Monday, July 17, 2006

Nanotech Video: Oklahoma and the 'itty-bitty'

This video illustrates how nanotech research and commercialization efforts are being picked up by local media as avenues for state boosterism and another yard(nano?)stick to measure how their state "stacks up" against the others -- much like the local sports team.

The talking hairdo anchorman in this clip from Oklahoma has it right in his opening line: "Attracting investment into the state is literally a global competition." (Then, the insight is ruined by a giggling description of nanotech as the "study of the itty-bitty.")

Reporter Jessica Lowe does a variation of the tired old "human hair" analogy by using an inch-long piece of thread and asking us to imagine it subdivided into 25 smaller pieces, then each of those into a million smaller pieces. Each of those million pieces represent a nanometer. This, of course, sends me tail-spinning back into the realm of Zeno's Paradox (see here, and here), but I give Lowe lots of credit for the attempt.

The report then focuses on the work of NanoBioMagnetics Inc., based in Edmond, Okla. Lowe interviews company founder Charles Seeney, but does not mention that he was also the driving force behind the recently created Oklahoma Nanotechnology Initiative.

Backgrounder
No more dust storm blues

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