Howard Lovy's NanoBot

Nanobot intruder alert - this is not a drill

2005-05-16T01:58:00.000-04:00

Somebody failed to inform two students and one professor at the University of Houston that nanobots can only be found scurrying about in the land of unicorns and leprechauns. Completely ignoring nanobusiness and nanopolitical dogma, this group of rebel students decided to enter the Visual Gaming category of the Imagine Cup, sponsored by that little-known, underground, fringe company that calls itself Microsoft.

Here's what Jonathan Dowdall and Mike Hall, those poor, misguided computer geeks, did to earn a spot in the semifinals:

As visual gaming participants, Team ContAInment had to write an algorithm to build and control a team of nanobots within the simulated human body of a terminally ill patient. The nanobots are injected into the blood stream to locate and collect infected tissue. While attempting to deliver medicine to these sites, the nanobots are attacked by white blood cells in the patient's immune system."

Why, they don't know what the Freitas they're getting themselves into. Who's responsible for this direct violation of officially sanctioned science? It's Ioannis Pavlidis in the university's Computational Physiology Laboratory. Yeah, figures.

"Pavlidis," the UH press release says, "has gained a reputation for his work in medical imaging, bioinformatics, robotics, computational biomedicine and biometrics that have various medical applications. Being part of this research group has given Dowdall a solid background in applying computer science to medicine."

OK, Pavlidis, (Or is that really your name? Sounds to me like some kind of hacker handle, like "Neo.") be prepared for a government raid on your laboratory, your computer simulations confiscated and you and your students will be marched directly over to Rice University in your own hometown, where you will be issued a lab coat with pockets full of possible catalysts for quantum wire -- something you can actually hold in your hands -- or, rather, watch a real nanoscientist hold in his hands.

Looks like we got to you just in time. You will be assimilated.

Backgrounder
Nanobots: Possible only when convenient
'Bots get loose while professor is away
The business of imagination

Officially sanctioned nanotech speculation

2006-07-24T16:35:00.000-04:00

"After 2015-2020, the field will expand to include molecular nanosystems--heterogeneous networks in which molecules and supramolecular structures serve as distinct devices. The proteins inside cells work together this way, but whereas biological systems are water-based and markedly temperature-sensitive, these molecular nanosystems will be able to operate in a far wider range of environments and should be much faster. Computers and robots could be reduced to extraordinarily small sizes. Medical applications might be as ambitious as new types of genetic therapies and antiaging treatments. New interfaces linking people directly to electronics could change telecommunications."

Mihail C. Roco, senior adviser for nanotechnology to the National Science Foundation and a key architect of the National Nanotechnology Initiative, writing in the August 2006 issue of Scientific American

Backgrounder
If it isn't materials, it's immaterial
NanoBot's Discard Pile, Part 2
Being Mike Roco

Listen up, class: Let the facts interfere with your nanotox story

2006-05-18T15:36:00.001-04:00

I may be an irresponsible blogger, or whatever, but I'm 40 years old and learned the craft on a manual typewriter from some old-school journalism mentors. If you cut me open, I bleed ink and not pixels.

So, that said, Journalism 101: If the premise of the story is in doubt -- that the "Magic Nano" recall is not really an example of what could go wrong with nanotech products, since there is likely no nanotech in the product -- then you need to change the focus of your story.

Let me repeat this in a clearer way, class. Let facts interfere with a good story.

It's frustrating to read and hear some of the coverage of this "story," since basic rules of journalism are apparently thrown out the window. Science and technology writers, especially, should know that there have actually been no tests showing that nanotechnology is toxic to anything or anyone. The old nanotube rat and buckyball fish studies show that if you pump these beasts full of raw nanoparticles, they'll probably suffocate or become brain damaged.

Any company that dumps a bunch of raw, uncooked, unengineered nanoparticles into any product would not actually be practicing "nanotechnology." So, these oft-repeated studies show absolutely nothing about the potential toxicity of nanotech products. They show that scientists are practicing science, one small step at a time.

Backgrounder
Nanotubes and the tale of the rats
A little story about drugs, bass and balls
Nano is a concept by which we measure our pain
How low can nano go?
Groups call for moratorium on nano-named products
Are nanoparticle studies 'one decade late'?

Kids grill scientist dad (with ketchup and mustard)

2006-09-26T16:14:00.001-04:00

Bethany and Alex Maynard: The Woodward and Bernstein of the nanotech age? Watch (.mov 20.1MB) how they grill their dad, Andrew Maynard, chief scientist with the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

Jim Carrey and Conan O'Brien talk quantum physics

2009-02-08T22:40:00.001-05:00

Back, by popular demand, Jim Carrey and Conan O'Brien discuss quantum physics.

Backgrounder
Einstein's dice and the nano Sopranos
NanoVlog
Space Elevator: The Music Video

Don't end up like me; take online nanotech courses

2008-12-19T12:03:00.001-05:00

Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands is offering two new nanoscience courses on its OpenCourseWare site: Advanced Solid State Physics and Quantum Information Processing.

While I am certain my readers can take advantage of these free online courses, it all sounds too difficult for an undereducated writer like me.

Just this morning, I learned that I left my kids' lunchboxes at their preschool and I had failed to properly read a bottle of baby soap, mistaking it for baby lotion -- thus drying out my two young sons' skin even more during this cold winter.

Quantum information processing? I'd be happy with any information processing in my 43-year-old, ancient senile brain.

Backgrounder
Nanotech for undergrads
High School Nails Nano
Penn State's Little Recruiting Video

Goo-be-gone, but keep that cwazy quantum

2005-05-14T01:34:00.001-04:00

Quantum wells, asses, unicorns, leprechauns, PR people and eukaryotic DNA polymerase. Richard Jones has fed it all into his soft machine for an interesting post and debate on what the public needs to know about nano. Read it. Contribute to it. Then come back here and explain it to me.

Backgrounder
Catchphrase Cop
How Stuff Does Not Work
Quanta on my mind

Nano Nerd 2.0

2006-10-01T16:29:00.001-04:00

Lobo lineman uses his smarts on field and in the classroom By Rick Kretzschmar, Longview (Texas) News-Journal

John Todd someday wants to be in a field most people don't know about: nanotechnology. Todd said he understands when he gets reactions such as, "Nano what?" when he tells people about this field, which is the application of materials and devices on an atomic scale.

Todd also plays football for Longview High School, but even when he strolls the team's locker room — Lobo Den — nanotechnology runs through his mind.

"With nanotechnology, you can build a microscopic sphere that can hold as much carbon dioxide as there is in the entire Lobo Den," Todd said. "There are possibilities of creating energy with nanotechnology, with superconductors or hydrogen power."

It's not typical conversation for a teenager, let alone football player. Then again, Todd is not typical high school senior, and smarter than most people. More here

Backgrounder
Georgia Tech, meet your new nanotech wide receiver
Texas ropes young nano herd
Not your father's 'shop' class

'Bots get loose while professor is away

2005-04-05T06:25:00.001-04:00

From: Howard Lovy
To: Daniel Moore

(Georgia Tech physics professor Z.L.) Wang, 44, was awarded his second nanotechnology-related patent in March. In five years, Wang says, it might lead to an early cancer detection system, and in 20 years to "nanobots," theoretical atomic-sized particles that could travel the blood stream hunting down cancer cells and repairing damaged blood vessels. More here

Hey, Daniel,
This is your guy, right? Do you think he really used "nanobots," or was that the reporter injecting the word?
Howard

From: Daniel Moore
To: Howard Lovy
Howard -
Yeah, that's my guy. He could have used 'nanobots' (he's used it before) though it does sound more like the reporter used it and ZL concurred or something like that.

Maybe I need to read the atlanta business journal more...
D

From: Howard Lovy
To: Daniel Moore
Is that "for the record," sir? Don't want to get you in trouble with your boss.
HL

From: Daniel Moore
To: Howard Lovy
Oh sure. Feel free. He's out of the country now anyway :)
Daniel

NanoBot Backgrounder
The business of imagination
SciFi and the scientist
NanoBots are Needed

Nanobots: Possible only when convenient

2005-04-06T21:40:00.001-04:00

This Christian Science Monitor story, A tiny robot swarm - fiction no longer, weaves the concept of nanobots in with quotes from U.S. nanotech chief Mihail Roco, along with nanotube tennis rackets -- all mixed into the same nanotech pool, leaving the impression that each segment is in agreement with the other.

What's notable here is that no government spokesman even used the word "nanobot," so the CS Monitor writer filled in what he considered the blanks by adding the word, himself: "so-called nanobots," "shrink to nanobot size." He even inserts the word, himself, into a quote by a NASA official: "In a similar way, undamaged units in a [nanobot] swarm will join together, allowing it to tolerate extensive damage and still carry on its mission."

Here's the point: The American public believes that the U.S. is funding development of nanotechnology -- that is, the image of nanotechnology that they have gathered through press reports and other media, like the cartoon characters mentioned in the CS Monitor story.

The NASA swarm project described in this report sounds really cool. It's an experiment in how to get robots to act together. It has nothing to do with nanotechnology. The idea that this experiment will, as the story says, "shrink to nanobot size" is a complete fiction if the government's nanotech program continues the way it has. They have gone through great pains to tell the public that "nanobots" can never exist.

However, when they want to appeal to the public's imagination through stories about projects like this one, they are more than willing to let the "nanobots" loose.

Unless, of course, somebody brings up the possible dangers involving nanosized robots running amok -- then they "harumph" and deride it all as a bunch of fiction once again.

NanoBot Backgrounder
NanoBots are Needed
NanoBot Soup
'Bots get loose while professor is away

Why nanobusiness as usual with China?

2005-06-09T11:13:00.001-04:00

Take a look at the story below and tell me whether you're uncomfortable with nanotech companies worldwide doing business in China. A lot of business. In fact, China is truly the land of opportunity for nanotech companies, where their products are likely to reach consumers sooner -- from nanocatalysts for fuel to drug delivery devices.

This is not a rhetorical question. I've had very mixed feelings on this issue since 1989, when I found myself yelling at the TV in outrage as I watched Brent Scowcroft toasting the Chinese leadership so soon after the Tiananmen Square massacre.

And the arguments over which dictatorial regimes to punish with economic sanctions are too wrapped up in U.S. politics to make any kind of sense. Liberals credit sanctions for toppling apartheid in South Africa, yet blame sanctions for impoverishing Cuba. Business-friendly conservatives argue in almost all cases that economic engagement with the people living under dictatorships is the surest way to change a society from within -- that is, unless we're talking about Cuba.

Even though it's a question that's broader than our own nano world, I still think this issue should be discussed among nanotechnology's other "societal and ethical implications."

China defector can stay - Australia minister (Reuters)

"A senior Australian minister said on Thursday that a Chinese diplomatic defector pleading for political asylum in Australia is in no danger of being sent home.

Chen Yonglin, a 37-year-old political affairs consul at China's Sydney consulate, has told Australian authorities he fears for his family's safety and would rather die than return to China.

'Mr Chen is in Australia, he is being dealt with in accordance with the ordinary process of Australian immigration law and he is at no risk of being sent back to China,' Health Minister Tony Abbott, a close ally of Prime Minister John Howard, told reporters.

Howard himself tried to calm concerns that Chen's fate might be influenced by Canberra's booming trade and economic ties with Beijing.

'Let me simply say that, just as in relation to the U.S., we have steadfastly refused to mix trade with politics and strategy and national security -- so it is in relation to China, and I'm sure that our Chinese friends will know that,' Howard told a business lunch in Sydney.

China, which is Australia's third-largest trading partner with annual trade worth almost A$29 billion (more than $22 billion), is in talks with Canberra on a free trade deal and a separate pact to import Australian uranium." More here

Backgrounder
People-to-People's State Partnership
'Dual-use' nano vs. export controls
China's Great NanoLeap Forward
Sleeping nanogiant stirs
U.S. to China: Let's share power
NanoSinoPhobia
China, garment workers and nanotechnology

I've got more male!

2005-04-28T14:30:00.001-04:00

Now, I don't mean to lord my superior scientific skills over Lord Broers, but I do have an idea of "how to make an autonomous self-replicating machine at any scale."

It's a boy, and I expect him to be fully assembled by late September.

Backgrounder
Human Nanofactory Experiment: The Sequel
Eureka
Shocking photo of secret human nanofactory!

Molecular self-assembly creates biped

2006-09-26T15:32:00.001-04:00

Remember my two experiments in human bottom-up self-assembly? (See here, here, here, here, here and here.)

The first one is 2 years old now, but is so tall he is often mistaken for a 4-year-old. And the youngest one is 1, also a giant. But this specimen has recently evolved into a biped. Excellent. Excellent. Once he is old enough to develop his own musical tastes, I hope he retains his love for Johnny Cash. Click above to see the subject "Walk the Line."

Another nose for news?

2005-05-19T19:08:00.001-04:00

It appears something has gone horribly awry in my second experiment in bottom-up human molecular manufacturing. If you take a close look at the region between the eyes and mouth, you'll see the encasement of the olfactory gland ... Oh, who am I kidding? Of course you can see it. Who couldn't? The poor kid has a schnoz like Jimmy Durante!

Backgrounder
Human Nanofactory Experiment: The Sequel
I've got more male!
Human Nanofactory in Four Dimensions

Huh? Who?

2006-09-22T00:33:00.001-04:00

A redesigned Small Times Web site introduces a larger ad well, links to white papers and, apparently, says goodbye to old rubbish.

Backgrounder
Flirtin' with freelance disaster

Got the world on a string

2005-03-25T04:37:00.001-05:00

New space prizes target space elevators (New Scientist)

Space elevators - a futuristic idea in which space is accessed via long tethers with the power needed being transmitted on beams of light - are the target of two new cash prizes, sponsored by NASA.

The prizes, announced on Wednesday evening, are the first in a series called "Centennial Challenges", modelled on the $10 million X Prize recently awarded to the first privately developed spacecraft. Winning teams will receive $50,000 in 2005 for either building the strongest strand of material or for using light to power a wireless robot up a cable.

The Spaceward Foundation, a space advocacy organisation based in Mountain View, California, will administer the prizes, which NASA will fund. The new prizes will focus on the technologies necessary to develop a space elevator. But NASA is keen to stress that the work could benefit many space-based projects required to achieve President George W Bush's plans to return people to the Moon and on to Mars.

"The innovations from these competitions will help support advances in aerospace materials and structures, new approaches to robotic and human planetary surface operations, and even futuristic concepts like space elevators and solar power satellites," says Brant Sponberg, NASA's program manager for Centennial Challenges. More here

Update: Earth's first Space Elevator Club!

NanoBot Backgrounder
QuoteBot: "NSF is just hot to trot on nanotechnology"
Buy-in-the-sky scheme
Stairway to Heaven
The goal is elevation

Sticker shock and awe

2005-03-28T05:45:00.001-05:00

An Army Program to Build a High-Tech Force Hits Cost Snags (The New York Times)

The Army's plan to transform itself into a futuristic high-technology force has become so expensive that some of the military's strongest supporters in Congress are questioning the program's costs and complexity.

Army officials said Saturday that the first phase of the program, called Future Combat Systems, could run to $145 billion. Paul Boyce, an Army spokesman, said the "technological bridge to the future" would equip 15 brigades of roughly 3,000 soldiers, or about one-third of the force the Army plans to field, over a 20-year span.

That price tag, larger than past estimates publicly disclosed by the Army, does not include a projected $25 billion for the communications network needed to connect the future forces. Nor does it fully account for Army plans to provide Future Combat weapons and technologies to forces beyond those first 15 brigades.

Now some of the military's advocates in Congress are asking how to pay the bill. More here (registration required)

NanoBot Backgrounder
'Integration' and 'Vision' at Michigan Small Tech
NanoLife vs. NanoDeath
The nanothin green line

Government Created Killer NanoRobot Infection

2007-01-22T16:09:00.001-05:00

From NanoBot

Cramer not mad about Headwaters

2006-07-19T14:00:00.000-04:00

CNBC's Jim Cramer is "in a flummox," so the "Mad Money" magnate turned to Headwaters Inc. CEO Kirk Bensen for some unflummoxing. Headwaters does many things, among them is a better (nano) way of making catalysts that cuts down on waste and makes coal-to-gas technology more efficient. (I explained the technology in more detail here.)

"What the heck are all these alternative energy companies doing at a 52-week low?," asks Cramer in this video clip. A comparatively mild-mannered Bensen gave an honest answer that just did not satisfy "C."

So, the verdict: "Don't buy, Don't buy." "Damn that's tough," Cramer says. "I wanted that one to be a good one."

Backgrounder
Philippines to launch NanoPower Revolution
Philippines to launch NanoPower Revolution: Part II
Headwaters Inc. makes nano waves

Introducing NanoBot Media

2008-12-10T15:16:00.002-05:00

Well, here in Detroit it is impossible to find a job in journalism. So, while I continue my science/technology freelance career, I am also doing some public relations on the side. The story above represents the first success of NanoBot Media (The unofficial name I've given to all my various attempts to pay my mortgage and keep my kids clothed).

I was able to generate some decent coverage for a local coffee shop's campaign to give a free cup of coffee to every customer who promises to buy an American car. More information here. If you look closely in the middle of the video, about the time the reporter talks about Drew Barrymore, you can see me hunched over at a table in the background.

And, speaking of me, tomorrow I'll have another announcement to make -- this one having more to do with nanotechnology. Stay tuned.

Backgrounder
My other life as a nanotech pitchman

Groups call for moratorium on nano-named products

2006-04-10T15:57:00.001-04:00

NANOLAND, April 10, 2006 (NBN) -- The aerosol form of Magic Nano, a glass/ceramic sealant that likely contains no actual nanotechnology, has been recalled in Germany after customers were reported hospitalized.

The illnesses were apparently related to the fine mist created by the aerosol -- an effect reported in similar products that do not contain "nano" in their names or marketing materials -- and not with the "nanotechnology" that the product does not contain.

Anti-nanotech activists say the recall is proof that even use of the word "nano" in packaging and marketing is hazardous to consumers.

"We are expanding our call for a moratorium on all nanotech products to cover all products that even use nano in their name," said a spokesperson for a coalition of anti-nanotech organizations. "We believe that when it comes to scary, new technologies that we do not understand, you cannot take too many precautions."

In a related development, area woman Nina Pood is suing Apple Computer, claiming that the IPod Nano -- an anagram of her name -- was created specifically to send mind-controling nanobots into her brain through earbuds that play nothing but Barry Manilow's "Mandy." Apple CEO Steve Jobs denies the allegations, saying, "If Ms. Pood would simply purchase another song at our online iTunes store, she could listen to the entire album for only $9.99."

NanoBot News will stay with this story as long as it remains ridiculous.

Ruh-Roh, Ranobots!

2006-10-03T03:26:00.001-04:00

While nanotech scientists and promoters continue to bark up the wrong tree over the as-yet nonexistent movie version of Michael Crichton's "Prey," the WB network has tossed them a new bone to pick.

Well, more like a snack. A Scooby snack.

A ... nanotech ... Scooby snack.

Yes, you read this correctly. Scooby-Doo has gone nano, and no amount of whining and begging from those engaged in non-cartoon nanotech can stop it.

It seems that Shaggy had a rich uncle, Albert Shaggleford, who disappeared: "Zoinks! We're like gaziillionaires Scoob!" Uncle Albert was also a genius who left the clueless Shaggy with some nanobots that, of course, get mixed in with his mutt's Scooby-snacks. Zany side-effects ensue, with Scooby given the ability "to fly or turn into a giant robot."

"Shaggy and Scooby-Doo Get a Clue" premiered Saturday, Sept. 23.

Now, let's see whether those meddling nanoscientists will start barking about the toon, or roll over and play dead.

Backgrounder
Cranky Crichton hasn't a Hollywood 'Prey'er
Nanobots 'Lost' in 'The Dark Tower'
Nanobots: The Wonder Years

A response to 'I, Nanobot'

2006-03-23T15:17:00.001-05:00

OK, Alan Goldstein, I will not call you Ishmael. But somewhere along your road to Melville, you took a detour into speculative fiction, because that is clearly the genre of your Salon article, I, Nanobot.

The piece needs some work, but it appears to be written in the tradition of writers like Isaac Asimov, author of the article's namesake. Good science fiction takes a kernel of fact and extrapolates strange, new worlds via acres of “therefores.” I applaud Goldstein for this, as I did his previous Salon work, The (really scary) soldier of the future, which was a kind of "Terminator" meets "Gattaca." Most definitely FUD for thought.

So, why listen to me? A voice that, like Goldstein, is not Ishmael (sounds as though Isaac would be the correct branch of both of our family trees, anyway)? Because I can tell you something that just about anybody who has looked at what is called "nanotechnology" today can: He has been hoodwinked by the hype. In reality, scientists are still trying to figure out how to cook up a batch of nanotubes so that they all come out looking the same. We're far, far away from engineering our own extinction. No, if that happens courtesy of science, we'll do it the old-fashioned way and just blow ourselves to smithereens.

I have written before about the primary source of nanotech hype (here, here and here) and have shown how it is neither the media nor the nanobot futurists who are at fault. Most of the hype comes directly from the U.S. government's and nanotech industry's own promotional material about trillion-dollar markets and the dream of converging technologies to enhance "human performance." Nanotech proponents in government and business are continuously asking us to believe their "positive" hype and to dismiss the objections of those, like Goldstein, who take the same information and extrapolate a future dystopia.

Goldstein's article helps to solidify positions against nanotech that I predicted a few years ago -- that the right would turn vocal against a hypothetical, future nanotech that dares to "play God," and the left would organize against its own nano-mythology of out-of-control "green goo," (pissing off Mother Nature.)

But buried within Goldstein's whale of a hyperbolic tale are a few issues we all should consider as the young discipline of "nano-ethics" begins to define the rules of engagement. Do cochlear implants, for example, represent a wondrous cure for deafness, or are they the beginnings of a "genocide" perpetrated by science against the "deaf community?"

These are issues worthy of debate, yet I feel uneasy with the assumption that what occurs in nature is always the best outcome, that there is a pristine Eden that can only exist without the intervention of higher primates.

But, somewhere along the way, with or without the aid of Clarke/Kubrick's monolith, some clever monkeys began to use tools to survive, and those tools – while not physically melding with their bodies – became extensions of them, nevertheless, and guided the species along the path toward evolutionary survival.

Goldstein writes:

"Some people might argue that it is pretty cavalier to work on 'artificial life' or 'synthetic biology' before we have even agreed on definitions for these 'things.' They might even point out that 'artificial life' containing nonbiological components or new forms of biology could drastically alter the ecological balance or even the evolutionary trajectory of life on Earth."

I certainly hope so. The "evolutionary trajectory" of every single species on Earth – from Cro Magnon to South Park Republican – is extinction. The future needs those of us who can adapt.

Standing Up For Nanotech

2008-03-20T22:57:00.001-04:00

Yet another reason why I sometimes wish I lived on the West Coast. I think I would enjoy this event a great deal. I really, really would.

Odd Comedy - Stem Cell Research / Nanotech Stand-up (Berkeley)
Controversial comedy on the subject of life-extension and physical immortality. Followed by open audience discussion. Hear the particular viewpoints of comedian Ira Brightman presented as stand-up comedy on the above topics then have a chance to present your viewpoints (or just listen to those of the other audience members).
Areas to be covered include: extreme life-extension as possible, perhaps inevitable — and desirable or undesirable, technological vs. natural, the morality of using modalities such as embryonic stem cells to save lives, creating new body parts, nanotechnology, the latest advances in biotechnology." More here

Backgrounder
Berkeley to play with tiny tinkertoys
'Transhuman cybersomething crazy ...'

Collaborative NanoBot Blueprint

2005-06-01T02:14:00.001-04:00

In the new spirit of open access research, I sent Damian my drawing of a happy nanobot. Damian improved on my concept here. Collaborative nanotech research is alive and well through GE ad campaigns.

Backgrounder
Imagination at Work