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Science
Friday > Archives
> 2000
> August
> August 11, 2000:
Hour Two: Nanotech: Small
Things Considered
| This week, the National Science and Technology Council
released a report outlining the Administration's strategy for investing
in research into nano-scale science. The President has proposed
almost doubling the current Federal research in nanotechnology in
the next fiscal year, to $495 million. |
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The world's smallest abacus,
with buckyball beads on a copper surface. (IBM
Research, Zurich, image)
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The report comes on the heels of plenty of new nano-scale inventions,
ranging from the world's smallest abacus, built by IBM researchers
out of buckyballs on a copper surface, to a pair of DNA "tweezers"
announced this week in the journal Nature by a team of researchers
from Lucent Technologies and Oxford University.
Many scientists are quick to point out that the many of the tiny
gears, switches and wheels they have been building are not useful
in and of themselves. Instead, they offer a training ground for
building things on a small scale and for learning how to manipulate
matter at the molecular level.
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Some researchers point to a nanotech future with heavy overtones of
science fiction -- a future in which tiny machines build products for
us, robots floating in the blood fix medical problems, and today's desktop
computing power can fit on the head of a pin. But how will we get from
today's baby steps to the future's nanotechnology -- or will we ever
get there? Join us on this hour of Science Friday for a look at nanotech
fact and fiction, and the potential links between the two.
Guests:
Bernard Yurke
Physicist
Lucent Technologies / Bell Laboratories
Murray Hill, New Jersey
James Gimzewski
Group Leader, Nanoscale Science
IBM Research Division
Zurich Research Laboratory
Zurich, Switzerland
Jeff Brinker
Senior Scientist
Department of Energy-Sandia National
Laboratories
Professor, Chemical and Nuclear Engineering
University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Richard Smalley
Nobel
Laureate, Chemistry, 1996
Director, Center for Nanoscale
Science and Technology
Rice University
Houston, Texas
Books/Articles Discussed:
Related Links:
National
Nanotechnology Initiative
Nanodot:
News and Discussion of Coming Technologies
Foresight
Institute
Sizing
Up Nanotechnology --Wired News
Open
Directory - Science: Technology: Nanotechnology
Sandia
News Release: Nanotechnology
The
world's smallest abacus - IBM press release
IBM
Research - Nanotechnology
BBC
News | SCI/TECH | DNA makes tiny tweezers
Researchers
from create first DNA motors (Lucent press release)
Mar.
17 2000: Hour Two: Perils of Technology
Wired
8.04 -"Why the future doesn't need us." by Bill Joy
Produced By: Annette Heist
Web Producer: Charles
Bergquist
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