower and Nixon administrations. It begins, "Successful application of science has played a large part in the policies that have made the United States of America the world's most powerful nation and its citizens increasingly prosperous and healthy. Although scientific input to the government is rarely the only factor in public policy decisions, this input should always be weighed from an objective and impartial perspective to avoid perilous consequences.... The administration of George W. Bush has, however, disregarded this principle."

Doubters of that judgment should read the report from the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) that accompanies the statement, "Restoring Scientific Integrity in Policy Making" (available at www.ucsusa.org). Among the affronts that it details: The administration misrepresented the findings of the National Academy of Sciences and other experts on climate change. It meddled with the discussion of climate change in an Environmental Protection Agency report until the EPA eliminated that section. It suppressed another EPA study that showed that the administration's proposed Clear Skies Act would do less than current law to reduce air pollution and mercury contamination of fish. It even dropped independent scientists from advisory committees on lead poisoning and drug abuse in favor of ones with ties to industry.

Let us offer more examples of our own. The Department of Health and Human Services deleted information from its Web sites that runs contrary to the president's preference for "abstinence only" sex education programs. The Office of Foreign Assets Control made it much more difficult for anyone from "hostile nations" to be published in the U.S., so some scientific journals will no longer consider submissions from them. The Office of Management and Budget has proposed overhauling peer review for funding of science that bears on environmental and health regulations--in effect, industry scientists would get to approve what research is conducted by the EPA.

None of those criticisms fazes the president, though. Less than two weeks after the UCS statement was released, Bush unceremoniously replaced two advocates of human embryonic stem cell research on his advisory Council on Bioethics with individuals more likely to give him a hallelujah chorus of opposition to it.

Blind loyalists to the president will dismiss the UCS report because that organization often tilts left--never mind that some of those signatories are conservatives. They may brush off this magazine's reproofs the same way, as well as the regular salvos launched by California Representative Henry A. Waxman of the House Government Reform Committee [see Insights] and maybe even Arizona Senator John McCain's scrutiny for the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. But it is increasingly impossible to ignore that this White House disdains research that inconveniences it.

==============================

CRN will not take a position on the current U.S. presidential contest. Our desire is that whichever candidate wins the election, he will encourage -- no, demand -- that scientific advisory bodies consider evidence and issue opinions based solely on scientific merit, as free as possible from the taint of political influence.

Our stance of partisan neutrality is not a pose. The issues raised by advanced nanotechnology and exponential general-purpose molecular manufacturing will dwarf any of this year's political debates -- and many of those are of great importance. But when the very existence of the human race may be at stake, not to mention the health, well-being, and potential thriving of billions who suffer from unspeakable poverty and deprivation, everything else fades away.

We will continue to continue to push aggressively for all world leaders, including the next U.S. President, to make understanding of and preparation for the serious societal implications of nanotechnology a top priority.

^^^^^^^^^^^
Mike Treder
Executive Director
Center for Responsible Nanotechnology
http://CRNano.org
http://CRNano.typepad.com/

posted in Responsible Nanotechnology - 0 replies

C-R-Newsletter #18

2004-04-30T17:29:54Z

C-R-Newsletter #18 April 29, 2004

If you'd like to read the HTML version, with nicer formatting and working hyperlinks, just go here: http://crnano.org/newsletter.htm#18

CONTENTS

Slashdot Does CRN
CRN Busy-ness
The new C-R-Network
Blog improvement suggestions?
Tell us about enabling tech!
Feature essay: Science vs. engineering vs. theoretical applied
nanotechnology

------------

Slashdot Does CRN

Slashdot.org* is a large techie news blog. CRN was featured on their front page today. Many of the 650 comments posted to the article* show that readers are aware of the power and the problems created by molecular manufacturing. Now we just have to get the news to nanotech policymakers!

* http://slashdot.org/
* http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/04/29/1641226

CRN Busy-ness

Mike and Chris* are both very busy with CRN activities, as well as other pesky aspects of real life that keep intruding. Chris, for example, is in the process of moving this week to a new home in Miami. For his part, Mike spent four days last week in England at a Board of Directors retreat for another NGO that he works with. But no complaints; we both love our lives and our work.

Speaking of work, we’re both laboring mightily to prepare for important conference activities next month on behalf of CRN. As we’ve told you before, Chris will be jetting to China in mid-May to give a talk at the World High Technology Society's Life Spring Forum* in Dalian. Following that conference, he will give talks in Nanjing on progress toward molecular manufacturing, and in Shanghai on advanced nanotechnology and human rights.

While Chris is in China, Mike will be in California for the Foresight Institute's Senior Associates Gathering,* where he has been invited to be a featured speaker. Perhaps some of you will be there to meet him and hear his talk. Here is the abstract:

"""""
The challenges brought by advanced nanotechnology will have to be addressed by a diverse collection of people and organizations. No single approach will solve all problems or address all needs. The only answer is a collective answer, and that will demand an unprecedented collaboration of leaders in science, technology, business, government, and NGOs. It will require participation from people of many nations, cultures, languages, and belief systems. Never before has the world faced such a tremendous opportunity—and never before have the risks been so great. We must begin now to develop common understanding, create lines of communication, and build a stable structure that will enable humankind to pass safely through the transition into the nano era.
"""""

By the way, the Foresight Institute has extended a nice offer to CRN supporters. They will give C-R-Newsletter readers a discount of $200 off the standard fee to join Foresight and register for the Senior Associates conference. Visit this page* to register at the long-expired "Super Early" rate and put "CRN" in the comments field.

* http://crnano.org/about_us.htm#Principals
* http://whts.org/lifespring/en-2004.htm
* http://www.foresight.org/SrAssoc/spring2004/index.html#Speakers
* http://www.foresight.org/SrAssoc/spring2004

The new C-R-Network

Since our founding in December 2002, CRN has experienced significant growth. People often tell us how impressed they are by all that we’ve accomplished in a short time. It’s nice to hear such things, of course, because sometimes when one is so close to the actual work, it’s hard to appreciate how much progress is being made.

Some members of our Board of Advisors* have told us that we should prepare ourselves for even faster growth. Evidently these people, who have more experience in startup organizations than we do, can sense that CRN is nearing a “tipping point”, and that things will start moving even faster for us.

A piece of advice they have offered is that we need to be more proactive about developing a strong working network of supporters, researchers, and potential collaborators. As such, we’ve decided to form the C-R-Network, and we want you to join! If you’re interested in being a part of the solution, please click on the link above.

* http://crnano.org/about_us.htm#Advisors

Blog improvement suggestions?

As most of you know, we started a weblog in January 2004 called Responsible Nanotechnology.* Response has been great. We’re averaging well over 300 hits per day and we get three to four times as many posted comments as we make blog entries. But everything can be improved, right?

If you are a regular reader of the blog, please tell us what we can do to improve it. We think it’s an important way to stay in touch with our constituency, and the feedback we get to our ideas is truly helpful. So tell us how we can make it more useful or interesting to you. And if you’re not a regular reader of the blog, maybe you should be!

* http://crnano.typepad.com/crnblog/

Tell us about enabling tech!

One of the things that indicates CRN was founded at the right time (not a moment too soon, and we hope not too late!) is the rapid development we’re seeing in enabling technologies. From nanoscale lasers to dip-pen lithography, and from nanoscale fasteners to nucleic acid building blocks, the molecular manufacturing toolbox is filling up rapidly.

It’s very important for us to keep abreast of these developments. We’ve got our ears close to the ground, but if you come across something you think we should know about, please tell us. Perhaps you work in a field that is doing relevant work, or maybe you’ve just read something that we didn’t catch. In any case, don’t hesitate to email Mike* or Chris* with new information.

* mtreder@crnano.org
* cphoenix@crnano.org
(Suggested subject: "Enabling Tech")

Science vs. engineering vs. theoretical applied nanotechnology
by Chris Phoenix, CRN Director of Research

When scientists want an issue to go away, they are as political as anyone else. They attack the credentials of the observer. They change the subject. They build strawman attacks, and frequently even appear to convince themselves. They form cliques. They tell their students not to even read the claims, and certainly not to investigate them. Each of these tactics is being used against molecular manufacturing.

When facing a scientific theory they disagree with, scientists are supposed to try to disprove it by scientific methods. Molecular manufacturing includes a substantial, well-grounded, carefully argued, conservative body of work. So why do scientists treat it as though it were pseudoscience, deserving only political attack? And how should they be approaching it instead? To answer this, we have to consider the gap between science and engineering.

Scientists do experiments and develop theories about how the world works. Engineers apply the most reliable of those theories to get predictable results. Scientists cannot make reliable pronouncements about the complex "real world" unless their theory has been field-tested by engineering. But once a theory is solid enough to use in engineering, science has very little of interest to say about it. In fact, the two practices are so different that it's not obvious how they can communicate at all. How can ideas cross the gap from untested theory to trustworthy formula?

In Appendix A of Nanosystems*, Eric Drexler describes an activity he calls "theoretical applied science" or "exploratory engineering". This is the bridge between science and engineering. In theoretical applied science, one takes the best available results of science, applies them to real-world problems, and makes plans that should hopefully work as desired. If done with enough care, these plans may inspire engineers (who must of course be cautious and conservative) to try them for the first time.

The bulk of Appendix A discusses ways that theoretical applied science can be practiced so as to give useful and reliable results, despite the inability to confirm its results by experiment:

"""""
For example, all classes of device that would violate the second law of thermodynamics can immediately be rejected. A more stringent rule, adopted in the present work, rejects propositions if they are inadequately substantiated, for example, rejecting all devices that would require materials stronger than those known or described by accepted physical models. By adopting these rules for falsification and rejection, work in theoretical applied science can be grounded in our best scientific understanding of the physical world.
"""""

Drexler presents theoretical applied science as a way of studying things we can't build yet. In the last section, he ascribes to it a very limited aim: "to describe lower bounds to the performance achievable with physically possible classes of devices." And a limited role: "In an ideal world, theoretical applied science would consume only a tiny fraction of the effort devoted to pure theoretical science, to experimentation, or to engineering." But here I think he's being too modest. Theoretical applied science is really the only rigorous way for the products of science to escape back to the real world by inspiring and instructing engineers.

We might draw a useful analogy: exploratory engineers are to scientists as editors are to writers. Scientists and writers are creative. Whatever they produce is interesting, even when it's wrong. They live in their own world, which touches the real world exactly where and when they choose. And then along come the editors and the exploratory engineers. "This doesn't work. You need to rephrase that. This part isn't useful. And wouldn't it be better to explain it this way?" Exploratory engineering is very likely to annoy and anger scientists.

To the extent that exploratory engineering is rigorously grounded in science, scientists can evaluate it -- but only in the sense of checking its calculations. An editor should check her work with the author. But she should not ask the author whether he thinks she has improved it; she should judge how well she did her job by the reader's response, not the writer's. Likewise, if scientists cannot show that an exploratory engineer has misinterpreted (misapplied) their work or added something that science cannot support, then the scientists should sit back and let the applied engineers decide whether the theoretical engineering work is useful.

Molecular manufacturing researchers practice exploratory engineering: they design and analyze things that can't be built yet. These researchers have spent the last two decades asking scientists to either criticize or accept their work. This was half an error: scientists can show a mistake in an engineering calculation, but the boundaries of scientific practice do not allow scientists to accept applied but unverified results. To the extent that the results of theoretical applied science are correct and useful, they are meant for engineers, not for scientists.

Drexler is often accused of declaring that nanorobots will work without ever having built one. In science, one shouldn't talk about things not yet demonstrated. And engineers shouldn't expect support from the scientific community -- or even from the engineering community, until a design is proved. But Drexler is doing neither engineering nor science, but something in between; he's in the valuable but thankless position of the cultural ambassador, applying scientific findings to generate results that may someday be useful for engineering.

If as great a scientist as Lord Kelvin can be wrong about something as mundane and technical as heavier-than-air flight, then lesser scientists ought to be very cautious about declaring any technical proposal unworkable or worthless. But scientists are used to being right. Many scientists have come to think that they embody the scientific process, and that they personally have the ability to sort fact from fiction. But this is just as wrong as a single voter thinking he represents the country's population. Science weeds out falsehood by a slow and emergent process. An isolated scientist can no more practice science than a lone voter can practice democracy.

The proper role of scientists with respect to molecular manufacturing is to check the work for specific errors. If no specific errors can be found, they should sit back and let the engineers try to use the ideas. A scientist who declares that molecular manufacturing can't work without identifying a specific error is being unscientific. But all the arguments we've heard from scientists against molecular manufacturing are either opinions (guesses) or vague and unsupported generalities (hand-waving).

The lack of identifiable errors does not mean that scientists have to accept molecular manufacturing. What they should do is say "I don't know," and wait to see whether the engineering works as claimed. But scientists hate to say "I don't know." So we at CRN must say it for them: No scientist has yet demonstrated a substantial problem with molecular manufacturing; therefore, any scientist who says it can't work probably is behaving improperly and should be challenged to produce specifics.

*
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0471575186/103-8159814-0469464?v=glance

-------------------------------------------
To donate to the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology, go to http://crnano.org/support.htm, click on "Donate Now", and remember to specify CRN. Thanks!

The Center for Responsible Nanotechnology(TM) (CRN) is an affiliate of World Care(R), an international, non-profit, 501(c)3 organization. All donations to CRN are handled through World Care. The opinions expressed by CRN do not necessarily reflect those of World Care.

posted in Responsible Nanotechnology - 0 replies

C-R-Newsletter #17

2004-03-26T04:23:07Z

CRN has posted our latest monthly newsletter here: http://www.crnano.org/newsletter.htm#17

The topics covered are;
- Questions for Our Readers: 1) CRN Membership and Support; 2) Politics
- Predictions of Rapid Nanotech Development
- Conference Report: Imaging and Imagining Nanoscience and Engineering, USC
- More about Chris's China Trip
- Book Report: "America as Empire", by Jim Garrison

You can read the whole newsletter on our website, and I think you will find it interesting. Feedback is encouraged!

posted in Responsible Nanotechnology - 0 replies

CRN Update

2004-03-10T23:13:44Z

I'm finally back to action on Tribe. Between moving to a new apartment and having limited Internet access, and then attending the five-day "Imaging and Imagining Nanoscience & Engineering" conference in South Carolina, it has been a long time since I made a post here.

A lot has been going on for CRN. Inspired by the research collaboration with ASU that we reported, we have decided to explore the possibility of similar collaborations with other universities. If you know of a college professor and/or bright students who might like to work on such a project, please let me know.

We've been in touch recently with the State of the World Forum http://worldforum.org/ and may at some point work together on issues of common interest. Also, I have been asked to appear on a panel discussion organized by the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Alliance for Aging Research. The tentative topic is: "How public debate over the environmental, military, and economic impacts of advanced nanotechnology may hinder or disrupt the availability of aging ameliorative nanomedicine."

If you take a look at our blog http://crnano.typepad.com/crnblog/ you can read more about these activities, along with other news about CRN, and also a report on the nanotech conference I attended in South Carolina.

posted in Responsible Nanotechnology - 0 replies

C-R-Newsletter

2004-02-27T01:42:43Z

C-R-Newsletter #16 has been posted and, for some of you, delivered to your email inboxes.

CONTENTS OF THIS ISSUE:

CRN goes...to China! ...to California! ...to South Carolina! ...to Florida! ...to the Internet!

Nano politics goes ballistic...

A technical briefing from Chris Phoenix on Nucleic Acid Engineering...

...and more!

Read the whole newsletter at http://CRNano.org/newsletter.htm#16

Or sign up for a free subscription at http://responsiblenanotechnology.org/contact.htm

posted in Responsible Nanotechnology - 0 replies

Dismissing Drexler Is Bad for Business: Smith

2004-02-26T22:02:17Z

Dismissing Drexler Is Bad for Business
By Simon Smith
Betterhumans

Ignoring the potential of molecular manufacturing won't make it go away, so why is the US nanotech industry painting its advocates as kooks?

http://www.betterhumans.com/Features/Columns/Forward_Thinking/column.aspx?articleID=2004-02-26-1

posted in Responsible Nanotechnology - 0 replies

Running Out of Time (cross-posted)

2004-02-18T23:31:22Z

CRN Director of Research Chris Phoenix is currently attending a week-long IEEE Conference on Nanoscale Devices & System Integration in Miami, Florida. Chris will present a paper titled "Studying Molecular Manufacturing" at the conference later this week, and he'll be updating us with his impressions every day or two. Here is his first report:

It's amazing how far things have come in a year or two. Much farther than I had expected. I'm actually out of date! The last I knew, dip-pen nanolithography was a cutting-edge proposal, and drug design was an arcane art. One person literally laughed at me for the latter opinion. And a MEMS researcher mentioned DPN, a bit dismissively, as a "standard" (or was "conventional"?) lithography technology.

If you go to a foundry, see a statue you like in brass, and ask them if they can cast it in iron, they'll probably say, "Sure." They've been working with metals for decades, so the form is almost independent of the process. Well, the same thing is happening--strike that, it already has happened--with even the most recent nano-lithography processes. I asked someone if he could take his cutting-edge silicon MEMS work and redesign it in two-photon stereolithographic polymer, and he said, "Sure."

I then asked him if he could design me a four degree of freedom SPM system. He had to think about that one, and in the end he wasn't sure. But just a year or two ago, it would have been unthinkable.

So, when the "Nanhattan Project" finally gets started, it will have absolutely no problem finding not only dozens of nanoscale techniques, but people willing and able to combine them. These are not world-class researchers--they're grad students and postdocs. Well, maybe these days the grad students are the world-class researchers. No wonder the dinosaurs are scared.

The coolest thing I saw today, though, was a set of technologies--all from the same lab--for using light on semiconductor chips. Remember the sub-wavelength techniques I wrote about in the last C-R-Newsletter?
(http://CRNano.org/newsletter.htm#15) Add these to the list, at the top.

It used to be thought that light had to travel in a space large enough for its wavelength. Nope! Make a very narrow trench--50 nanometers, maybe 1/10 or 1/20 of a wavelength--and the light will be quite happy traveling along the overlapping electron clouds from the sides of the trench (or something like that). Unlike optical fibers, the light travels through the region with the lower index of refraction.

To link a 0.05-nm trench to a 10-micron fiber, do you just butt them together? No, that transfers at most 3% of the light. Do you use a gradually widening cone? You can, but it'll take a very long distance. The right answer is to narrow the thing still further, making a needle only 20 nm longand the light escapes out the sides, and up to 95% of it goes into the fiber; they've already demonstrated 70% transfer, and it's relatively insensitive to misalignment.

As far as I know, this doesn't have much to do with molecular manufacturing, or even with enabling technologies for it. I describe it because first, it's incredibly cool; and second, it's evidence that the previous stuff--nanolithography, chemistry, manipulation--is already a mature field, no longer so cutting-edge. Still lots to learn, but it's ready for application.

In the poster session, one group reported a fuel cell they'd made with microporous silicon, gold-plated on one side, sandwiching a membrane common enough to have a trade name. It's a square centimeter and 800 microns thick, produces a quarter watt, and runs on methanol at room temperature with high efficiency. I asked if this was commercially competitive: "Oh, Yeah!" Is this a highly funded fuel cell research team? No, it's a few students in a lab, working on something else entirely. They just did the fuel cell thing "for fun." Next I wandered over to the bookstore table, noticed a book on fuel cells, opened it at random... "All low and medium temperature fuel cells require pure hydrogen." The book was published two years ago.

This morning I'm going to hear talks on:
- Atom beam lithography: proximity printing for the sub-10-nm domain.
- Nanorobotic manipulation and manufacturing systems.
- Design principles for self-assembling devices from macromolecules.

Could we have diamondoid molecular manufacturing in five years? There's no doubt in my mind that we could. If we really tried, we might have it in three. Of course, that doesn't mean we will--but the important technologies are mature enough to be portable, so if we don't, someone else will... soon.

We're rapidly running out of time to prepare.

Chris Phoenix
http://CRNano.org

posted in Responsible Nanotechnology - 3 replies

CRN Wins Top Honors

2004-02-04T04:52:22Z

CRN is pleased and proud to announce that we have been designated as "Best Advocate" and "Best of the Best" for 2003 by Nanotechnology Now.

http://nanotech-now.com/2003-Awards/Best-of-the-Best-2003.htm

The Center for Responsible Nanotechnology was founded by Mike Treder and Chris Phoenix in December 2002. In our first year, we published numerous papers and articles, made presentations at several conferences, addressed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, provided invited submissions to the British Royal Society and the American Council for the United Nations University, and energized discussion of nanotechnology policy issues.

The vision of CRN is a world in which nanotechnology is widely used for productive and beneficial purposes, and where malicious uses are limited by effective administration of the technology. Thanks to everyone who supported us, encouraged us, and challenged us in 2003.

We will continue to study, clarify, and research the issues involved — political, economic, military, humanitarian, and technological. CRN remains motivated to provide well-grounded and complete information, clear explanations, and workable proposals. The need is acute, and we welcome your continued participation in this vitally urgent effort.

posted in Responsible Nanotechnology - 0 replies

Time to Make a Choice

2004-01-20T14:21:22Z

I've had a column published today on the Betterhumans site. Here's a teaser:

"Calls for relinquishment of molecular manufacturing technology are no less danger provoking, and irresponsible, than the cry for entirely unfettered development. Fortunately, there is a middle ground."

The article analyzes the diametric positions of nano-anarchy and nano-shutdown, and suggests a sensible response. Your feedback is encouraged.

See: http://www.betterhumans.com/Features/Columns/Guests/column.aspx?articleID=2004-01-19-1

posted in Responsible Nanotechnology - 0 replies

The Prince of Wales and Me

2004-01-16T06:01:00Z

I was cited in an accounting publication, of all places, and compared to Prince Charles! Check it out...

http://crnano.typepad.com/crnblog/2004/01/mike_treder_vs_.html

posted in Responsible Nanotechnology - 0 replies

C-R-Newsletter #15

2004-01-14T04:16:37Z

Greetings to all our friends,

With this issue, we've decided to start something new: after CRN News, you'll find a brief article explaining a technical aspect of advanced nanotechnology. This month, we'll begin with how scientists "see" things smaller than a wavelength of light, with cutting edge sub-wavelength imaging techniques.

CRN NEWS

Happy Birthday to CRN!

We founded CRN sometime in December 2002. We can't agree on the date; Chris prefers Mike's original email in early December, but Mike thinks we should count from the website going online, which happened around Christmas. Perhaps the most official date would be when World Care agreed to support us in being a non-profit. Anyway, those were all in December, so we're now one year old.

We've done quite a lot in the last year: published numerous papers and commentaries, built a prestigious Board of Advisors, given a presentation to the EPA, been mentioned in US News and World Report, and had articles republished on KurweilAI and in Small Times. This year we're going to be even more energetic and diverse. QUESTION #1: If we started a nano-blog, would you read it? We'd really like to know. Please let us know. Thanks!

The Futurist published a great article written by Mike on nanofactories in its current edition. Small Times immediately reprinted it. And this led to a request from another magazine for an article from him, as well as several newsletter signups.

Last month Chris gave his presentation to the EPA Science Advisory Board. It went very well. Everyone on the panel had only a few minutes to speak, and if you've been reading our newsletters (of course you have!) you know that you can't summarize advanced nanotechnology in six minutes. But he managed to hit most of the highlights. Several people on the Science Advisory Board told him afterward that they appreciated the talk. Chris spent the next day talking with several people in Washington, including a Congressional staffer. All the talks were preliminary, but should lead to good things in the future.

There are now almost three hundred people on our newsletter list. That's pretty good! But we'd like to reach more people. QUESTION #2: Would your friends and co-workers be interested in this newsletter? Why or why not? Could you take a minute and tell us what would inspire you to forward this newsletter to them?

The Drexler/Smalley debate has not generated an obvious shift of opinion one way or the other. It looks like we were over-optimistic about that. Apparently, in many people's perception, Smalley's incorrect statements about enzymes weren't enough to weaken his argument. And Smalley and Drexler both talked past each other — which left each side claiming victory and ignoring the equally loud victory yells from the other side.

In other nano-establishment news, we're eagerly awaiting Howard Lovy's promised article on the 21st Century Nano Act and why molecular manufacturing was deliberately excluded from it. He's promised that once the article comes out, he'll post additional information on his blog (http://nanobot.blogspot.com/). At CRN, we’re working on our own activist response to this controversy — can’t tell you about it yet, but it’s big, and we should be ready to announce something soon. Stay tuned!

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY — by Chris Phoenix

Sub-wavelength Imaging

Light comes in small chunks called photons, which generally act like waves. When a drop falls into a pool of water, one or more peaks surrounded by troughs move across the surface. It's easy to describe a single wave: the curvy shape between one peak and the next. Multiple waves are just as easy. But what is the meaning of a fractional wave? Chop out a thin slice of a wave and set it moving across the water: it would almost immediately collapse and turn into something else. For most purposes, fractional waves can't exist. So it used to be thought that microscopes and projection systems could not focus on a point smaller than half a wavelength. This was known as the diffraction limit.

There are now more than half a dozen ways to beat the so-called diffraction limit. This means that we can use light to look at smaller features, and also to build smaller things out of light-sensitive materials. And this will be a big help in doing advanced nanotechnology. The wavelength of visible light is hundreds of nanometers, and a single atom is a fraction of one nanometer. The ability to beat the diffraction limit gets us a lot closer to using an incredibly versatile branch of physics—electromagnetic radiation—to access the nanoscale directly.

Here are some ways to overcome the diffraction limit:

There's a chemical that glows if it's hit with one color of light, but if it's also hit with a second color, it doesn't. Since each color has a slightly different wavelength, focusing two color spots on top of each other will create a glowing region smaller than either spot.

There are plastics that harden if hit with two photons at once, but not if hit with a single photon. Since two photons together are much more likely in the center of a focused spot, it's possible to make plastic shapes with features smaller than the spot.

Now this one is really interesting. Remember what we said about a fractional wave collapsing and turning into something else? Not to stretch the analogy too far, but if light hits objects smaller than a wavelength, a lot of fractional waves are created, which immediately turn into “speckles” or “fringes.” You can see the speckles if you shine a laser pointer at a nearby painted (not reflecting!) surface. Well, it turns out that a careful analysis of the speckles can tell you what the light bounced off of—and you don't even need a laser.

A company called “Angstrovision” claims to be doing something similar, though they use lasers. They say they'll soon have a product that can image 4x12x12 nanometer features at three frames per second, with large depth of field, and without sample preparation. And they expect that their product will improve rapidly.

High energy photons have smaller wavelengths, but are hard to work with. But a process called “parametric downconversion” can split a photon into several “entangled” photons of lower energy. Entanglement is spooky physics magic that even we don't fully understand, but it seems that several entangled photons of a certain energy can be focused to a tighter spot than one photon of that energy.

A material's “index of refraction” indicates how much it bends light going through it. A lens has a high index of refraction, while vacuum is lowest. But certain composite materials can have a negative index of refraction. And it turns out that a slab of such material can create a perfect image—not diffraction-limited—of a photon source. This field is advancing fast: last time we looked, they hadn't yet proposed that photonic crystals could display this effect.

A single atom or molecule can be a tiny source of light. That's not new. But if you scan that light source very close to a surface, you can watch very small areas of the surface interact with the “near-field effects.” Near-field effects, by the way, are what's going on while speckles or fringes are being created. And scanning near-field optical microscopy (SNOM, sometimes NSOM) can build a light-generated picture of a surface with only a few nanometers resolution.

Some of these techniques will be more useful than others. As researchers develop more and more ways to access the nano-scale, it will rapidly get easier to build and study nanoscale machines. For links to learn more about all these techniques, visit our website at http://CRNano.org/newsletter.htm#15

If you have any comments or questions about this brief technical explanation, please email Chris Phoenix, CRN's Director of Research -- cphoenix@CRNano.org -- thanks!

=============

For archived C-R-Newsletters, see http://www.crnano.org/newsletter.htm

The Center for Responsible Nanotechnology is an affiliate of World Care, an international, non-profit, 501(c)3 organization. All donations to CRN are handled through World Care. The opinions expressed by CRN do not necessarily reflect those of World Care.

To donate to CRN, go to http://crnano.org/support.htm, click on "Donate Now", and remember to specify CRN.

posted in Responsible Nanotechnology - 0 replies

Projected Environmental Impacts

2004-01-04T15:33:54Z

CRN's Director of Research, Chris Phoenix, was recently invited to address the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. You can see what he told them about the projected environmental impacts of molecular manufacturing by visiting http://www.crnano.org/EPAhandout.htm.

Do you agree with us or disagree? Do you want more information? Questions and feedback are encouraged!

posted in Responsible Nanotechnology - 0 replies

CRN on Gray Goo

2004-01-04T15:28:55Z

We think fear of runaway nanobots, or "gray goo", is more of a public issue than a scientific problem.

Recent fictional portrayals of gray goo, as well as statements by scientists such as Richard Smalley, are signs of significant public concern. But although biosphere-eating goo is a gripping story, current molecular manufacturing proposals contain nothing even similar to gray goo. The idea that nanotechnology manufacturing systems could run amok is based on outdated information.

You can read our full comments on this issue at http://www.crnano.org/BD-Goo.htm. I'd be interested to hear if you agree with our point of view, and if you think we are addressing the public concerns effectively.

posted in Responsible Nanotechnology - 0 replies