This humorous essay at Cracked.com by David Wongย has a lot of truth in it about the change we are now seeing in how the economy functions, as so many goods and services are produced using automation: And if someday we do perfect cold-fusion reactors or nanotech manufacturing and everyone has 100 GB/second Wi-Fi connections downloading… Continue reading Forced Artificial Scarcity: the economy of the future
Redefining Humanity in the Era of Radical Technological Change, December 4-5, 2010, Pasadena, CA
An energy cell containing a lead zirconate titanate cantilever coated with a carbon nanotube film uses nanotechnology to produce electricity from scavenged light and thermal energy.
Reconfiguring the topology of DNA nanostructures offers novel architectures for nanodevices.
DNA springs mechanically control an enzymatic reactions by exerting force on specific parts of the enzyme molecule.
Unique properties of two-dimensional arrays of carbon atoms promise both immediate applications and advantages for the development of advanced nanotechnology.
An IEEE Spectrum podcast asks the question, Why Are Terrorists Often Engineers? The blurb: With terrorism back in the news, so, too, is a curious footnote: Of the hundreds of individuals involved in political violence, nearly half of those with degrees have been engineers. This finding, first published in 2008, has been substantiated by two… Continue reading Why terrorists are often engineers: implications for nanotechnology
We have reports from a couple of Foresight members who have toured the Allosphere, part of the California NanoSystems Institute at UC Santa Barbara, and it sounds truly impressive. From their website: The AlloSphere, a 30-foot diameter sphere built inside a 3-story near-to-anechoic (echo free) cube, allows for synthesis, manipulation, exploration and analysis of large-scale… Continue reading Check out the Allosphere at California NanoSystems Institute, UCSB
Projects exist for aggregating personal computers into one large project for various worthy purposes, from space to biology research, some nanotech-related such a protein folding. ย Now IBM has a similar project with the goal of developing nanotechnologies for clean water. ย From Grist.org: In China, Tsinghua University researchers, with the help of Australian and Swiss scientists,… Continue reading Donate your laptop time to nanotech R&D for clean water
Nanodot normally focuses on longer-term nanotechnologies such as molecular manufacturing, but we do like to keep an eye on how different countries compare to each other in nanotech and technology in general. Below is an excerpt from a recent Lux Research announcement; you can read the full PDF here: U.S. Risks Losing Global Leadership in… Continue reading Japan, Germany, S. Korea commercialize nanotech better than U.S.
