Tag Archives: National Institute of Nanotechnology

Canada, nanotechnology, and food

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On the heels of last week’s House of Lords report (Nanotechnologies and food) I thought I’d take a look at the Canadian scene. Here’s what I found after a fast online search.  Health Canada has a nanotechnology web page here. It doesn’t seem to have been updated since early 2007.  There are no links or reports posted, just a promise such as this found on the web page,

Regulating products to ensure the health and safety of Canadians and the environment is a priority for Health Canada. Currently, the Department is using the existing legislative and regulatory frameworks to regulate applications of nanotechnology, but it is recognized that new approaches may be necessary in the future to keep pace with the advances in this area.

There is a description of the Canadian situation on a webpage hosted by the International Union of Food Science and Technology and Institute of Food Technologists here, titled An Overview of Food Related Nanoscience in Advanced Foods and Materials Network (AFMNet) and in Canada authored by Rickey Yada and Lorraine Sheremata [sic]. This doesn’t appear to have been updated after late 2007. From the web page,

In conclusion, although nanoscience research efforts in Canada have progressed substantially over the past few years with the activities of AFMNet, NINT [National Institute of Nanotechnology] and regional nodes, a number of issues still remain to be addressed: major gaps still exist in our understanding of the health, safety, environmental and societal impacts of nanotechnology – filling these gaps will be critically important to the long term success of nanotechnology; in order for the benefits of science and technology at the nanoscale level (e.g. reproductive and genetic technologies, regenerative medicine, synthetic biology, food science) to be realized and accepted, public trust will have to be gained via a coherent and rational approach to stewardship and finally; careful planning and strategic research coordination is necessary to avoid duplication of research efforts, thereby, allowing for synergistic and complementary efforts.

You can visit AFMNet here if you’re curious about this academic organization which gives information useful to researchers.

Interestingly and since the last time I looked (probably mid-2009), the National Institute of Nanotechnology has added a NE3LS (Nanotechnology Ethical, Environmental, Economic, Legal and Social Issues) research programme here. Coincidentally, Lorraine Sheremeta (one of the authors of the food science and nanotechnology web page I referenced just previously) is a member of this research group. From the web page,

The NE3LS researchers focus on understanding the development of nanoscience and technology within a broader societal and transnational context. Current and ongoing research is focused on the development of a deeper understanding of issues related to the environment, human health and safety, law, policy and ethics, public opinion, commercialization and the development of a socio-historical analysis of the growth of nanoscience and technology.

NE3LS research has an important role to play in ensuring that acceptance or rejection of nanotechnology by society is based on a genuine understanding of specific technologies and the appropriate weighing of risks and benefits (both known and potential).

As I’m coming to expect, there are no posted reports and no links to more information.

I gather the Canadian government believes that food, health, and safety as regards nanotechnology is important but no additional information is to be shared with the rest of us.

Nanotechnology strategies everywhere except Canada; Visible Verse 2009; OECD workshops on nanotech in developing world

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There’s an article by Michael Berger on Nanowerk titled, European strategy for nanotechnology and the nanotechnology Action Plan, where he outlines the European Union’s approach to creating a strategy, contrasts it in a few asides (launching potshots at the Europeans) with the US approach, and provides some handy links. Coincidentally there’s a news item on Nanowerk about RUSNANO (the Russian publicly funded nanotech investment agency) visiting Sweden. From the news item,

A RUSNANO delegation headed by CEO Anatoly Chubais will visit Sweden on November 19-20, 2009 to study the support that government offers for innovative developments, share with Sweden’s business and scientific communities the goals and principles that guide RUSNANO’s activities and discuss opportunities to collaborate in commercialization of nanotechnologies with their Swedish counterparts.

Canada hosted RUSNANO a few months back for similar purposes but interestingly there was no mention of studying “the support that government offers for innovative developments … ” and I’m not sure if it’s because there isn’t a support framework, official or otherwise, in Canada or if they failed to mention it in the news release. (I strongly suspect the former.) I blogged here about RUSNANO’s visit to Canada at the time.

Taking Sweden and the UK as examples, it would seem that European countries have both a European Union framework and an individual country framework for nanotechnology. The US has its National Nanotechnology Initiative (in place since 2000). China will provide some sort of insight into its nanotechnology plans via its road map series which I mentioned briefly here. Canada remains mute. You can view the National Institute of Nanotechnology’s website but you’d be hard pressed to find any details about an overall strategy for nanotechnology scientific research, public engagement, business support, education, social impact  etc. (Despite the institute’s name that’s probably not in their scope of responsibilities but I can’t find that information anywhere.) You will find a list of the institute’s research areas but you won’t find an overview of the Canadian nanotech research scene or much of anything else (to date they have distributed three news releases in 2009 and none in 2008 but 2007 was a banner year, there were four).

For a brief respite from the nano, Heather Haley’s See the Voice: Visible Verse 2009 (video poetry festival) is being held tonight (Thursday, November 19, 2009) at Pacific Cinematheque at 7:30 pm, 1131 Howe St. Vancouver, Canada. You can buy tickets or read more about it here.

Back to the international nanotechnology front: The OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) and UNITAR (United Nations Institute for Training and Research) are holding joint nanotechnology awareness workshops for transitional and developing countries. You can read more about them in the news item on Nanowerk.

Edited at 3:05 pm PST, Nov. 19.09 to change electronic poetry to video poetry.

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.

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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.

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

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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.

Alberta welcomes a new nanotechnology product and research centre plus some news on a kissing phone

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The new facility will be called the Hitachi Electron Microscopy Products Development Centre (HEMiC) at Canada’s National Institute of Nanotechnology (NINT) at the University of Alberta, Edmonton. From the media release (on Azonano),

“Alberta’s strength in nanotechnologies, and the province’s coordinated strategy for nanotechnology made our decision to seek a partnership here easy,” said John Cole, President of Hitachi High-Technologies Canada, Inc. “This initiative engages Hitachi with Alberta’s nanotechnology community at the leading edge of research while contributing to commercial opportunities.”

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The Centre will house three new electron microscopes valued at $7 million, including the first-ever Hitachi environmental transmission electron microscope Model H-9500 in operation outside of Japan.

There are many quotes in the media release, surprisingly, none from Dr. Nils Petersen, NINT’s  Director General.

Fast Company is featuring an article by Kit Eaton about phones that won’t require buttons for control (more touch screen-type technology but introducing a new level of innovation). As it turns out, these phones will be coming from Nokia. Kissing the phone as a gesture that you want to contact a loved is just one of the ideas being explored. More here including a Nokia video about the project. The product designers are looking at how people gesture and, depending on your culture, the meaning behind gestures can vary greatly as the Nokia designer notes in the video. Anyway, this type of project relates to my interest in multimodal discourse and my suspicion that we won’t be writing (or for the matter reading) as much as we do now.

Rob Annan over at Don’t leave Canada behind has picked up on my series of last week’s about innovation in Canada, in his posting Canada not simply hewers and drawers.

Finland, nanotechnology and innovation

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I wasn’t planning it but this has turned into a series about Finland, innovation, and the Canadian approach to innovation. Today should be the final installment (ooops, it changed again) with this one focusing on nanotechnology.

In February 2009, a study, prepared for Tekes, the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation, showed that nanotechnology companies had tripled in number between 2004 and 2008. From their media release on Nanowerk News,

In 2008, private investments in nanotechnology were for the first time greater than public investments. The industry received public funding worth 38 million euros, industry investments were 56.6 million euros and venture capital funding 9.5 million euros. …

“The internationalisation of nanotechnology companies requires ongoing improvement of the funding opportunities. According to the study, exporting products to international markets requires dozens of million euros within the next two years. Both public and private funding are required,” says Markku Lämsä, the FinNano Programme Manager at Tekes. The nanotechnology industry’s shift from research to commercialization is giving a boost to Finnish industry during the current economic downturn.

This whole approach contrasts somewhat strongly with what we appear to be doing here in Canada. We talk about innovation instead we fund infrastructure projects (see the Don’t leave Canada behind blog for confirmation..particularly items like the funding for Arctic research stations which I linked to  in yesterday’s posting). On the nanotechnology front, the Canadian NanoBusiness Alliance shut its doors either late last year or early this year, Nanotech BC has not been able to secure the funding it needs, and the National Institute of Nanotechnology (NINT) has lost its individual brand and been swept back under the National Research Council (NRC) brand. As for a nanotechnology policy or initiative, Canada seems to be one of the few countries in the world that simply doesn’t have one.  As for the business end of things, I will write about that tomorrow.

What happened to Canada’s National Insitute of Nanotechnology?

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It’s been a while since I’ve visited Canada’s National Institute of Nanotechnology’s (NINT) website and since it’ s pretty slow on the news front these days I figured I’d check out their news releases. It wasn’t there! It’s  been absorbed into the National Research Council’s (NRC) site.

These things usually portend some sort of political shenanigans, which can range from internal NRC politics to federal policy mandates to funding issues, or some combination of them all. In NINT’s case, you can also include the provincial government (Alberta) as they were (and possibly still are) funding a significant portion of the institute’s budget.

The NINT information now available has been ‘branded’ by the NRC. It looks slick and seems a bit better organized than it was in some respects. One exception is in the area of media information. NINT media releases are now grouped with all of the NRC releases making NINT information harder to find. As well, it’s harder to find contact details for the NINT media relations/communications folks.

Taking into account the loss of the NanoBusiness Alliance in Toronto, Nanotech BC’s imperiled future, and NINT’s loss of its ‘brand’, the nanotechnology future is not looking so bright in Canada.

And on something completely unrelated, Vancouver’s (Canada) Jazz Festival is taking place right now and tonight (July 2, 2009) local jazz songstress, Laura Werth will be at:

Capone’s restaurant
1141 Hamilton St.
Vancouver, Canada
604.684.7900

7:30 pm – 11:30 pm
Weaver & Werth Music Group
Laura Werth — Vocals
Ingrid Stitt — Sax
Rick Kilburn — Bass
Rob Weaver — Piano
Nino Di Pasquale — Drums

If you want to preview the music, Laura has a few tracks for listening here.

Waiting for Martha

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Last April (2008), Canada’s National Institute of Nanotechnology (NINT) announced a new chairperson for their board, Martha Cook Piper. I was particularly interested in the news since she was the president of the University of British Columbia (UBC) for a number of years during which she maintained a pretty high profile locally and, I gather, nationally. She really turned things around at UBC and helped it gain more national prominence.

I contacted NINT and sent some interview questions in May or June last year. After some months (as I recall it was Sept. or Oct. 2008), I got an email address for Martha and redirected my queries to her. She was having a busy time during the fall and through Christmas into 2009 with the consequence that my questions have only recently been answered. At this point, someone at NINT is reviewing the answers and I’m hopeful that I will finally have the interview in the near future.

There is a documentary about Ray Kurzweil (‘Mr. Singularity’) making the rounds. You can see a trailer and a preview article here at Fast Company.

As you may have guessed, there’s not a lot of news today.

Russia invests in Canadian nanotechnology? and flying microbots

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There’s a delegation from RUSNANO (Russian Corporation of Nanotechnologies) making the rounds of Canadian nanotechnology firms in the hopes of finding some worthy investments. Officials from the company have also traveled to Finland, the US, Germany, Israel, and elsewhere as they search for companies to invest in. From the Nanowerk news article,

With $5 billion U.S. to work with, RUSNANO is one of the largest technology capital funds on the planet.

The company’s minimum investment will be $10M and they have an investment horizon of 10 years, contrasting strongly with private sector venture funds which often demand a faster return.

I gather this is a government funding agency since it has a  public policy focus,

The public policy imperative behind RUSNANO, which is only a year old, is to help Russia quickly build nano-production capacity to catch up to other powers, notably Japan and the United States, that have developed capacity in this area. “We lost a bit when our scientists when we were engaged in resolving our political problems and now we have to catch up rapidly,” said [Alexander] Losyukov [senior RUSNANO official].

Compare the $10M minimum investment from a $5B fund with Canada’s National Institute of Nanotechnology’s $20M annual budget, which is partly funded by the federal government. I know the federal government makes other investments but it all seems rather piecemeal when compared to other countries’ more unified and financially substantive approach to nanotechnology research and innovation.

In other news, a flying microbot has been created at the University of Waterloo (Ontario, Canada). It’s not precisely nano but it is pretty interesting. From Science Daily,

The microrobot defies the force of gravity by flying or levitating, powered by a magnetic field. It moves around and dexterously manipulates objects with magnets attached to microgrippers, remotely controlled by a laser-focusing beam.

There are more details here.

Ongoing nano oversight discussions

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The Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies (PEN) has a couple of ‘oversight’ events coming up. The first is on Tuesday, April 28,2009 at 9 am PST and features discussion of a report ‘Oversight of Next Generation Nanotechnology‘ by J. Clarence Davies, a former US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) official. I wasn’t particularly thrilled the last time PEN had one of these events back in July 2008. Davies was the speaker that time too and the talk was very EPA-centric and I did not feel that Davies had a good grasp of nanotechnology.  For more information about this event or to RSVP if you’re planning to attend, go here.

Their second event will be on Wednesday, June 17, 2009 at 9 am PST. It’s called, ‘Transatlantic Regulatory Cooperation: Securing the Promise of Nanotechnologies‘. This event is the result of a collaboration between the London School of Economics, Chatham House, Environmental Law Institute, and PEN.Here’s something from their email notice,

[The purpose] is aimed at generating and examining new ideas to enable greater transatlantic convergence on nanotechnology oversight today and in the future.

For more details or to RSVP, you can go here.

Finally I have an update on the Martha Cook Piper situation. (She was appointed as the chair to Canada’s National Institute of Nanotechnology [NINT] last April and I’ve been trying to get an interview for several months.) I just heard today that I will be getting some answers to my question in the next few weeks. Plus, I notice that she was finally listed on NINT’s website. You can see the listing and a bit of a biography here.