July 29, 2010

NanoSecure published latest newsletter

NanoSecure: NanoSecure is an FP6 Integrated Project for small and medium enterprises (IP-SME) harnessing nanotechnologies in sensing and catalytic materials to provide instantaneous and integrated detoxification<br /> of airborne substances.

High-Ion Energy Data in Other Experiments Provides Dense Plasma Fusion Credibility and There Is Worldwide DPF Collaboration

Ad Support : Nano Technology   Netbook    Technology News    Computer Software

Lawrenceville Plasma Physics fusion project update and details from the June 22 ICOPS conference.

J. P. Appruzese and his colleagues at the Naval Research Laboratory noted in their presentation at ICOPS that several experiments with pinching machines had achieved ion energies above 10-20 keV, with the highest being the 200 keV previously reported from the big Z-machine at Sandia National Laboratory. Appruzese also mentioned LPP’s results with the DPF as a further example. He pointed out that such high ion energies could be used for fusion with advanced fuels—in his example, D-He3.


Appruzese suggested that these high ion energies might be caused by turbulent heating. Such heating of the ions occurs when frictional forces within plasmas get large enough to disrupt the smooth flow of the plasma, leading to energy dissipation and heating, just as turbulence in ordinary fluids heat them up.

LPP’s initial analysis of this suggestion seems to indicate that it does not explain our higher-than-expected ion energies with deuterium gas. Turbulent heating increase rapidly with increasing atomic charge on the nucleus, so may be significant for pB11, but does not seem to be quite enough for deuterium, which has only a single charge on its nucleus. However, the idea is an interesting one and this process should be included in our future analyses.

Our assessment, from discussions with other researches at ICOPS, is that the reporting of high ion energies in other experiments has given considerable credibility to our own results.

In addition to these specific results, we had extensive talks with many other researchers in the DPF field. We strengthened our ties with the team working on the Polish DPF, PF-1000, still the world’s most powerful DPF. A young researcher at Imperial College offered to analyze some of our neutron data with his new algorithm that can provide more information about ion energy distribution. We also had some preliminary talks with researchers from Voss Scientific about a possible joint grant application to the National Science Foundation for work on DPF simulation techniques. Overall, we felt that our participation at ICOPS, which included our whole research team as well as our visitors from Kansas Sate University, greatly benefited our Focus Fusion project. We can’t overstate the importance of collaboration within the world-wide DPF community to the success of our efforts.


Lawrenceville Plasma Physics recently presented the results of their latest dense plasma focus experiments at the International Conference on Plasma Science (ICOPS).

The results include ion temperatures of 20-70 keV, record high fusion yield for a given current, and good agreement of the experiments with theory.

The theoretical model predicts that, in the range of peak currents explored so far by FF-1, ion temperatures will increase linearly with current, plasmoid density will scale as the square of current and plasmoid lifetime will scale linearly with current. Since fusion reaction rates go up as the square of the density and approximately the square of the temperature—in this temperature range—the model implies yield scales as current to the seventh power. That is exactly the scaling observed so far, and the absolute number of fusion reactions is just as predicted.

However, not all the results fit theory completely. For three of the four shots where the data is best, the ion energies were well above the predicted value—50-70 keV instead of the predicted value around 20 keV. On the other hand, the value of n^2V—the density squared times the volume—was about ten times less than predicted. So these plasmoids are hotter and either less dense or smaller than predicted. It is expected that newly functioning instruments will help sort this question out in the near future.

Another promising development is that other researchers at ICOPS reported high ion temperatures with pinch-type machines and this has added credibility to LPP’s claims. The highest being 200 keV previously reported from the big Z-machine at Sandia National Laboratory.


If you liked this article, please give it a quick review on Reddit, or StumbleUpon. Thanks

Supporting Advertising

Business Success
   How to Make Money    
Executive Jobs    
Paid Surveys


Thank You


July 28, 2010

Kazakhstan Uranium Projection to 2015 and a new Bet

Ad Support : Nano Technology   Netbook    Technology News    Computer Software

Kazatomprom has a page which describes the uranium mines that they plant to open.

The World Nuclear Association page on Kazakhstan describes the development status and production of the mines.
The first quarter of 2010 has already had production figures released. Those figures are 4060 tons of Uranium.

Also, each of the pages on affiliated companies describes joint ventures uranium commitments and expected tonnage and some indication of schedules.
I have compiled that information to recreate what happened in 2009 on a mine by mine basis and projected out to 2015.

I have a new set of bets with Michael Dittmar. This time on uranium production in Kazakhstan.

The predictions and the bet is for the uranium production of the country of Kazakhstan.
So not just Kazatomprom, although that is most of the production.
Again we use the World Nuclear Association numbers of uranium production when reported.

       Brian Wang      Dittmar               Midpoint
2010   16500 tons      15000 tons            15750 tons
2011   18000 t or more 17,999.9 tons or less 18000 tons

Three more quarters like the first quarter and increased ramping of mines to get another 260 tons will mean the betting figure is right. 11,690 tons from the second, third and fourth quarter will mean that I win 2010.



If you liked this article, please give it a quick review on Reddit, or StumbleUpon. Thanks

Supporting Advertising

Business Success
   How to Make Money    
Executive Jobs   
Paid Surveys


Thank You


Nanotech-based electronic noses getting smaller

morphologically encoded nanostructure in contact with array of metal electrodes

Nanowerk describes a recent advance toward the “e-nose” by an international team of researchers. Team member Andrei Kolmakov explains:

Our approach demonstrates the potential of combining bottom-up nanowire fabrication protocols with state-of-the art microfabrication methods to design prospective simple sensing arrays which, in principle, might be scaled down to the size of few micrometers and thus become the smallest analytical instrument…

Time for open source sensing! I’ll be speaking on this Friday at the Open Science Summit which starts tomorrow. Attend in person or watch the webcast. Hope to see you there. (Image: Dr. Kolmakov, Southern Illinois Univ. at Carbondale)  —Christine Peterson

US Patent 7763885 - Organic thin film transistor having surface modified CNTs

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7763885.html

In organic transistors high contact resistances can result in an increase in driving voltages and inefficient operation. This patent from Samsung teaches how surface-modified carbon nanotubes can be used to alleviate this problem. Claim 1 reads:

1. A transistor structure comprising:

an organic semiconductor layer including surface-modified carbon nanotubes and an electrically-conductive polymer,

wherein the surface-modified carbon nanotubes have surfaces modified with a curable functional group, the curable functional group being directly bound to the carbon nanotubes through an oxygen atom of the curable functional group.

US Patent 7763880 - Memristive transistor

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7763880.html

The original "memristor" proposed by Leon Chua in 1971 was a 2-terminal device which retained a memory of past currents based on the resistance (i.e. memory resistor). HP researchers received much attention in 2008 for disclosing a nanoscale version of the memristor based on ionic drift in thin film metal oxides. This patent from HP describes a related structure which integrates the memristive structure with a field effect transistor structure. Claim 1 reads:

1. A multi-terminal switch comprising:

a source electrode;

a drain electrode;

a gate electrode; and

an active region comprising at least one primary active region comprising at least one material for transporting and hosting ions that act as dopants to control the flow of electrons through the switch, and a secondary active region comprising at least one material for providing a source/sink of ionic dopants for said at least one primary active region, wherein the source electrode and drain electrode are physically connected to the primary active region and wherein the gate electrode is physically connected to the secondary active region.

US Patent 7763530 - Nanoparticle doping with ionic salts

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7763530.html

Thermal diffusion and ion implantation are common techniques used to dope semiconductor materials and produce solid state electronic devices. However, bulk doping techniques are less efficiently applied to nanoparticle semiconductors. This patent from the University of Cape Town teaches a method using ionic salts which may prove more efficient in doping of nanoparticles. Claim 1 reads:

1. A method of doping semiconductor particles to change the carrier concentration and/or type of the semi-conductor material, the method comprising

mixing a quantity of semiconductor particles, having a particle size in the range 1 nm to 100 μm, with an ionic salt or a preparation of ionic salts, so that each semiconductor particle as a whole is doped by adsorption or absorption of one or more ionic species of the ionic salt preparation of ionic salts.

July 27, 2010

US Patent 7763362 - Metallic nanoparticle shielding

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7763362.html

This patent is from a company called PChem Associates and teaches a printed circuit shielding film for EMI interference based on metal nanoparticles. The film can be applied to a wider variety of substrates than conventional electronic shielding films due to less harsh processing methods and might be suitable for plastic or flexible electronic substrates. Claim 1 reads:

1. A cohesive metallic shielding structure, comprising:

a population of metallic nanoparticles, deposited on a substrate and sintered to form a cohesive metallic shielding structure,

wherein the cohesive metallic shielding structure has a characteristic thickness of less than about 20 micrometers; and

wherein the cohesive metallic shielding structure has a sheet resistance less than about 50 mohms/square/mil.

US Patent 7763187 - CNT reinforced silver ink

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7763187.html

This patent from Oceanit Labs teaches improved adhesive conductive inks for use in printed circuit fabrication which incorporate carbon nanomaterials. Claim 1 reads:

1. A conductive silver ink material, comprising:

a conductive ink having silver flake particles, a polymer and a solvent, and

a reinforcement and conductive material having at least one dimension of about 100 nm or less dispersed within the conductive ink,

wherein the silver content is 2% to 95% on the basis of the weight of the conductive silver ink material,

wherein the solvent is volatile,

wherein the reinforcement material comprises at least one nanoparticle selected from the group consisting of carbon nanotubes, buckyballs, and graphene,

wherein the reinforcement material is present in a concentration between approximately 0.00001% to 80% on the basis of the weight of the conductive silver ink material so as to improve strength, toughness and higher electrical conductivity and lower thermal resistance, resulting in improved mechanical, electrical and thermal properties of the material.

US Patent 7762638 - Hydrophobic barrier for microfluidic channels

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7762638.html

Over the past decade NanoInk has developed Dip Pen Nanolithography® for applications in maskless nanolithography and bioassays. This is their latest patent specifying a system of ink wells for scanning probe tips which minimize cross-contamination. Claim 1 reads:

1. A microfluidic device comprising:

a substrate comprising a surface and a plurality of microchannels which are hydrophilicly surface treated, and

at least one hydrophobic barrier layer on the surface between the microchannels which prevents cross contamination between the plurality of microchannels when liquid flows through the microchannels,

wherein the hydrophobic barrier layer is a polymeric layer.

Cellular automata used for 700-bit parallel processing

We’ve received an update on work by our friend Anirban Bandyopadhyay at the National Institute for Materials Science in Tsukuba, Japan.  Here’s the abstract of his recent Nature Physics paper:

Modern computers operate at enormous speeds—capable of executing in excess of 1013 instructions per second—but their sequential approach to processing, by which logical operations are performed one after another, has remained unchanged since the 1950s. In contrast, although individual neurons of the human brain fire at around just 103times per second, the simultaneous collective action of millions of neurons enables them to complete certain tasks more efficiently than even the fastest supercomputer. Here we demonstrate an assembly of molecular switches that simultaneously interact to perform a variety of computational tasks including conventional digital logic, calculating Voronoi diagrams, and simulating natural phenomena such as heat diffusion and cancer growth. As well as representing a conceptual shift from serial-processing with static architectures, our parallel, dynamically reconfigurable approach could provide a means to solve otherwise intractable computational problems.

He explains:

…we have realized 700 bits parallel processing using cellular automaton for the first time in the world. This is a significant advancement from our 16 bit parallel processing which you highlighted in your website (http://www.foresight.org/nanodot/?p=2687)…This invention may be in coherence with the Feynman’s vision…We can solve some problems which computers will take more than the age of this universe. We did it in 6-10 minutes (in the Nature Physics paper).

Some coverage:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36788441/ns/technology_and_science-innovation/

http://www.natureasia.com/asia-materials/highlight.php?id=708&utm_source=NPG+Asia+Materials&utm_content=Research+Highlights
Anirban writes, “Hope you may like this.”  We do indeed!  —Christine Peterson

July 26, 2010

Biodegradable Food Packaging - New observatoryNANO Briefing Published

observatoryNANO: This document summarises and contextualises analysis of nanotechnology developments for biodegradable food packaging, and considers ST, socioeconomic, EHS and regulatory aspects. It is written for those who want a snapshot of the main issues, particularly policy makers.

July 22, 2010

US Patent 7759780 - Microelectronic package with nanomaterial wear resistant coating

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7759780.html

In order to improve the scratch and abrasion resistance of IC packaging this patent from Intel teaches using a variety of nanomaterial films as protective coatings. Claim 1 reads:

1. A microelectronic package, comprising:

a semiconductor substrate;

a die having a top surface and a bottom surface, wherein the bottom surface of the die is coupled to the semiconductor substrate; and

a nanomaterial layer disposed on the top surface of the die, wherein the nanomaterial layer comprises a resin having a nanofiller disposed within the resin,

wherein the nanomaterial layer comprises a scratch and abrasion resistant material, and wherein a weight percentage of the nanofiller in the nanomaterial layer is between about 1% to about 60%.

US Patent 7759160 - Nanoparticle antifuse

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7759160.html

Antifuses are used in some programmable logic devices to switch from a high resistance to a low resistance state. This patent teaches a variation of nanoparticle antifuse using point-like electrodes to melt the nanoparticles causing a short. Claim 1 reads:

1. A method for forming electrically conducting or semiconducting pathways on a substrate comprising a nanoparticle-containing layer, the nanoparticles in the layer comprising conducting or semiconducting material, the method comprising

applying a voltage over the nanoparticle-containing layer so as to locally increase the conductivity of the layer, the voltage being high enough to melt the nanoparticles in a breakthrough-like manner, wherein the voltage is applied from point-like electrodes laterally to the nanoparticle-containing layer in order to produce a wire-like formation on the substrate.

US Patent 7759150 - TiO2 nanorod sensor

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7759150.html

This patent from Sharp teaches a gas sensor fabrication method using titanium dioxide nanowires to achieve high sensitivity at low production cost. Claim 1 reads:

1. A method for fabricating a nanorod sensor with a single plane of horizontally-aligned electrodes, the method comprising:

providing a substrate;

forming an intermediate electrode from a patterned bottom noble metal/Pt/Ti multilayered stack overlying a center region of the substrate;

forming TiO2 nanorods;

forming a single plane of top electrodes overlying the TiO2 nanorods; and,

forming a TiO2 film interposed between the TiO2 nanorods and electrodes selected from a group consisting of the intermediate electrode, the top electrodes, and both the intermediate and top electrodes.

Graphene could revolutionize DNA sequencing

Technique no longer requires blasting DNA into pieces

July 21, 2010

US Patent 7758961 - Functionalized nanoparticles in particle/bulk material systems

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7758961.html

This patent from Milliken & Company teaches the fabrication of nanocomposite materials having enhance properties such as adhesion by using multiple functional groups. Claim 1 reads:

1. A nanocomposite comprising multi-functionalized nanoparticles comprising:

a clay nanoparticle;

a first type of chemically functional group chemically bonded to at least a portion of the surface of the nanoparticle; and,

a second type of chemically functional group chemically bonded to at least a portion of the surface of the nanoparticle,

wherein the first and second chemically functional groups are substantially segregated on the surface of the nanoparticle,

wherein the multi-functionalized nanoparticles are dispersed in an extrudable thermoplastic bulk material.

US Patent 7758912 - Anti-stiction bump coating for MEMS

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7758912.html

Micromirrors are used in digital displays and interferometers and often include a spacing member or bump used to regulate the position of a microcantilever. One problem of such microsystems is stiction in which the movable members become stuck to the bumps. This patent from HP teaches a deposition method for anti-stiction on the bumps. Claim 1 reads:

1. A process of manufacturing microelectronic devices, comprising:

placing a wafer in a deposition chamber, said wafer comprising a number of microelectronic devices, said microelectronic devices comprising a number of bump regions, said bump regions comprising a dielectric material; and

depositing an anti-stiction coating only on said bump regions, in which said anti-stiction coating is configured to react with said dielectric material of said bump regions.

US Patent 7758892 - Medical device with nanoparticle layer

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7758892.html

This patent from Boston Scientific teaches a multilayered charged coating which facilitate manufacture of thin, flexible, and mechanically robust stents. Claim 1 reads:

1. A medical device comprising a multilayer region that comprises:

(a) a charged nanoparticle layer comprising charged nanoparticles;

(b) a plurality of charged polyelectroyte layers comprising charged polyelectrolyte species, and

(c) at least one charged therapeutic agent, wherein said medical device is configured for implantation or insertion into a subject.

US Patent 7758889 - Fullerene in targeted therapies

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7758889.html

This patent from Luna Innovations (priority 7/18/2003) includes some basic claims to using fullerenes or carbon nanotubes for drug delivery. Claim 1 reads:

1. A composition, comprising:

(i) a Cn-Ab, wherein Cn is a fullerene or nanotube comprising n carbon atoms, and Ab is a moiety comprising an antigen-binding site and is covalently linked to the Cn, wherein the antigen-binding site recognizes an antigen associated with a medical condition; and

(ii) a pharmaceutically-acceptable carrier.

July 20, 2010

US Patent 7758776 - Fused freeform nanotube composite

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7758776.html

This patent from Lockheed Martin has relatively early priority (Nov. 3, 2000) and includes some basic claims to composite structures formed from carbon nanotube fibers. Claim 1 reads:

1. A free form composite structure comprising:

a plurality of discrete nodal elements, each of the nodal elements comprising:

a matrix; and

a multiplicity of reinforcement elements formed of carbon nanotubes;

wherein the multiplicity of reinforcement elements are dispersed throughout the matrix; and

wherein the plurality of nodal elements are arranged and fused with respect to one another to form the free form composite structure.

US Patent 7758773 - Nanocrystal modifiers for LCDs

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7758773.html

This patent from Kent State Universiy teaches how doping liquid crystal films with ferroelectric nanoparticles can improve the properties of LCDs. Claim 1 reads:

1. A liquid crystal material comprising a suspension of inorganic anisotropic ferroelectric nanoparticles in a liquid crystal, wherein said ferroelectric nanoparticles function to change at least one of the following properties of the suspension when compared to the pure liquid crystal:

a) the dielectric anisotropy;

b) the phase transition temperature;

c) the birefringence; and

d) the order parameter.

US Patent 7758708 - Molybdenum nanocrystal film

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7758708.html

This patent teaches new nanostructured metallic films used to construct MEMS cantilever structures of smaller dimensions with improved strength. Claim 1 reads:

1. A binary nanocomposite film consisting essentially of body centered cubic nanocrystal molybdenum dispersed in an amorphous metallic matrix of aluminum or nickel.

US Patent 7757371 - Nanostructured reference leak

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7757371.html

A reference leak is an instrument used as a calibration standard for detecting gas leaks. This patent from Hon Hai Precision teaches a nanostructured version of a reference leak which is less sensitive to temperature variations. Claim 1 reads:

1. A method for making a reference leak, comprising the steps of:

(a) preparing a substrate;

(b) forming a patterned catalyst layer on the substrate, the patterned catalyst layer comprising one or more catalyst blocks, each catalyst block being located at a respective chosen position on the substrate;

(c) forming one or more elongate nano-structures so as to extend from the corresponding catalyst blocks by a deposition method;

(d) forming a leak layer of one of a metallic material, a glass material, a composite material, and a ceramic material on the substrate, the one or more elongate nano-structures being thereby partly or completely embedded within the formed leak layer; and

(e) removing the one or more elongate nano-structures and the substrate to obtain a reference leak with one or more leak holes defined therein, each leak hole being defined by a space previously occupied by a respective one elongate nano-structure.

Nanofibres power portable electronics

Tiny generator could be used in medical implants

July 18, 2010

US Patent 7755424 - Memristive crossbar FPAAs

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7755424.html

This is one of my patents related to a memristor crossbar design used to implement field programmable analog arrays. More information on my patents is available at this link. Claim 1 reads:

1. A control circuit including:

an operational amplifier having an inverting input, a non-inverting input, and an output;

an array of impedance elements connected to the output of the operational amplifier, wherein the array of impedance elements includes capacitors; and

a resistance switch crossbar array configured to store data in the form of high or low resistance states, wherein the resistance switch crossbar array is electrically connected between the array of impedance elements and the inverting input of the operational amplifier.

US Patent 7755115 - Multiwall CNTFET

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7755115.html

Multiwall nanotubes are normally not able to form the channels of field effect transistors since they have metallic rather than semiconductive properties. However, this patent from Fujitsu teaches a way to remove a portion of the outer walls of a multiwall nanotube to form the semiconductor channel while using the two nanotube ends as conductive contacts to electrodes. Claim 1 reads:

1. A field effect transistor, comprising:

a carbon nanotube of two or more walls having an inner wall and an outer wall;

source and drain electrodes formed on both sides of the carbon nanotube; and

a gate electrode formed in a gate formation region of the carbon nanotube,

wherein the outer wall of the carbon nanotube is removed in the gate formation region to expose the inner wall, the gate electrode is formed over the exposed inner wall, and the carbon nanotube between the source and drain electrodes and the gate electrode is covered by the outer wall.

US Patent 7755111 - Programmable power management using nanotubes

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7755111.html

Smart power management is becoming more necessary for integrated circuits in order to deal with increased leakage current as MOSFET gate oxide thickness is decreased. This patent from LSI Corporation teaches using nanotube switches in order to regulate such power management. Claim 1 reads:

1. A microelectronic assembly, comprising:

a power region having a plurality of transistors;

a nanotube structure patterned adjacent to the power region and associated with the power region; and

at least one power source coupled to the nanotube structure to distribute electricity to the power region based on a state of the nanotube structure.

July 16, 2010

Graphene kills E. Coli

Sheets of wonder material could be used to make antibacterial "paper" and perhaps even aid wound healing

July 15, 2010

US Patent 7755082 - Self-aligned CNT transistor

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7755082.html

This patent from Intel teaches a variation of a carbon nanotube field effect transistor using self-alignment of the source and drain relative to the channel. Claim 1 reads:

1. A semiconductor structure comprising:

a carbon nanotube formed over a substrate; and

a dielectric layer formed over said carbon nanotube, said dielectric layer having an aperture formed therein, wherein said dielectric layer includes a metal sidewall on each side of said aperture.

US Patent 7754600 - Method of forming nanostructures on metal-silicide crystallines

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7754600.html

Epitaxial growth is commonly used to grow nanostructures on single crystal wafers of silicon. However, these substrates can be expensive and cheaper alternatives are desirable. This patent from HP teaches such an alternative in the form of a metal-silicide substrate. Claim 1 reads:

1. A method of forming nanostructures, comprising:

forming a metallic layer on a substrate;

forming a silicon layer on the metallic layer;

subjecting the multi-layer structure to a thermal process to form metal-silicide crystallites; and

growing the nanostructures on the metal-silicide crystallites.

US Patent 7754524 - Oriented nanowire thin film electronics

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7754524.html

This is the latest patent from Nanosys covering electronics and optical devices formed from nanowire thin films. Claim 1 reads:

1. An article, comprising:

a substrate having a first surface;

a polymeric adherent material disposed on the first surface; and

a plurality of nanostructures each comprising a major axis, disposed on the first surface, and adhered to the adherent material, the plurality of nanostructures being substantially oriented so that their individual lengths are disposed substantially parallel to the first surface of the substrate along a common axis of the substrate.

Nanostencil makes arrays fast

New lithography technique is ideal for high-throughput production of nanoplasmonic components

July 14, 2010

US Patent 7754408 - CNT developer for laser printers

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7754408.html

This patent from Xerox teaches using carbon nanotubes to enhance the conductivity and extend the lifetime of the developer used in laser printers. Claim 1 reads:

1. A carrier including carrier particles comprising

a binder,

at least one magnetic material and

at least one conductive material,

wherein the conductive material is substantially uniformly dispersed within the carrier particles and the conductive material includes at least one carbon nanotube.

US Patent 7754336 - CNT glazing unit

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7754336.html

Laminated glass assemblies used in building architecture are desirable to be transmissive to visible light but opaque to the infrared spectrum for providing thermal insulation. This patent from Cardinal CG Company teaches using nanotubes in the construction of such assemblies to reduce the weight. Claim 1 reads:

1. A multiple-pane insulating glazing unit including

at least two spaced-apart panes,

the insulating glazing unit having at least one between-pane space and having a desired surface on which there is provided a transparent conductor coating consisting essentially of carbon nanotubes and inorganic dielectric material,

the desired surface being an exterior surface of the unit rather than being an interior surface facing a between-pane space of the unit.

July 11, 2010

David Willetts on Science and Society

The UK’s Minister for Science and Higher Education, David Willetts, made his first official speech about science at the RI on 9 July 2010. What everyone is desperate to know is how big a cut the science budget will take. Willetts can’t answer this yet, but the background position isn’t good. We know that the budget of his department – Business, Innovation and Skills – will be cut by somewhere between 25%-33%. Science accounts for about 15% of this budget, with Universities accounting for another 29% (not counting the cost of student loans and grants, which accounts for another 27%). So, there’s not going to be a lot of room to protect spending on science and on research in Universities.

Having said this, this is a very interesting speech, in that Willetts takes some very clear positions on a number of issues related to science and innovation and their relationship to society, some of which are rather different from views in government before. I met Willetts earlier in the year, and then he said a couple of things then that struck me. He said that there was nothing in science policy that couldn’t be illuminated by looking at history. He mentioned in particular “The Shock of the Old”, by David Edgerton (which I’ve previously discussed here), and I noticed that at the RS meeting after the election he referred very approvingly to David Landes’s book “The Wealth and Poverty of Nations”. More personally, he referred with pride to his own family origins as Birmingham craftsmen, and he clearly knows the story of the Lunar Society well. His own academic background is as a social scientist, so it would be to be expected that he’d have some well-developed views about science and society. Here’s how I gloss the relevant parts of his speech.

More broadly, as society becomes more diverse and cultural traditions increasingly fractured, I see the scientific way of thinking – empiricism – becoming more and more important for binding us together. Increasingly, we have to abide by John Rawls’s standard for public reason – justifying a particular position by arguments that people from different moral or political backgrounds can accept. And coalition, I believe, is good for government and for science, given the premium now attached to reason and evidence.

The American political philosopher John Rawls was very concerned about how, in a pluralistic society, one could agree on a common set of moral norms. He rejected the idea that you could construct morality on entirely scientific grounds, as consequentialist ethical systems like utilitarianism try to, instead looking for a principles based morality; but he recognised that this was problematic in a society where Catholics, Methodists, Atheists and Muslims all had their different sets of principles. Hence the idea of trying to find moral principles that everyone in society can agree on, even though the grounds on which they approve of these principles may differ from group to group. In a coalition uniting parties including people as different as Evan Harris and Philippa Stroud one can see why Willetts might want to call in Rawls for help.

The connection to science is an interesting one, that draws on a particular reading of the development of the empirical tradition. According, for example, to Schaffer and Shapin (in their book “Leviathan and the Air Pump”) one of the main aims of the Royal Society in its early days was to develop a way of talking about philosophy – based on experiment and empiricism, rather than doctrine – that didn’t evoke the clashing religious ideologies that had been the cause of the bloody religious wars of the seventeenth century. According to this view (championed by Robert Boyle), in experimental philosophy one should refrain entirely from talking about contentious issues like religion, restricting oneself entirely to discussion of what one measures in experiments that are open to be observed and reproduced by anyone.

You might say that science is doing so well in the public sphere that the greatest risks it faces are complacency and arrogance. Crude reductionism puts people off.

I wonder if he’s thinking of the current breed of scientific atheists like Richard Dawkins?

Scientists can morph from admired public luminaries into public enemies, as debates over nuclear power and GM made clear. And yet I remain optimistic here too. The UK Research Councils had the foresight to hold a public dialogue about ramifications of synthetic biology ahead of Craig Venter developing the first cell controlled by synthetic DNA. This dialogue showed that there is conditional public support for synthetic biology. There is great enthusiasm for the possibilities associated with this field, but also fears about controlling it and the potential for misuse; there are concerns about impacts on health and the environment. We would do well to remember this comment from a participant: “Why do they want to do it? … Is it because they will be the first person to do it? Is it because they just can’t wait? What are they going to gain from it? … [T]he fact that you can take something that’s natural and produce fuel, great – but what is the bad side of it? What else is it going to do?” Synthetic biology must not go the way of GM. It must retain public trust. That means understanding that fellow citizens have their worries and concerns which cannot just be dismissed.

This is a significant passage which seems to accept two important features of some current thinking about public engagement with science. Firstly, that it should be “upstream” – addressing areas of science, like synthetic biology, for which concrete applications have yet to emerge, and indeed in advance of signficant scientific breakthroughs like Venter’s “synthetic cell”. Secondly, it accepts that the engagement should be two-way, that the concerns of the public may well be legitimate and should be taken seriously, and that these concerns go beyond simple calculations of risk.

The other significant aspect of Willetts’s speech was a wholesale rejection of the “linear model” of science and innovation, but this needs another post to discuss in detail.

July 09, 2010

Graphene tackles arsenic

Reduced graphene oxide-magnetite composite can remove dangerous heavy metal from drinking water

July 07, 2010

Whose goals should direct goal-directed research?

I’ve taken part in panel discussions at two events with a strong Science and Technology Studies flavour in the last couple of months. “Democratising Futures” was a meeting under the auspices of the Centre for Research in Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities, at Cambridge on 27 May 2010. The Science and Democracy Network’s meeting was held in association with the Royal Society at the Kavli Centre on the 29 June 2010. What follows is a composite of the sorts of things I said at the two meetings.

“There is no alternative” is a phrase with a particular resonance in British politics, but it also expresses a way of thinking about the progress of science and technology. To many people, science and technology represent an autonomous force, driven forward by its own internal logic. In this view, the progress of science and technology cannot effectively steered, much less restrained. I think this view is both wrong and pernicious.

The reality is that there are very many places in which decisions and choices are made about the directions of science and technology. These include the implicit decisions made by the (international) scientific community, as a result of which the fashionable and timely topics of the day acquire momentum, much more explicit choices made by funding agencies in what areas they attach funding priority to, as well as preferences expressed by a variety of actors in the private sector, whether those are the beliefs that inform investment decisions by venture capitalists or the strategic decisions made by multinational companies. It’s obvious that these decisions are not always informed by perfect information and rationality – they will blend informed but necessarily fallible judgements about how the future might unfold with sectional interests, and will be underpinned by ideology.

To take an example which I don’t think is untypical, in the funding body I know best, the UK’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), priorities are set by a mixture of top-down and bottom-up pressures. The bottom-up aspect comes from the proposals the council receives, from individual scientists, to pursue those lines of research that they think are interesting. From the top, though, comes increasing pressure from government to prioritise research in line with their broad strategies.

In setting a strategic framework, EPSRC distinguishes between the technical opportunities that the current state of science offers, and the demands of “users” of research in industry and research. Advice on the former typically comes from practising scientists, who alone have the expertise to know what is possible. This advice won’t be completely objective, of course – it will be subject to the whims of academic fashion and a certain incumbency bias in favour of established, well-developed fields. The industrial scientists who provide advice will of course have a direct interest in science that benefits their own industries and their own companies. Policy demands supporting science that can be translated into the marketplace, but this needs to be balanced against a reluctance to subsidise the private sector directly. Even accepting the desirability of supporting science that can be taken to market quickly, there is also an incumbency bias here too. Given that this advice necessarily comes from people representing established concerns, who is going to promote the truly disruptive industries?

So, given these routes by which scientists and industry representatives have explicit mechanisms for influencing the agenda and priorities for publicly funded science, the big outstanding question is how the rest of the population can have some influence. Of course, research councils are aware of the broader societal contexts that surround the research they fund; and the scientists and industry people providing advice will be asked to incorporate these broader issues in their thinking. The danger is that these people are not well equipped to make some judgements. In a phrase of Arie Rip, it’s likely that they will be using “folk social science” – a set of preconceptions and prejudices, unsupported by evidence, about what the wider population thinks about science and technology (one very common example of this in the UK is the proposition that one can gauge probable public reactions to science by reading the Daily Mail).

It might be argued that the proper way for wider societal and ethical issues to be incorporated in scientific priority setting is through the usual apparatus of representative democracy – in the UK system, through Ministers who are responsible to Parliament. This fails in practise for both institutional and practical reasons. There is a formal principle in the UK known as the Haldane principle (like much else in the UK this is probably an invented tradition), which states that science should be governed at one remove from government, with decisions being left to scientists. The funding bodies – the research councils – are not direct subsidiaries of their parent government department, but are free-standing agencies. This doesn’t stop them from being given a strong strategic steer, both through informal and formal routes, but they generally resist taking direct orders from the Minister. But there are more general reasons why science resists democratic oversight through traditional mechanisms – it is at once too big and too little an issue. The long timescales of science and the convoluted routes by which it impacts on everyday life; the poor understanding of science on the part of elected politicians; the lack of immediate feedback from the electorate in the politicians’ postbags – all these factors contribute to science not having a high political profile, despite the deep and fundamental impacts it has on the way people live.

Here, then, is the potential role of public engagement – it should form a key input into identifying what potential goals of science and technology might have broad societal support. It was in recognition of these sorts of issues that EPSRC introduced a Societal Issues Panel into its advisory structure – this a high-level strategic advice panel on a par with the Technical Opportunities Panel and the User Panel.

Another development in the way people are thinking about scientific priority setting makes these issues even more pointed – this is the growing popularity across the world of the idea of the “Grand Challenge” as a way of organising science. Here, we have an explicit link being made between scientific priorities and societal goals – which leads directly to the question “whose goals?”

Grand Challenges provide a way of contextualising research that goes beyond a rather sterile dichotomy between “applied” and “blue sky” research – it supports work that has some goal in mind, but a goal that is more distant than the typical object of applied research, and is often on a larger scale. The “challenge” or context is typically based on some larger societal goal, rather than on a question arising from a scientific discipline. This might be a global problem, such as the need to develop a low carbon energy infrastructure or ensure food security for a growing population, or something that is more local to a particular country or group of countries, such as the problems of ageing populations in the UK and other developed countries. The definition in terms of a societal goal necessarily implies that the work needs to be cross-disciplinary in character, and there is growing recognition in principle of the importance of social sciences.

An example of the way in which public engagement could help steer such a grand challenge programme was given by the EPSRC’s recent Grand Challenge in Nanotechnology for Medicine and Healthcare. Here, a public engagement exercise was designed with the explicit intention of using what emerged as an input, together with expert advice from academic scientists, clinicians and industry representatives, into a decision about how to shape the priorities of the programme.

I’ve written in more detail about this process elsewhere. Here, it’s worth stressing what made this programme particularly suitable for this approach. The proposed research was framed explicitly as a search for technological responses to societal issues, so it was easy to argue that public attitudes and priorities were an important factor to consider. The area is also strongly interdisciplinary; this makes the traditional approaches of relying solely on expert advice less effective. Very few, if any, individual scientists have expertise that crosses the range of disciplines that is necessary to operate in the field of nanomedicine, so technical advice needs to integrate the contributions of people expert in areas as different as colloid chemistry and neuroscience, for example.

The outcome of the public engagement provided rich insights that in some cases surprised the expert advisors. These insights included both specific commentaries on the proposed areas of research that were being considered (such as the use of nanotechnology enabled surfaces to control pathogens) and a more general filter – the idea that a key issue in deciding people’s response to a proposed technology was the degree to which it gave or took away control and empowerment from the individual. Of course, people were concerned about issues of risk and regulation, but the form of the engagement was such that much broader questions than the simple question “is it safe” were discussed.

I believe that this public engagement was very successful, because it concerned a rather concrete and tightly defined technology area, it was explicitly linked to a pending funding decision, and there was complete clarity about how it would contribute, together with more conventional consultations, to that decision – that is, what kind of applications of nanotechnology to medicine and healthcare a forthcoming funding call would prioritise. Of course, there are still many open questions about using public engagement more widely in this sort of priority setting.

The first issue is the question of scope – at what level does one ask the question? For example, in the area of energy research, one could ask, should we have a programme of energy research, and if so how big? Or, taking the answer to that question as given, one could ask whether research in biofuels should form a part of the energy programme? Or one could ask what kind of biofuel should we prioritise. My experience from a variety of public engagement exercises in the area of nanotechnology is that the more specific the question, the easier it is for people to engage with the process. But the criticism of focusing public engagement down in this way is that one can be accused, by focusing on the details, of taking the answers to the big questions as read.

But the big questions are fundamentally questions of politics in its proper sense. They are questions about what sort of world we want to live in and what kinds of lives we want to lead. The inescapable conclusion, for me, is that the explicit linkage of science and this kind of politics – the politics of big questions about society’s future – is both inevitable and desirable.

Many scientists will instinctively recoil from this this enmeshing of science and politics. I think this is a mistake. It is less controversial to say we need more science in politics – since so many of the big issues we face have a scientific dimension, most people agree that decisions on these issues need to be informed by science. But we also need to recognise that we need more explicit recognition of the political dimensions of science – because the science we do has such potential to shape the way our society will change, we need positive visions of those changes to steer the way science develops. So, we need more science in politics, and more politics in science. And, when it comes to it, we probably need more politics in politics too.

In addition to these more fundamental questions, there are some very practical linked issues related to the scale of the engagement exercises one does, their methodological robustness, and their cost. Social scientists can contribute a great deal to understanding how to make them as reliable as possible, but I believe that a certain pragmatism is called for when one considers their inevitable methodological shortcomings – they need to be seen as one input into a decision making process that already falls short of perfection. This is inevitable; it is expensive in money and time to do these exercises properly. The UK research councils seem to have settled down to an informal understanding that they will do one or two of these exercises a year on topics that seem to the be most potentially controversial. Following the nanomedicine dialogue, there have been recently completed exercises on synthetic biology and geo-engineering. But we will see how strong the will is to continue in this way in an environment with much less money around.

In addition to practical difficulties, there are people who oppose in principle any use of public engagement in setting scientific priorities. One can identify perhaps three classes of objections. The first will come from those scientists who oppose any infringement of the sovereignty of the “independent republic of science”. The second can be heard from some politicians, who regard the use of direct public engagement as an infringement of the principles of representative democracy. The third will come from free market purists, who will insist that the market provides the route by which informal, non-scientific knowledge is incorporated in decisions about how technology is developed. I don’t think any of these objections is tenable, but that’s the subject for a much longer discussion.

Efficient nanomotor cleverly harnesses light

New device can be driven by any simple light source

July 06, 2010

Growing nanotechnology business around the globe

Nanotechnology is continuously improving its presence and now more than 2000 companies worldwide are engaged in this field from research to manufacturing or applications. A large number of companies around more than half are from United States., above 600 companies are from Europe and more than 200 are from Asia. Nanotechnology has now become a multidisciplinary [...]

July 04, 2010

Reactions to Mooney -- or why more data is a good thing

Chris Mooney's recent Washington Post piece and American Academy of Arts & Sciences report (see nanopublic post from June 29, 2010) produced surprisingly strong criticsm from some bloggers.  The idea that the public may increasingly turn to scientists for answers about the social implications of emerging technologies surely cannot come as a surprise to anyone. Neither can the fact that broad societal debates about issues, such as stem cell, nanotechnology and synthetic biology, will take place if we like it or not.

So what was the fuss all about?  Maybe the idea that science as an institution will increasingly be forced to pay attention the social dynamics surrounding breakthrough technologies?  That, for better or worse, is a simple fact, backed by countless studies (see here for an overview), and not a debatable issue stance.

It's therefore particularly surprising that a good portion of the arguments against Mooney's overview are based on normative notions of what scientists should or should not have to do, or on guesswork about how scientists could better connect with public audiences.  Systematic social science data about what the societal realities are that will likely surround science in the next few years or about the most promising approaches for closing science-public divides are noticeably absent from much of this discussion. 

This is not to say that normative policy positions are not worth debating. But in this case, they ironically reinforce the very point Mooney was making in the first place: More social science data would go a long ways toward making all of these debates more fruitful.

July 03, 2010

PEN nano consumer product inventory under fire?

Nanotechnology Law & Business today published an online-first version of an interesting piece by David Berube and his colleagues at North Carolina State University’s (NCSU) Public Communication of Science and Technology project (PCOST). The article takes a critical look at the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies (PEN) consumer product inventory. The inventory has been used widely as a gauge of the number and types of nano consumer products currently on the U.S. market.

The NC State team analyzed the products listed in the inventory based on
"product name, company, product category, country of origin, availability (is the product available for purchase), countries where the product may be available, what elemental type of nanotechnology was employed or constituted in the product (e. g., carbon, gold, silver, iron, etc.), distribution channel, whether the source link was functional (source link is a term used by the CPI to indicate reference and it was often redundant with the product website), whether the product website was functional, whether it utilized nanotechnology (determined against claims from the website or source site), and if it was included on EC21 ..., a business to business (B2B) product listing website."
 Based on their analyses, the authors conclude

"that the CPI is not wholly reliable, and does not have sufficient validity to justify its prominence as evidence for claims associated with the pervasiveness of nanotechnology on the U.S. and global markets. In addition, we caution researchers to approach the CPI with care and due consideration because using the CPI as a rhetorical flourish to amplify concerns about market intrusions seems unjustified."
Click here for a PDF of the full article.

Altair Nanotechnologies signs agreement to supply advanced lithium-ion batteries to Proterra Inc.

Altair Nanotechnologies based at Reno, Nevada is one of the leading providers of energy storage systems including Lithium-Titanate based battery systems. These are among the best performing energy storage systems that find applications in a number of uses including mass transit and military applications. Altair Nanotechnology has recently announced that it will supply advanced lithium-ion battery [...]

July 02, 2010

CNT lasers come into view

French scientists demonstrate optical gain in carbon nanotubes for the first time

July 01, 2010

Dual-diameter nanopillars absorb more light

Nanostructures with a small tip and large base could be useful for photovoltaic and photodetector applications

Tailoring the magnetization processes of iron nanowires

High-quality and well controlled nanowires allow team to develop analytical model

June 30, 2010

Carbon nanotube biosensor developed for detecting protein

Researchers at Boston College have developed a carbon nanotube biosensor, which could detect ferritin, protein used for storing iron and E7 oncoprotein. The new carbon nanotube biosensor was prepared by coating a thin layer of selected polymer and the system uses electrochemical signals that detect minute quantities of protein. According to the multidisciplinary  team of researchers [...]

On the importance of social science for scientific progress

Chris Mooney had an excellent piece in the Washington Post on Sunday on the importance of communicating science and social science, more broadly, for scientific progress in the U.S.  From his concluding paragraphs:
"Experts aren't wrong in thinking that Americans don't know much about science, but given how little they themselves often know about the public, they should be careful not to throw stones. Rather than simply crusading against ignorance, the defenders of science should also work closely with social scientists and specialists in public opinion to determine how to defuse controversies by addressing their fundamental causes.

They might, in the process, find a few pleasant surprises. For one thing, the public doesn't seem to disdain scientists, as scientists often suppose. A 2009 study by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press found that Americans tend to have positive views of the scientific community; it's scientists who are wary of the media and the public."
And there may be more of a fertile ground for Mooney's recommendations than he implies in his last point. While the AAAS/Pew survey cited in Mooney's piece suggests that scientists are weary of getting caught up in the often heated public discourse surrounding scientific controversies, more systematic survey data from Europe, Asia and the U.S. show that this is not true for many of the leading scientists in fields, such as nanotechnology or stem cell research. A number of colleagues and I detailed these findings in a piece in The Scientist last year:
"What looks like a widespread anti-media sentiment [in the AAAS data] may also have been triggered, at least in part, by question wording. The AAAS survey did not ask respondents if they agreed or disagreed that news media oversimplified findings but, rather, how much of a problem respondents thought it was that they did. Our surveys of biomedical and nanotechnology experts instead asked scientists to express their agreement or disagreement with various statements about the quality of media coverage of their scientific field.

When asked in this more balanced way, 54% of the nano scientists disagreed "somewhat" or "strongly" that media coverage was "hostile toward science." In fact, when asked about the scientific accuracy of coverage, nano scientists were split, with 27% believing that it was inaccurate, 28% believing it was accurate, and about 45% falling in the neutral middle category. Similarly, 49%of biomedical researchers disagreed that media coverage was "hostile toward science," while only 12% agreed. Their assessments of accuracy were similarly split: 33% believed that coverage of their field was inaccurate, 35% believed it was accurate and 32% were undecided."

The Mooney piece is based on a longer report he did for the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Also, for a follow-up with reactions from STS, policy and communication scholars, see Andrew Revkin's Dot Earth.

June 27, 2010

Fab Synchronization for producing advanced chips

Four reputed companies have come together to synchronize semiconductor manufacturing program for producing advanced chips based on 28nm process technology. IBM, Samsung Electronics, ST Microelectronics and Global Foundries are working towards standardization of advanced 28nm process technology so those consistent products are made worldwide for various applications including electronics and device manufacturers. The 28nm process technology, [...]

June 24, 2010

Towards improvement in the efficiency of the solar cell

Solar energy is one of the major renewable sources of energy; however the major drawback of utilizing the energy is the conversion of it. The best nanowire solar cells available at present thin film solar cells of type III/IV and had a conversion efficiency of the order of 37 to 40 percent and researchers want [...]

June 21, 2010

Gold nanoparticles to be added in silver nanowires for enhancing visible light irradiation

A Researcher has thought of decorating silver chloride nanowire with that of gold nanoparticles and has studied its affect of various chemical and physical properties of the material. Nanoscientist Yugang Sun at US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory has created visible light catalysis using the method. Silver nanowires have been continuously studied for various [...]

TAKING THE SUMMER OFF

I have been busy traveling with my new LLC (Center for Emerging Technologies). Got a few contracts and we are doing well as a consultancy. Still working on our NIRT which is due to lapse in 2011. Most recently we submitted articles for Nanotechnology Law and Business and another to Nanotoxicology (out of UK). The first article will appear in the Summer issue and examines (critically) the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies consumer product inventory. The second is the first data from the Delphi we completed under the NIRT. My students and I are working on six more articles and we expect at least two from each of our NIRT subawards - Wisconsin, Minnesota, and South Carolina. I submitted a NUE proposal for the next two years and am pending. I am also on a U19 NIH grant proposal that is pending and a P48 NIH Superfund grant as well.

While I have been approached to write another book on Nanotechnology, I haven't pull the trigger on that. I am also attempting to rewrite a piece I wrote for Nature Nanotechnology but the reviewer were all over the map with recommendations (some of which were totally off base) and given the length restrictions attempting to accommodate this recommendations is nearly impossible. So, beyond the six articles and the work on my new book on FEAR I am a bit overwhelmed.

I will be at the 4S (social science of science) Conference in Tokyo in August. I will be speaking at the Nano-dialogue meeting at the Free University of Amsterdam in September and have two papers for a NCA ARST (rhetoric of science and tech) meeting in San Francisco in November and a SRA(risk) meeting in Salt Lake in December. In addition, I am teaching a CRD 893 class in Social Media in the fall and CRD 790 Issues in Communication, Rhetoric, and Digital Media and COM 562 Communication and Social Change in the spring. Pending grant may affect some of this.

We did manage a hire to work with PCOST (Public Communication of Science and Technology). Dr. Andrew Binder from U Wisconsin will join us as an assistant professor in communication and will be associate director of PCOST. I expect a small team of doctoral and masters students to work with me as well.

So.... we will take a few months off and re-examine the state of this blog. I would like to broaden the subject field. Let me know what you think.

June 18, 2010

A new report on Nanotechnology, Health and Environment to be presented

Greenberg Traurig, LLP, Intertox and BPT Pharmaceuticals have come together and raised issues on the health and environmental impact of nanotechnology. The authors are well known intellectuals and have focus on certain issues related to the safe and eco-friendly use of the nanotechnology for future generation. The EHS risks as studied by the various stakeholders such [...]

June 17, 2010

Friends of the Earth turn to web advertising to push their view of EHS nano dangers

The battle over the summer news hole is on.  Friends of the Earth just announced the launch of a web advertising campaign to promote their "public education" effort about potential environmental and human health impacts of nanoparticles in sunscreens:
“What many beachgoers and others enjoying the summer sun don’t know is that the sunscreens they’re using contain manufactured nanoparticles that pose health risks,” said Friends of the Earth’s health and environment campaigner, Ian Illuminato. “What more and more studies are showing is that manufactured nanoparticles may be able to damage cells and have harmful health repurcussions. They also pose risks to workers and the environment, and there’s no evidence that they make sunscreens more effective at blocking the sun’s harmful rays.”
The "education" campaign also dusts off FoE's 2007 Consumer Guide for Avoiding Sun Screens and various other reports from a few years back.

The timing is impeccable, of course, keeping alive a news wave started last week by a push from NY Senator Sen. Chuck Schumer to have the Food and Drug Administration looking into a possible link between retinyl palmitate in sun screens and skin cancer in humans.

June 16, 2010

PCAST looking for input on innovation potential of bio, nano and info tech

From the PCAST call for input:
"New technologies are changing our world fast, as is obvious to anyone using the latest smart phone, wearing the latest nano-fiber fabric, or filling a prescription for the latest biotech-derived medicine. Now the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) wants to hear from you about how the Federal government can best use its resources so three of the newest and most promising technologies provide the greatest economic benefits to society.

This information-gathering process is being coordinated by the President’s Innovation and Technology Advisory Committee (PITAC), part of the PCAST. Through PCAST, PITAC advises the President on matters involving science, technology, and innovation policy. As part of its advisory activities, PITAC is soliciting information and ideas from stakeholders—including the research community, the private sector, universities, national laboratories, State and local governments, foundations, and nonprofit organizations—regarding a technological congruence that we have been calling the “Golden Triangle.”

Each side of the Golden Triangle represents one of three areas of research that together are transforming the technology landscape today: information technology, biotechnology, and nanotechnology. Information technology (IT) encompasses all technologies used to create, exchange, store, mine, analyze, and evaluate data in its multiple forms. Biotechnology uses the basic components of life (such as cells and DNA) to create new products and new manufacturing methods. Nanotechnology is the science of manipulating and characterizing matter at the atomic and molecular levels. Each of these research fields has the potential to enable a wealth of innovative advances in medicine, energy production, national security, agriculture, aerospace, manufacturing, and sustainable environments—advances that can in turn help create jobs, increase the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP), and enhance quality of life. In combination, through what some have called the nano-bio-info convergence, the potential for these fields to transform society is even greater.
PITAC is interested in gaining a better understanding of how the Federal government can enhance this potential, and would like to gather public information and input as to how to best do so. It is posing the following question:
What are the critical infrastructures that only government can help provide that are needed to enable creation of new biotechnology, nanotechnology, and information technology products and innovations that will lead to new jobs and greater GDP?
We’d like to hear your thoughts regarding unique opportunities at the intersections of these fields; where the basic research is taking us and what knowledge gaps remain; impediments to commercialization and broad use of these technologies; infrastructure required to properly test, prototype, scale, and manufacture breakthrough technologies; where the Federal government should invest and focus; and what Federal policies or programs relating to these technologies are in need of review and whether new programs or policies may be needed in light of recent and anticipated advances in these fields.

There are two ways you can share your thoughts on this topic. First, you can go to the OpenPCAST website, where you can contribute your ideas on this and a few related questions. Second, you can be part of a live Webcast discussion scheduled to take place on Tuesday, June 22 from 10 am to 2:30 pm. You can watch the Webcast on the PCAST website and submit your comments via Facebook or Twitter. See the PCAST site for more details.

The information we gather from these activities will guide PCAST/PITAC as we recommend policies and programs relevant to the Golden Triangle of technologies, and as we continue our work to propose ways to implement the President’s “Strategy for American Innovation.” It will also help us identify studies that might be conducted as part of PCAST/PITAC’s “Creating New Jobs through Science, Technology, and Innovation” initiative.

We look forward to hearing from you!
Shirley Ann Jackson and Eric Schmidt are members of PCAST"

June 15, 2010

Stickiness of gold nanoparticles could be used for producing protein

Gold nanoparticles are tiny spheres of gold in the range of 1 to 100 nanometer and these nanoparticles have become useful in medicines. These nanoparticles have found many useful applications in modern medicine and drug-delivery system is the most common application. Howeevr, the major disadvantage of gold nanoparticles is that they are sticky and due to [...]

June 12, 2010

Superconducting nanoparticles of tin show shell effect

A lot of researchers throughout globe are working on superconductors and all metals behave as superconductors at a minimum temperature, however the research focus is to increase this minimum temperature so that the superconductors are utilized for saving the real energy. As the electrical resistance of any metal also depends on the size, and researchers have [...]

June 09, 2010

Graphene may replace carbon fibres in high performance applications

Carbon fibres are used for manufacturing in light weight high performance applications such as racing cars, aircrafts etc due to their light weight and excellent strength. Now a team of material scientists and physicists from the University of Manchester are exploring grapheme for the replacement of carbon fibre. Graphene is a two dimensional carbon layer and [...]

May 20, 2010

96% Solar Efficiency


A new anti-reflective coating developed by researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute could help to overcome two major hurdles blocking the progress and wider use of solar power. The nanoengineered coating boosts the amount of sunlight captured by solar panels and allows those panels to absorb the entire spectrum of sunlight from any angle, regardless of the sun's position in the sky.
An untreated silicon solar cell only absorbs 67.4 percent of sunlight shone upon it — meaning that nearly one-third of that sunlight is reflected away and thus unharvestable.
After a silicon surface was treated with Lin's new nanoengineered reflective coating, however, the material absorbed 96.21 percent of sunlight shone upon it — meaning that only 3.79 percent of the sunlight was reflected and unharvested. This huge gain in absorption was consistent across the entire spectrum of sunlight, from UV to visible light and infrared, and moves solar power a significant step forward toward economic viability.

Source: PhysOrg