Monthly Archives: February 2009

Nano haiku, nano in Finland, and NanoTech BC ‘pauses’

A haiku from NISE Net News: The Nano Bite (Feb. 10, 2009)

Space Elevator
Take me up into the sky.
It’s a long way down.
by Anders Liljeholm of the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry

According to a news item on the Nanowerk website here, Finland has tripled the number of nanotechnology companies in four years. In 2004, there were 61 nanotechnology companies while in 2008, there were 202 active companies. I noticed the item particularly because I came across a notice about a presentation By Kaija-stina Magnusson) part of a series sponsored by Nature magazine) that’s going to be contrasting the social capital aspect of the R&D investments in UK and Finland. If you’re in London (England) on March 12, 2009 and want to attend, you can get the details here.

Sadly, NanoTech BC is curtailing some of its activities for the next while as they deal with funding issues. The Cascadia Symposium won’t take place this spring (April 2009 as originally planned) and the breakfast meetings are cancelled for now. They’re hoping to schedule these activities for Fall 2009. They will be continuing their safe practices project with ICON (International Council on Nanotechnology based at Rice University in Texas) and working on a nanotechnology asset map for Alberta. You can read more details here.

Nano Days 2009 and other nano news

The NISE (nanoscale informal science education) Network has announced that its Nano Days programs for 2009 will take place between March 28 and April 5. From their website,

NanoDays is the NISE Network’s annual celebration of nanoscale science, technology, and engineering. NISE Net encourages its partners and any other community-based educational organizations, such as museums, research institutions, universities, and libraries, to focus their efforts on bringing nano to the public during one week each spring. NISE Net provides access to hands-on activities, downloadable media, and science and education professionals that can all help support institutions as they organize their events

You can check out the website and get more details here.

There was a big announcement from Intel made yesterday about investing $7B US to allow manufacturing of 32 nanometre (nm) chips in their existing plants in Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado. From a Feb. 10, 2009 news release on the Azonano website,

“We’re investing in America to keep Intel and our nation at the forefront of innovation,” [Paul] Otellini [Intel President and CEO] said. “These manufacturing facilities will produce the most advanced computing technology in the world. The capabilities of our 32nm factories are truly extraordinary, and the chips they produce will become the basic building blocks of the digital world, generating economic returns far beyond our industry.”

Otellini also gave a talk at the Economic Club of Washington, DC on the morning of Feb. 10, 2009. They haven’t posted the webcast yet but when they do, it should be here.

The intel announcement is interesting in light of the education program announcements made a few weeks ago which I mentioned here. There does seem to be a general mobilization towards re-establishing the US as a technological powerhouse.

I’ve also seen allusions to the space race of the 1950s and 60s which was instigated when the Russians were the first to explore space. That incident spurred the US to focus on technological goals and I wonder if this economic meltdown might not have some of the same effect as the space race did.

More about Canada’s nano information-gathering exercise

The last few days have been devoted to the ‘announcement’ by Environment Canada via the Project for Emerging Nanotechnologies (PEN) which is based in Washington, DC. I think I’ve adequately covered the strangeness of hearing about our new government project from a source other than our own government in the previous postings (here and here) so I’m wrapping this up with a brief valentine (of sorts) to David Rejeski, PEN director.

Rejeski has an essay on the Nanowerk website published Feb. 5, 2009 here which explains why Canada is important. I am charmed. So often Americans forget or take Canada for granted, although I am a little concerned that he’s an expat Canadian, in which case the title of the essay and final paragraph are just tacky.(Why are they tacky if he’s an expat? Because too many Canadians go down to the US to explain why Canada is important and, frankly, I think that undercuts our case.)

Rejeski’s essay does explain the reasoning behind the recent move by Environment Canada and places it in a context that includes the US, Britain, and France. I do wish there were more details from Environment Canada but there are those restrictive communication policies that were put in place in Feb. 2008.

Final thoughts on Canadian Wire’s nanotechnology articles written by John Cotter.  The fact that a single article is used uncritically by so many media outlets points to a problem: corporate concentration of ownership. It is not new. My textbooks in the mid-1980s had data from the 1970s at least (memory fails, the trend may have started earlier) showing this trend. Since then it’s only intensified especially since the media conglomerates in Canada (don’t know about anywhere else) can have a single reporter gather info., write it up, and present content to be used in newspapers, radio. and tv. (I think that was a new policy that was adopted sometime after 2000.)

It’s hard to tell that the informatiion ia all coming for the same source (you don’t have to include the byline if it’s coming from a newswire and you’re not using the article in its entirety if it’s being published). To be honest, I never noticed it much until I made a point of chasing down the articles and saw the startling similarity in the texts. (more thoughts about corporate concentration of ownership and diversity of interests in upcoming postings)

How are Canadian businesses responding to this fuzzy reporting plan?

It’s really one response and I thank Howard Lovy (nanobot.blogspot.com) for pointing me to his interview with Neil Gordon (entrepreneur and ex-president of the defunct Canadian NanoBusiness Alliance) in Small Times here.  Not unexpectedly, Gordon feels that this new requirement (although it’s a one-time request at this point) will chase nano-based business out of Canada. I have mixed feelings about the comment; I’m mildly sympathetic and at the same time exasperated.

On the sympathy side, this sounds like a very poorly thoughtout plan for some sort of registry. Maybe there’s more to it than we know but now Environment Canada scientists are no longer allowed to talk with journalists directly (since Feb. 2008, all queries have to be sent to a central communications office and then you get an email answer or possibly granted an interview with someone), it’s less easy than it used to be to get information. in any event, implementation is the key to these things and I’m not sure how you could implement it. Here are a few sample questions: Do you send out a form? (Anyone who’s ever designed a form or a questionnaire from scratch can tell you that it’s not easy.)  Who fills it out? Are you going to fine businesses that don’t fill it out? What happens if you do get information? Did you ask questions that would give you useful information?

If it’s not done well, businesses will lose time, money, and energy for absolutely no purpose. I’m not against information-gathering exercises per se but you’d better do it the right way otherwise it is a colossal waste.

As for the exasperation, I’ve heard this type of ‘business will leave’ comment before (many times). These kinds of government information-gathering exercises exist because they need the information. Ultimately, it could prove helpful to Canadian business.

As for Gordon’s disgruntlement over nanotechnology funding and how all the money goes to university and government laboratories … hmm. I think the problem goes a little deeper. As far as I’ve been able to find out, there is no nanotechnology funding strategy for Canada. The whole thing seems rather higgledy piggledy. Also, research in Canada has mostly been done traditionally in university and government laboratories and not in business laboratories. There are exceptions but those laboratories have disappeared or are disappearing (as they seem to be even in the US [Bell Labs] where they have a tradition of business laboratories).

I might be somewhat biased in my view of Canadian business since I come from British Columbia and the business model for high technology (I’m shoving nano into the high tech category) is pretty simple. You graduate from university or work there, get a good idea, create a startup company, become successful, and sell it to a large US company for a fortune. Creating a substantive and ongoing research laboratory (e.g. IBM, HP Labs, and Xerox PARC), is not part of the equation.

For some of Howard Levy’s other February and January 2009 postings about the proposed information-gathering about nanotechnology use in business exercise, go here. Or for more specific posting addresses, see the comments to my Feb. 2, 2009 posting.

World’s first mandatory reporting of nanotechnology use in Canada?

Maybe. This bit of news was first reported (near as I can tell) on the Canadian Press news wire and on the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies (PEN) website on January 28 and, after much hunting, I determined that the Canadian Press article was written by John Cotter. Earlier (Jan.12.09), I posted about a story of his here where I analyzed what seemed to be a flurry of interest in a failure by the Canadian government to respond to a nanotechnology report. This latest story would seem to be related.

Here’s the story lede from this article which is the only one I could find which included  Cotter’s byline,

Canada is poised to become the first government in the world to require companies to provide information about their use of potentially harmful nanomaterials in their products.

The other articles open with similar ledes. here (Google News) and here (CBC News).  The lede differs somewhat here (Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies [PEN]); the writer  is more nuanced in their approach.

Other than John Cotter’s authorship of the ‘source’ article this time and last, there are another couple of interesting points. The announcement is being made by PEN (located in Washington, DC) and not by any Canadian government agency. Although Environment Canada  officials did not comment directly on the PEN announcement, they did say that there is a plan to send out a notice requiring companies and institutions that used more than 1 kilogram of nanomaterial in 2008 to provide information that may include: how the nanomaterials are managed, data on chemical and physical properties, and any other information that could be helpful.

It sounds a little vague and there’s no indication that this is anything more than a once only request. Plus, I’m wondering how the officials are going to define the terms. Is one company’s quantum dot another company’s nanoparticle?

That earlier article by John Cotter citing a nanotechnology report for the Canadian government? One of its authors, Dr. Andrew Maynard, Chief Science Advisor for PEN and Dr. Pekka Sinervo, another of the authors, are the only two experts listed in this latest article.

The whole thing smacks of a campaign (public relations, communications, or whatever else you want to call it). In principle, I think it’s useful to have a registry of products using nanomaterials (unfortunately this whole project seems a bit tenuous). I also find it interesting to note how various agencies and special interest groups get their points across in the media. One final thing, the announcement on PEN’s website points to reports about how the US Environmental Protection Agency and the US Administration should be applying oversight to nanotechnology use in the US.

Quantum dots possibly toxic? And a followup to the Canadian 2009 budget and Genome Canada

After last week’s (and continuing into this week) excitement over Canadian scientists creating the smallest quantum dot ever, there’s an article about possible toxicity in Science Daily here. The gist of the article is that quantum dots which are used in solar cells, medical imaging devices, and elsewhere could decompose during use or after they’re disposed. In any event, the decomposed dots could release metals that are toxic when they are exposed to acidic and/or alkaline environments. According to the article, there’s no need to sound an alarm yet but it’s a good idea to keep an eye on the situation.

I made a comment abut mapping genomes when discussing the science funding cuts in the Canadian budget which featured Genome Canada’s complete disappearance [from the budget].  I referred to a comment by Denise Caruso (she was featured in a Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies webcast discussing synthetic biology here). I’ve reviewed the webcast and found that she wasn’t referring to genome mapping per se but was discussing something called the Encode Study which was four years long and funded by the Human Genome Project. It featured an international consortium of 80 organizations that were working together to create an encyclopedia of DNA elements. Here’s a rough transcription of her comments,

We have no idea what we’re talking about here. The genes don’t operate the way we thought they did. The genome is not a tidy collection of independent genes where the sequence of DNA does this [action] and always does this so we can put it on a shelf [and have it on a] parts inventory list. [The genes] operate within networks. What they [study participants] said was almost 180 degrees opposite to what we have believed for quite some time.

Rick Weiss who was interviewing her went on to describe how a genes that are seemingly unrelated signal each other in ways that we had not expected. Who knows how it all works in the environment i.e. when you get out of the lab?

So getting back to my original point, mapping is fine but it’s not the most primary goal. As per the webcast, it’s the relationships or networks that are important.

A quick note: the University of Virginia has a virtual lab that features information and podcasts about nano. You can go here to see it.