Foresight Update 23.43: “Molecular switches perform 700-bit parallel processing”—August 6, 2010
ISSN 1078-9731
Discuss these news stories at http://foresight.org/nanodot.
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Nanowerk describes a recent advance toward the “e-nose” by an international team of researchers. Team member Andrei Kolmakov explains…
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:
…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.
Foresight Research Analyst and Technical Editor James Lewis has tracked the careers of those receiving Foresight’s student award. Here are his findings on the careers of a few of these gifted young researchers…
We can get a hint of the power coming from longer-term nanotech by seeing what is being discovered today on how to use some of the new materials becoming available. Many of us have been intrigued with graphene, a one-atom-thick planar sheet of bonded carbon atoms. It’s no surprise that exciting applications are being found already, such as Nanotechweb’s report on work in South Korea…
Finishing off the week on a fun note, we see that robotic firm Willow Garage — of special interest to Foresight due to their emphasis on open source — has achieved an important milestone in robotics: namely, the ability for a robot to fetch a beer from the fridge and deliver it…
The nomination/submission process for the 2010 Foresight Institute Feynman Prizes in Nanotechnology is now open. Two $5000 prizes are offered, one for theory and one for experimental achievement. These prizes recognize progress toward the goal of atomic-level control in the construction of macroscale 3D objects: an ambitious goal but one toward which physicist Richard Feynman pointed as early as 1959…
Nanotechnology Now brings news of a recent Atom Technology workshop in Singapore featuring dual Foresight Institute Feynman Prize winner Christian Joachim, Feynman Prize founder Jim Von Ehr of Zyvex Labs and Zyvex Asia, and Foresight Roadmap participant Damian Allis of Syracuse University…
Small investors who want to invest in nanotech startups have for years turned to publicly-held venture group Harris & Harris Group, which has focused on private companies in nanotech and microsystems.
With the economy down, and initial public offerings (IPOs) more rare, this strategy is changing. Brian Gormley of the Wall Street Journal’s Venture Capital Dispatch explains…
—Nanodot posts by Christine Peterson
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.
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Events
Singularity Summit 2010
August 14-15, 2010
San Francisco, California USA
Hundreds of AI researchers, robotics experts, philosophers, entrepreneurs, scientists, and interested laypeople will converge in San Francisco to address the Singularity and related issues at the only conference on the topic, the Singularity Summit. Experts in fields including animal intelligence, artificial intelligence, brain-computer interfacing, tissue regeneration, medical ethics, computational neurobiology, augmented reality, and more will share their latest research and explore its implications for the future of humanity. Student and referral discounts available.
MAM-10
5th IUPAC-Sponsored International Symposium on Macro- and Supramolecular Architectures and Materials
New Science & Technologies for the Improvement of Human Living Standards
August 15-20, 2010
Montego Bay, Jamaica
"The scientific program will cover key developments in the syntheses, structural elucidation, behavior, and potential applications of new compounds, materials, and supramolecular or macromolecular aggregates."
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