Roxxi the Foxxi 'Bot has the cure

When Pam Omidyar was a research assistant in an immunology lab back in 1990, she would grow cancer cells in a lab by day and relax with some video games by night. Now, she combines both worlds at HopeLab, a nonprofit she founded in 2001.

The result is Re-Mission, a video game for cancer patients featuring a "microscopic, yet intrepid, nanobot named Roxxi" who blasts away cancer cells. The 10-minute video above explains the research that went into Re-Mission's creation.

There have been a lot of stories written about Re-Mission lately, each one explaining what a wonderful idea this is. But this one from IGN also looks at it from the perspective of, well, is it a good video game?

Backgrounder
News at a Clancy
Would 'Professor Z' get a government grant?
Nanomation

Cramer not mad about Headwaters

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

Celine sings 'nanotechnology' in seaside serenade

Have you ever, like me, let your mind wander during that semiconscious period just before sleep, that if only you could listen to the voice of Celine Dion serenading you on the beach with her musical interpretation of the word "nanotechnology" ... in French ... then you can call your life complete? At NanoBot, your wishes really do come true. This is a public service announcement done by Dion for the Sainte-Justine Hospital Foundation.

Science Friction

Yes, I admit it. I chose to post a link to this article just so I could use that headline.

Towards frictionless nanomachines (nanotechweb.org)

Friction is a big problem in nanosized devices because they have huge surface-to-volume ratios, which means that their surfaces quickly wear out and seize up. Traditional lubricants are useless in such machines because they become thick and sticky when confined in tiny enclosed spaces. Scientists therefore need to learn how to conquer friction if nano- and microscale devices are ever to become a commercial reality. More here

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

'Super thick non-digestible' nano

Did you know that "nano" will make you both rich and thin? Hot diggity! Where can I get me some of that nano?!

Backgrounder
Nanotech's real danger is the nano con
Son of McMonkey McBean
Nano mythos

The Nano Kahuna

     

An Hawaiian company is using nanotechnology to build -- what else -- a better surfboard. Story here

Homunculus is not ridiculous

Highly accomplished author and journalist Philip Ball has a wonderfully insightful blog called homunculus, beside which NanoBot appears to be the little man. He provides some great cutting-room-floor material from his Nature articles, including this post on fear of nanoparticles.

And Ball is all business on his blog. None of those immature, off-topic ramblings that annoy so many blog readers. Ball's Blogger profile brags that he (links added by me) ... "will not include any pictures of or stories about my holidays, friends, dogs, or gripes about the world ..."

You tell 'em, Phil.

Cookie cutter nano portals

                   

According to this news release, India Tops in Nanotechnology Related Google Search. Yes, well NanoBot readers already know that. But that's not what's interesting about this release.

What I noticed first is the source, a site called NanoIndian. It's apparently an offspring of NanoDaddy. These sites claim to be run by "nanotechnologists having several years of research experience." But as near as I can tell, these nanotech portals contain no original content and run purely off RSS feeds and a combination of Yahoo and Amazon ads.

Not that there's anything wrong with trying to make a few bucks or rupees by automating news aggregation. In fact, mazel tov to the entrepreneur. He's likely to make more money in his first month than I have in three years of blogging.

Still scary after all these years

My third blogiversary came and went two days ago and I hadn't even noticed. But my first NanoBot post, on July 11, 2003, was actually just a condensed version of my column in a trade sheet I worked for at the time.

So, today is the anniversary of my first original NanoBot post. And you know, I think it holds up very well after three years. It also appears that I had time to write longer posts back before the births of my two sons. Anyway, set the Wayback Machine to July 13, 2003, Mr. Peabody, for an excerpt from The Hulk, Prince Charles and other scary things

... But here is where cartoon reality ... meets up with the almost equally cartoonish world of political debate and policymaking. Nanotechnology, and the implied idea that mankind is manipulating creation for his own benefit without a thought to the purpose of the creation itself, bothers many on the left and right -- it goes against God's law (right), or it goes against the laws of nature (left). The closer that manipulation comes to the human body, the louder the protests become. Left and right are joined against genetic manipulation, against the idea of man messing with the makeup of his own humanity -- "Playing God," in the eyes of the dogmatically religious. Of course, for the dogmatically left, you have your unwitting human guinea pig being experimented on by a government lab. Now, you have the absolute evil you need to keep the Hulk story moving.

And keep political futures moving in the other cartoon world of politics -- where exaggeration is fact, worst-case scenarios always happen and what is unknown is always deadly. It's exhilarating in our movies, but fosters ignorance and sets mankind's technological clock running backward in the reality of government oversight, funding and regulation. More here

FDA should put in more face time

The confusion continues over nanoparticles in cosmetics. This uncertainty over safety is one of many reasons why nanobio researchers wish the Beauty Industrial Complex would find a different marketing term and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration would get more aggressive in sorting out safely engineered nanoparticles from untested, nanosized zinc oxide.

The FDA does not have as much authority over cosmetics as it does over, well, food and drugs. An argument can be made, however, that the more-sophisticated cosmetics out there -- L’Oreal's nanosomes, for example -- could qualify as drug delivery devices.

Update: Shopping for answers: Nanotechnology: Another concern for cosmetics users? (By Leigh Grogan, Sacramento Bee)

Backgrounder
Straight-up info on nanotech regulation
Friends of the Earth releases nanotox report
FDA tries to get a virtual grip on nano
Nerd American Idol

Happy Independence Day, from Northport, Mich.

'Freedom [is] the first-born daughter of science.' -- Thomas Jefferson

Greetings from Northern Michigan on this July 4. May the spirit of independence guide your inquiries, and may you pass it on to your children.

-- Howard Lovy, July 4, 2006

Backgrounder
Feynman on freedom

Nano mythos

Nonexistent Nanotechnology Update: Karl W. B. Schwarz has turned up again, this time in Hungary attempting a protest against President Bush. Apparently, this 911 conspiracy theorist will be a 2008 presidential candidate.

Schwarz's company, "Patmos Nanotechnology" has, as far as I can tell, no actual ties to Patmos or to nanotechnology. I do have to give him credit, though, for a nanotech corporate Web site that says absolutely nothing in five links.

I will regret this post. Last time I mentioned Schwarz, I was placed on an annoying mailing list from some folks who have some kind of agenda against him. Frankly, I don't care about whatever he's peddling, nor do I care too much about those who are trying to expose him. None of the public information about Patmos and Schwarz makes any sense to me. I just wish he had chosen some other trendy mumbo jumbo techno-jabber on which to base his shell company.

OK. Back to real nanotech ...

Backgrounder
Invisible Nanotech CEOs for Truth?
Nanotech's real danger is the nano con

Perceptive nano

Here's something I've been "agitating" for these past three years. With Lux Research onboard, I'm no longer a lone gunman ...

On perceptual risks, the public's outlook on nanotech remains positive despite a lack of knowledge, but press coverage and agitation from NGOs mean that firms won't be able to dodge these questions much longer. Instead of remaining silent, companies need a communications strategy to share their safety studies, collaborate with trusted partners, and explain the benefits nanotech can bring. More here

Backgrounder
Nanotechnology at a crossroads between hypothesis and hype
Nanotechnology industry takes Greenpeace's bait
U.K. recognizes importance of perception
Apocalypse Nano
Britain balances science, economics, perception
IPO and Public Perception
Rational science for an irrational world
Perception is de facto nano fact

Who answers at Yahoo!?

I am still not convinced that Yahoo! Answers has hit on the correct formula for ensuring correct answers. This question is closed to new answers, but you can still vote on the existing six: what is nanotech and their uses in future life?

Technology Review sent me a promo today on an article scheduled to appear tomorrow. Sounds like it will be a worthwhile read, since this is the information our kids will likely use when they dash off assignments on "nanotechnology."

Visitors post questions and volunteers answer them at Yahoo Answers. But how accurate and useful is the service -- and why do volunteers participate? We get answers from some of the website's most-prolific contributors.

Update (6/27/06):
Answers By the People, For the People
One volunteer has spent a lot of time contributing to the social media site Yahoo Answers. Why? (By Wade Roush, Technology Review)

Backgrounder
Nanotech an open question at Yahoo! Answers

Dictionary defines the indefinable 'nanobot'

"Nanobot" has been added to the Oxford English Dictionary. You can find it here under out-of-sequence new entries, lodged between nadger and off book.

I heard the news via Minnesota Public Radio. If you have a RealMedia player, you can listen here, although the reporter sadly skips over the nanobot entry. But she does comment: "The words we use tell us a lot about what's going on in our society. They're like a reflection of our culture at that point in time."

And that is the truth, especially when it comes to "nanobot" -- that vague, almost anthropomorphic, incarnation of our greatest hopes for modern technology ... and our most ghastly nightmares.

Backgrounder
NanoBot's discard pile

Nanotech's sensitive side

powered by ODEO

Do you want to give your future robot overlords the ability to "feel?" Ravi Saraf of the Nebraska Center for Materials and Nanoscience is using nanoparticles to give machines the finger -- that is, a sense of touch rivaling that of the human finger. Punch the play button above to hear the NPR story.

Tag-teaming with nature to build nanomachines

Nadrian Seeman of NYU doesn't want to waste time building nanomachines from scratch -- not when nature has already done most of the heavy lifting for him these past few billion years.

In "Beyond Biology: Making Factories and Computers with DNA," LiveScience has more on Seeman, DNA and nanotech's softer side.

The first person to see DNA's potential beyond biology was Naiman Seeman, a chemist at New York University. More than twenty years ago, he began imagining how the genetic information in DNA might be engineered to perform useful tasks.

"DNA structures are programmable by sequence, and so are their intermolecular interactions," Seeman says. "That makes them unique."

Whereas nature alone dictates how most molecules interact, DNA comes with a built-in code that researchers can re-formulate to control which DNA molecules bond with each other. The goal of this DNA tinkering is microscopic factories that can produce made-to-order molecules, as well as electronic components 10 times smaller than current limits.

"Nanofabrication is where we are going," Seeman told LiveScience. "It will happen soon." More here

And, to get your nanomotor running, the European Union and the Max Planck Institute in Germany want to fund your Frankenstein flagellum.

Related News
DNA Art: Origami Goes Nano

Backgrounder
These 'bots are made for walkin'
The Descent of Nano
Martyn Amos: Lecturer, Blogger
Nano-engineered intelligent flagellum?

Everything is animated

Nanorex Inc., the world’s first developer of tools for the design, simulation and analysis of atomically precise molecular machine systems, will launch its educational outreach program by placing an early pre-release version of its powerful molecular modeling software at the fingertips of some of California’s brightest high school students.

Students who report for the Nanotechnology and Robotics class at the California State Summer School for Mathematics and Science (COSMOS) on July 9 at UC Santa Cruz will begin testing NanoEngineer-1, the first computer aided design (CAD) program for the nanotech age. Scheduled for release this fall, NanoEngineer-1’s 3-D, interactive environment and molecular physics engine will enable the students to invent and test new kinds of molecular machines and devices, designed atom by atom exactly to their specifications.

The students will be helped by a team of "virtual" teachers, the NanoKids and "nanocar."

And, full disclosure, I am doing some work for Nanorex now, helping CEO Mark Sims and his band of creative geniuses promote the unveiling of this quite cool, useful (and open source) software. Read all about it.

Backgrounder
This little joint is jumping

The walls have ears

Lisa Napoli, of American Public Media's Marketplace, is hot on the nano trail again. This report (RealMedia Player required) highlights Natural Nano Inc.'s RF shielding technology, featuring halloysite nanotubes that can be added to wall paint to enforce no-call zones in theaters and houses of worship.

Now, if Natural Nano were to acquire some of this NanoPottyTech, annoying cell phone gabbers would also find no sanctuary in the bathroom stalls.

For nostalgia's sake, here's a RealMedia link to a nanotech story Napoli did a couple of years ago that featured an interview with your humble narrator.

Still plenty of room at the bottom

Is nanotechnology an ass man?

Nanotech toilets could clean themselves (By Ethan Todras-Whitehill, Popular Science)

Royal flush: QuarTek to sign nano-diaper deal (The Business Journal)

Baby Got Backgrounder
Prosaic Potty-Cleaning Nanoparticles
Plenty of room at this bottom
Magic Nano' nano? Naahhh

Secret nanotech research 'Lost' in flight

Is the black smoke on "Lost" a nanobot swarm? Well, the mystery deepens with the revelation that a leading nanotechnology researcher was aboard the flight from Sydney that never made it to Los Angeles. I discovered this on a fan site for Drive Shaft, the washed-up British pop band featuring brothers Liam and Charlie. The band was about to stage a comeback when Charlie disappeared on that mysterious Oceanic Airlines flight.

So, is this a real clue? Or is it a red herring planted by ABC?

Do you remember Flight 815, the plane that mysteriously disappeared on its way from Sydney to LA? In seat 23-C sat Harold Wollstein, who was poised to lead the next wave of digital technology. The man that would make a watch-sized blackberry a thing of the present joined the fate of the other 400+ passengers.

We don't know what happened to Harold any more than we know what happened to his research. Word in Silicone Valley is that all of Harold's research was in his laptop on board the plane, headed to an important meeting with the CEOs of the companies leading the nano-technology revolution. But the truth may never be discovered, about the crash or about Harold's top secret work. More here

Well, at the very least we know this must be fiction. You'd think that a brilliant nanotech scientist like "Harold" would have backed up his files somewhere.

Backgrounder
'Lost' in nanobot space

Straight-up info on nanotech regulation

Artech House, publisher of books for high-tech professionals, contacted me about a year ago and asked me to take a look at author Jeffrey H. Matsuura's proposal for a book on nanotechnology regulation. They must have liked my critique and suggestions, because late last year FedEx folders full of Matsuura's raw manuscript began arriving at my doorstep for my critique and input, which I gladly gave.

The end result is Matsuura's Nanotechnology Regulation And Policy Worldwidereleased this month. I have not yet read the final version, but I thought the raw manuscript was thoughtful, thorough and hype-free. This book is a useful resource for anybody who is looking for straight-up information on nanotech regulation -- information that has not been filtered through an interest group trying to sell you an agenda or a media company trying to capture your eyeballs.

This process was anonymous, so if Jeffrey is reading this, he might be surprised to learn that his publisher let me monkey around with his manuscript and he's writing an angry note to Artech House right now. I think everything turned out well, Jeffrey, but why did you ignore my suggested additional chapters on the impact nanotech regulation might have on Madonna's rabbi?