Shanghai Nano

NanoOpto sees 7 mill

What do you want from nanotubes? Quantum cryptography

Siemens chief: Old Europe needs an upgrade

Please don't let nano be misunderstood

Bacterial sugar buzz

Discuss

Oh the Humanities!

Is the study of ethics the new nano gold rush?

When the National Science Foundation announced two grants late last month to ponder nanotech's impact on society, I turned to Chris MacDonald for some 5-cent philosophical help. Chris is a philosopher and ethicist at Saint Mary's University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where I suppose a great deal of time spent trudging through the tundra would turn anyone's contemplations to the ultimate good or evil inherent in tiny particles that have the potential to self-assemble into a giant mess.

The cold has thankfully not kept Chris' brain in a state of cryonic stasis. He has an insightful collection of nanotech ethics articles on his ethicsweb site.

Not wanting to risk any unethical editing, I decided to post an unfiltered look at what Chris had to say about the topic in an e-mail exchange.

Chris: Seems odd that they’ve chosen to give out just 2 grants, grants that are HUGE by the standards of research in the humanities & social scientists. NSF may be under the misapprehension that ethics/social implications is like the genome project. Unfortunately, I doubt that 2 big, individual research projects will make as much progress as 20 smaller ones would have. Projects on ethics work by generating discussion, which you can’t do with just 2 grantees. Oh, well…I guess it’s better than not funding ANYTHING.

Me: Yes, we were discussing something similar at the office here. There's a perception that the business community - especially in chemicals – sees that there is government money to be had if only they redefine what they do as "nano." The more cynical among us are wondering whether philosophy and social sciences departments in colleges and universities across the country are now putting together their own panels to study the societal and ethical issues associated with nanotechnology in the hopes of government funding. Is that where the money is in your field?

Chris: Up til now, the money’s been in biotech/genetics. Philosophers & others in the social sciences have been handed multi-million dollar grants (and smaller ones, too, of course) to look at social, ethical, & legal implications of biotech. And yes, I suspect that now that nano is coming to the fore, at least some people in ethics etc. will shift their research in that direction in hopes of finding funding. But there’s also a less cynical angle: you go where the funding is, because that’s (often) where the action is; that’s where interesting, cutting-edge stuff is happening. Nano is an interesting & important topic, independent of whether it’s getting funded. But it doesn’t hurt to know that one’s newest interest happens to be attracting funding…"

Discuss

Nanowax Poetic

If you're simultaneously a nanogeek and a sportsman, you can have fun with e-cards and spread nanonews to the skiier in your life at this site. Just hit the "fun" button. The e-card promotes Cerax Nanowax from Holmenkol Sport-Technologies, a joint venture between German chemicals concern LOBA and Nanogate Technologies.

The high-performance, long-lasting ski wax. is a composite nanocoating, made mostly of alcohol and sand. It's called a “self-organizing structure” because it contains both adhesive and anti-adhesive properties that organize themselves within the material. The adhesive particles naturally move toward the surface on which the coating must stick, while the anti-adhesive nanoparticles move toward the air – preventing dirt and grease from attaching themselves to the ultra-thin protective film.

Nanoparticles with binding qualities keep the outside and inside layers of film together, much like the white part of an Oreo keeps the cookie together. The end result creates a surface that is both hydrophobic and oleophobic – meaning that water and oil slide off, just like water slides off the feathers of a duck.

If you don't care about that, though, just have fun with the little ski guy in the flash movie.

Discuss

Quantum Dockers

I just love these targeted Google ads. My general nanotech discussion page hosts not only lively debate on the issues, but also will sell you everything from quantum dots to JCPenney Dockers. Another illustration of the range of industries (or at least key words) touched by nanotech. Discuss

Rebuttal from Greenpeace's scientific adviser

From: Doug Parr
Sent: Tue 9/2/2003 7:01 AM
To: Howard Lovy
Subject: Yr Small Times piece

Dear Howard Lovy,

I was a little surprised by your piece of 29 August because whilst the tone of your coverage of our report in your blog was sceptical it wasn't hostile (unlike some of the commentary in the Small Times article on the Greenpeace report! - still they said it). Indeed others have generally been quite positive about it - Glenn Reynolds, Tim Harper, Dick Smith at Alternative Futures (expressed privately but he's prepared to say so to others) and Chris Phoenix at CRN are the ones I know about. The reason New Scientist magazine was prepared to run a comment piece from me (don't know if you've seen that - let me know) was because they recognised that it was a balanced appraisal and survey of where things were at.

The specific issue around nanoparticles actually 'looks' very similar to other policy issues where we have some experience, and can act as models for the appropriate balance of innovation and safety. Specifically a new proposed law on chemicals places the onus much more on the manufacturer to provide evidence for (not proof because we know that's impossible) of absence of hazard. The importance of this is that it shifts where the onus lies for producing evidence lies in the face of scientific uncertainty. It explicitly recognises the precautionary principle - now a tenet of international law in a variety of fora.

Greenpeace has not called for a ban on nanoparticles but a moratorium until the hazards are characterised & understood. This is pretty much in line with proposed EU regulations and a host of international risk assessment processes with the proviso that hazard characterisation is properly achieved.

I'm not quite sure how this approach is "a masterful dumb show of alchemy and melodramatic cries", which seems to me to be exactly the sort of knee-jerk reaction you're railing against.

regards
Dr. Douglas Parr
Chief Scientific Adviser
Greenpeace UK

From: Howard Lovy
Sent: Sat 9/6/2003 7:11 PM
To: Doug Parr
Subject: RE: Yr Small Times piece

Hello, Doug,

I'm glad you regard my previous commentaries on my Weblog as skeptical, rather than hostile. It's a line I am very careful not to cross. Part of my role as a journalist is to be skeptical (they taught me in journalism school years and years ago: "If your mother says she loves you, check it out.") But hostility is never productive. I'm afraid that perhaps my "dumb show" comment was misconstrued as hostile. After talking to some friends and colleagues, I wish I could go back and reword the "dumb show" sentence. It's a relic of a phrase, used by Shakespeare I think, to describe a melodramatic pantomime. The point I was trying to get across was that exaggeration, or illustration of extreme worst-case scenarios, was being used to get the public's attention. Of course, we can disagree about that, and it's all part of honorable discourse, but I think some might have misinterpreted the sentence -- with the outdated phrase -- as name-calling on my part. I hope you did not take it that way, and if you did, I do apologize for my poor choice of phrases.

I've read the other articles you mention -- by Glenn Reynolds, Tim Harper and the folks at CRN. In fact, I asked Chris Phoenix and Mark Treder to write a condensed version for Small Times and it's up on smalltimes.com now. I do, however, still stand behind my statements on the key differences I see between nanotechnology and previous policy issues in which Greenpeace has been active. I also am a believer in use of the Precautionary Principle when it's appropriate, but still argue that it's not yet time to invoke it against the various industries that are delving into nanotechnology. I won't repeat my arguments here, but if you've been reading my blog (and I'm glad to read that you have!) you likely already know them.

I have also been careful -- unlike other members of the media -- not to state or imply that Greenpeace has gone the route of ETC Group in its call for a nanotechnology moratorium, and your organization should be commended for stopping short of taking that step. In fact, I probably need to make it clearer on my Weblog that I believe Greenpeace and ETC should be commended in general for doing more in the past few months to spark interest in nanotechnology among the general public and activist community than any previous group, publication or individual since Eric Drexler published "Engines of Creation." I'm certain that media coverage of the ongoing debate over the future of nanotechnology -- sparked by your report and others -- has inspired many to seek more information. That's why I look forward to covering this issue in depth in both my roles as Small Times news editor and independent commentator.

It's also long been my policy never to try to get the last word in. I'd welcome a rebuttal to my commentary and to run it in the next issue of Small Times magazine (where my column also appeared). It could be a letter to the editor or a longer column -- whichever you choose. If you don't have the time to do that, I could run your letter below in the next issue.

Thanks again for your note, and I look forward to speaking to you further about these important issues.

All the best,

Howard Lovy

Can't You Hear MNT Knocking

Again, Rick Smalley's "fat fingers" and "sticky fingers" are being given the finger. The father of fullerenes is being hammered a great deal these days by advocates of molecular nanotechnology, and Chris Phoenix and Mike Treder of the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology (with an influence growing well out of proportion to its two-man operation) make a convincing case for its arrival even earlier than Greenpeace predicted.

Smalley has been accused of creating a "straw Eric Drexler" to place in the stockade for public ridicule, force to sign a confession that the "Prey" scenario is only fiction, then sentence to death for disobeying the laws of physics. Phoenix and Treder are the latest in a line of Drexlerites who seek to tear apart the straw man, finger by finger. Smalley says that a hypothetical manipulator would be too fat and sticky to rearrange atoms. Smalley's critics say that a mechanochemical toolbox would do the job without any need for overweight or oily appendages.

The point of all this? Smalley says gray goo is silly science fiction. Drexler says it's a long, long way off, but is indeed physically possible. Both will have long since decomposed into atoms in the generations it will take to find out who wins the argument. So today's fight is really about two things: Addressing current fears and establishing historical legacies.

The CRN says a limited form of molecular nanotechnology is not only science fact, but it's a coming attraction that needs to be addressed by us today – not by our great-grandkids.

"Some hazards of LMNT may require cooperative international response; such problems, perhaps as little as a decade away, need attention today."

That's why I love my job. Wild Horses couldn't drag me away.

Discuss

"Eu estou usando calças-nano neste exato momento"

Like gray goo, the new millennium's catch phrase spreads around the globe.

Chip off the ol' blog!

That's my kid!

Pumping Nano Iron

Here's further evidence of the corporate/government conspiracy to fool the public into believing that nanotechnology can help scare away the ghosts of irresponsibility's past. Nanoscale iron powder can clean Superfund sites and purify contaminated ground water? Don't believe it. File it away under this lie and that lie. We all know that nanoscale oxides are really part of a massive conspiracy to use women as human guinea pigs. Discuss

Nanoclass warfare dispatch

This just in on Pat Mooney and the ETC Group. I wrote last week that the group plans to increase its anti-nanotech activism at various forums around the world, including a talk at a London event, "Small is Dangerous: The Threat of Nanotechnology." Mooney came through, delivering his usual spiel on how nanotech is the tool of the wealthy and will widen the "gulf between rich and poor." "Every technology wave has a crest and a trough," Reuters quotes Mooney as saying. "The poor stay in the trough. It will happen again with the new wave ... which is being led by the world's largest corporations ... and we are not aware of it," he added. He's right about the world's largest corporations discovering nanotechnology. But it's a recent phenomenon. So recent that Small Times is in the process of planning its 2004 editorial calendar with this trend in mind. So, if the public isn't aware of it now, it will be by the end of next year. Despite what Mooney says, it's really small businesses that are on nanotech's leading edge right now. The sudden interest from multinational corporations will be both a curse and a blessing for these tiny companies -- and of course, the bigger the beast, the wider the disconnect between brain and action. Corporate irresponsibility is sure to result as layers upon layers of accountability and deniability are added. Mooney is correct in identifying that trend for what it is: A predictable pattern. My unabashed cheerleading over nanotechnology's amazing potential aside, I'm not really a nanotech advocate or detractor. That would be akin to staking out a position "for" or "against" the eventual arrival of October. I am certain of its inevitability. But I do possess a naive optimism in our ability to prepare for the changing season based on weather patterns of the past. This Reuters story presents a balance between the nano optimists and pessimists. As I've written before, now is the time to pay attention and make the right decisions to ensure nanotechnology develops in a responsible way. Discuss

Now you know Jack

Small Times Correspondent Jack Mason has a well-written a nanotech story on Salon.com: "Nano Inc. Vs. Nano Think." Jack places the public disagreement between nanotech pioneers Eric Drexler and Richard Smalley in its larger context. "There's a long way between Drexler's dreams and Smalley's reality," Jack writes. "But the very fact that there is some friction between scientists on the ground and visionaries such as Drexler is proof that nanotechnology has made impressive strides over the past decade and a half." One of Small Times' star correspondents, Jack made up for his lack of total devotion to my publication by quoting his Small Times editor: "Real progress in the field is obvious to anyone paying attention. Howard Lovy, news editor at 'Small Times Media,' a 2-year-old magazine and Web site covering the commercialization of nanotechnology, doesn't think Smalley and Drexler are really arguing with each other, or about the particular merits of molecular manufacturing, at all. "He believes the two are really wrestling to shape public perception of, and government policy toward, nanotech. 'They're doing this in a public way, because they're aiming to set the tone for what nanotech will be,' says Lovy. He sees them jockeying for position in a coming battle, a fight that, like the one that continues to smolder around genetically modified food, will probably center on the potential environmental consequences of nanoparticles and materials." "As for the feud fueling the competing visions, Small Times' Lovy says to remember that 'Drexler is a futurist. He's interested in people looking back 50 or 100 years from now and thinking, "Boy, was he right." ' Smalley, from what Lovy knows of him, is more of a businessman." Jack again proves his innate ability to come up with the perfect catch phrase not only through the headline (which he wrote), but through his description of a man-on-the-moon national nanotech goal as a "Nanhattan Project." Discuss

Why the Nano Generation doesn't need us

Over the Labor Day weekend, my 12-year-old daughter told me, "Dad, nanotech is cool and everything, but your blog is kind of boring." She's probably right, and shame on me for taking an essentially "cool" technology (and my daughter does NOT use that word lightly), and make it seem so painfully uncool. That will be a challenge facing the U.S. National Science Foundation as it begins to introduce nanotech into K-12 schools.

My daughter then told me about all the truly cool ways that nanotech is already being introduced to kids -- completely independent of any formal attempt by the government, school system or news media to dull it down into classroom instruction.

The now-canceled cartoon "Invader Zim", wildly popular with the young (and old) geek set, featured an episode called NanoZIM, in which "nanoships" are piloted inside a character's body. The image above is from that episode. What's especially funny about the plot synopsis I link to is that under "Cultural References," it says: "The whole episode is obviously a reference to the film Innerspace. Ahhh, kids. I suppose Madonna wrote "American Pie," too. "Innerspace," of course, was a horrible imitation of the original Fantastic Voyage, the Isaac Asimov classic and 1966 movie against which every nanotech breakthrough, real and fictional, is measured. More screen shots of NanoZIM can be found here.

It's not only Zim that has made nano cool. "Batman Beyond" featured an episode called The Perfect You, in which teens use nanotechnology to enhance their looks (are you reading this, L'Oreal?). "But when the nanotech becomes sentient, it takes over! Can Batman stop the problem before it gets out of hand?"

And the "Powerpuff Girls" (a little less cool these days, according to my 12-year-old cool-o-meter) featured an episode called Nano of the North, in which, "The Professor shrinks the girls down to microscopic level in order to fight millions of nanobots, creatures so tiny that they are able to come out of a mysterious dark cloud one to a raindrop. But then, when the nanobots join together to form one 'giant' monobot all of six inches high, the girls are too small to stop it." Cutest quote, according to a fan site: "A bunch down, a million to go!"

And an episode of "Jimmy Neutron" called Safety First acts out the ultimate geek fantasy: Using technology to get even with bullies. "A bully has been giving Jimmy a rough time recently, and he's had it. Rather than go to the proper authorities. Jimmy creates an electronic bodyguard piloted by Nanobots." But, in classic Frankenstein/Golem fashion, "the Nanobots get a little overzealous."

I've also seen references to nanotechnology in Dexter's Laboratory, but I can't find a specific episode. Maybe a reader can point me in the right direction.

So, with or without special nanotech curricula, our kids are already getting a way cooler nanotech educaton. But I hold no illusions that this post will suddenly make me seem cool in my daughter's eyes. As she's told me many times before, "Dad, you're way too old to ever be cool."

Discuss

'Nanothis or nanothat'

A great beginning to James Pethokoukis' article on nanohype in this week's print edition of U.S. News & World Report: "If you're a science-fiction novelist or screenwriter struggling to make the impossible seem plausible, just insert "nanothis" or "nanothat" as a handy plot device." I would add that it's not necessarily a bad thing to get the public's imagination all fired up like that, if it also inspires them to seek out more information on nanoreality. James quotes me in there, too: "But as interesting and useful as these and other products are -- including 'clear' sunscreens and longer-lasting tennis balls -- it hardly adds up to the next industrial revolution. 'I'd say that the nanomaterials used in sunscreen and khakis are simply the next evolutionary step in the materials and chemicals industries and can trace little of their lineage back to the original vision of Eric Drexler,' says Howard Lovy, [news] editor of the industry-tracking Small Times." Discuss

Navigating the nano-void

I have a column over at Small Times that goes over some of the ground I've covered previously on this site. In short, it says that anti-nano demagogues really can't be bothered with the facts.

And The Lancet, a U.K.-based medical journal, echoed many of the points I've made on this site in an editorial today that calls for more research into nanomedicine. Here's an excerpt:

"The techno-pessimists are using widely held fears about genetically modified organisms (GMO) – they talk of "atomically modified organisms" in nanoscience circles – to exploit modern anxieties about the applications of science in society. Here enters the infamous "grey goo" of uncontrollable, self-replicating, nanomachines. Yet critics have no substance to back up their calls for a moratorium on research."

So, then, in the absence of goo, where can you find real nanotechnology today? The many reporters and editors who have asked me this question might want to pay attention to this Small Times item. Yes, an actual trade show with real nanotech-enabled products. The elbow-patch element will hardly be visible, leaving room for real businesspeople with real business plans, showcasing real nanostuff. There will also be a highly worthwhile debate on the environmental/policy issues I've covered on these pages. More to come on NanoCommerce 2003.

Discuss

Unfrozen Cave Men

A chilly August wind is blowing right here in suburban Detroit, sending shivers through the dearly departed encased in liquid nitrogen at the Cryonics Institute. The institute has been here since 1976, but apparently Michigan authorities had no idea there were actual frozen bodies in there until the Ted Williams saga wound its way to the "wacky news of the week" TV segments and news pages.

"I don't know that we realized there was one in Michigan until then," Archie Millben, enforcement director for the state's Bureau of Commercial Services, told the Detroit Free Press. "Then as a procedure for the public, we started looking into this."

But had Michigan's sleuths only looked, say, on the Internet and numerous newsgroups, they would have seen that the Cryonics Institute has not exactly been hiding out. They've been advertising what they've been doing for a long time. In fact, I can trace some of my interest in nanotechnology to discovery of this institute near my hometown.

So, anyway, heads will probably not roll, but the state has ordered the institute not to freeze any more heads or bodies until they figure out how to regulate it. Is it a cemetery? A mortuary? The state can't seem to classify it.

The Cryonics Institute was founded by Robert Ettinger, whose book, "Prospects of Immortality" (written perhaps not coincidentally in the year of my birth, 1965), inspired hundreds of people to sign up for the ice treatment here or at the Alcor Life Extension Foundation in California. For $50,000 a head or $120,000 if you want the whole body preserved, they'll freeze you and then just keep you that way -- despite wars, famines, plagues or power outages -- until a cure is found for whatever killed you.

Then, they'll wake you up, grow you a new body or whatever else you want, and you're off to enjoy Futurama. What will make this happen is, yes, nanotechnology. Brains, bodies, birthmarks, anything will be reconstructed one particle at a time (only without the horrible tumors or wounds that killed them in the first place).

No, these are not Raelians. Some legitimate nanoscientists are involved in this dream, as Mark Frauenfelder reported in Small Times last December. Ralph Merkle and Robert Freitas are two of the respected scientists who are helping to bring cryonics out of the fringe.

Our generation will never know if they were crazy, or geniuses, but maybe our great-great grandkids will laugh at us for having laughed at them ... and a few hundred thawed-out eccentrics will be revered as pioneers. That is, if they can keep the air conditioners running at the Cryonics Institute.

Discuss

T4: Rise of the Nanomachines

California Democratic gubernatorial candidate Garrett Gruener, a venture capitalist with Alta Partners, chose to use the office of one of his nanotech portfolio companies, Nanomix, to beta test his economic platform of tax hikes and spending cuts. Anybody who tells you different is a practitioner of "tooth-fairy economics," Gruener was quoted as saying in today's Oakland Tribune.

He didn't make it clear whether the "tooth fairy" reference was aimed at Republican candidate and time-traveling 'droid Arnold Schwarzenegger.

This is not the first time a candidate has chosen a nano company as the backdrop for a stump speech. Presidential candidate Joe Lieberman did it last month.

Some Californians do have strong feelings about whether a Schwarzenegger administration would be good or bad for nanobusiness. That was meant to be a cliffhanger. Keep watching this site and Small Times for the sequel.

Discuss

Nano goes back to school for Ethics 101

Despite what you might have read elsewhere about the government/corporate machine damning the ethical torpedoes and going full speed ahead with nano, here's some breaking news from the center of the conspiracy. Declaring that "nanotech also has the potential for unintended consequences, which is precisely why we can't allow the societal implications to be an afterthought," National Science Foundation Director Rita Colwell announced two new grants of more than a million each have been awarded for new studies on nanotech's impact on society.

Recipients include Davis Baird of the University of South Carolina and Lynne Zucker of the University of California, Los Angeles.

These grant recipients will join other government and private initiatives in the United States, United Kingdom and elsewhere to make sure environmental and ethical concerns are thought through every step of the way as nanotech moves from a big idea to a big business.

Here's a quick look ahead in the ongoing environmental/ethical/policy debate:

• The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is accepting applications until Dec. 11 for research to determine "the potential impacts of manufactured nanomaterials on human health and the environment."
• The ETC Group's Pat Mooney plans to increase its activism at various forums around the world, including an event at Regent's College in London, where scheduled to give a talk titled, "Small is Dangerous: The Threat of Nanotechnology."
• A number of government-appointed and independent panels worldwide will begin discussing the environmental and societal implications of nanotechnology, including: the Nanotechnology Technical Advisory Group, which will help advise the White House; the Health and Environmental Issues Task Force, named by the New York-based NanoBusiness Alliance to develop a library of literature and industry standards; and a British nanotechnology working group named by the Royal Society and the Royal Academy of Engineering to study nanotech's potential benefits and problems.
• Green Parties in Europe are preparing their nanotechnology strategies to present to the European Parliament.
• Forums for debate and presentations on environmental issues will be featured at upcoming industry conferences, including CMP Cientifica's World Nano-Economic Congress in London this November, and an upcoming Small Times Media NanoCommerce conference in Chicago this December. (More details on this will come later).

Welcome back to nanoschool! Should be a fun, informative autumn!

Discuss

In touch with your inner nano

I banned "Fantastic Voyage" references from staff- and correspondent-written Small Times stories more than a year ago, since the movie reference was overused, and the technology too distant. Maybe I should rethink the policy. A development reported in New Scientist isn't exactly Raquel Welch under your skin, but these nanoparticles do detect cold sores.

This Small Times story and this one from New Scientist also show how you'll someday feel all nano inside.

The story about nano-enhanced MRI does remind me of another Sci-Fi story that is soon to be a major motion picture. Medical diagnostics is just the happy face these evil corporations place on their nanoparticle technology. Don't fall prey to their lies.

Discuss

Ministry of NanoTruth

From the ETC Group, which brought you such wonderfully titled reports as "Nanotech and the Precautionary Prince" and "Nanotech Un-gooed!" comes a more-subtle, softer title for an upcoming talk – "Nanotechnology: Atom and Eve in the Garden of Eden."

The September event, part of the Environmental Grantmakers Association's annual retreat, will feature a conversation between Foresight Institute founder Eric Drexler and ETC Group head Pat Mooney. I mention this in my column in Small Times magazine's upcoming September/October print edition (you may qualify for a free subscription; operators are standing by), but I had to point it out here, too. Here's part of the blurb promoting the talk:

"Recent studies indicate that nanoscale materials now being commercialized pose potential hazards for human health and the environment."

The "studies" were actually incomplete surveys of inconclusive toxicology reports, commissioned by ETC Group, itself. Even Greenpeace admits that no complete scientific study of the toxicity of nanomaterials has been yet been performed.

"Potential hazards." I suppose that's the environmental movement's equivalent of journalism's favorite word, "allegedly," which gives the illusion of absolving the writer if it turns out the allegations are flat-out wrong. For most responsible journalists, though, "allegedly" is used sparingly and only if the subject has been accused of a crime.

It doesn't matter, though. Like an "alleged murderer" who is later proven innocent, Nano's shady history as an "alleged polluter" is now a part of the permanent record of the information age and will be repeated in infinite news stories.

A less-subtle title for another Mooney speech, by the way, comes with an upcoming event at Regent's College in London, where he's scheduled to give a talk titled, "Small is Dangerous: The Threat of Nanotechnology."

The next issue of Small Times magazine will highlight how the ETC Group and others, buoyed by Greenpeace's entry into the nanotech debate, plan to increase their activism at various forums around the world.

Discuss

P.S.: Come join the Slashdot fun on this one!

The Springfield Syndrome

A friend told me last weekend that they will probably find a Homer Simpson asleep at the job at a power plant somewhere in Ohio, and blame him for bringing eight states to their knees. We laughed at the time, but as I learn more about the way the power grid operates, my conviction turns stronger that "The Simpsons" is more documentary than comedy.

A reporter for a tech magazine and Web site (I'll link to it after it appears) called me yesterday, asking me to elaborate on my previous posts about how small tech could help prevent future massive blackouts. I said that microscale technology being tested now, and nanotechnology being proposed, will make up for three key deficits in the current system: Brains, brawn and local control.

New Scientist recently ran an informative piece that re-created the likely sequence of events and also explained where those three elements probably failed last week:

Brains: The reporter I talked to yesterday was as surprised as I was to learn how much the system is dependent on human beings just paying attention on the job. "There are no automatic systems to handle major disturbances," power systems security expert Daniel Kirschen told the New Scientist. "It is done manually by human operators, so the question is did they try to take the necessary action to avoid the outage." The solution? Take humans out of the equation as much as possible. Micron-scale acoustic sensors can listen for trouble on the grid, and then rouse Homer from his doughnut reverie to alert him, or simply take matters into its own tiny hands and shut down the system before the dominoes tumble out of control.

Brawn: "The power network was heavily loaded across the region that day because of high demand, and so there was no room to divert the power supply safely elsewhere," New Scientist reported. That's where Rick Smalley's quantum wires can come in. The nanotube fibers conduct electricity like copper, but are far lighter, so the grid's muscle power can increase in the same amount of space.

Local control: An often-repeated nanotech campaign promise is the micro fuel cell in every garage, powering your car, your house, your life. Then, when your power supply is finished thinking locally, there will be enough juice left over to act globally and sending the excess energy into other networks that need it.

All this, in a tiny microchip wafer. Mmmmmm … microchip waaafferrrs …

Discuss

Smalley's smart eye for a dumb supply

If you don't believe me, listen to Richard Smalley, himself. The buckyball baron co-wrote a Houston Chronicle op-ed yesterday about nanotech and energy. The piece is tight combination of Texas flag-waving, nanotech boosterism and a dash of homeland security:

Seeing the nano-light: "Nanotechnologies also offer the possibility for vast new electrical energy storage capacity that must be tested and connected into the smart grid."

Fear Factor: "But as we saw from the Great Blackout of the Northeast, those inside an island under attack, including all city and state agencies and utilities, are currently on their own for early response."

Remembering the Alamo: "Texas then becomes the first to test nano and other advanced technologies related to transmission wires, environmental remediation, new generation technologies and other developments we can't even imagine now related to the smart grid of the future."

In today's Small Times, Smalley elaborates on how he'd use quantum wires to make the dumb grid a bit smarter and better able to harvest solar energy.

If the troubled summer at Ohio's FirstEnergy is any gauge of the power industry as a whole, it sounds like a smarter automated system might have made up for some pretty dumb human errors.

Discuss

Nano knowledge is power

"I will get right to the point. Energy is the single most important problem facing humanity today." - Nanotechnology pioneer Rick Smalley, speaking to the U.S. Congress on July 25, 2002

The day the lights went out in Ann Arbor, I grabbed my laptop, thanked fate that I had recently filled my tank, fought horrible traffic home (one 'burb outside Detroit), got to know my neighbors a little better and played Scrabble by candlelight with my wife. On Friday, still no power and water, so we stuffed the dog and our belongings into the car, and headed north to my inlaws' home off the northern shores of Lake Michigan, a rustic area that was, ironically enough, completely unaffected by the sudden loss of power. While enjoying the three-day weekend on the beach, I cursed myself for not running a Small Times correspondent's report, filed last week, on nanotech and electricity.

Well, we can't all be visionaries like Rick Smalley, as you can see from the quotation that began this entry. Smalley has been reciting the energy mantra for more than a year now, and solving power problems is at the core of his call for an Apollo Program for nanotech. He and others are pushing for a federal commitment of billions of dollars to develop nanotech energy applications. When Smalley speaks, people generally listen, but now Smalley's visions seem nothing less than prophetic. Legislators will want to review what he and others have proposed, including harnessing energy from the sun and the Earth's core and developing smart distributed energy networks.

Lux Capital co-founder and fellow nanotech blogger Josh Wolfe has also given Smalley his props for his solution to energy distribution problems: Superconductive "quantum wire" spun from a carbon nanotube "could quickly move extra power from places that have it to those who need it."

Another source that should be consulted is Robert L. Olson, research director of the Institute for Alternative Futures, a nonprofit research group. In a recently published article in The Futurist, Olsen writes: "Fuel cells and other micro-power sources, collectively called distributed generation, will likely emerge as the most economical approach to providing new electrical generating capacity. Micropower on site or feeding a local grid eliminates the cost of distributing power, and in large utility grids most of the cost is actually in transmitting the power rather than in generating it. On-site and local-scale power eliminates grid losses and makes it possible to harness waste heat for heating and cooling."

One reason Olsen is a big believer in hydrogen: It's clean. "The only emission from fuel cells running on hydrogen is pure water." Acknowledging concerns over just how clean hydrogen really is, Olsen writes that it all depends on how it's produced. If you produce hydrogen using fossil fuel energy, then you're still producing greenhouse gases. "The priority our society gives to minimizing climate change will be a major factor determining what kind of hydrogen economy we create," Olsen writes.

I've made a similar argument for nanotech. The technology, itself, is morally and ethically neutral. It's up to an informed, voting public to decide whether to delve into the dark side.

If you're hungry for even more nanoenergy knowledge, look at Small Times' previous coverage of the California crisis, and an excellent overview in a Small Times cover story written by David Pescovitz.

Too bad that it takes a crisis like this to get legislators and citizens to pay attention to the fragility of our power grid, but maybe now they'll see what the nanotech visionaries have seen for years and finally take action.

Discuss

Engines of Obfuscation

Meanwhile, in Old/New Europe, the spotlight seekers are stuck in green goo as the real scientists move forward on molecular motors.

Discuss

Playing God with Monsters

Horrified by "There Be Monsters Here" tales, some members of Congress called for a ban on DNA research in the mid '70s. Because those calls were rejected, millions of people around the world can now hope for DNA-based vaccines against AIDS, malaria and other deadly diseases that have destroyed lives, communities and nations.

Here's an illustration: The name of Joseph DeRisi keeps coming up in connection with global epidemics. No, he's not a modern-day Typhoid Mary. Just the opposite. The University of California, San Francisco researcher is using his own custom-built DNA microarrays to look inside the "minds" of some serious serial killers. The "minds" are genes, and his home-brewed gene chips helped solve the SARS mystery earlier this year. Now, DeRisi has chosen malaria as his next victim.

His chips have a way of sweet-talking the nasty parasite's genes into expressing themselves, showing which ones are active when it's brunching on its victim's blood or spreading to other cells. DeRisi found that the secret to malaria's success is its simplicity – regulated by only 10 genes compared with, say, 141 in yeast and more than a thousand in human cells. So, malaria is not the brightest bug in the biosphere, but it does its job with a single-mindedness, turning on each gene just before it's needed – like an assassin pumping his rifle.

As is usually the case with serial killers, malaria's strength is also its weakness. DeRisi tells The New York Times that all you need to do is take out one of the slimy simpleton's regulatory genes, and you'll send it babbling backward toward the evolutionary basement.

The technological breakthrough comes too late for some regions of Africa that are suffering a resurgence of malaria. But reading news of both the breakthrough and the outbreak clarifies for me what could be sacrificed on the altar of precaution if it's not tempered with knowledge that risk can also bring reward.

Discuss

P.S.: This post has just been Slashdotted, so there is sure to be some lively debate on this subject over there, too. Welcome, Slashdot readers. Come back often!

Making an assay out of ourselves

Great to see a micro/nano company that doesn't take itself so seriously that it's above using a pun (the lowest form of humor, seen often on this Weblog) in its slogan.

Movin' Through Casimir

Nano isn't my only obsession. The other is the ultimate fate of the universe. Really. Just ask my wife. ("Why bother scooping the dog poop in the backyard if there isn't enough mass in the universe to guarantee its continued existence?")

Last I heard, the universe doesn't contain enough stuff to reverse the Big Bang and create nature's ultimate recycling machine: The Big Crunch. Before this disheartening news hit a year or so ago, it was comforting to think that my atoms would be re-used in the next spin cycle. But, no, instead the universe will coast, dim and fizzle.

The only hope? An escape hatch. And nanotech, of course, is coming to the rescue. Purdue physicist Ephraim Fischbach – oh, you beautiful, bald man – spends his time like a mime pretending he's encased in glass, feeling the space around him, hoping his hand slips into another dimension. The goal might be generations away, but – like Tang and joysticks to the Apollo program – the search can lead to some wonderful discoveries along the way.

One of them is a new way of measuring Casimir force on the nanoscale. You can read the details here. Simply put, Casimir force is the result of our constant bombardment by the photons of light that surround us. We big people don't feel it, but when scientists try to make things happen on the nanoscale, these photons can literally clog up the gears and get them to behave unpredictably. Scientists, and those who want to exploit their discoveries, hate unpredictability.

So, Fischbach and friends may not have opened the door to another dimension, but they have helped place nanoscientists into a zone where they can learn how to crack the whip and make molecules behave. The result might be computers or fiber optics that use photons as workhorses.

Regarding the fate of the universe, I guess I shouldn't be getting my superstrings all tied in a knot. There's time.

Discuss

The Electric Kool-Aid Nano Test

A great deal has been written in the popular press recently about the slippery definition of "nanotechnology." At Small Times, we often subject the word to unspeakable torture in our attempts to extract information on whether a company conforms. Here's a little peak behind the scenes in an e-mail exchange between correspondent Jack Mason, staff writer David Forman and me.

From: Jack Mason
Sent: Wednesday, August 06, 2003 12:07 PM
To: Howard Lovy
Subject: Chlorogen: Plant-Made Drugs

Harris & Harris just invested ... I think this kind of "wet" bionanotech is fascinating.

Chlorogen Inc. is focused on developing plant-made drugs and vaccines for the treatment and prevention of human diseases. Its patented chloroplast technology permits the expression of foreign proteins only within plant chloroplasts. According to Chlorogen, this provides two significant benefits. First, the chloroplast technology dramatically enhances the protein production of a cell. Second, because chloroplast DNA is not inherited through pollen, Chlorogen's technology can prevent foreign genes from being transferred to other crops through pollen. Chlorogen's initial focus will be on developing pharmaceutical proteins in tobacco.

From: Howard Lovy
To: Jack Mason; David Forman

Thanks, Jack! I'm forwarding this to David, who will determine whether this is nanotech and write a brief if it is.

Howard Lovy
News Editor
Small Times Media

From: David Forman
To: Howard Lovy; Jack Mason;

The big question (and I certainly don't have the answer) is whether 'wet' bionanotech is just biotech. Any takers?

From: Howard Lovy
To: David Forman; Jack Mason;

No. THIS is an example of wet nanotech.

Howard

From: Jack Mason
To: David Forman; Howard Lovy

I think it can be argued both ways:

On the one hand, biotech has been using genetic engineering to do similar things, like produce human insulin with bacteria, for a long time.

On the other, the degree of control and complexity of what might be produced by such modified biofactories seems to be a level of growing sophistication that at least borders on a new category one might call bionanotech.

I've been rereading Drexler's Engines of Creation, and am reminded that he talked about protein engineering and DNA synthesis as being both models for and precursors to his idea of molecular manufacturing.

One other thought ... I just finished James Watson's excellent book DNA: The Secret Life. The complexity of the DNA molecule, and the tremendous abilities science has developed to manipulate such infinitesimal stuff, makes me wonder if biotech really is an advanced nanotechnology, but one that merely developed without benefit of the 'nano' prefix.

From: Howard Lovy
To: David Forman; Jack Mason;

Well, here's the official Small Times definition of nanotechnology: "The creation, use or manipulation of matter on the nanoscale to take advantage of properties that reign at that scale. Typically, this is defined as 100 nanometers or below."

The judgment call we make every day is that "take advantage of properties" part of it, and you can argue that we've been pretty loose on that with other applications (nanocoatings, textiles, etc.)

Here's the company's description of the technology. The key phrase there is: "Chlorogen has invented and patented genetic sequences or regulatory signals, which tell foreign genes to function within the chloroplasts and only the chloroplasts."

You could argue that if it wasn't nanoscale, it wouldn't work – but does it take advantage of any "special properties?" Not sure. We'd need help from somebody with some initials after his name.

From a news standpoint, though, Harris & Harris – a company that specializes in nanotech investments, therefore is always on our radar – decided to invest in this company. Let's find out why, and let them tell us whether they see it as nano, bio, potato or potawto. Either way, let's not call the whole thing off. It's probably a brief.

P.S.: Harris & Harris' investment in Chlorogen has generated some "Nanalyses" over at Nanalyze.

Discuss

Are you trying to seduce us, Sen. Lieberman?

Sen. Joe Lieberman, writing in his online diary after his July visit to Nanosys Inc. in Palo Alto: "In a line that reminded me of 'The Graduate,' one of my tour guides called nanotechnology 'the next plastic.' " Discuss

NanoBot Reprise

Nice to see some of my previous rantings on this page echoed to a larger readership by political reporter, analyst and fellow blogger Declan McCullagh.

Take a look at Return of the Green Luddites on CNET.

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Backlash: The Prequel

"It's been observed that nanotechnology is the first technology to spawn a backlash before it has even been developed." James, my brother, that about says it all.

Discuss