The Nanotech BC Blog: Talking about Nanotech

Richard Jones at Soft Machines has been writing lately about new and promising developments in the British nanotechnology community. His post on Friday was particularly interesting, focusing not on the science of nanotechnology, but on the challenges we face in deciding how, when or if to apply it. It appears that the technical challenges of nanotech might be the easy part. In reference to All Talk? Nanotechnology and public engagement:

On the one hand, there was the view that Science itself provides clear answers to policy questions; for example, given the correct information the need for GM food to feed the world’s population and nuclear energy to power it would become obvious. As for policy, we have a representative democracy to ensure that the people’s views are represented; it is politicians, not opinion polls, who ought to decide these issues, and public engagement is really just a question of the print and broadcast media informing people. On the other hand, we heard that the direct action and controversy-stoking of the social movements are the only way that opposing views can properly be heard, and that irrationality is a legitimate tool in the face of the entrenched hegemony of technoscience.

Perhaps it's natural that such potentially revolutionary technologies like nanotech end up dividing people into almost cartoonishly stark camps -- natural but depressing. My own sense is that there is a general inability in the scientific community to communicate the possibilities of nanotechnology in terms that make sense to regular people. That leads to misunderstandings and frustration on both sides and makes compromise very difficult.

Jones links to an interesting post by policy maker David Bott who also attended the same meeting as Jones and proposes the only real way out of the communication impasse that cutting-edge science often finds itself in:

If you are a scientist, I think there is real value in taking the time to explain what you do, and why you do it, to those who are not scientists, but only if you listen to what they say in return.

The Nanotech BC Blog: Who Needs Nanobots?

Christine Peterson at Nanodot makes a good point about unrealistic expectations in nanotechnology by bringing up a 2000 prediction that full clinical application of "fleets of microscopic robots" would be underway by 2003.

The funny thing about predictions is that though they're often wrong about means, they can sometimes be surprisingly accurate about ends. The purpose of fleets of circulatory robots is the medical treatment of cancer, heart disease and other serious illnesses. The lack of advanced nanorobotics isn't stopping researchers from using nanotech to attack those diseases in different ways.

PhysOrg.com has an article on how attaching polymeric nanoparticles to red blood cells turns the body's own blood into an ideal delivery system for medicine. This is a brilliant example of how synergising with the body's natural systems can allow us to elegantly do things that we're not yet capable of any other way.

There's nothing wrong with working towards a vision of nanorobotics, but it's important to be able to appreciate the danger of getting fixated on a hypothetical "ideal" technology and missing simpler and sometimes better solutions.

The Nanotech BC Blog: Hierarchical Systems and Natural Strength

One of the unexpected benefits of nanotechnology is that it is making us appreciate the amazing sophistication of naturally evolved materials. You may not have thought much of it the last time your arm was in a cast, but bone is one of the most remarkable materials in nature, combining strength and resilience with a range of biological functions.

Bone is the scaffold of most life on earth and the secret to its success lies at the nanoscale. Nanowerk has a fascinating article on the molecular properties of bone and how they use hierarchies of flexible and strong components to build up a material that's able to absorb huge amounts of stress without failure.

In biology, universality generates robustness, while diversity enables optimality. Materials like bone, being a nano-composite of strong but brittle and soft but ductile materials, illustrate this unification of components with disparate properties within a hierarchical structure.

Nature's toolbox begins with nanotechnology. By slowly unraveling the molecular structures of natural materials like bones, researchers are learning principals that can be applied to human-made materials in order to make them stronger, lighter and more efficient.

The Nanotech BC Blog: Very Tiny Needles

What can't carbon nanotubes do? Now scientists at the University of California at Berkeley have been able to use them to inject quantum dots into living cells.

With a diameter of just one nanometer, you're not likely to see a carbon nanotube injector at your local clinic anytime soon, but they do seem poised to play a key role in cell biology research and gene delivery. Yet another example of nanotech as enabling technology paving the way for further advances to come.

The Nanotech BC Blog: No Progress Without an Informed Public

Nanodot links to a very interesting paper: Nanotechnology Policy: An Analysis of Transnational Governance Issues Facing the United States and China. One of the most significant issues raised was about the general level of understanding of nanotechnology:

...publics throughout the world remain largely in the dark about nanotechnology. A major study, funded by the NSF and conducted in 2004 by Michael Cobb and Jane Macoubrie at North Carolina State University (NCSU), found that 80 percent to 85 percent of the American public has heard “little” or “nothing” about nanotechnology.47 Similarly, a nationally representative, August 2006 poll of over 1,000 adults, commissioned by the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies and conducted by Peter D. Hart Research Associates, found similar results, with about 70 percent of the public reporting that they have heard little to nothing at all about nanotechnology. These findings are consistent with similar polls that have been commissioned in Europe and Canada, and it is possible that these trends associated with low levels of public of understanding of nanotechnology would also occur in China as well.

The paper goes on to point out that a lack of understanding of what nanotechnology actually is can lead quickly to a consumer backlash -- a backlash that nanotechnology can't afford as it's making it's first tentative steps into commercialization.

How do we avoid this?

... coordinated nanotechnology education and engagement programs will be needed, supported by both government and industry. These efforts will have to be structured to reach a wide range of consumers, many of which may have little to no scientific or technical training. Establishing such a widespread public engagement campaign will require the use of both traditional media outlets—such as print, radio, television, and film—alongside more non-traditional media outlets—such as the Internet, weblogs, games, and podcasts—to capture the attention of a diverse range of individuals in various age, gender, and socioeconomic categories.

Which is very much the mandate of Nanotech BC -- to build an inclusive nanotechnology community that addresses the needs of researchers, businesses and consumers. We have a collection of papers about a wide range of nanotechnology topics and hold events throughout the year. Stay tuned for more opportunities to get involved with one of the technologies that will shape our future.

The Nanotech BC Blog: Science Without Borders

In elementary school most of us had a class called Science. Later on that was broken up into physics, chemistry and biology -- and generally science has been broken up ever since.

Nanotechnology poses a challenge to those traditional clear-cut divisions. At the nanometer scale physics, chemistry and biology are inescapably intertwined -- resulting in developments that are difficult to classify.

Case in point: Nanowerk has a great article on "green" nanotechnology; using plants to fabricate inorganic nanomaterials. Nanotechnology is vividly demonstrating how the divisions we use to organize science are not necessarily natural divisions at all, but artifacts of our own thinking.

The Nanotech BC Blog: Learning from Geckos

Not only is Mother Nature inventive, she's had a very long time to add to her tool box. A case in point is the humble gecko -- able to scamper up walls and hang upside-down on ceilings thanks to the tiny fibers on its feet.

Now nanotechnology is about to let us do the same thing by using carbon nanotubes to develop tape based on the same principle that makes a gecko's feet sticky -- but with four times the adhesive power. Ars Technica and PHYSORG.com report on the cutting edge of stickiness.

Better tape might seem prosaic, but it will be advances like gecko-tape that bring nanotechnology into the mainstream by providing large jumps in effectiveness in materials with huge numbers of uses.

The Nanotech BC Blog: Keeping our Eyes on the Road

There's a great post up on Soft Machines describing different types of "nanohysteria" --

Nanohysteria comes into different varieties too. Type 1 nanohysteria is represented by greed driven “irrational exuberance”, and is based on the idea that nanotechnology will change everything very soon, as touted by investment tipsters and consultants who want to take people’s money off them. What’s wrong with this is the absence of critical thought. Type 2 nanohysteria is the opposite - fear driven irrational paranoia exemplified by the grey goo scenario of out of control self-replicating molecular assemblers or nanobots. What’s wrong with this is again, the absence of critical thought.

In any journey it's natural to imagine what the destination will be like. There's nothing wrong with speculation but problems come up when we mistake our speculation for reality.

Developments in nanotechnology are starting to come thick and fast and each one can seem like the last step before utopia or world devastation. The potential of nanotechnology seems limitless -- so much so that it's easy for even the most intelligent person to get lost in fantasy.

Just about any prediction about the future of nanotechnology, from the most optimistic to the most dire, could be true -- but it's exactly when anything seems possible that it's most crucial to focus on what we know now.

The Nanotech BC Blog: Why Stretching Matters

Perhaps the most surprising recent story in consumer electronics is the phenomenal success of Nintendo's Wii. Overpowered by Microsofts X-Box and Sony's Playstation 3, the Wii has none the less been flying off the shelves since it was introduced -- all because of an intuitive, candy-bar shaped controller and the fact that Nintendo understands a truth that too often gets lost: The way we interact with technology is just as important as technology itself.

Tech companies are starting to realize that faster and cheaper are no longer enough -- usefulness is king. Unfortunately, that often turns out to be extremely difficult because many of the materials that are central to electronics don't lend themselves to the kind of flexible use that our lives demand.

Nanotechnology may be the solution to this problem. By altering materials at the nano-scale it's becoming possible to create new capabilities in crucial materials. Physorg.com reports on advances in stretchable silicon. Advances like these beg the question, what could we do with computers in gloves or cloths or blankets? What would the ability to break computing power out of the boxes it's locked in mean to our everyday lives? Nanotechnology may be the key to finding out.

The Nanotech BC Blog: Old Medicine, New Technology

Herbs play an important roll in folk medicine and one of the most important of them is turmeric. That bright yellow spice, in addition to providing taste and color to curry, is used to treat infection, arthritis, fever and many other illnesses.

Now curcumin, the substance that gives turmeric its color, is being combined with medical nanotechnology to fight cancer, Alzheimer's, and maybe more. Technology Review has an article on nanotech delivery systems that take molecular-scale doses of curcumin to tumors .

Medicine is one of the key places where nanotechnology can make a difference. On June 7th, Dr. Ellen Wasan of the BC Cancer Research Center spoke at the Nanotech BC Networking Session at BCIT. She presented on work she has been doing developing nanopharmacuticles that can take advantage of tumor physiology to deliver medicine directly to cancer cells. Dr. Wasan is using nanotechnology to solve toxicity, solubility and elimination problems.

Nanotech work is happening all over the world, yielding a wide variety of approaches to many devastating problems. This diversity comes from that fact that nanotechnology is no one set thing -- it's a broad enabling technology that gives researchers everywhere powerful new tools.

The Nanotech BC Blog: The Customer is Always Right

Over the next few years, whether we know it or not, we will begin using and living with products that depend on the sometimes uncanny properties that can come from nanotech. On the verge of any change that promises to saturate our lives so completely, there's an obligation to ask a simple question: What can go wrong?

Part of the mandate of Nanotech BC is to encourage discussion about NE3LS -- Nanotechnology, Environment, Ethics, Economics, Legal and Safety issues. We need to find ways to enjoy the rewards of nanotechnology without making mistakes that harm health or the environment.

As nanotechnology moves into the marketplace, the roll of watchdog will increasingly be taken up by business and consumer groups. Consumer Report is already doing that, looking at nanoparticles in sunscreen. Nanowerk contributes to the analysis, looking at how or if nanoparticles might be a danger.

Criticism and analysis is a sign of success. The fact that consumer publications are aware of nanotechnology speaks to the growing acceptance of nanotech. Thorough study of any new material is essential, but laboratory testing is only one part of the equation -- consumers need to be informed. Everybody has a stake in the development of safe nanotech, and everybody should have a voice.

The Nanotech BC Blog: Long Carbon Nanotubes and the Desert Bloom

It's easy to think technological progress follows an incremental and predictable path -- that research leads to development, then to commercialization and finally to the consumer.

Take a trip to a desert in spring and you'll see evidence of a different model for growth. One day the landscape is dry and bleak, and the next it explodes into plants and flowers. Years of invisible preparation have been taking place and the result is a change so swift and complete that the landscape becomes an entirely different place.

Right now the desert of nanotechnology looks dry. Billions of dollars are being invested and thousands of researchers are working all over the world on countless different issues, but we've yet to see any single, revolutionary advance. Even so, the groundwork is being laid, and every day nanotech moves forward.

One of the most exciting new developments is the production by UC engineering researchers of arrays of 18mm carbon nanotubes. That might not seem like much, but it's a huge increase in length over past efforts and is an important step towards producing a material that is stronger and more conductive than anything now in use.

What will come of this achievement? A replacement for copper wire? Energy independence? A space elevator? Nobody can say for sure because so much more work remains to be done before carbon nanotubes fulfill their promise. Even so, one thing seems certain -- we're getting closer and closer to the day the desert will bloom.

The Nanotech BC Blog: The Power of a 100 Suns!

This is a few days old, but Phys.org has reported on the development of 40% efficient solar cells. That can't be anything but good news.

For anybody interested in solar power research in British Columbia, Mike Wolf is working at UBC on Energy Storing and Energy Harvesting and Karim Karim is at Simon Fraser Universtity concentrating on Mechanically Flexible Solar Cells using Thin Film Silicon Technology.

The Nanotech BC Blog: Visualizing the Invisible

One of the biggest challenges in explaining nanotechnology to most people is that you end up talking about a scale that is so incredibly tiny that it's difficult to imagine. Expo Nano in Paris has produced an excellent tour of the many worlds of the very small. The site takes you down to, and well beyond, the nano-scale and does it in a way that's fun and connects dramatic changes in scale to different parts of our daily lives.

The Nanotech BC Blog: Sweet Power and the Taste of Success

Pacemakers, cochlear implants, neurostimulators, drug delivery systems -- implanted medical devices are crucial to the lives of tens of thousands of people. All of those systems need electricity which means bulky batteries containing toxic chemicals and dangerous, expensive surgery to extract and replace them. But perhaps not for much longer.

Sweet Power, a BC medical technology company based on Vancouver Island is developing an implantable fuel cell capable of generating electricity using blood sugar. Sweet Power's glucose fuel cell is a great example of MEMS (microelectronic systems) and how as devices get smaller, their power and usefulness keep increasing.

Sweet Power was recently recognized for their achievements at the 2007 Nanotech Ventures Awards in the Health and Medical Category. The significance of what Sweet Power is doing goes beyond their own technical achievements. By developing a way to make implantable devices cleaner, safer and smaller, Sweet Power is enabling the next generation of technology to save lives.

The Nanotech BC Blog: Good Things Start Small

I'm eager to get started posting about all of the amazing things going on in the world of nanotechnology, but before I do I thought it might make sense to write a little about who we are at Nanotech BC, what we're trying to do, and what this blog is for. Nanotech BC is a not-for-profit organization started as a collaboration between British Columbia's business, scientific and governmental communities. Nanotech BC has three goals:

• To advocate for growth of BC's nanotechnology research and development community and infrastructure.
• To communicate with industrial, academic, government and public stakeholders to increase awareness of nanotechnology.
• To represent BC's nanotechnology interests and pursue partnerships nationally and internationally.

This blog is one of the ways we are working to achieve these goals. Research and development in nanotechnology is progressing at a blistering pace and we want this blog to be a record of what's happening, particularly in BC. You'll find regular updates on the science and business of nanotechnology as well as thoughts on where nanotechnology is going and what it means for BC. Community is built through discussion and we hope that this blog will help get people thinking and talking about nanotechnology and the exciting challenges and promises that it brings.