News in a NanoSecond

Piercing the Fog With a Tiny Chip (New York Times) Radar technology was once synonymous with the big and the bulky - for instance, the heavy, rotating antennas at the airport, scanning skies and runways. But lately radar, like so many other technologies, has been slimming down. Now a team of electrical engineers at the California Institute of Technology has shrunk the functions of a radar system into one tiny, intricately designed silicon chip and eight minuscule antennas. More Dismissing Drexler Is Bad for Business (Better Humans) Ignoring the potential of molecular manufacturing won't make it go away, so why is the US nanotech industry painting its advocates as kooks? More Atto boy! The shortest time yet measured, and the most sensitive set of scales (Economist) People who think “nano” is the epitome of smallness should think again. A nanosomething is but a billionth of that something. Two new pieces of research concern themselves with attosomethings—billionths of the nano. More The Hedonistic Imperative (Future Hi) Squealing cells? (The Globe and Mail) 'Musclebots' Are Coming (Roland Piquepaille) Help asked for nanotech center (The Oregonian) Self-assembly wins with gold rosette (nanotechweb) Marine Sponges Provide Model For Environmentally Friendly Nanoscale Materials Production (Science Daily) Technostart tries to bridge the gap between investors and inventors (Small Times) Discuss You click, you buy Polyoxometalate Chemistry: From Topology via Self-Assembly to Applications Self-Assembly Monolayer Structures of Lipids and Macromolecules at Interfaces Troubled Pleasures : Writings on Politics, Gender and Hedonism