Monthly Archives: May 2010

nanoAlberta tweets

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Joel Burford at nanoAlberta contacted me yesterday with the information that nanoAlberta can now be followed on Twitter the usual way (having a Twitter account of your own and ‘following them’) or by RSS feed if you don’t have an account.

http://twitter.com/nanoalberta

Here’s a sampling of their latest tweets,

# Handling nanomaterials? Check out the GoodNanoGuide: http://tinyurl.com/2c5n5ej about 19 hours ago via web

# Dr. Paul Burrows in Edmonton, Alberta speaking about nanotechnology on Citytv: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uk-iASnf9nY about 19 hours ago via web

# state of the art electron microscopy product development centre established at the NINT. http://tinyurl.com/2b8rah5 about 19 hours ago via web

# Gary Albach and Dr. Paul Burrows speak on the Global News “Morning Edition” : http://tinyurl.com/2g56b26 about 19 hours ago via web

Smart windows in The Netherlands and in Vancouver

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Michael Berger at Nanowerk has written a good primer on smart windows while discussing a specific project from The Netherlands. From Berger’s article,

‘Smart’ windows, or smart glass, refers to glass technology that includes electrochromic devices, suspended particle devices, micro-blinds and liquid crystal devices. Their major feature is that they can control the amount of light passing through the glass and increase energy efficiency of the room by reducing costs for heating or air-conditioning. In the case of self-powered smart windows the glass even generates the energy needed to electrically switch its transparency.

Smart windows can be electrochromic and/or photochromic. From an article by Alan Chen, of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, titled, New Photochromic Material Could Advance Energy-Efficient Windows,

A photochromic material is one that changes from transparent to a color when it is exposed to light, and reverts to transparency when the light is dimmed or blocked. An electrochromic material changes color when a small electric charge is passed through it. Both photochromic and electrochromic materials have potential applications in many types of devices.

As for how both materials could have applications appropriate for windows, Berger’s article describes a smart window that sounds like it’s both electrochromic and photochromics and has the added benefit of being able to power itself,

A new type of smart window proposed by researchers in The Netherlands makes use of a luminescent dye-doped liquid-crystal solution sandwiched in between electrically conductive plates as an energy-generating window.

The dye absorbs a variable amount of light depending on its orientation, and re-emits this light, of which a significant fraction is trapped by total internal reflection at the glass/air interface.

(For more details about this specific project, please read Berger’s full article.)

A few months ago I chanced across a local (Vancouver, Canada-based) start-up company, SWITCH Materials, that features technology for smart windows. From the company website (Technology page),

SWITCH’s advanced materials are based on novel organic molecules that react to both solar and electrical stimulation. Smart windows and lenses are the first commercial application under development at SWITCH. They darken when exposed to the sun and rapidly bleach on command when stimulated by electricity.

While competitive technologies rely on either photochromism or electrochromism, SWITCH’s hybrid technology offers the advantages of both, providing enhanced control and lower cost manufacturing.

• SWITCH’s technology also operates without requiring a continuous charge, and as a result has great potential for significant cost savings in many applications.

• The organic compounds in SWITCH’s materials are thermally stable and remain in their coloured state until electricity reverses the chemical transformation.

As far as I can tell, one of the big differences between this Canadian company’s approach and the Dutch research team’s is the Canadian’s use of organic compounds. Also, one of the key advantages (in addition to the ability to generate electricity) to the Dutch team’s approach is that users can control the window’s transmission of light.

I don’t know how close either the Canadian company (SWITCH) or the Dutch research team is to a commercial application but there is this excerpt from the Jan. 14, 2010 news release (on the Pangaea Ventures website),

SWITCH Materials Inc., an advanced materials company developing energy saving SMART window solutions, has raised $7.5M in Series B financing. The Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC Venture Capital) led the investment, with participation from existing investors GrowthWorks, Pangaea Ventures and Ventures West. Proceeds will be used for continuing R&D and to complete product commercialization.

…

“I am excited that an up and coming Canadian clean tech company will be added to our portfolio,” said Geoff Catherwood, Director of Venture Capital at BDC. “The technology being developed at SWITCH carries tremendous potential to address the burgeoning demand for a new generation of window technology. Producing a SMART window solution that can meet the price point required for significant market penetration will enable SWITCH to gain a leadership position in a large untapped market.” In conjunction with the financing, Mr. Catherwood will join the company’s Board of Directors.

I notice the news release makes no mention of a timeline for possible commercial applications or of competitors for that matter. In addition to the Dutch research team (there’s a Dutch company [I blogged about them here {scroll down}] that is producing something remarkably similar [it too offers control for transmission of light] to the Dutch research team’s smart windows profiled by Berger), there’s competition from the Americans who, recently, through their federal Dept. of Energy invested $72M (a loan guarantee added to previous investments) in SAGE Electrochromics.

The market for windows that could conceivably eliminate or seriously minimize the use of air conditioning is huge. In this era of concern about energy use and climate change, air conditioning is a problem as it uses a tremendous amount of energy, has a significant carbon footprint, and most importantly for business, it is expensive. Think of Hong Kong, Shanghai, Delhi, Tokyo, Rio de Janeiro, Cairo, Tel Aviv, Nairobi,  Toronto, New York, Montréal, Chicago, Paris, London, Belgrade, Berlin, etc. during their respective hot seasons and the advantages of smart windows become quite apparent.

One last thing I’d like to mention about the Canadian company, it’s a Simon Fraser University (SFU), spinoff with Neil Branda, director of SFU’s nanotechnology centre, 4D Labs as their chief technical officer. Dr. Branda’s research work was last mentioned on this blog in a posting that featured, SFU scientists their phasers on stun as part of the title.

Year of Nano at Rice University

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I mentioned the Year of Nano 25th anniversary celebration of the buckminsterfullerene (also known as a C60 fullerene or bucky ball) at Rice University in a Feb. 8, 2010 posting (it’s towards the bottom) and wasn’t really expecting to hear more about it until the technical symposium in October 2010. Yesterday, the folks at Rice University sent out a news release that manages to herald both the Year of Nano and the 50th anniversary of the laser. From the news release (titled, From beams to bucky balls),

Twenty-five years after the laser beam came to be, a historic meeting took place at Rice University that led to the discovery of the buckminsterfullerene, the carbon 60 molecule for which two Rice scientists won the Nobel Prize.

Now that the buckyball is celebrating its own 25th anniversary, it’s worth noting that one wouldn’t have happened without the other.

During the Year of Nano, Rice will honor Nobel laureates Robert Curl and the late Richard Smalley, their research colleague and co-laureate, Sir Harold Kroto, then of the University of Sussex, and former graduate students James Heath and Sean O’Brien with a series of events culminating in an Oct. 11-13 symposium at Rice on nanotechnology’s past, present and future.

But Curl happily throws a share of the credit to another Rice professor, Frank Tittel, a laser pioneer whose work continues to break new ground in chemical sensing.

Fifty years ago this Sunday, on May 16, 1960, Hughes Research scientist Theodore Maiman fired off the first laser beam from a small ruby rod, a camera flashlamp and a power supply.

Not long after the news was reported in the New York Times, Tittel, now Rice’s J.S. Abercrombie Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering, was asked by his new bosses at General Electric to recreate Maiman’s device. “That used brute force,” Tittel said of his first laser, later donated to the Franklin Institute Science Museum in Philadelphia. “Now we’re more sophisticated.”

Tittel joined Rice in 1967 and quickly built the first tunable laser in Texas, used in spectroscopy and sensing devices. He also formed collaborations with other professors, including Curl, who is now Rice’s University Professor Emeritus and Kenneth S. Pitzer-Schlumberger Professor Emeritus of Natural Sciences.

The laser attracted a lot of interest and was used to investigate a number of phenomena including Kroto’s chief interest in 1985, the “abundance of carbon molecules in interstellar clouds,”

…  The experiments in late 1985 showed an abundance of carbon 60, which set the scientists racing to figure out what such a molecule would look like. “We had this problem that this (carbon cluster) was a little strong, and it looked like there was something there,” Curl said, noting that the team pursued the interstellar question no further. “The discovery of the fullerenes drew all our attention.”

Smalley was the first to find the solution by assembling a paper model of hexagons and pentagons that turned out to be identical to a soccer ball. (In a webcast available here, Curl described how the team came up with the key to the solution over enchiladas at a Houston diner.)

The webcast with Curl is titled, How Astrophysical Interests Accidentally Led to Advances in Carbon Chemistry. I think what’s so fascinating is that Richard Smalley wasn’t that interested in Kroto’s question but it was that question that led to their great discovery. This story reminded me of a comment from Dr. J. Storrs Hall that I quoted in one of my recent posts (scroll down to find the passage), “As Dr. Hall aptly noted it’s not dispassionate calculations but ‘serendipity: the way science always works’.”

British election and science, lessons for Canadians?

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I’m finally getting around to posting about the British Election and its science aspect in a little more detail than I did in my April 23, 2010 posting now that’s it been held and a coalition is going forward.

During the election period, all three parties produced manifestos that included some mention of policies for science. The Canadian Science Policy Centre provides links to an analysis of the science policies (in the New Scientist journal) found in the Conservative, Liberal Democrat, and Labour parties’ election 2010 manifestos. Short story: not a lot of detail in any of them but there are differences.

In light of the election results and the roles the various parties are likely to play in the government once it is formed, I have given the Liberal Democrats more prominence by putting them first. While the Conservatives won far more seats, it would seem that the Liberal Democrats will have substantial leverage with their colleagues in a coalition government and it will be interesting to see if they use this leverage for science.

The Liberal Democrats (excerpted from the New Scientist commentary),

Today saw the Liberal Democrats publish their election manifesto – Change that works for you – which is the last of the big three.

Like Labour’s and the Conservatives’, the Liberal Democrats’ manifesto covers science policies affecting research and education.

Unlike the other two, however, the Liberal Democrats have also made commitments about scientific advice in government.

Liberal Democrats say they want to create a “dynamic environment for science and innovation”, but the focus of their commitments is firmly on the science side.

Although they recognise the importance of science investment to the economic recovery, they admit that the economic climate means that they cannot commitment to increased investment.

The Conservatives (excerpted from the New Scientist commentary),

Like Labour’s manifesto, published yesterday, science policies affecting research, innovation and education all get a mention.

With the Conservatives leading in the polls, scientists will be particularly keen to know what the level of their commitment to science is – especially after it has been said they are “a vision-free zone” when it comes to science policy.

In fact, the Conservation vision for science is upfront in the foreword to the manifesto, stating that they want “an economy where Britain leads in science, technology and innovation”.

Finally, Labour (excerpted from the New Scientist commentary)

Labour is the first party to publish its election manifesto – A future fair for all.

There is debate about the importance of manifestos, but they do set out what the parties’ political priorities would be. Science policies affecting research, innovation and education all get a mention in the manifesto, but none of those commitments rank as one of their 50 steps for a fairer Britain.

The economy is probably the biggest issue in this election, and it is in the first section on “growth” that science policy first is mentioned.

Labour takes the opportunity to highlight the “substantial” investment it has made in the research base since 1997. This is certainly true, as Labour has almost doubled investment in the research base between 1997 and 2007 in real terms.

It is harder to argue, as Labour claims, that it has “massively increased investment in research and development (R&D) as a proportion of national income.” In 1997, 1.77% of GDP was spent on R&D and in 2007 it was up to 1.81%. In both 1997 and 2007 was 0.55% of GDP was spent on R&D by government.

In terms of funding commitments, Labour says it will have a “ring-fenced science budget in the next spending review”.

(A ‘ring-fenced’ budget would be a commitment to a minimum guaranteed amount for funding.)

Richard Jones on his blog, Soft Machines, provides some insight into the use of ‘science’ social media during the 2010 election campaign. From his post,

Is there a significant constituency for science, that might impose any political price on cutting science budgets? This election has seen high hopes for social media as a way of mobilising a science voting block – see #scivote on Twitter. Looking at this, one sees something that looks very much like an attempt to develop an identity politics for science – the idea that there might be a “science vote”, in the way that people talk (correctly or not) about a “gay vote” or a “christian vote”. There’s a sense of a community of right-minded people, with leaders from politics and the media, and clear dividing lines from the forces of unreason. What’s obvious, though, is this strategy hasn’t worked – a candidate standing on a single issue science platform ended up with 197 votes, which compares unfavourably with the 228 votes the Monster Raving Loony Party got in my own, nearby constituency.

I would encourage you to read the entire post as Richard provides an insider’s (he’s a scientist who’s been involved in a number of important British science reports and advisory groups) view.

CaSE (Campaign for Science and Engineering) has posted an analysis of science policy in the new coalition government based on the manifestos and the coalition negotiation agreement. (Note: CaSE is a British science advocacy organization mentioned in this blog here.) From CaSE’s May 12, 2010 posting,

The dramatic election outcome gives the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats an opportunity to rethink and refine their election commitments. Science and engineering did not feature in the coalition negotiation agreement, but looking through the parties’ manifestos and additional commitments made in letters from David Cameron and Nick Clegg to CaSE, gives us a feel for what the future might hold.

Funding is always a key issue,

First, as ever, let’s talk about the money – do the parties agree on funding the research base? The Liberal Democrats committed to not cutting science spending in the first year of the new Parliament. Unfortunately, the Conservatives never wrote down strong commitments, although they did promise a multi-year settlement in recognition of the need for stability.

…

The Conservatives came close, but never actually committed to protecting science budget spending once it has been allocated. The Liberal Democrats stated that they would clearly define and then ring-fence this spending.

On how the money should be allocated, the Liberal Democrats support the Haldane Principle – that decisions on how the science budget should be spent are best made by those in the science community itself.

The poster (Hilary Leevers) also comments on private investment and education and skills but I’m more focused on science and engineering in government or ‘science advice’,

The Liberal Democrats made a series of strong commitments on scientific advice and policy making which we hope that they can persuade the Conservatives to adopt. First, they endorsed the original Principles for the Treatment of Independent Scientific Advice, which was drawn up by the scientific community and underlines the independence and freedom of advisers to the Government. CaSE would like to see an adaptation of this incorporated into the new Ministerial Code.

The Liberal Democrats pledged to appoint a Chief Scientific Adviser to the Treasury and reinforce the powers of the Government’s Chief Scientific Adviser, as well as strengthening the role of the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology. They also said that they would like to see regular use of Randomised Controlled Trials in testing new social policy initiatives.

Finally, both parties committed to reform libel laws, as the Conservatives put it, “to protect freedom of speech, reduce costs and discourage libel tourism”, and more specifically for researchers from the Liberal Democrats, “to protect peer reviewed research from libel suits”. Reviewing libel laws to protect feedom of speech did actually make it into the coalition agreement.

As of today, David Willetts has been named Minister of State for Universities and Science, from the May 13, 2010 CaSE posting,

In our brave new coalition government, it seems that there will be two strong, respected and thoughtful advocates for science and engineering. David Willetts has been appointed Minister of State for Universities and Science in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) with Vince Cable as Secretary of State for BIS. Cable studied natural sciences with economics at Cambridge and, while his background is not in the sciences, Willetts has often engaged well with science issues in his former roles as Shadow Secretary for Education and then Innovation, Universities and Skills.

Dave Bruggeman (Pasco Pronesis blog) also notes Willett’s appointment in one of his recent postings and, in a previous posting, provided the numbers of newly elected British MPs with science experience,

The Times had estimated that the number of MPs with a science background and/or serious engagement with science issues would drop from 86 to 77. It dropped to 71.

Dave goes on to provide some thoughtful analysis as to what all this might mean in the context of Britain’s current economic situation.

It’s interesting to consider these British science election commentaries in relationship to the Canadian scene which features three national federal parties (only one of which has any mention of science in its policy platform [4 four bullet points in the Conservation party platform]). No science debates and no mention (that I can recall) of science in any Canadian election for the last 10 years, at least.

The current discussion about science in Britain is extraordinary by Canadian standards and my hat’s off to the Brits not only for ‘getting science to the table’ but for working so long and so hard to make sure that it stays there.

There are a couple rays of hope on the Canadian scene, the Canadian Science Policy Centre which will be putting on its second annual conference this coming October (I’ll post more about that as details are released).  There are also Canadian science bloggers such as:

  • Rob Annan at Don’t leave Canada behind who comments extensively on the Canadian science policy scene and offers in-depth analysis;
  • Pascal Lapointe and his colleague at Je vote pour la science (coincidentally they have a podcast about scientists as politicians, which includes some commentary about the recent British election); offer wide-ranging discussion on Canadian science policy and science; and
  • the folks at The Black Hole who usually comment on the situation for Canadian science postdoctoral ‘students’ while also offering thoughts on science education and literacy.

Not exactly a blog,

  • Science Canada functions as an aggregator of Canadian science policy news.

If you know of any other bloggers or developments on the Canadian science policy scene, please do let me know.

Physicists at McGill get one step closer to quantum computing

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The Québec nanotechnology scene has been quite active lately with yet another research team at McGill University (Montréal, Canada) publishing a study. This one comes from a team of physicists whose work constitutes another step in replacing the silicon chips found in computers with semi-conductor  nanocrystals (quantum dots). From the news item on Nanowerk,

Physicists at McGill University have developed a system for measuring the energy involved in adding electrons to semi-conductor nanocrystals, also known as quantum dots – a technology that may revolutionize computing and other areas of science. Dr. Peter Grütter, McGill’s Associate Dean of Research and Graduate Education, Faculty of Science, explains that his research team has developed a cantilever force sensor that enables individual electrons to be removed and added to a quantum dot and the energy involved in the operation to be measured.

Being able to measure the energy at such infinitesimal levels is an important step in being able to develop an eventual replacement for the silicon chip in computers – the next generation of computing. Computers currently work with processors that contain transistors that are either in an on or off position – conductors and semi-conductors – while quantum computing would allow processors to work with multiple states, vastly increasing their speed while reducing their size even more.

Although popularly used to connote something very large, the word “quantum” itself actually means the smallest amount by which certain physical quantities can change. Knowledge of these energy levels enables scientists to understand and predict the electronic properties of the nanoscale systems they are developing.

I like the approach used in this news item. They describe what the scientists have done and include a basic explanation for people like me who might need to be reminded that quantum means small. For anyone interested in reading the research study, this may help you find it,

Dr. Aashish Clerk, Yoichi Miyahara, and Steven D. Bennett of McGill’s Dept. of Physics, and scientists at the Institute for Microstructural Sciences of the National Research Council of Canada contributed to this research, which was published online late yesterday afternoon in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Life extension as human enhancement

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On the heels my recent posting about human enhancement (here), I found an item on the Foresight Institute website about life extension. The poster, Christine Peterson, is responding to an article at The Mark (from their About page) “…  Canada’s daily online forum for news, commentary, and debate.” The article, Nanotechnology and Life Extension; 70, 80, or 90 could be the new 64; but is living longer necessarily a good thing?, is by Kerry Bowman and Alan Warner. From the April 14, 2010 article,

It may sound like science fiction, but with innovations in medical nanotechnology, human beings could be looking at a life extension of years or even decades. Nanotech involves microsystems that work on a microscopic scale to potentially alter our physiology and drastically improve our immune systems through improved diagnostic and surgery techniques, gene therapy, cell repair, and more. In the future, we may even be able to use implanted devices to physiologically monitor our bodies – a breakthrough in disease prevention and treatment.

I find the piece a little problematic since these writers don’t seem to know much about nanotechnology or clinical medicine. As you can see in the excerpt that follows, they seem better versed in history,

Life extension is not new. In ancient Rome, the average lifespan was around 23 years; today, the average global life expectancy is 64 years. Demographers tell us there has been an average gain in life expectancy of about three months a year for the last 160 years and that this is steadily increasing. To date, life extension has not necessarily been intentional, often the by-product of our efforts to improve medicine or quality of the life of the elderly.

As far as I can tell, the writers don’t really need to mention nanotechnology as it’s irrelevant to their main topic, life extension which has been occurring and is continuing to do so for reasons entirely unrelated to nanotechnology. Christine Peterson offers a different perspective in her May 10, 2010 response,

There is a simple answer to this debating. Boomers should stick around, keep working, and help pay off the national debt(s). And while we’re at it, we can help clean up the environment. It’s not fair to leave these tasks as burdens on the next generation.

I applaud the sentiment. I’ve never understood why people so proudly proclaim  the next generation as ‘hope for the future’ and then announce that the newbies will be responsible for fixing the previous generations’ mistakes.

Nanotechnology network in Russia

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Russia, last week, announced the formation of a national nanotechnology network. From the news item on Nanowerk,

The largest state universities and research centers will be integrated into a countrywide nanotechnology network, whose members will receive access to information about one another’s research developments and facilities.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin signed an order in late April creating the National Nanotechnology Network, which was published Wednesday on the government’s web site.

An Education and Science Ministry official said the network was created as part of the federal targeted program on developing the nano-industry fr om 2008 to 2010. Fifty research centers (such as the Kurchatov Institute) and universities (including Moscow State University and the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology) that the state already provides with equipment needed for nano-research will automatically become members of the network, known by its Russian acronym NNS.

Once the Education and Science Ministry develops criteria for NNS participants, any qualifying organization will be able to join, the source told Vedomosti.

The ministry official stressed that the network’s creation would not reduce the importance of Rusnano. The state corporation works on commercializing ideas, whereas the NNS has the much broader task of uniting all participants in the innovation process, from scientists to entrepreneurs.

The NNS is being created to form a competitive research sector in nanotechnology and an effective system to commercialize that know-how, the government’s order says. The network’s goal is to boost the volume of nano-production and create an entry point for Russian companies onto the global market.

It’s interesting to note that this development is in addition to the RUSNANO commercialization initiative.

Darwin theme: Rap about Darwin & evolutionary biology and Darwinism in quantum dots

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You wouldn’t expect someone with this pedigree,

… Professor of Microbial Genomics at the University of Birmingham since July 2001. … is dually qualified as a scientist (PhD) and as a medic/clinical bacteriologist (MBBS, MRCPath), and benefits from Research-Council funding for both bioinformatics and laboratory-based molecular bacteriology projects. His interests focus on bacterial pathogenesis and the exploitation of sequence data, particularly genome sequence data.

to commission a piece of rap music but that’s just what Professor Mark Pallen did last year to honour Darwin’s anniversary (150 years since the publication of Darwin’s theory and 200 years isnce his birth). He contacted Baba Brinkman, a Vancouver, Canada -based rap artist, to commission a series of raps about Darwin and evolutionary biology. The project has become The Rap Guide to Evolution. You can find more about the work at Pasco Phronesis (thank you for the pointer) which also features a number of Brinkman’s videos. There’s also a Brinkman ‘evolutionary’ video on the CBC 3 (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) site. In that video, Brinkman spontaneously adds some lines to his rap. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to improvise while you’re presenting for any length of time but it’s not easy and Brinkman actually manages to do this while rhyming about evolutionary biology in front of an audience that’s somewhere between 200 and 500 people (I can’t be sure of the number).

There are some places I don’t expect to see any mention of the theory of evolution and quantum theory is one of those places. From the news item on physorg.com,

Physicists have found new evidence that supports the theory of quantum Darwinism, the idea that the transition from the quantum to the classical world occurs due to a quantum form of natural selection. By explaining how the classical world emerges from the quantum world, quantum Darwinism could shed light on one of the most challenging questions in physics of the past century.

The basis of almost any theoretical quantum-to-classical transition lies in the concept of decoherence. In the quantum world, many possible quantum states “collapse” into a single state due to interactions with the environment. To quantum Darwinists, decoherence is a selection process, and the final, stable state is called a “pointer state.” Although pointer states are quantum states, they are “fit enough” to be transmitted through the environment without collapsing and can then make copies of themselves that can be observed on the macroscopic scale. Although everything in our world is quantum at its core, our classical view of the universe is ultimately determined by these pointer states.

How researchers have used quantum dots  to provide evidence of quantum Darwinism and the link from quantum physics to classical physics is covered in the rest of the news item. The researchers’ study is published here,

A.M. Burke. “Periodic Scarred States in Open Quantum Dots as Evidence of Quantum Darwinism.” Physical Review Letters 104, 176801 (2010). Doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.104.176801

Nanotechnology Occupational Health & Safety webcast with Dr. Kristin Kulinowski and others

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From a posting by Karen on Science Buzz,

An online seminar, “Understanding Nanotechnology Safety”, will be webcast on May 27, 2010, at 1:00 U.S. EDT and is intended for anyone concerned about the potential health hazards of exposure to nanoengineered materials.

Small Times is sponsoring this occupational health and safety-oriented seminar which features, Dr. Kristen Kulinowski, “… Faculty Fellow in the Department of Chemistry at Rice University and Director for External Affairs for the Center for Biological and Environmental Nanotechnology (CBEN). She currently serves as the Director of the International Council on Nanotechnology (ICON), an international, multi-stakeholder organization whose mission is to develop and communicate information regarding potential environmental and health risks of nanotechnology thereby fostering risk reduction while maximizing societal benefit,” from her page on the Rice University website.

You can go here to register (there is a fee). I don’t know if they’ve extended their early registration discount beyond May 10 2010 but it might be worth trying.

Other presenters include (from Science Buzz),

Presenters include: Mark Bünger Research Director, Lux Research; Walt Trybula, Director of the Nanomaterials Application Center, Texas State University-San Marcos; Nina Horne, Invited Expert; and, Dr. Antonietta M. Gatti Ph.D., Experimental Physics University of Bologna, Italy.

Events announced for 2010 World Science Festival

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The program for the 2010 World Science Festival in New York City which runs June 2, 05 2010 is available here. Do check regularly as it is being added to and changed. Here’s a sampling of what’s available. For the astronomy buff,

The James Webb Space Telescope

FREE

Tuesday, June 1, 2010, 9:00 AM – Sunday, June 6, 2010, 9:00 PM
Battery Park

The world’s most powerful future space telescope is coming to New York City as part of the World Science Festival. NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope will allow us to unveil the very first galaxies formed in the Universe and discover hidden world’s around distant stars when the mission launches in 2014. For six days in June, a full-scale model of this successor to the famed Hubble Space Telescope will be on public view in Battery Park.

This detailed scale model, at 80 feet long, 37 feet wide and nearly 40 feet high, is as big as a tennis court. It’s as close to a first-hand look at the telescope as most people will ever get.

There’s more to do than just marvel. Once you’ve taken in the awe-inspiring sight, play with interactive exhibits, watch videos showing what we will learn from the Webb and ask scientists on-hand about how the telescope works.

And don’t miss our Friday June 4th party, “From the City to the Stars,” at the base of a spectacularly lit telescope, where leading scientists will join us to talk about the anticipated discoveries. Bring your telescope if you have one, or just yourself, and come congregate with amateur astronomers and novices alike for a festive evening of marveling at the wonders of the cosmos.

This program is made possible with the support of Northrop Grumman, and presented in collaboration with The Battery Conservancy.

If music and artificial intelligence interest you,

Machover and Minsky: Making Music in the Dome

Tickets must be purchased.

Thursday, June 3, 2010, 6:00 PM – 7:30 PM

Hayden Planetarium Space Theater

How does music help order emerge from the mind’s chaos? How does it create and conjure thoughts, emotions and memories? Legendary composer and inventor Tod Machover will explore these mysteries with Artificial Intelligence visionary Marvin Minsky. The two iconoclasts will revisit their landmark musical experiment, the Brain Opera, and offer an exclusive sneak peak at Machover’s upcoming opera, Death and the Powers, a groundbreaking MIT Media Lab production that explores what we leave behind for the world and our loved ones, using specially designed technology, including a chorus of robots.

This program is presented in collaboration with the American Museum of Natural History.

Participants:

Tod Machover

Tod Machover, called “America’s Most Wired Composer” by the Los Angeles Times, is celebrated for creating music that breaks traditional artistic and cultural boundaries. He is acclaimed for inventing new technologies for music, such as his Hyperinstruments which augment musical expression for everyone, from virtuosi like Yo-Yo Ma and Prince to players of Guitar Hero, which grew out of his lab.read more

Marvin Minsky

Minsky is one of the pioneers of artificial intelligence and had made numerous contributions to the fields of AI, cognitive science, mathematics and robotics. His current work focuses on trying to imbue machines with a capacity for common sense. Minsky is a professor at MIT, where he co-founded the artificial intelligence lab.

This one seems pretty self-explanatory,

Eye Candy: Science, Sight, Art

Tickets must be purchased.

Thursday, June 3, 2010, 7:00 PM – 8:30 PM

Are you drawn to Impressionism? Or more toward 3D computer art? Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Or is it? Contrary to the old adage, there may be universal biological principles that drive art’s appeal, and its capacity to engage our brains and our interest. Through artworks ranging from post-modernism to political caricature to 3D film, we’ll examine newly understood principles of visual perception.

Participants:

Patrick Cavanagh

Cavanagh helped change vision research by creating the Vision Sciences Lab at Harvard and the Centre of Attention & Vision in Paris. He is currently researching the problems of attention as a frequent component of mental illnesses, learning difficulties at school, and workplace accidents.read more

Ken Nakayama

No details.

Jules Feiffer

Cartoonist, playwright, screenwriter and children’s book author & illustrator Jules Feiffer has had a remarkable creative career turning contemporary urban anxiety into witty and revealing commentary for over fifty years. From his Village Voice editorial cartoons to his plays and screenplays, including Little Murders and Carnal Knowledge, Feiffer’s satirical outlook has helped define us politically, sexually and socially.

Buzz Hays

No details

Margaret S. Livingstone

Livingstone is best known for her work on visual processing, which has led to a deeper understanding of how we see color, motion, and depth, and how these processes are involved in generating percepts of objects as distinct from their background.

Christopher W. Tyler

Tyler has spent his research career exploring how the eyes and brain work together to produce meaningful vision. Dr. Tyler, director of The Smith Kettlewell Brain Imaging Center, has developed rapid tests for the diagnosis of diseases of this visual processing in infants and of retinal and optic nerve diseases in adults. He has also studied visual processing and photoreceptor dynamics in other species such as monkeys, butterflies and fish.

Finally, there’s the importance of sound,

Good Vibrations
The Science of Sound

Tickets must be purchased.

Thursday, June 3, 2010, 8:00 PM – 9:30 PM

The Kaye Playhouse at Hunter College

We look around us – constantly. But how often do we listen around us? Sound is critically important to our bodies and brains, and to the wider natural world. In the womb, we hear before we see. Join neuroscientists, biophysicists, astrophysicists, composers and musicians for a fascinating journey through the nature of sound—how we perceive it, how it acts upon us and how it profoundly affects our well-being—including a demonstration of sounds produced by sources as varied as the human inner ear and gargantuan black holes in space.

Moderator: John Schaefer

Participants:

Jamshed Bharucha

Bharucha conducts research in cognitive psychology and neuroscience, focusing on the cognitive and neural basis of the perception of music. He is a past editor of the interdisciplinary journal Music Perception.

Jacob Kirkegaard

Danish sound artist Jacob Kirkegaard explores sound in art with a scientific approach. He focuses on the scientific and aesthetic aspects of resonance, time, sound and hearing. His installations, compositions and performances deal with acoustic spaces and phenomena that usually remain imperceptible.

John Schaefer

John Schaefer is the host of WNYC’s innovative music/talk show Soundcheck, which features live performances and interviews with a variety of guests. Schaefer, Executive Producer, Music Programming, WNYC Radio, has also hosted and produced WNYC’s radio series New Sounds since 1982 (which Billboard called “The #1 radio show for the Global Village”) and the New Sounds Live concert series since 1986.

Christopher Shera

Shera has done extensive research in solving fundamental problems in the mechanics and physiology of the peripheral auditory system. His work focuses on how the ear amplifies, analyzes, and emits sound, and his research combines physiological measurements with theoretical modeling of the peripheral auditory system.read more

Michael Turner

Turner is the Bruce V. and Diana M. Rauner Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago. He is a theoretical cosmologist who coined the term, “dark energy.” He has made seminal contributions to the understanding of inflationary cosmology, particle dark matter, and the theory of the Big Bang.

Mark Whittle

Whittle uses large optical and radio telescopes, including the Hubble Space Telescope, to study processes occurring within 1,000 light years of the central supermassive black hole in Active Galaxies. His most recent interests focus on the way in which fast moving jets of gas, which are driven out of the active nucleus, subsequently crash into, accelerate, and generally “damage” the surrounding galactic material.

If you can’t make it to the festival in June, there are always the videos.