Tag Archives: nanotech

Butterfly wings inspire nanotechnology; Canadian nanoscience and business breakthrough?; Visible Verse

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The iridescence and colours that you see on butterflies and other insects result from  nanoscale structures not pigment as was believed previously. From a news item on Azonano,

Insects’ colours and their iridescence (the ability to change colours depending on the angle) or their ability to appear metallic are determined by tiny nano-sized photonic structures (1 nanometre=10-9 m) which can be found in their cuticle. Scientists have focused on these biostructures to develop devices with light emitting properties that they have just presented in the journal Bioinspiration & Biomimetics.

A joint team of researchers from the State University of Pennsylvania and the Universidad Autonoma de Madrid have developed a new technique for replicating these structures. From another news item on Azonano about the same research,

Up to now, the methods used to replicate biostructures on a nanometric scale have been limited, often damaging the original biostructure because of the high temperatures and toxic, corrosive substances that were applied.

The new method uses a normal temperature and avoids toxins.

Potential uses for this material (if and when it comes to market) include covers that maximize solar light cell absorption and optical diffusers, as well as, other optically active structures. What I found most intriguing is that the scientists have replicated the colours and iridescence that we see on butterfly wings and insects. I would imagine then that these structures will be quite beautiful (assuming the materials retain those properties at sizes much larger than butterflies and insects) and the aesthetics could help to increase consumer interest in solar cells.

There’s an interesting article (Canada strikes nanotech gold)  in Canadian Business by Rosie Lombardi about FP Innovations and a new material, NanoCrystalline Cellulose, which the company is readying for the market. I suspect FP could stand for ‘forest products although I couldn’t confirm it from viewing their website although the company tag line is highly suggestive, Creating forest sector solutions.

From the article,

Although the concept of NCC has been around for decades and its source — any kind of tree — is abundant, Berry and his team have cracked the code in developing a process to produce large-scale quantities economically.

NCC has many unusual properties, in addition to having all the biodegradable attributes associated with its cellulose source.  Materials scientists are in awe of NCC’s extraordinary potential due to its strength, optical properties, conductivity, reactivity, self-assembling, anti-microbial, self-cleaning and bio-compatibility characteristics. “NCC is beautiful,” says Orlando Rojas, chair of the American Chemical Society.

Design plans for a plant have been developed by NORAM Engineering +  Constructors,  a Vancouver-based company, and three Canadian forestry companies are currently vying for the right to host the federally-funded facility (competition results should be announced by the end of 2009).

Why all the excitement from forest companies? From the article,

But it’s hard-nosed economic imperatives, not just green goodwill, that are driving the battered forestry sector to pour millions into research for new products that may ensure its survival.

Over the past two years, the Canadian forestry sector lost 50,000 jobs and more than 250 mills closed or suspended operations, according to Avrim Lazar, CEO of the Forest Products Association of Canada.

The sector has been bleeding red ink since 2006, says Craig Campbell, leader of the Canadian forestry group at PricewaterhouseCoopers. “It’s been hard hit by the sub-prime mortgage crisis. Most of our lumber goes to the U.S. but housing starts were down 75% last winter. And newsprint is another key area: demand has been contracting every quarter since 9/11.”

As a result, the forestry industry is looking to transform itself by switching its focus beyond tissue paper and two-by-fours to producing higher-value materials with advanced technology.

I’ve commented before about Canadians being seen as ‘drawers of water and hewers of wood’ and so I find this development is very much in line with our history.  From the article,

Having conquered the science and start-up issues, Canadian researchers now have yet another mountain to climb. The real hurdles in developing NCC’s potential lie in economics, and the complicated realm of working with other industries outside the familiar confines of the forestry sector to develop new industrial applications.

To facilitate cross-industry development, a new R&D network called ArboraNano was set up this year through Industry Canada’s Business-led Centres of Excellence program. The initiative received $8.9 million in funding over four years, and is working with industry partners such as Bell Helicopter and Kruger, and scientists at McGill and other universities to develop and test new materials made with NCC for various industries.

Canada is doing a lot of things right, says Jones. [Phil Jones, Atlanta-based director of new ventures at IMERYS Mineral Ltd.] “Supporting the application development side is the critical bit. People talk about the valley of death: university guys spin out ideas, and then industry has to commercialize them. But that part is enormously expensive, and the five-year payback is usually low. Anyone in industry doing this is punished by Wall Street.”

I think Canadians support companies through their ‘valley of death’ stage quite well. We just don’t grow the companies afterward; we sell them, which contributes in part to the lack of  industrial innovation in Canada. No company gets big enough to support a large industrial laboratory.

Kudos to Rosie Lombardi for an exciting and hopeful article. Do read the article, there’s a lot I couldn’t include here.

My nitpicks have nothing to do with the writer but I would like to have seen some information about health and safety and environmental issues as per NCC production and some scientific information about NCC. I expect the magazine, Canadian Business, does not encourage forays into topics that are not usually considered part of the business scene but if business is based on economics, then health, safety, and environmental concerns are important and ignored economic issues in many business magazines. As for more science information, I have to admit that’s my personal preference.

Heather Haley’s annual videopoetry festival, See the Voice: Visible Verse 2009 will take place on November 19, 2009, 7:30 pm at Pacific Cinematheque (1131 Howe St., Vancouver, Canada). You can read more about the festival here. This year, in addition to the short videos, the festival features a live performance by Gabrielle Everall from Australia.

Art conservation and nanotechnology; the science of social networks; carbon nanotubes and possible mesothelioma; Eric Drexler has a few words

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It looks like nanotechnology innovations in the field of art conservation may help preserve priceless works for longer and with less damage. The problem as articulated in Michael Berger’s article on Nanowerk is,

“Nowadays, one of the most important problems faced during the cleaning of works of art is the removal of organic materials, mainly acrylic polymers, applied in the past as consolidants or protective coatings,” explains Piero Baglioni, a professor of Physical Chemistry at the University of Florence. “Unfortunately, their application induces a drastic alteration of the interfacial properties of the artwork and leads to increased degradation. These organic materials must therefore be removed.”

Baglioni and his colleagues at the University of Florence have developed “… a micro-emulsion cleaning agent that is designed to dissolve only the organic molecules on the surface of a painting …”

This is a little off Azonano’s usual beat (and mine too) but Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s Army Research Laboratory is launching an interdisciplinary research center for the study of social and cognitive networks.  From the news item,

“Rensselaer offers a unique research environment to lead this important new network science center,” said Rensselaer President Shirley Ann Jackson. “We have assembled an outstanding team of researchers, and built powerful new research platforms. The team will work with one of the largest academic supercomputing centers in the world – the Rensselaer Computational Center for Nanotechnology Innovations – and the leading visualization and simulation capabilities within our new Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center. The Center for Social and Cognitive Networks will bring together our world-class scientists in the areas of computer science, cognitive science, physics, Web science, and mathematics in an unprecedented collaboration to investigate all aspects of the ever-changing and global social climate of today.”

…

The center will study the fundamentals of social and cognitive networks and their roles in today’s society and organizations, including the U.S. Army. The goal will be to gain a deeper understanding of these networks and build a firm scientific basis in the field of network science. The work will include research on large social networks, with a focus on networks with mobile agents. An example of a mobile agent is someone who is interacting (e.g., communicating, observing, helping, distracting, interrupting, etc.) with others while moving around the environment.

My suspicion is that the real goal for the work is to exploit the data for military advantage, if possible. Any other benefits would be incidental. Of course, a fair chunk of the technology we enjoy today (for example, tv and the internet) was investigated by the military first.

I’ve mentioned carbon nanotubes and possible toxicology before. Specifically, some carbon nanotubes resemble asbestos fibers and pilot studies have suggested they may behave the same way when ingested by one means or another  into the body. There is a new confirmation of this hypothesis with a study where mice inhaled carbon nanotubes. From the news item on Nanowerk,

Using mice in an animal model study, the researchers set out to determine what happens when multi-walled carbon nanotubes are inhaled. Specifically, researchers wanted to determine whether the nanotubes would be able to reach the pleura, which is the tissue that lines the outside of the lungs and is affected by exposure to certain types of asbestos fibers which cause the cancer mesothelioma. The researchers used inhalation exposure and found that inhaled nanotubes do reach the pleura and cause health effects.

This was one exposure and the mice recovered after three months. More studies will be needed to determine the effects of repeated exposure. This study (Inhaled Carbon Nanotubes Reach the Sub-Pleural Tissue in Mice by Dr. James Bonner, Dr. Jessica Ryman-Rasmussen, Dr. Arnold Brody, et. al.) can be found in the Oct. 25, 2009 issue of Nature Nanotechnology.

On Friday (Oct. 23, 2009) I mentioned an essay by Chris Toumey on the forthcoming 50th anniversary of Richard Feynman’s seminal talk, There’s plenty of room at the bottom. Today I found a response to the essay by Eric Drexler.  From Drexler’s essay on Nanowerk,

Unfortunately, yesterday’s backward-looking guest article in Nanowerk reinforces the widespread but quite mistaken idea that my views are essentially the opposite of what I’ve stated above, and that those perverse ideas are also those of the Foresight Institute. I cannot speak for that organization, or vice versa, because I left it years ago. Contrary to what the article may suggest, I have no affiliation with the organization whatsoever. Regarding terminology, it is of course entirely appropriate to use the term “nanotechnology” to describe nanoscale technologies. The idea that there is a conflict between progress in the field and future applications of that progress is puzzling. This idea appears to stem from a strange episode that came to a head during the political push for the bill that established and funded the U.S. National Nanotechnology Initiative, an episode in which some leading science spokesmen quite properly rejected a collection of popular fantasies, but quite improperly attributed those fantasies to me. Reading claims by confused enthusiasts and the press that “Drexler says this” or “Drexler says that” is no substitute for reading my journal articles, or the technical analysis in my book, Nanosystems, and in my MIT dissertation). The failure of these leaders to do their homework has had substantial and lingering toxic effects.

(My own focus was on the ‘origin’ story for nanotechnology and not on Drexler’s theories.) If I understand the situation rightly, much of the controversy has its roots in Drexler’s popular book, Engines of Creation. It was written over 20 years ago and struck a note which reverberates to this day. The irony is that there are writers who’d trade places with Drexler in a nano second. Imagine having that kind of impact on society and culture (in the US primarily). The downside as Drexler has discovered is that the idea or story has taken on its own life. For a similar example, take Mary Shelley’s book where Frankenstein is not the monster’s name, it’s the scientist’s name. However, the character took its own life and name.

Nanotechnology and the European Economy; Nokia and IBM’s augmented reality meetings; Don Eigler hypes nanotechnology; physical/virtual/augmented reality meetings with IBM and Nokia

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In keeping with my belief that the developments I’m observing are threads in a complex conversation (as per yesterday’s [Oct.20.09] posting), I’m back to highlighting various news items that hint at possible trends.

The European Commission’s Directorate-General for Research has published a call for proposals to study the economic impact of nanotechnology and nanosciences. You can get more details here on Azonano or view the call here.

There’s an interview with Don Eigler, the IBM scientist who’s known for moving Xenon atoms individually so they spell out IBM, in New Scientist here. Interestingly, Mr. Eigler does not have any concerns with regard to health fears related to nanotechnology. He’s aware of toxicology issues but he thinks that if we get it right, there’ll be very few problems, if any.

Following on my ‘nature of reality’ kick, this item about IBM and Nokia developing software that allows virtual reality/augmented reality meetings in physical space caught my attention.From the news item on Physorg.com

With support from IBM Research and Nokia Research Center, the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland created an experimental system that enables people in multiple locations to interact and collaborate with avatars and objects in a single, virtual meeting . Objects and avatars are located in a “virtual” space that mirrors the corresponding physical room.

There is a video included with the story and it looked like the meeting was taking place in three spaces, two of them were physical and one was virtual. One office (physical) had two people who were interacting with virtual objects while simultaneously meeting in a virtual meeting room with their avatars and the same virtual objects they’d been interacting with in the physical space. A third person (in a geographically removed physical office) joined them in the virtual meeting. Do take a look.

The questions that spring to my mind are these: are all the spaces real? Is one space more real than the others and why? Some might argue that the virtual space is less real because it isn’t physical but then neither are your emotions. Also in the postings here about perception and quantum realities (Oct. 16, 19, and 20, 2009), I noted that our perceptions of reality at the macro level do not coincide with the realities of the quantum world which occasions this questions, What is the nature of reality?

Quantum realities and perceptions (part 2)

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To sum up Friday’s posting: I discussed the nature of reality (both quantum and macro) and its relationship to our perceptions while examining a Buddhist perspective on science. Today, I’m adding a recently published (Nature Nanotechnology) paper, Anticipating the perceived risk of nanotechnologies, by Terre Satterfield [University of British Columbia, Canada], Milind Kandlikar, Christian E. H. Beaudrie, Joseph Conti and Barbara Herr-Harthorn to the mix.

It’s a meta-analysis of a number of public surveys on nanotechnology and perceptions of risk. From the paper,

Perception is critical [] for a number of reasons: because human behaviour is derivative of what we believe or perceive to be true [emphasis mine]; because perceptions and biases are not easily amenable to change with new knowledge1 [ ] and because risk perceptions are said to be, at least in part, the result of social and psychological factors and not a ‘knowledge deficit’ about risks per se []. [Note: I can’t figure out how to reproduce the numbered notes in superscripted form as my WordPress installation is still problematic. Please read the article if you are interested in them.] p. 1 of the PDF.

Although the authors of the paper are not concerned with the ultimate nature of reality, the words I’ve emphasized struck home because it touches on the notion of relationships. From Peter McKnight’s article about Buddhism and science,

In other words, how we define the objects of our knowledge — in this case, particles — depends on the capacity we have to know about them. This instrumentalist view has a deeply Kantian flavour: Kant taught that our knowledge of phenomena is a product of the relation between things and our ways of knowing about them, rather than about things themselves.

… [Mathieu Ricard, Buddhist monk and former geneticist speaking]

“All properties, all observable phenomena, appear in relationship with each other and dependent on each other. This view of interdependence — one thing arising in dependence on another, and their relationship — actually defines what appear to us as objects. So relations and interdependence are the basic fabric of reality. We participate in that interdependence with our consciousness; we crystallize some aspect of it that appears to us as objects.”

At the base, it’s our perception that governs our behaviour which in turn governs our relationships. Richard Jones in his book (2004), Soft Machines, had this to say,

Issues that concern the nature of life are particularly prone to lead to such a reaction–hence the gulf that has opened up between many scientists and many of the public about the rights and wrongs of genetic modification. These very profound issues about the proper relationship between man and nature are likely to become very urgent as bionanotechnology develops. p. 217

It seems that Jones is not alone, from the Satterfield, et al. paper,

More broadly as applications move as predicted towards more complex domains where bioinformation and nanotechnologies converge, the nature of the risks involved will move beyond the immediate concerns relation to toxicity and enter into contentious moral and ethical terrains. p. 6 of PDF

For me, the whole thing resembles a very complex conversation. More tomorrow.

Quantum realities and perceptions (part 1)

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(This is going to be a ‘philosophical’ entry.) The more I read about nanotechnology and look into the science, the more I wonder about the nature of reality. Serendipitously, the Dalai Lama was in Vancouver (Canada) recently which occasioned an article (by Peter McKnight of the Vancouver Sun, Saturday, Sept. 26, 2009, p. C5) titled Exploring the nature of reality; Buddhism and  science are not always in agreement, but they still have much in common.  (The Dalai Lama is quite interested in science and he supported a series of dialogues between scientists and Buddhists which started in 1987.(

From the Buddhist perspective, reality is an illusion so there cannot be indivisible particles such as electrons and quarks which, according to scientists, are the basic building blocks for matter.  Consequently, you cannot use measurements (of charge, mass, and spin angular momentum) to prove their existence as the measurements themselves are illusory. From the article,

The Dalai Lama put it this  way: “things and their properties are mutually dependent … one can speak of an entity only in relation to attributes, and one can speak of attributes only in relation to an entity. Once you have conceptually removed all the attributes, it is nonsensical to speak of what remains.”

These Buddhist concepts are in sharp contrast to what many scientists believe, i.e. there are indivisible objects and matter is real.

Getting back to Buddhism, it reminds me a little of Bruno Latour’s work, Laboratory Life; The Construction of Scientific Facts, where he points out that the practice of science is very much informed by perception, social relations, and belief.

As as I’m concerned, it’s always been a’ best guess’ scenario and one proceeds with a theory as long as it works. I found out that I am not alone; there is a philosophy for thinkers like me, ‘instrumentalism’. From the article,

… [scientific] theories are seen as ways of explaining, predicting and controlling phenomena, and concepts like electrons are viewed as constructs that help us to make predictions and control nature. Instrumentalism therefore doesn’t deny reality. If it did, there would be no chance of making accurate predictions because there would be nothing to predict and nothing to control. Rather, instrumentalism merely says that our scientific theories don’t get to the ultimate truth about reality. But they work, and that’s what’s important.

(If you want to read more from the article, go here.) As noted earlier, I’ve been playing with these ideas as I’ve been exploring nanotechnology and the quantum world. In reading about nanotech and quantum realities, it’s always a leap of the imagination. The descriptions of what occurs at the atomic and molecular levels contradicts the sensory input I receive. Take this for example from an article by Michael Berger (Shaking hands with a virus — getting all touchy-feely with nanotechnology) on Nanowerk,

So while your ‘reality’ tells you that you are sitting in your chair right now as you are reading this, reality at the subatomic level means that you are not really sitting in your chair – thanks to the repulsion of your and the chair’s electrons you are actually floating on it at a height of a fraction of a nanometer.

This a complete contradiction of what I perceive and yet scientists say it’s so and on the basis of their work have made all kinds of quantum discoveries which have been applied to real world products.

In common with quantum particles, my objects too can be measured (they have weight, dimension, hardness, state [gas/liquid/solid], etc.) My perceptions and my measurements are the only proof I have of reality and yet according to scientists there is another reality at the nano scale and their means of proving that ‘nano’ reality is similar to mine.This all leads to the question I started with, what is the nature of reality? (more next week)

On a somewhat related note, I’ve got a lovely short story from Bruno Breathnach, A simple glass of water, which has a very Buddhist flavour.

Happy weekend!

Nano magazine; quantum tamers; insight into Intel; science publicity hounds

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I found a new magazine, nano: The Magazine for Small Science,  this morning (thanks to Andy Miah). There’s an eclectic range of material some of which you can access  for free here.  I’m particularly interested in the ‘Nano’ versus nano article by Andrew Carruthers as it’s all about marketing and branding and how nanotechnology branding should not be left to marketing communications departments in various businesses. He uses Apple’s iPod Nano and Tata’s Nano Car as two examples of businesses that used the word nano to brand their products. I understand that neither product is considered truly nano-based which makes the examples rather telling since they are branding exercises that could be described as purely ‘fantasy’.

Carruthers does mention ‘Silver Nano’ products (which are nano-based) marketed by Samsung but there is no comparison of the marketing strategies or even a discussion of the difference between ‘fantasy’ and genuine nano products. That said, I have no idea what his constraints were with regard to word count.

Carruthers states the main issue this way,

Like so many areas of research, nanotechnology can be discussed quite easily with people who understand it, but can effortlessly mutate into a perfect nightmare when explaining it to people who do not. At some time or another, many of us will have been placed in a position where it was necessary to explain our professions and areas of research to people who may not understand them. On many occasions, such people seem keen yet are completely dumbfounded by colourful explanations. There is a sense of dismay [emphasis mine] as they and others ‘misinterpret’ descriptions, ask seemingly unrelated questions, and generally find endeavours at explanation incomprehensible and bewildering. In the main, people are quite genuinely either oblivious to nanotechnology, or have a decidedly skewed notion of ‘what it does’. This chasm within public understanding can be quite easily filled by other means, and the real difficulty is when that chasm becomes filled by marketing communications, rather than fact.

I don’t agree with him about having a “… sense of dismay …”  when people misunderstand or misinterpret information as I think those interactions provide useful data for the person who’s doing the explaining. Sometimes a ‘wrong’ question points you in a completely direction because it wasn’t the question that was wrong, it was you.

In my opinion,  marketing communication and pop culture are for most people the top purveyors of science information, like it or not. The challenge is finding a way to get your own messages out there and heard by using some of the same strategies or even incorporating some of the ‘noxious’ marketing communication messages. I’m not sure whether Carruthers would agree with me or not but, given the tone of his article, I think not. You can read the article for yourself here.

Quantum Tamers; Revealing our weird and wired future is a documentary being presented October 17, 2009 at the Quantum to Cosmos (Q2C) festival in Waterloo, Canada. From the Azonano news item,

The documentary brings together a stellar line-up of quantum experts to explore promising future technologies involving super quantum computers, ultra secure quantum codes to safeguard our communications, and even teleportation.

Although quantum principles are not fully understood, quantum technologies are already responsible for many advances in technology we already use including lasers and their many applications, magnetic resonance imaging (MRIs), modern micro circuitry, plus CDs and DVDs.

For more about the festival including details about when and where the documentary will be shown, go here.

Since the January 2009 announcement, by Paul Otellini, Intel CEO, that Intel would be investing $7B US to retool three  plants for the manufacture if 32 nanometre chips, I’ve been interested in Intel’s progress. This morning I found an article by Ellen McGirt on Fast Company which details Intel’s latest reinvention. I was intrigued to note that the $7B US investment was mentioned without a single hint that it’s a nanotechnology initiative.  From page 5 of the article,

When he [Otellini] made the unusual decision to travel to Washington, D.C., early this year to announce his $7 billion bet on U.S. manufacturing, “no one knew where the bottom was [in the economy], and there was a lot of uncertainty,” he recalls. The business case for U.S.-based facilities may not have been clear to others, but to Otellini, it’s right out of the Intel playbook: If the company controls manufacturing, it can control quality. “Now, we’re going to be a generation ahead.” He had another motive, too: “I wanted to get the attention of the government and to send a message to other companies that Intel was investing in the United States at a time of great uncertainty, and that we should reinvest together in the infrastructure of the country.” If this was a considered effort to improve Intel’s standing for future infrastructure projects, it’s not one other companies have picked up on. The response from other business leaders, he says, has been mute. “On the other hand, the President called and said that it was the only piece of good economic news since he’d been inaugurated,” Otellini says.

It’s an interesting article not least for how the writer portrays the various personalities.

I had a little wake-up call this morning on reading one of Andrew Maynard’s recent posts (here) where he is excoriating the publicity practices of some peer-reviewed journals. He mentions two articles that I have posted about here (the China deaths and the Canadian nano safety article from yesterday, October 15, 2009) and notes that the articles are being held back from public scrutiny for rather long periods while they are being made available to journalists and science writers with the effect that they are not receiving the scrutiny that they should. I had vaguely noticed that the first article was not available when I went looking and that the access information for the article I mentioned yesterday was vague but I didn’t make much of it. So, thanks Andrew for making me stop and think about it.

Body computing; Canadian scientists talk about nano safety

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Did you know that a pedometer is considered body computing? I had not realized that before reading Chris Dannen’s Fast Company article, Million-Dollar Question: Who Owns Your Genetic Data? The body computing concept includes implanted, digested, or wearable devices that transmit health data.  From the article,

But the fundamental shift that comes with body computing, says Dr. Leslie Saxon, cofounder of the Body Computing Conference, is “dignifying the patient by allowing them access in a connected world.”But does access equal ownership?

This, of course, was written in the US and I believe that they have  a different legal approach than the one we have in Canada to issues such as owning genetic material. Still, it’s food for thought as we devise new means to monitor health and interface with computers.

In a forthcoming issue of the International Journal of Nanotechnology, Patricia Dolez of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the École de technologie supérieure in Montreal (Canada) along with her colleagues have published a paper which suggests that the current safety gear may not be adequate for protection from handling potentially noxious nanomaterials.

Nanotechnology and European NGOs; 2009 Nobel in Physics has Canadian connections; China’s nanotechnology roadmap; Canada Research Chair Hongbin Li

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Lately (as in this year), there’s been a lot of substantive interest in regulating nanotechnology:

  • the recent joint Transatlantic Regulatory project which brought together the London School of Economics, Chatham House, the Environmental Law Institute and the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies (PEN) for a report and a series of presentations.  (I discussed the PEN presentation here.)
  • the recent announcement from the US Environmental Protection Agency about their new nanomaterials research which will presumably result in discussion about regulations. (I mentioned the announcement here.)
  • the January 2009 announcement by Environment Canada that they would be conducting a one time nanomaterials inventory. This type of announcement offers the distinct possibility that future regulation may be on the agenda. (I first discussed  this initiative in my Feb. 3, 2009, Feb. 4, 2009, and Feb.8, 2009 postings.)

Now a new group has issued a report, the European Environment Bureau (from the news item on Nanowerk),

The European Environmental Bureau (EEB), Europe’s largest federation of environmental citizens’ organisations, launched a report (“Nanotechnologies in the 21st Century – A Critical Review of Governance Issues in Europe and Elsewhere (October 09”)  outlining the critical governance structures needed for the safe development and use of nanotechnology.

You can read more here.

As I noted in my headline, the 2009 Nobel Prize for Physics has some Canadian connections. From the Fast Company article by Kit Eaton,

Half the prize went to Charles Kao for work that led to long-distance fiber-optic communications. Born in Shanghai, he was educated in the U.K. and worked in one of the early companies that became the current Nortel (emphasis mine). This is where he did research into the fiber-optic systems available at the time, which had been puzzling scientists and engineers by not nearing their theoretical efficiency, and remaining good only for short-distance signaling. Kao’s experiments proved the reason behind these inefficiencies was impurities in the glass making up the fibers–this effected the refractive index of the medium as well as how much light was wasted by scattering instead of being neatly piped down the fiber to the receiving electronics.

…

The other half of the prize was shared by Canadian (emphasis mine) Willard Boyle and American George Smith for their co-invention of the Charge-Coupled Device. This little optically-sensitive chip, with its neat shift-bit way of getting data from the individual light-sensitive pixels to the data pipe that connects the sensor to a computer, is basically the invention that made possible the whole field of digital photography.

If you have any interest in China’s science and technology scene, Springer and the Chinese Academy of Sciences have announced that they are publishing a series of reports, roadmaps for the next 40 years.  The first reports are out on Oct. 14, 2009 and there will be more in 2010. I see that one of the 2010 reports will be on nanotechnology. For more details, you can go here.

I almost missed the announcement that Dr. Hongbin Li at the University of British Columbia has received a Canada Research Chair in Molecular Nanoscience and Protein Engineering. Congratulations Dr. Li! I posted a two-part interview in 2008 that  Dr. Li kindly granted me here and here.

Happy T Day! Robots; Nano-enabled prosthetics; ISEA 2009 aesthetics and prosthetics; Global TV (national edition): part 2

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Happy Thanksgiving to everyone as Canada celebrates.

Since I have mentioned military robots in the not too distant past, this recent headline Two Military Robots That Rival the Creepiest Sci-Fi Creatures for Kit Eaton’s Fast Company article caught my eye. One of the robots, Big Dog (and its companion prototype Small Dog), utilizes artificial intelligence to navigate terrain and assist soldiers in the field. The larger one can carry heavy loads while the smaller one could be used for reconnaissance. The other robot is a cyborg beetle. Electrodes have been implanted so the beetle’s flight patterns can be controlled. There are two videos, one for each robot. It is a very disconcerting experience watching the beetle being flown by someone standing in front of a set of controls.

Keeping with the theme of planting electrodes, I found something on Azonano about a bio- adaptive prosthetic hand. Funded by the European Union as a nanotechnology project, here’s more from the news item,

What is unique about the sophisticated prototype artificial hand developed by the SMARTHAND partners is that not only does it replicate the movements of a real hand, but it also gives the user sensations of touch and feeling. The researchers said the hand has 4 electric motors and 40 sensors that are activated when pressed against an object. These sensors stimulate the arm’s nerves to activate a part in the brain that enables patients to feel the objects.

…

Led by Sweden’s Lund University, the researchers continue to work on the sensory feedback system within the robotic hand. The hurdle they need to cross is to make the cables and electric motors smaller. Nanotechnology could help the team iron out any problems. Specifically, they would implant a tiny processing unit, a power source and a trans-skin communication method into the user of the hand to optimise functionality.

It’s a fascinating read which brought to mind an ISEA (International Symposium on Electronic Arts) 2009 presentation by Dr. Lanfranco Aceti (professor at Sabanci University in Istanbul, Turkey). Titled The Aesthetic Beauty of the Artificial: When Prosthetic Bodies Become an Art Expression of Empowering Design Technologies, the presentation was a revelation. Dr. Aceti’s research yielded a rather surprising insight from a doctor in London, England who specializes in prosthetics. According to the doctor, women want limbs that most closely resemble their original but men (under 50 years old usually) want limbs that are metallic and/or look high tech. Lanfranco suggested that the men have been influenced by movies. Take for example, Wolverine (Wikipedia entry here) where the hero’s skeleton has been reinforced with metal and he can make his claws (now covered with metal) protrude from his arms at will. You can view Lanfranco’s site here or a simple biography about him here.

A few months back I posted about  prosthetics and design student projects and I’m starting to sense a trend emerging from these bits and pieces of information. There is the repair aspect to prosthetics but there is also an increasing interest not just in the aesthetics but in the notion of improving on the original. At its most extreme, I can imagine people wanting to remove perfectly healthy limbs and organs to get an improved version.

I got a chance to see part 2 of Global TV’s (broadcast in Canada) nanotechnology series, Small Wonders. As I’ve noticed that my link for part 1 of the series is no longer useful I am providing a link to part 2 which will land you on the search page. If you don’t see part 2 listed, go to the mutimedia tab which is just above the search results and where you can find part 1 and I assume, at some point, part 2.

As I hoped, they focused on nanotechnology projects in the materials field in part 2 of the series. They noted that nanotechnology-based materials in sports equipment and clothing are already available in the market place. An interview with Dr. Robert Wolkow at the National Institute of Nanotechnology and at the Physics Dept. at the University of Alberta, featured a discussion about replacing silicon chips with more efficient materials built at the molecular level.