Tag Archives: innovation

Dem bones at McGill; innovation from the Canadian business community?; the archiving frontier; linking and copyright

1 Reply

I have a number of bits today amongst them, Canadian nanotechnology, Canadian business innovation, digital archiving, and copyrights and linking.

A Quebec biotech company, Enobia Pharma is working with Dr. Marc McKee on treatments for genetic bone diseases. From the news item on Nanowerk,

The field is known as biomineralization and it involves cutting-edge, nanotech investigation into the proteins, enzymes and other molecules that control the coupling of mineral ions (calcium and phosphate) to form nano-crystals within the bone structure. The treatment, enzyme replacement therapy to treat hypophosphatasia, is currently undergoing clinical testing in several countries including Canada. Hypophosphatasia is a rare and severe disorder resulting in poor bone mineralization. In infants, symptoms include respiratory insufficiency, failure to thrive and rickets.

This research in biomineralization (coupling of mineral ions to form nano-crystals) could lead to better treatments for other conditions such as cardiovascular diseases, arthritis, and kidney stones.

McKee’s research is being funded in part by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research  From the Nanowerk news item,

McKee’s research program is a concrete example of how university researchers are working with private sector partners as an integral part of Canada’s innovative knowledge economy, and the positive outcomes their collaborations can offer.

I don’t think that businesses partnering with academic institutions in research collaborations is precisely what they mean when they talk about business innovation (research and development). From a March 2, 2010 article about innovation by Preston Manning in the Globe & Mail,

Government competition policy and support for science, technology, and innovation (STI) can complement business leadership on the innovation front, but it is not a substitute for such leadership. Action to increase innovation in the economy is first and foremost a business responsibility.

Manning goes on to describe what he’s done on this matter and asks for suggestions on how to encourage Canadian business to be more innovative. (Thanks to Pasco Phronesis for pointing me to Manning’s article.) I guess the problem is that what we’ve been doing has worked well enough and so there’s no great incentive to change.

I’ve been on an archiving kick lately and so here’s some more. The British Library recently (Feb.25.10) announced public access to their UK Web Archive, a project where they have been saving online materials. From the news release,

British Library Chief Executive, Dame Lynne Brindley said:

“Since 2004 the British Library has led the UK Web Archive in its mission to archive a record of the major cultural and social issues being discussed online. Throughout the project the Library has worked directly with copyright holders to capture and preserve over 6,000 carefully selected websites, helping to avoid the creation of a ‘digital black hole’ in the nation’s memory.

“Limited by the existing legal position, at the current rate it will be feasible to collect just 1% of all free UK websites by 2011. We hope the current DCMS consultation will enact the 2003 Legal Deposit Libraries Act and extend the provision of legal deposit through regulationto cover freely available UK websites, providingregular snapshots ofthe free UK web domain for the benefit of future research.”

Mike Masnick at Techdirt notes (here) that the British Library has to get permission (the legal position Dame Brindley refers to) to archive these materials and this would seem to be an instance where ‘fair use’ should be made to apply.

On the subject of losing data, I read an article by Mike Roberts for the Vancouver Province, January 22, 2006, p. B5 (digital copy here) that posed this question, What if the world lost its memory? It was essentially an interview with Luciana Duranti (chair of the Master of Archival Studies programme and professor at the School of Library, Archival and Information Studies at the University of British Columbia, Canada) where she commented about the memories we had already lost. From the article,

Alas, she says, every day something else is irretrievably lost.

The research records of the U.S. Marines for the past 25 years? Gone.

East German land-survey records vital to the reunification of Germany? Toast.

A piece of digital interactive music recorded by Canadian composer Keith Hamel just eight years ago?

“Inaccessible, over, finito,” says Duranti, educated in her native Italy and a UBC prof since 1987.

Duranti, director of InterPARES (International Research on Permanent Authentic Records in Electronic Systems), an international cyber-preservation project comprising 20 countries and 60 global archivists, says original documentation is a thing of the past.

I was shocked by how much ‘important’ information had been lost and I assume still is. (Getting back to the UK Web Archives, if they can only save 1% of the UK’s online material then a lot has got to be missing.)

For anyone curious about InterPARES, I got my link for the Roberts article from this page on the InterPARES 1 website.

Back to Techdirt and Mike Masnick who has educated me as to a practice I had noted but not realized is ‘the way things are done amongst journalists’. If you spend enough time on the web, you’ll notice stories that make their way to newspapers without any acknowledgment of  their web or writerly origins and I’m not talking about news releases which are designed for immediate placement in the media or rewritten/reworked before placement. From the post on Techdirt,

We recently wrote about how the NY Post was caught taking a blogger’s story and rewriting it for itself — noting the hypocrisy of a News Corp. newspaper copying from someone else, after Rupert Murdoch and his top execs have been going around decrying various news aggregators (and Google especially) for “stealing” from News Corp. newspapers. It’s even more ridiculous when you think about it — because the “stealing” that Rupert is upset about is Google linking to the original story — a step that his NY Post writer couldn’t even be bothered to do.

Of course, as a few people pointed out in the comments, this sort of “re-reporting” is quite common in the traditional news business. You see it all the time in newspapers, magazines and broadcast TV. They take a story that was found somewhere else and just “re-report” it, so that they have their own version of it.

That’s right, it’s ‘re-reporting’ without attributions or links. Masnick’s post (he’s bringing in Felix Salmon’s comments) attributes this to a ‘print’ mentality where reporters are accustomed to claiming first place and see acknowledgments and links as failure while ‘digital natives’ acknowledge and link regularly since they view these as signs of respect. I’m not going to disagree but I would like to point out that citing sources is pretty standard for academics or anyone trained in that field. I imagine most reporters have one university or college degree, surely they learned the importance of citing one’s sources. So does training as a journalist erode that understanding?

And, getting back to this morning’s archival subtheme, at the end of Clark Hoyt’s (blogger for NY Times) commentary about the plagiarism he had this to say,

Finally, The Times owes readers a full accounting. I asked [Philip] Corbett [standards editor] for the examples of Kouwe’s plagiarism and suggested that editors’ notes be appended to those articles on the Web site and in The Times’s electronic archives. Corbett would not provide the examples and said the paper was not inclined to flag them, partly because there were some clear-cut cases and others that were less clear. “Where do you draw the line?” he asked.

I’d draw it at those he regards as clear. To do otherwise is to leave a corrupted record within the archives of The Times. It is not the way to close the case.

One last thing, Heather Haley is one of the guests appearing tonight in Rock Against Prisons.

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

7:00pm – 11:55pm

Little Mountain Gallery

195 east 26th Ave [Vancouver, Canada]

More details from my previous announcement about this event here.

Patents kill innovation?; nanosponges and spinning carbon nanotubes in China; Google and the universal translator

3 Replies

There’s an article about patents in The Economist online that provokes a question that’s not broached in the article. Here’s the thesis,

Most economists would argue that, without a patent system, even fewer inventions would lead to successful innovations, and those that did would be kept secret for far longer in order to maximise returns. But what if patents actually discourage the combining and recombining of inventions to yield new products and processes—as has happened in biotechnology, genetics and other disciplines?

Here’s the logical next question. If you accept the notion that patents kill innovation (or hinder it mightily) than how can the number of patents that are registered by any one country be used as a standard measure of scientific progress as per the 2009 OECD Science, Technology and Industry Scoreboard (my post about Canada’s low patent score here)?

Thanks to Techdirt for pointing me to The Economist article (go here to see their take) and to the Brad Feld posting (go here to see their take) about biotech innovation and patents. From Feld’s posting,

Regularly, patent advocates tell me how important patents are for the biotech and life science industries.  However, there apparently is academic research in the works that shows that patents actually slow down innovation in biotech.  The specific example we discussed was that there is increasing evidence that when a professor or company gets a patent in the field of genetics research, other researchers simply stop doing work in that specific area.  As a result, the number of researchers on a particular topic decreases, especially if the patent is broad.  It’s not hard to theorize that this results in less innovation around this area over time.

Feld goes on cite a few academics who write about patents and their impact on innovation. His main interest is not biotech but software which brings me back to the article in The Economist and a ‘weirdity’ at the end.

An end to frivolous patents for business processes will be a blessing to online commerce. Meanwhile, the loss of patent protection for software could make programmers realise at last that they have more in common with authors, artists, publishers and musicians than they ever had with molecular architects and chip designers. In short, they produce expressions of ideas that are eminently copyrightable.

That could be good news for innovation. After all, who in his right mind would seek a lousy old patent offering a mere 20 years of protection when copyright can provide monopoly rights for up to 70 years after the author’s death? That one fact alone could spur more innovation than all the tinkering attempted so far.

I understand that the author is being satirical, unfortunately, the copyright side of intellectual property law is at least as crazy as the patent side and this falls a little flat for me.

Michael Berger over at Nanowerk has devoted a couple of spotlight items (in depth articles) to innovations in China over the last few days. First there were the carbon nanotube sponges,

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are ‘strange’ nanostructures in a sense that they have both high mechanical strength and extreme flexibility. Deforming a carbon nanotube into any shape would not easily break the structure, and it recovers to original morphology in perfect manner. Researchers in China are exploiting this phenomenon by making CNT sponges consisting of a large amount of interconnected nanotubes, thus showing a combination of useful properties such as high porosity, super elasticity, robustness, and little weight (1% of water density). The nanotube sponges not only show exciting properties as a porous material but they also are very promising to be used practically in a short time. The production method is simple and scalable, the cost is low, and the sponges can find immediate use in many fields related to water purification.

Then today, there was an article on spinning carbon nanotube yarns,

“While the development of a continuous and weavable pure carbon nanotube yarn remains a major challenge in the fabrications, CNT yarns so far obtained from the different processes are monolithic in structure,” Ya-Li Li, a professor in the Nanomaterials and PDCs Group at the Key Laboratory of Advanced Ceramics and Machining Technology at Tianjin University in PR China, explains to Nanowerk. “We have now been able to demonstrate the fabrication of a novel continuous yarn of CNTs with a multiple-layer structure by the chemical vapor deposition (CVD) spinning process. The yarn consists of multiple monolayers of CNTs concentrically assembled in seamless tubules along the yarn axis.”

While I’ve seen a number of articles proclaiming China’s increasing  presence in many scientific fields, including nanotechnology, this is the first time I’ve seen articles that probe beyond a basic description of published studies in language that is still accessible, i.e., you don’t need a specialist degree to read the material. It certainly helps to contextualize the statistics and other data about China’s published studies.

Kit Eaton’s article (Will Google’s Translator Phone lead us to Babylon or Babble On?) in Fast Company touches on, biblical times (Tower of Babel), Star Trek (universal translator) and linguistics, how could I resist?

Google’s revealed it’s working on extensions to its smartphone voice-control powers, debuted in the Nexus One, that’ll automatically translate between languages. It’s the stuff of pure utopian science fiction. But is it a good idea?

While Eaton makes some other sci fi references that I’m not particularly familiar with such as Douglas Adams’ Babel Fish (which in turn references the Tower of Babel), her point is clear: there can be unintended consequences (a concept from Max Weber, if I recall rightly) to new inventions/innovations.

…  For example, if Google’s device succeeds, and is useful and ubiquitous (in other words, nearly everyone ends up using it, or a competing service)–nobody would need learn a foreign language. “Hooray!” you may be thinking, but this isn’t necessarily a good thing. Because language plays such a fundamental part in connecting each of us as thinking creatures with the world around us, that the subtle nuances of language (which are different even in similar tongues, say the Latin-derived Spanish and Portuguese) actually shape how we think about the world. Learning something of how somebody else speaks from a foreign country actually helps you to understand their mindset a little. And if the average Joe on the street never learns a foreign language anymore (because it’s a very tricky thing to do, and Google’s just doing it for you, so why bother?) then that subtle understanding will be lost.

In the discussion about  “… the subtle nuances of language shaping how we think …” Eaton is referring to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. Interestingly, some of the traditional linguistics departments in universities have resisted this hypothesis (I first learned about it in a mid-1980s communications course where we focused on semiotics).

On purely speculative terms, I could see two other ways for a universal translator to have unintended consequences. First, if something can’t be translated, it could disappear. Second, if a translatable version of your native language should emerge, people could break up into smaller subgroups to create more languages and more barriers to understanding. Eaton’s article definitely provoked some thinking for me this morning.

I did mention that I’d be posting the Geisler interview article later this week and I may have been a little optimistic as I’m having some difficulties chasing down a few details. In short, it’s on its way.

Nanotech cosmetics and beauty products labelling; scientists in Japan worried about research cuts; gender imbalance in European science researcher community; nano game;

Leave a reply

I mentioned the new European nano labeling regulation cosmetics and beauty products earlier this week (Nov.24.09) in the context of Germany’s resistance to it. Now officially passed(from the news item on Nanowerk),

The nanoparticle decree is part of a new 397-page cosmetics regulation approved on 20 November by the Council of the European Union, which includes ministers from all EU nations and is the EU’s main decision-making body. The cosmetic regulation states that all ingredients present in the product in the form of nanomaterials should be clearly indicated in the list of ingredients, by inserting the word ‘nano’ in brackets after the ingredient listing. The ruling defines nanomaterial as ‘an insoluble or biopersistant and intentionally manufactured material with one or more external dimensions, or an internal structure, on the scale from 1 to 100 nm’.

Now I wonder how  long before we start hearing demands for similar product labeling in the US, Canada, and Australia? As for failing to mention other countries,  I haven’t come across any health and safety or environmental discussions in other countries but I only search English language materials so I’m not likely to find something written in Spanish, Chinese, etc.

More cuts to  scientific research and, this time, in Japan. From the news item on physorg.com,

Top Japanese scientists, including four Nobel laureates, have criticised the new government for plans to slash research budgets, warning the country will loose its high-tech edge.

…

“The panel’s approach of judging science purely from a cost perspective completely lacks vision,” said 2001 Nobel Chemistry prize winner Ryoji Noyori. “I wonder if the panelists are ready to face the judgement of history.”

Kyoto University professor Shinya Yamanaka, a pioneer of embryonic stem cell research, told reporters: “I am deeply concerned about the development, which is just beyond my imagination.”

“You cannot predict achievements, that’s science,” he said. “I’m worried about Japan’s future.”

It certainly sounds familiar and it seems as if there is a fad sweeping governments ’round the world as they cut back on science funding and/or focus on the short term goal of realizing financial benefits in the immediately foreseeable future. The only exception, the US, seems to be holding firm to a commitment to basic science. If you know of any other countries doing so, please do let me know.

In the three years I’ve been tracking nanotechnology research I’ve noticed that female researchers are few and far between. During a research project in 2007, I asked one of the few I’d come across about my observation and ran into a metaphorical stone wall (she really didn’t want to talk about it). Apparently this dearth of female nanotechnology researchers is a reflection of a larger issue. From the news item on Nanowerk,

Despite a rise in their numbers, female scientific researchers remain a minority, accounting for just 30% of all scientific researchers in Europe. Furthermore, the more senior positions in science and research are still heavily dominated by men. These are some of the main findings in the latest ‘She Figures’, statistics on women in science in Europe which are produced every three years by the European Commission and the Helsinki Group on Women and Science. ‘While some trends are positive, the fact that women remain underrepresented in scientific careers should be a worry for all of us,’ commented European Commissioner for Science and Research, Janez Potocnik. ‘This gender imbalance in science is a waste of opportunity and talent which Europe cannot afford.’

I realize this is a European report but I think it reflects the international situation and, point well taken, it “is a waste of opportunity and talent.”

For a complete change of pace: Nanovor is a new game for 7 to 12 year olds. Yes, it’s all about nano. I find the storyline a bit strange, from the news item on Nanowerk,

Nanovor is based in a rich fictional world where nanoscopic monsters, known as Nanovor live and battle inside computers. These nanoscopic dust mites ruled our still-molten Earth, long before any other species could survive. As Earth cooled and the atmosphere became oxygen-rich, the silicon-based Nanovor slipped into deep hibernation for billions of years. In 1958, when silicon was embedded within a computer chip and electricity pulsed through it for the very first time, the Nanovor sprung back to life.

The business model reminds me of the sticker craze that one of my nieces participated in when she was about 7 or 8 years old. She started collecting stickers to put into books. New themes for stickers and their books were constantly being added to the product line and she was always trying to catch up. This game which can be downloaded free has booster packs (additional nanovors) that can be purchased.  If the game becomes popular, the booster packs (the equivalent of a new sticker theme) will become essential to playing the game.

There is a video about the game at the link to Nanowerk that I’ve provided. After viewing the video I’d say the game does seems a bit male dominated especially when you go to the game’s website and look up the main characters: Lucas, Mr. Sapphire, and Drew (female) who are listed in that order here but it is early days and these things can change over time.  The company producing the game is called, Smith & Tinker, and their tag line is: Reinventing play for the connected generation.

Happy weekend!

Videos about how nano will change the world; NISE Net Annual Meeting; catch up mode (innovation in Canada)

Leave a reply

The American Chemical Society held a 2nd NanoTube Video contest (mentioned in my July 22, 2009 posting) about how nanotechnology will change the world and has announced the winners. The top prize of $500 was awarded to Natalie Herring, et al (University of North Carolina) for NanoGirls about solar nanotechnology. You can see the top winning video and get more details on Nanowerk News here.

I don’t know how I missed it but NISE Net (Nanoscale Informal Science Education Network) is having its 2009 annual meeting in San Francisco, Sept. 14 – 16, 2009. I caught the notice on Andrew Maynard’s website, 2020 Science, where he gives a preview of what he will be discussing at the meeting, ‘The low down on nanotechnology safety, 10 helpful resources‘.

I also checked out his entry on Helter skelter nanotechnology which is a comment on a news release (from the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies where Andrew works) which appears to have been translated and retranslated with some interesting results as the original makes its way back to English. It reminded me of my favourite (to date) CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) online news item.  It’s a 2008 announcement for a new nanotechnology-type centre in Alberta and the writer decided to provide an explanation of nanotechnolgy. From the news item,

Nanotechnology, which is Latin for “dwarf technology,” [emphasis mine] has medical and industrial applications. It is the science of building machines on an atomic and molecular scale, or the making or manipulating of tiny particles such as atoms and molecules on the scale of a nanometre, which is one-billionth of a metre.

Yes, nano is from classical/ancient Greek (I blush to admit I missed that in my delight with ‘dwarf technology’). If you want to see the phrase in its native habitat, go here. It’s in one of the final paragraphs.

As for innovation in Canada, I’ve been catching up on Rob Annan’s Don’t leave Canada behind postings. His latest, Why funding for basic research is essential, provides some interesting statistics (which he sources) on Canadian academic research. In short, we do well by our academic research; it’s the industry research which is a problem (Canadian business does not do much of its own research and, these days, is doing less, see the statistics Rob presents) so tying academic research to industry does not solve the problem.

Preston Manning Interview (part 2 of 2); Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies Events; ASTC Conference

1 Reply

Here are three (yesterday, I mistakenly said there would be two)  more of Mr. Manning’s answers,

  • Do you know of any areas where Canadians are leading in science and technical innovations?

Some of the areas where Canada is at the leading edge in science and technology include cellular communications and genetic science (Toronto), space technology and robotics (the Canada Space Agency, the Canadarm, etc.), immunology and disease control (Winnipeg), in situ oil recovery (Ft. McMurray and Calgary), etc. The Canadian scientists who have won Nobel prizes also indicate some of the areas where Canada has led or is leading in science.

  • In your speech you mention the macro level for allocating science funds and make some suggestions for the Science and Technology Innovation Council regarding a more transparent and open process for decisionmaking and developing a structure and set of principles. (a) I’m surprised this hasn’t been done before! (b) How would you operationalize (or implement) your suggestion if asked to do so?

My suggestion was that the federal government through Industry Canada direct the Science, Technology, and Innovation Council (STIC) to make clear the structure, processes, and principles upon which funds are allocated.

Here is the last question,

  • This one is on a somewhat different topic. I understand that you are still a member of the NINT board. (Please do correct me if this information is incorrect.) What is your view on the Canada nanotechnology scene given that unlike many countries (US, China, Saudi Arabia, Denmark, Germany, Russia, etc.) have nanotechnology initiatives/policies, Canadian NanoBusiness Alliance has shut its doors, NanoTech BC is struggling for existence, and NINT has gone through an identity change (it no longer has its own website or unique identity online)?

With respect to the current state of nano-science and nanotechnology in Canada, you would have to consult experts in this field to get a definitive answer. But it is my impression from my exposure to the National Institute for Nanotechnology at the University of Alberta that modest but steady progress is being made. I think it is important to distinguish between the media and public-relations hype which invariably surrounds a new science and technology, and over-promises, and the reality of the slow and painstaking step-by-step progress of the development of any science or technology.

Thank you Mr. Manning for taking the time to answer my questions. The answer to the last question is particularly interesting to me (given the purpose for this blog) and certainly bears out some of my own experience. There is much hype but the real work is ‘slow and painstaking’. Mr. Manning will be a keynote speaker, along with Gary Goodyear, Minister of State for Science and Technology, at the Canadian Science Policy Conference on Oct. 28 – 30, 2009 in Toronto. Details of the conference here.

I got this information from the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies (PEN) but it seems to be a Wilson Center event more than anything else. NOTE: The times listed are EDT.

On September 18th the Wilson Center and Environmental Law Institute will release new data on the flow of energy (in BTUs) and the flow of dollars (in terms of subsidies) through the U.S. economy.  We hope you can join us for:

Perverse Incentives: The Untold Story of Federal Subsidies to Fossil Fuels

The ongoing debates about biofuels, cap and trade legislation, and paths to energy independence have focused public attention on energy and climate issues like never before, with policymakers taking a heightened interest in renewable energy and its economic viability. Against this backdrop, the Environmental Law Institute and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars have completed a comprehensive study of federal subsidies to fossil fuel and renewable energy sources. Our data reveal surprising facts about where public funds are going and how our current energy policy may actually undermine the transition to a low-carbon economy.

Join us on September 18, 2009, from 9 a.m.-11 a.m. in the 5th floor conference room at the Woodrow Wilson Center as we discuss our findings and their implications for future energy and climate change policy. The event will also be webcast live at www.wilsoncenter.org.

A light breakfast will be served starting at 8:30 a.m.

To attend this event, RSVP to

mcmurrin@eli.org.

No RSVP is required to view the webcast.

There’s another event, one I’ve mentioned before, on Sept. 23, 2009 on Transatlantic Regulatory Cooperation: Securing the Promise of Nanotechnologies. I have the details here in my June 30, 2009 posting. As usual with a PEN event, there will be a webcast (12 – 2:30 pm EDT) or if you’re going to the live event, you can RSVP here.

The ASTC (Association of Science and Technology Centers) is having its conference Oct. 31 – Nov. 3, 2009 in Fort Worth Texas. NISE Net (Nanoscale Informal Science Education Network) will be hosting a few events and is offering nine conference sessions. From the NISE Net newsletter, here are the conference sessions,

  • Interpreting the Nanoworld through Juggling, Drama, Art, and Media
  • Public Engagement with Science and Technology Policy: How Far Should We Go?
  • Making the Invisible Visible: Visualizing Emerging Science with Artists
  • Dimensions of Public Engagement: Finding Your Footing in a Paradigm Shift
  • Public Impact Results for the Nanoscale Informal Science Education (NISE) Network
  • Creative Programming and Current Science Learning
  • Sustainable Diversity Workshop: Conversation and Tools for Inclusivity
  • Science Alliance: Advancing Science Communication by Bridging Diverse Organizations
  • Public Engagement in Current Science and Global Issues

Wish I could go (and the Canadian Science Policy conference too). ASTC conference details can be found here.

I should also mention that the online consultation for Canadian copyright is drawing to a close on Sept. 13, 2009. If you are interested in making a submission, you can go here.

Let’s close the week with some nano haiku. From the NISE Net newsletter,

Nano, oh nano
With surface area so
Small, but big impact
by Keith Ostfeld of the Children’s Museum of Houston.

Happy weekend!

Preston Manning Interview (part 1 of 2) and PEN’s nanotechnology product inventory

6 Replies

After my informal series on innovation in Canada (July 13 – 15, 2009), I contacted Mr. Preston Manning as I mentioned his speech at Science Day in Canada (Ottawa) on May 27, 2009  in the context of the series and asked him some questions which he has kindly answered. For the introduction, I have taken the liberty of copying some biographical information about Mr. Manning from his website, the Manning Centre for Building Democracy,

Mr. Manning served as a Member of the Canadian Parliament from 1993 to 2001. He founded two new political parties – the Reform Party of Canada and the Canadian Reform Conservative Alliance – both of which became the official Opposition in the Canadian Parliament. Mr. Manning served as Leader of the Opposition from 1997 to 2000 and was also his party’s critic for Science and Technology. In 2007 he was made a Companion of the Order of Canada.

Since retirement from Parliament in 2002, Mr. Manning has released a book entitled Think Big (published by McClelland & Stewart) describing his use of the tools and institutions of democracy to change Canada’s national agenda. He has also served as a Senior Fellow of the Canada West Foundation and as a Distinguished Visitor at the University of Calgary and University of Toronto. He is a member of the Institute of Corporate Directors and is an Institute Certified Corporate Director.

He is also according to the National Institute of Nanotechnology (NINT) a member of their board.

  1. In your May 27, 2009 speech you mentioned that Canada’s beginnings are based in science and technology as per the establishment of the Geological Survey of Canada. This contrasts with the line of thought which suggests that Canadians have always been “drawers of water and hewers of wood” as per Harold Adams Innis’ staples theory. Can you reconcile these two views or do you consider them to be competing views? And why do you hold this opinion?

It’s true that Canada, particularly in the beginning, had a resource-based economy (Innis’ theory). But it is also true that Canada made a very early commitment to science and technology through establishing the Geological Survey of Canada. The Survey identified the water, wood, and other natural resources that Innis’ theory focuses on.

There are two more questions and answers from this interview which will be posted tomorrow. Meanwhile, I’ve been getting information from the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies (PEN) about various upcoming events (more about those tomorrow) and about their product inventory. From the news release about the product inventory,

Over 1,000 nanotechnology-enabled products have been made available to consumers around the world, according to the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies (PEN). The most recent update to the group’s three-and-a-half-year-old inventory reflects the increasing use of the tiny particles in everything from conventional products like non-stick cookware and lighter, stronger tennis racquets, to more unique items such as wearable sensors that monitor posture.
“The use of nanotechnology in consumer products continues to grow rapidly,” says PEN Director David Rejeski. “When we launched the inventory in March 2006 we only had 212 products. If the introduction of new products continues at the present rate, the number of products listed in the inventory will reach close to 1,600 within the next two years. This will provide significant oversight challenges for agencies like the Food and Drug Administration and Consumer Product Safety Commission, which often lack any mechanisms to identify nanotech products before they enter the marketplace.”
Health and fitness items continue to dominate the PEN inventory, representing 60 percent of products listed. More products are based on nanoscale silver—used for its antimicrobial properties—than any other nanomaterial; 259 products (26 percent of the inventory) use silver nanoparticles. The updated inventory represents products from over 24 countries, including the US, China, Canada, and Germany. This update also identifies products that were previously available, but for which there is no current information.

You can view the rest of the news release here and you can view the inventory here. It’s interesting to see that so many(60%)  products have silver nanoparticles which have been a matter of great concern regarding their impact on humans and other species as they enter the water supply. One note, the inventory includes products that may no longer be on the market.

One last bit before I sign off for today, I went to a luncheon welcoming a new dean (Dr. Cheryl Geisler) for a new faculty, the Faculty of Communication, Art, and Technology, at Simon Fraser University (SFU in Vancouver, Canada). They’ve taken a disparate group of departments and schools housed in different faculties to create this new faculty and Geisler is the founding or inaugural dean.

The audience was a mix of SFU brass (academic, administrative, and board of governors types) with business interests (Boeing, IBM, and the local business media guy, Peter Ladner) and the arts community (Max Wyman, Christopher Gaze, Terry Hunter, and Dalannah Gail Bowen) along with many others whom I did not recognize.

In her speech, Geisler did a good job of bringing together the disparate pieces of her portfolio and emphasizing her interest and belief in community both internally and externally to the university. She lost focus a few times, notably towards the end of the speech portion and  during the ‘town hall’ portion of her presentation. I think maintaining focus is going to be one her biggest challenges since in addition to the disparate groups being united in the new faculty (being called FCAT for short) her portfolio is spread on multiple campuses (Burnaby mountain, Harbour Centre, Surrey, and the new Woodward’s building in the downtown eastside). I hope to have more from Geisler soon as she has indicated she’ll give me an interview for this blog.

Waldo and robot hands circa. 2009; innovation in Canada, John Manley, and the university community

1 Reply

Shades of Robert Heinlein’s 1943 short story, Waldo, and Richard Feynman’s 1959 talk, There’s plenty of room at the bottom, to the American Physical Society!  Both of these texts feature the development of ‘smaller and smaller robotic hands to manipulate matter at the atomic and molecular levels’ and both of these have been cited as the birth of nanotechnology. The NanoHand Project (funded by the European Union) has developed microrobots designed to handle carbon nanotubes, according to the media release on Nanowerk News.  From the media release,

The robots, about two centimetres in size, work inside a scanning electron microscope where their activities can be followed by an observer. “The whole set-up is integrated into the vacuum chamber of the microscope,” [Volkmar] Eichhorn [of the University of Oldenberg] explains. “There is a glass plate where these mobile microrobots can walk around.”

Each robot has a ‘microgripper’ that can make precise and delicate movements. It works on an electrothermal principle to open and close the jaws, much like a pair of tweezers. The jaws open to about 2 micrometres and can pick up objects less than 100 nanometres in size. “[It is] really able to grip micro or even nano objects,”

Eichhorn says. “We have handled objects down to tens of nanometres.”

If you go to Nanowerk News, you will be able to see a video of the microrobots in action or you can go to the NanoHand site here for more information.

“I don’t think you could say that innovation is deeply in the DNA of our Canadian business enterprises,” [John Manley] said, “We have built prosperity, up to and including this decade, on a fairly basic paradigm: we are rich in natural resources.” (from the article, Innovation isn’t in Canada’s DNA by Paul Wells in MacLean’s magazine here.) I agree more closely with Manley’s quote than I do with the article’s headline writer who seems to be implying that Canadians are not genetically disposed to innovation. Manley very specifically fingers business enterprises and not people. (I briefly mentioned the article in my July 31, 2009 posting in the context of a discussion[also in MacLean’s] by the big 5 Canadian universities about funding and innovation.)