Foresight Nanotech Institute Weekly News Digest: August 15, 2007
Format change for remainder of August
For the remainder of August, the format of the News Digest will change to accommodate Foresight schedule changes. Instead of our usual news categories, we bring you a sample of our popular Nanodot blog posts from the preceding week. Our usual format will return in September.
—Jim Lewis, editor
In this issue:
Foresight Events: Productive Nanosystems Conference
Advancing Beneficial Nanotechnology - Join Foresight
Conference – Singularity Summit 2007
Nanodot: Nano for personalized happiness measurement
Nanodot: Nanotech & the wildcard of advanced software
Nanodot: Nanotechnology to reduce experiments on animals
Nanodot: Nanotechnology bill introduced by Rep. Honda
Nanodot: Nanotechnology for life extension goes mainstream
Foresight Lectures
Contact Foresight
Foresight Events
Conference sponsored by Foresight Nanotech Institute and Society of
Manufacturing Engineers with support from Battelle
October 9-10, 2007
DoubleTree Crystal City in Arlington, VA
Now, for the first time, the Technology Roadmap for Productive Nanosystems will describe the R&D pathways and products resulting from this ultimate technological revolution. Join us as we explore the power of advanced "bottom-up" nanotechnology in this 14th Foresight Conference on Advanced Nanotechnology.
Feynman Prize luncheon on October 9, 2007
The full conference program (October 9, October 10) and brochure (PDF 949 KB) are now available.
Special thanks to The Waitt Family Foundation and Sun Microsystems for financial support of the Roadmap project.
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Do you believe that nanotechnology will give society the ability to tackle the hard challenges facing humanity? What's your priority for nanotechnology: cancer treatments and longevity therapies, sustainable energy, clean water, a restored environment, space development, or "zero waste" manufacturing? Or perhaps there are potential nanotech scenarios you would like to prevent.
If you would like to help influence the direction of this powerful technology, please consider becoming a member of Foresight Nanotech Institute. With your support, Foresight will continue to educate the general public on beneficial nanotechnology and what it will mean to our society.
Members receive the Foresight Nanotech Update newsletter. For a sample from the archives, see the interview of Ron Folman of Ben-Gurion University in Israel, on "atom chips." Join Foresight and help steer nanotech in the directions you personally support most!
Folman interview in Update 58
To join:
https://www.foresight.org/forms/php/donate.php
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Foresight Partners
Singularity Summit 2007
AI and the Future of Humanity
Sponsored by Singularity Institute
September 8-9, 2007
San Francisco, California
The Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence is proud to announce the Singularity Summit 2007, a major two-day event bringing together 16 prominent thinkers to examine a historical moment in humanity's history—a window of opportunity to shape how we develop advanced artificial intelligence.
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Nanodot: A sample from Foresight's blog
Nanowerk brings us an interview from Chemical Biology about the use of nanotechnology for the measurement of happiness. Yoshinobu Baba, a professor of chemistry at Nagoya University and a director for nanobiotechnology research at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology in Japan, explains:
"Nanobiotechnology could be used as a measure of happiness, stress levels and health. We can measure the stages of cancer or diabetes, since genomic research tells us which genes are related to which diseases. But we need to analyse proteomics and glycomics in more detail. The next stage is to measure the function of the brain, looking at happiness and stress…"
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Nanotech experiments using real molecules are expensive and slow. Progress in nanotechnology would be greatly increased by highly advanced software truly able to model how molecules interact to make materials, devices, and systems. What are the odds of highly advanced software — machine intelligence — being developed any time soon?
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…Most of us would like to reduce the need for experimentation on animals, but the question has been how to do it without increasing risks to humans. Now nanotech is being considered as a possible route, in a new conference sponsored by IoN…
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US Rep. Mike Honda (D-San Jose), who has played a key role in previous US nanotechnology legislation and won the 2005 Foresight Institute Government Prize, has introduced a wide-ranging new nanotech bill…
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Foresight president Pearl Chin brings our attention to an interview of Sanjay Gupta in Life Extension magazine. It sounds as though his new book Chasing Life includes coverage of nanotechnology. Excerpts from the interview:
"…I think in the next couple of decades, we're going to get to a point of practical immortality. It's not true immortality, but practical immortality, meaning that we're going to live much longer without getting sick, and as a result we'll have many more functional years. It seems that we are going to get to the point where some people will be able to decide how long they want to live by doing some of the things that Kurzweil talks about…"
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Foresight Lectures
August 10, 2007
American Bar Association Annual Meeting
San Francisco, California
Christine Peterson will serve on a panel addressing the role of the legal profession in responsible development of nanotechnology.
Click here for conference details
September 8-9, 2007
Singularity Summit 2007
Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence
San Francisco, California
Christine Peterson will speak on preparing for highly advanced coming technologies such as machine intelligence and nanotechnology.
Click here for conference details
October 6-7, 2007
7th Alcor Conference on Life Extension
Alcor Life Extension Foundation
Scottsdale, Arizona
Christine Peterson will speak on life extension.
Click here for conference details
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Contact Foresight
The Foresight Nanotech Institute Weekly News Digest is emailed every week to 15,000 individuals in more than 125 countries. Foresight Nanotech Institute is a member-supported organization. We offer membership levels appropriate to meet the needs and interests of individuals and companies. To find out more about membership, follow this link:
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Dr. James Lewis, Research Analyst at Foresight Nanotech Institute, is the editor of the Foresight Nanotech Institute Weekly News Digest. If you would like to submit a news item or contact him with comments about the News Digest, please send an email to editor@foresight.org
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http://www.foresight.org/publications/weekly.html
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