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Soft Machines is one of my favorite nanotechnology blogs -- lucid, balanced and informed. Richard Jones's latest is a two-part article on the history of nanotechnology and the social interests that are propelling it.The first part focuses on where nanotechnology has come from. The second looks at the social issues and groups that are affecting where it's going.What particularly impressed me was Jone's recognition that science in general and nanotechnology in particular serve as a mirror for social and cultural fears and aspirations. Technologies don’t exist or develop in a vacuum, and nanotechnology is no exception; arguments about the likely, or indeed desirable, trajectory of the technology are as much about their protagonists’ broader aspirations for society as about nanotechnology itself.
At Nanodot Christine Peterson briefly raises the issue of advanced software and its implications for nanotechnology. She rightly points out that nanotechnology with real molecules is difficult and expensive. The alternative is computer simulations.Right now though even the most powerful computers are struggling to fold proteins -- the complexities of nanotechnology highlight the leap we are going to need in computing power in order to accurately model nanotech.In her post Ms. Peterson refers to AI and the Singularity Summit, but there is no reason that AI has to be part of the ability to model nanotechnology. Perhaps the most promising means of bringing computing power to the necessary level doesn't involve AI: quantum computing.Quantum computing is spooky stuff -- using the quantum features like superposition and entanglement to do computations that are impossible any other way. Quantum computing is farther along than most people think; D-Wave, the worlds first private quantum computing company is alive and well in British Columbia and they are well aware of how their work could accelerate nanotechnology in powerful ways.
Maybe Charles Babbage was onto something...Computers have become so integrated into our lives that it's sometimes easy to forget how much energy is required to keep them going. Silicon chips use a lot of power and Nanowerk has a great article today on the consequences of that energy use:...about 200 billion kWh of electricity a year used by computers.... That means that generating the electricity for using 1 billion computers will release some 128 million tonnes of CO2 (280 billion pounds) into the air.
Maybe we can find the way forward by looking backwards. Dr. Robert Blick at the University of Wisconsin is developing nanomechanical computational devices -- chips that sacrifice a degree of speed but in return are vastly superior to silicon in terms of energy consumption and robustness. Soft Machines adds to the discussion and distinguishes Dr. Blick's work from Eric Drexler's rod logic.
Two interesting recent posts from the Nanotechnology Development Blog. First, they mention how nanotechnology is being used to develop "green" packaging. By adding nanoparticles to the bioplastic Plolylactic acid (PLA), bags made from it become stronger while still maintaining their transparency. The great thing about PLA bags is that they are made from corn, biodegradable and require less energy to create than conventional plastic bags. A few fewer plastic bags in the world might not seem like a big deal -- but it is.The other post that I thought was interesting was about the increasing demand for Electron Microscopes. Apparently the spiraling decent of semiconductors to the nano-scale is making Electron Microscopes essential for product inspection. This should really have been an easy trend to predict. Here's a prediction of my own -- a lot of money is going to be made by companies that take the adoption of nanotechnology as a given, and position themselves to provide goods or services that make that adoption easier.
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.
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.
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.
