Scientific Knowledge: Nanobiology 2001
Nanobiology 2001 will bring together leading international experts from different disciplines to discuss the latest experimental, theoretical and computational developments in the study of nanoscale objects and machines in biological systems, particularly molecular motors and thermal ratchets.

links courtesy http://www.zyvex.com/nano/

Videos on the web (you'll need RealPlayer from RealNetworks).

• Ralph C. Merkle's talk on the need for continued nanotechnology research at the Stanford Spiritual Robots Symposium.
• Congressional Hearings on nanotechnology held June 22, 1999.

Books

The following books can be ordered directly from The Foresight Institute or through Foresight's affiliation with Amazon.

• The best technical introduction to this area is:
  • Nanosystems: molecular machinery, manufacturing, and computation by K. Eric Drexler (Wiley 1992).
• Technical books discussing applications of nanotechnology:
  • Nanomedicine, currently being written by Robert A. Freitas, is a technical introduction to medical applications of nanotechnology. Volume I is available. A web page on Nanomedicine has an overview. The full text is also available.
• Books accessible to the intelligent non-specialist include:
  • Engines of Creation(full text in html) by K. Eric Drexler (Anchor 1986) discusses both the technology and its possible applications and consequences.
  • Prospects in Nanotechnology: Toward Molecular Manufacturing edited by Markus Krummenacker and James Lewis (Wiley 1995) has chapters by 15 different authors providing multiple perspectives on the field.
• Books accessible to a broader audience are:
  • Unbounding the Future, by K. Eric Drexler, Chris Peterson and Gayle Pergamit (Quill 1991) provides a non-technical discussion of what nanotechnology should let us do, using technically feasible scenarios to clearly illustrate the possibilities. Now available on the web!
  • Nano! by Ed Regis (Little, Brown 1995) is an engaging and entertaining book that describes the researchers involved in this area, particularly Drexler, and the reactions of different members of the scientific community to the concept.
  • Nanotechnology: molecular speculations on global abundance, edited by BC Crandall, (MIT Press, 1996), offers different views by different authors in different chapters on what nanotechnology might be used for in the future.

Journals, publications and newsgroups

• The Foresight Update is a newsletter published by the Foresight Institute and is an excellent way to keep abreast of developments and events in this rapidly moving area. Most issues are available from Foresight. Josh Hall's nanotechnology site also has issues.
• Foresight has a list of books, articles, introductory material and other information about nanotechnology.
• sci.nanotech is a net news discussion group that covers nanotechnology and related areas.
• The journal Nanotechnology covers nanotechnology both in the specific sense used here and in the broader sense. It has had a special issue for each of the Foresight Conferences on Molecular Nanotechnology and is well worth reading. Ask your library to subscribe! Nanotechnology is published by the Institute of Physics Publishing.

Conferences and events

• See the Foresight web page listing of events.

The Feynman Prizes

• The Foresight Institute has a web page which gives information on the prizes they sponsor, most notably the Feynman prizes in nanotechnology.

Some articles on the web

• There's plenty of room at the bottom, by Richard P. Feynman, is a classic 1959 article which discusses the limits of miniaturization and forecast the ability to "...arrange the atoms the way we want; the very atoms, all the way down!"
• Molecular engineering: an approach to the development of general capabilities for molecular manipulation, by K. Eric Drexler. The first journal article on molecular nanotechnology.
• A summary of Advanced automation for space missions, a 1980 NASA study which provides a good introduction to self replicating systems.
• Nanotubes as nanoprobes in scanning probe microscopy.
• Nanotechnology and the next 50 years, by Richard Smalley.
• Molecular dynamics simulations of fullerene-based nanoscale gears (including an mpeg movie).
• Several papers on nano design and related issues (including several mpeg movies of simulated nanostructures) and a paper discussing NASA applications of molecular nanotechnology from the computational nanotechnology project at NASA Ames.
• A proposed "metabolism" for a hydrocarbon assembler.
• Overview of self replication.
• Self replicating systems and molecular manufacturing.
• Self replicating systems and low cost manufacturing.
• Molecular manufacturing: adding positional control to chemical synthesis.
• It's a small, small, small, small world, published in MIT's Technology Review, provides a general introduction to nanotechnology.
• A new family of six degree of freedom positional devices discusses the Stewart platform, a simple robotic arm, and a new proposal: the double tripod. It then analyzes and compares their positional accuracy in the face of thermal noise at room temperature.
• Steps towards molecular manufacturing discusses the design of molecular building blocks that could be used in conjunction with positional assembly in solution (no vacuum) to build a useful range of non-diamondoid molecular structures, including early assemblers.
• Computational nanotechnology discusses the idea of using computer simulation to speed the development of this new technology.
• Theoretical studies of a hydrogen abstraction tool for nanotechnology is an ab initio study of a proposed molecular tool.
• Self-assembly, by J. Fraser Stoddart.
• A proof about molecular bearings.
• Design considerations for an assembler discusses the design of a "simple" diamondoid assembler.
• Convergent assembly can make meter scale or larger products starting with nanometer scale parts.
• Nanotechnology and medicine discusses some of the possible medical applications of nanotechnology.
• Cornell's SciTech magazine has a special issue on nanotechnology.

Sites with many links

• The Foresight Institute
• The National Nanotechnology Initiative
• NSF nanotechnology database
• NAS nanotechnology resource listing
• The nanotechnology archive maintained by Josh Hall, the moderator of sci.nanotech.
• Sean Morgan's nanotechnology page.
• Brad Hein's Nanotechnology Page.
• Nanotechnology Industries
• UCLA's chemistry page has many links to chemistry-related topics.
• Chemistry on the Internet: The best of the Web 1995.
• The NanoLink list of nanotechnology web sites.
• Scanning Probe Microscopy (SPM, STM, AFM, SFM).

Some Frequently Asked Questions

• How long will it take to develop nanotechnology?
• What should I study to enter the field of nanotechnology?.
• Doesn't thermal noise, quantum mechanics, design complexity, .... make assemblers impossible?

Some groups focused on nanotechnology

• The Foresight Institute. Motto: Preparing for future technologies. A nonprofit organization, the Foresight Institute has played a pivotal role in educating both the general public and the research community about the potential impact of nanotechnology. address: Foresight Institute, Box 61058, Palo Alto CA 94306 USA; phone: 415-324-2490; fax: 415-324-2497; e-mail: inform@foresight.org; WWW: http://www.foresight.org.
• The Institute for Molecular Manufacturing, a nonprofit foundation formed to carry out research aimed at developing molecular manufacturing.
• The National Nanotechnology Initiative
• Molecular Manufacturing Enterprises, Incorporated (MMEI) was founded to help accelerate advancements in the field of nanotechnology. They provide seed capital and other support to those developing key advances.
• The Numerical Aerodynamic Simulation Systems Division (NAS) at NASA Ames Research Center, in partnership with the Ames computational chemistry branch and others, is developing a substantial capability in computational molecular nanotechnology, and funds a grant program in the field. An example of their work is a computer analysis of molecular gears, which was reported by (among others) Scientific American.
• The Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology at Rice University is devoted to nurturing science and technology at the nanometer scale.
• The Molecular Manufacturing Shortcut Group (MMSG) is a chapter of the National Space Society (NSS). MMSG's motto: promote the development of nanotechnology as a means to facilitate the settlement of space. NSS has a position paper on molecular nanotechnology

Startups

• The field now has its first startup: Zyvex. "With a 5-10 year time horizon for its first revenue, it is one of those rare startups that need not be focused on near-term profits."
• More startups in this area are likely. Two major risks are (a) investing too early or (b) investing too late. As the potential payoff is extremely large and the time frame for developing nanotechnology is quite uncertain, a reasonable strategy is to invest at a modest level that can be sustained for a long period. This reduces the costs if development takes a long time, while avoiding the risk of being left out when the technology (likely unexpectedly) takes off.

Other pages

• The House Science Committee, Subcommittee on Basic Research, held hearings on nanotechnology on June 22nd, 1999. Testimony was heard from Eugene Wong (NSF), Paul McWhorter (Sandia), Nobel Laureate Richard Smalley (Rice), and Ralph Merkle. Web video is available and can be seen using the free RealPlayer G2.
• NSF is funding research in nanotechnology. Neal Lane, the Director of NSF, said: "If I were asked for an area of science and engineering that will most likely produce the breakthroughs of tomorrow, I would point to nanoscale science and engineering, often called simply "nanotechnology"." NSF has sponsored a web page on nanotechnology with links to major research centers, funding agencies, reports, books, etc.
• James Gimzewski (formerly at IBM Zurich) made the world's smallest abacus as well as positioned individual molecules at room temperature.
• The Rice University Nanotechnology Initiative outlines the efforts at Rice guided by Richard Smalley (who recently won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry).
• The Laboratory for Molecular Robotics at USC is run by Aristides Requicha and is investigating the precise manipulation of atoms and molecules.
• The NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts is interested in revolutionary new ideas that "leap-frog" the evolution of current aerospace systems in a 10-40 year time horizon.
• An interview with Ralph Merkle provides an easy overview of some basic ideas.
• Scanning tunneling microscopy at IBM Almaden includes images of several structures built by positioning individual atoms.
• The Materials and Process Simulation Center at Caltech, run by Bill Goddard, has computationally modeled a broad range of structures, including those relevant to the development of nanotechnology. For example, Charles Musgrave and Jason Perry, then with Goddard's group, used ab initio quantum chemistry to analyze a molecular tool which should be useful in the synthesis of diamondoid structures (Theoretical studies of a hydrogen abstraction tool for nanotechnology, Musgrave et. al., Nanotechnology 2 (1991) pages 187-195).
• Scientific American has a web page on molecular machines.
• NRL (Naval Research Laboratory) has several groups pursuing various aspects of nanotechnology. The Chemistry Division (among others) pursues research in nanostructures and nanofabrication.
• Ned Seeman's lab is working on nanotechnological applications of DNA, including (for example) a truncated octahedron. The Stewart platform, a well known positional device, is basically an octahedron six of whose struts can be adjusted in length. While DNA is not as stiff as might be desired for molecular robotics applications, the ability to synthesize an octahedral structure suggests that the self assembly of a simple positional device is possible.
• Links to information about diamond CVD (Chemical Vapor Deposition).
• An Alpha release of Carol Shaw's Molecular Assembly Sequence Software (MASS) for the Macintosh.
• Some constants, conversion factors, etc. that are useful in nanotechnology.
• Geoff Leach's nano directory with information on Crystal Clear, a crystal editor with a graphical user interface. If we are to design diamondoid structures of any size and complexity, we must have suitable CAD tools. Crystal Clear is one of the first. It lets you easily design, modify and alter the specification for a broad range of diamondoid structures, including simple blocks of diamond of varying size and crystal orientation; molecular bearings; and other complex structures. A paper describing Crystal Clear and the binary for SGI machines are both available.
• University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Virtual Reality Nanomanipulator Project.
• A group at Oak Ridge National Lab (ORNL) is modeling molecular components.
• Some reactions to nanotechnology from the technical community.
• RAND has issued a report on The Potential of Nanotechnology for Molecular Manufacturing
• Nanotechnology in manufacturing by John Walker, part of a talk he gave in 1990 at the Autodesk technology forum.
• NIST has an interest in nanomanufacturing of atom-based standards.
• Park Scientific Instruments, Digital Instruments, Topometrix and NT-MDT (to name but a few companies) make Scanning Probe Microscopes.
• A Practical Guide to Scanning Probe Microscopy by Park Scientific Instruments.
• A macroscopic modular reconfigurable robot has been designed modeled and a prototype built at Stanford.
• 3D VRML models derived from proposals in Nanosystems have been made by Construct.
• HotWired has a page of scenarios about the future, including some speculative scenarios about nanotechnology.
• A new version of the planetary gear illustrated in Nanosystems on pages 311 and 312.
• MITRE has a web page on nanoelectronics and nanocomputing.
• Reversible computing is also an important issue if we are to continue improving computer performance. Molecular manufacturing will let us put a very large number of logic elements into a very small volume, so if we are to avoid creating a great deal of heat we'll need to keep the energy dissipation per logic operation very low indeed!
• Visual images of some proposed molecular machines.
• The slides for some talks on nanotechnology are available.