Foresight Update 23.25: Nanomachinery goes mainstream - June 18, 2009
Discuss these news stories at http://foresight.org/nanodot.
Top News of the Week
This Physorg story gives the details, hat tip to Sander Olsen…
Scientists from A*STAR's Institute of Materials Research and Engineering (IMRE), led by Professor Christian Joachim, have scored a breakthrough in nanotechnology by becoming the first in the world to invent a molecular gear of the size of 1.2nm whose rotation can be deliberately controlled…
In this issue:
Foresight Events – Lectures
Foreseeing Future Technologies - Join Foresight
More Events
Contact Foresight
Brian Wang over at Next Big Future has an article about improving the properties of aluminum as a structural material by filling with buckytubes, the way plastics are made stronger by filling by fiberglass…
About a month ago, the web was all agog over the announcement of DARPA's Physical Intelligence program — Wired wrote:
The idea behind Darpa's latest venture, called "Physical Intelligence" (PI) is to prove, mathematically, that the human mind is nothing more than parts and energy. In other words, all brain activities — reasoning, emoting, processing sights and smells — derive from physical mechanisms at work, acting according to the principles of "thermodynamics in open systems." …
One of the constraints laid down by DARPA at the recent Physical Intelligence proposers workshop was that the model of intelligence that was to be proposed had to have a physical implementation. It seemed odd to some of the attendees that this should be a hard constraint, since many models of intelligence have a perfectly reasonable implementation as software …
Last week I posted a story of strange behavior in the simulation of molecular machines.
One commenter asked if this was due to something unusual in the starting configuration of the atoms. This was the first thing we investigated, and didn't seem to be the case…
—Nanodot posts by J. Storrs Hall
Foresight Events – Lectures
Foresight Lectures
July 30, 2009
Singularity University
Mountain View, California
Christine Peterson will moderate and Foresight advisor Stewart Brand will serve on a panel on time horizons in an accelerating world, for Singularity University participants.
Click here for conference details
August 20-22, 2009
Gnomedex: a technology conference of inspiration and influence
Seattle, Washington
Christine Peterson will speak on life extension.
Click here for conference details
Advancements in technologies such as nanotech, robotics, and biotech are promising to make major differences in our lives in the not-too-distant future, as the Industrial Revolution did to the agrarian world — to do for the physical world what the computer and Internet have done to the world of information.
Since 1986, the Foresight Institute has been in the forefront of a worldwide community of visionaries who work to help shape these possibilities into a positive, beneficial reality. If you would like to help us understand the potential of these technologies, and influence their direction, please consider becoming a member of the Foresight community. With your support, Foresight will continue to educate the general public on these technologies and what they will mean to our society.
To join:
http://foresight.org/members/index.html
More Events
Converging Technologies for 21st Century Security
Organized by the Institute of Nanotechnology
November 25, 2009
The Royal College of Physicians, London, UK
Organised crime, terrorism, civil conflict, and natural disasters are sadly commonplace in global society and have developed increasingly complex dimensions. To counter such threats, civil security and emergency response teams are looking towards new technologies that offer more sensitive, rapid, and accurate detection methods; that provide the means to neutralise or effectively deal with the outcomes of such incidents; and that provide greater protection to personnel.
Contact Foresight
The Foresight Institute Weekly News Digest has merged with Foresight Update and is emailed every week to 15,000 individuals in more than 125 countries. Foresight 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:
http://www.foresight.org/members/index.html
To join:
https://www.foresight.org/forms/php/donate.php
If you would like to browse past issues of Foresight Update and the News Digest, follow this link:
http://www.foresight.org/publications/weekly.html. Older issues of Foresight Update published from 1987 through spring of 2007 are archived here.
Foresight Institute
PO Box 61058
Palo Alto, CA 94306 USA
tel +1 650 289.0860
fax +1 650.289.0863
foresight@foresight.org
If you were forwarded this email from a friend and would like to subscribe yourself, please follow this link and sign up for our free electronic membership.
Thank you!
|