| Total Recall | |
| f9 | Wealthy New Lab Aims to Capture Dreams, Literally Wed Oct 13, 2004 08:01 AM ET Top News By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent ASHBURN, Virginia (Reuters) - Gerald Rubin is looking for someone who can take a picture of a thought. To do it, he and colleagues are harnessing the powerful force of cold, hard cash -- Howard Hughes' cash, to be exact. They are building a new $400 million laboratory in the green countryside outside Washington, D.C., and hope to attract the brightest and most unconventional minds in science to find a way to look into a person's brain and see what it is doing. And they want to take their time doing it. "In a 100-year timeframe we want to understand human consciousness," said Rubin. Rubin and colleagues at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute -- one of the world's richest philanthropies with an endowment worth $11.3 billion -- are approaching this ticklish problem backwards. They have bought a 280-acre farm in Ashburn, Virginia, and are building a new kind of research campus. Only now, halfway through its construction, are they settling on what kind of research they want to do and looking for the people to do it. "We are (like) a biotechnology company whose product is new knowledge and which has infinitely patient investors," Rubin told reporters on a recent tour, comparing the foundation to a corporation. How did they settle on imaging thought? "We wanted to pick an important biomedical problem but we wanted to pick a problem that wasn't easily addressed at academic campuses." One area that might meet these criteria was the question of how brain cells store and process information. Rubin and the other founders of Janelia Farm -- HHMI President Thomas Cech and chief scientific officer David Clayton -- polled scientists on what they thought the biggest problem in future biomedical research would be They all say imaging," Rubin said. As with all "basic" scientific research, the researchers do not know what they might discover or its potential applications. While biologists have a rough idea of what goes on in a cell, current scans all record the action indirectly, by measuring glucose uptake, for instance. CAPTURING DREAMS What if you could take a picture of a brain cell at the very moment it recorded a thought? Trying to do this will require the expertise of neurobiologists, physicists, molecular biologists, chemists, geneticists, instrument designers and computer scientists. Those who are interested will hear a beguiling call: "We'll give you money, lots of money, and we won't ask too many questions," Rubin said. Hughes, who founded the Hughes Aircraft Company and helped turn TWA in a major airline, founded HHMI in 1953. Hughes Aircraft went to the Institute after his death in 1976. Rubin said the HHMI board of trustees want to act like venture capitalists. "Venture capitalists will assume that many projects won't pay off but that some will pay big," Rubin said. Janelia Farm will operate on the same assumption. "If someone tells me they are doing something with a 90 percent chance of success, I'll tell them they are not being creative enough -- to go find something more adventuresome," Rubin said. To some degree this has been the philosophy of the HHMI, a virtual institute that funds scientists already working at universities across the country. Janelia Farm will take the anti-academic approach even further. Rubin said the plan is to do away with tenure, and publish-or-perish mentalities that he says can block collaboration and long-term thinking. FREEDOM TO BE DIFFERENT The foundation's deep pockets allow considerable flexibility. "In a typical university, you have to convince a third party of what you want to do," Rubin said. "We are not going to take a penny of money from anybody else." About 10 percent, or 300, of HHMI's 3,000 scientists will eventually work at Janelia Farm, Rubin said. The HHMI team hired New York architect Rafael Vinoly to design a campus on the site, chosen because it was close to Dulles International Airport and HHMI's headquarters in nearby Chevy Chase, Maryland. The new center, 40 minutes by car from Washington, is due to be finished in March 2006. The laboratories were designed with nothing specific in mind. "We looked and looked at every instrument scientists used and asked, 'What's the biggest one' and then we made the rooms big enough to hold it," Rubin said. The campus includes a 96-room hotel and apartment complex. The aim is to encourage sabbaticals, short-term collaborations and casual visits. Built like a terrace into a hillside that gently slopes to the Potomac River, the building has wide glass corridors to let in plenty of natural light and a view across a flood plain where no one else can ever build anything. But will scientists working with no deadline and little oversight be tempted to spend their days gazing across the green landscape instead of striving for genius? "That's a risk we are willing to take," Rubin said. |
| f9 | An article by HRH The Prince of Wales on nanotechnology published in the Independent on Sunday, Sunday 11th July 2004 I am well aware that promoting public debate about nanotechnology is an uncertain business. My first gentle attempt to draw the subject to wider attention resulted in ‘Prince fears grey goo nightmare’ headlines. So, for the record, I have never used that expression and I do not believe that self-replicating robots, smaller than viruses, will one day multiply uncontrollably and devour our planet. Such beliefs should be left where they belong, in the realms of science fiction. The important thing is to get on with the sensible debate that should accompany the introduction of such technologies which work at the level of the basic building blocks of life itself. Nanotechnologies involve particles of an unimaginably small size. The thickness of a human hair is 80,000 nanometers, and a pin head is generally agreed to be 1 million nanometres wide. The ability to work at this scale, at the level of individual molecules, is a triumph of human ingenuity. It is also a subject of huge scientific interest and commercial potential simply because matter behaves in fundamentally different ways at the nano-scale. These new properties will enable new applications, many of which will undoubtedly have perceived benefits to our society. If they don’t, they won’t be commercialized. But how are we going to ensure that proper attention is given to the risks that may also ensue? Discovering the secrets of the Universe is one thing; ensuring that those secrets are used wisely and appropriately is quite another. So I am delighted that the Royal Society and the Royal Academy of Engineering are conducting a joint study on nanotechnology. This will help to separate the scientific facts from the science fiction, and the hope from the hype, providing the starting point for a much wider debate. Their report will be published in the next few weeks, but the evidence they have taken from a wide range of interested parties is already available on the Internet (www.nanotec.org.uk/evidence). The evidence covers a wide spectrum of opinion, much of it naturally concerned to ensure that the potential benefits from nanotechnology are not understated in the report. I was particularly struck by the evidence provided by a recently-retired Professor of Engineering at Cambridge University, Professor John Carroll. He hopes that the investigation will ‘consider seriously those features that concern non-specialists and not just dismiss those concerns as ill-informed or Luddite’. Referring to the thalidomide disaster, he says it ‘would be surprising if nanotechnology did not offer similar upsets unless appropriate care and humility is observed.’ He ends by pointing out that ‘it may not be easy to steer between a Luddite reaction and a capitulation to the brave new technological world, especially when money, jobs and business are at risk.’ Those are my sentiments too, and I wish the Royal Society and Academy every success in steering that difficult course. It is important, though, to ask, at this early stage, how we will ensure that risk assessment keeps pace with commercial development. This is clearly a very fast-moving area of science, involving many disciplines, yet if we look at the EU’s research programme for nanotechnology, only an estimated 5 per cent of total funding is being spent on examining the environmental, social and ethical dimensions of these technologies. That certainly doesn’t inspire confidence. There are also important questions relating to the control and ownership of these technologies. Some of the work may have fundamental benefits to society, such as enabling the construction of much cheaper fuel-cells, or new ways of combatting ill-health, yet the techniques operate at the same scale as the ‘self-assembly’ of natural processes. Is there a danger of awarding patents on Nature? My final point concerns the apportionment of benefits and risks. The benefits will largely accrue to those who invest successfully in these technologies and to those who can utilize them. But these new applications will inevitably displace existing technologies. Who will lose from that process, and will it widen the existing disparities between rich and poor nations? What exactly are the risks attached to each of the techniques under discussion, who will bear them, and who will be liable if and when real life fails to follow the rose-tinted script? This debate is still at an early stage. The Royal Society’s research shows that only 29 per cent of the population currently even recognizes the term ‘nanotechnology’; those who do are generally positive about its potential. I suspect that broader public acceptance will only be achieved and maintained if public attitudes and regulatory processes are encouraged to develop at the same rate as the technology itself, and if a precautionary approach is seen to be applied. There will also, I believe, have to be significantly greater social awareness, humility and openness on the part of the proponents of emerging nanotechnologies than we have seen with other so-called “technological advances” of recent years. Those are the things which, above all, I hope the Royal Society and Academy’s report will encourage. |
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| f9 | Risk list The list, which CRN says is probably incomplete, outlines the following: Economic disruption from an abundance of cheap products: The inexpensiveness and flexibility of nanotech products will likely mean that non-nanotech products can't compete in many areas. Molecular engineering technologies being exclusively owned or controlled could also create monopolies that increase odds of abuse and anticompetitive practices. Economic oppression from artificially inflated prices: The immense value of molecularly engineered products would allow owners of the technology to establish a monopoly in the market and charge high rates. Nanotech products could command far higher prices than their production costs and be unattainable to people in some poorer countries. Criminal and terrorist use: With advanced nanotechnology, chemical and biological weapons could become much more deadly and easier to conceal, making criminals and terrorists more dangerous. Stronger, more powerful and much more compact devices could do serious damage, and defenses against these devices may not be immediately or comprehensively available. Personal or social risk from abusive restrictions: Attempts to find solutions for some of the high-risk problems surrounding nanotechnology might create massive human suffering or human rights violations. One possible scenario is the introduction of abusive restrictions and policies such as round-the clock surveillance of citizens. Social disruption from new products and lifestyles: Advanced nanotechnology could dramatically affect the way society functions and the way people live their lives. One example is the possible creation of medical devices could allow easy brain modification or stimulation, with effects similar to psychoactive drugs. Unstable arms race: Molecular engineering raises the possibility of horrifically effective weapons. Aerospace hardware would be far lighter and higher performance. And built with minimal or no metal, it would be much harder to spot on radar. Embedded computers would allow remote activation of any weapon, and more compact power handling would allow greatly improved robotics. Also, nanotech weapons present more problems than nuclear weapons because they can be targeted with greater precision, alleviating one barrier to using weapons of mass destruction. Nanotech weapons could also be developed more rapidly due to faster and cheaper prototyping. Free-range self-replicators: Also known as the "gray goo" scenario, free-range self-replicating nanotechnology factories could cause massive damage and be difficult to eradicate. Collected environmental damage from unregulated products: The range of possible environmental damage from advanced nanotechnology is vast, from personal low-flying supersonic aircraft injuring large numbers of animals to the spread of nanoscale litter that is hard to clean and hazardous to health. Black market nanotech: Overzealous regulation could create a pent-up demand for nanotech products, which could lead to espionage, cracking of restricted technology, independent development and a black market beyond the control of central authorities. Competing nanotech programs: Competing nanotechnology programs could provide separate opportunities for the technology to be stolen or otherwise released from restriction. Each nation with an independent program is essentially a separate player in a nanotech arms race. Attempted relinquishment: There will be a strong temptation to simply to outlaw advanced nanotechnology because of its potential risks. Such action would likely be ineffective as many nations are already spending millions on basic nanotechnology. Within a decade, advanced nanotech will likely be within the reach of large corporations. Because a worldwide ban would likely be impossible, relinquishment could be a dangerous approach. If the most risk-aware countries stopped working on nanotechnology then the less responsible countries would be the ones developing and dealing with it. |
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| f9 | Distributed August 24, 2000 For Immediate Release News Service Contact: Janet Kerlin Physical and life sciences meet Brown engineering and neuroscience group wins grant for brain study Six Brown scientists plan to explore the function of the human brain using tiny electronics – nanotechnology – with a $4.25-million grant from the U.S. Defense Department. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Using electronic structures 500 times smaller than the width of a human hair, six Brown University professors plan to explore the function of the human brain under a $4.25-million grant from the U.S. Defense Department. The team of scientists from several disciplines hopes to develop electronic circuits many times smaller than the microelectronics used in personal computers. Their work in nanotechnology may be able to tell scientists more about how the brain works and may someday allow computer makers to supercharge electronic structures with human capabilities. The grant is unusual because it pairs the life sciences with the physical sciences, said Arto Nurmikko, professor of electrical engineering and physics and principal investigator of the research program. A third discipline within the research is information science, the study of the processing of information. “We want to have the man-made and the nature-made structures communicate,” Nurmikko said. “Is there a benefit? Is it possible to endow a man-made structure with some new capabilities which we don’t have and might become increasingly important in the future?” The group’s proposal is to create a tiny device that would emit light to stimulate brain cells and record light from brain cells, analogous to a camera. The research unites professors who bring various perspectives to the research: James Anderson, professor of cognitive and linguistic science; Barry Connors, professor of neuroscience; John Donoghue, professor of neuroscience and director of Brown’s Brain Science Progam; Benjamin Kimia, associate professor of engineering; and Jingming Xu, professor of engineering and physics. The proposal originated from Brown’s Center for Advanced Materials Research, where Nurmikko is co-director. “From my perspective it’s an exciting grant, it’s an opportunity to work with first-rate people from physics and engineering with whom I would not otherwise connect,” Connors said. “There aren’t too many times that people from my field and their field get together in the same room to talk about science.” When the scientists did sit down together, the life scientists became aware of cutting-edge technologies in physics and engineering that haven’t yet been applied to the study of the human body. The five-year grant was awarded in July by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Six winners were selected from a final round of 80 proposals submitted by leading academic institutions. The Defense Department gave awards to teams from California Institute of Technology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford, Princeton, and Arizona State University, in addition to Brown. The Brown proposal was entitled “Coupling of Brain with Microstructured Electronic/Optoelectronic Arrays: Interactive Computation at the Bio/Info/Micro Interface.” |
| f9 | Radical fabric is one atom thick The new class of material is much more stable than others A new class of material, which brings computer chips made from a single molecule a step closer, has been discovered by scientists. Called graphene, it is a two-dimensional, giant, flat molecule which is still only the thickness of an atom. The nanofabric's remarkable electronic properties mean that an ultra-fast and stable transistor could be made. The physicists from the University of Manchester and Chernogolovka, Russia, published their research in Science. "In my opinion, this is one of the most exciting thing to have happened in solid state physics in a decade," Professor Laurence Eaves, semi-conductor expert from the University of Nottingham told the BBC News website. Graphene is part of the family of famous fullerene molecules, discovered in the last 20 years, which include buckyballs and nanotubes. Their unusual electronic, mechanical and chemical properties at the molecular scale promise ultra-fast transistors for electronics, as well as incredibly strong, flexible and stable materials. Ballistic promise Scientists have been trying to exploit this for computing because smaller transistors mean the distances electrons have to travel become shorter, meaning faster speeds. Graphene is like millions of unrolled nanotubes stuck together Conventional transistors rely on the semi-conducting characteristics of silicon which provide the switches that change the flow of current in computers and other electronics.... http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3944651.stm Permission sought for stem cell cloning Wednesday, October 13, 2004 Posted: 12:42 PM EDT (1642 GMT) Science and Technology Harvard University Research CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) -- Harvard University scientists have asked the university's ethical review board for permission to produce cloned human embryos for disease research, potentially becoming the first researchers in the nation to wade into a divisive area of study that has become a presidential campaign issue. "We want to find new ways to study and hopefully cure diseases," said Harvard biologist Douglas Melton, a senior researcher who, along with a colleague, has applied for permission to do the work. Embryonic stem cells are master cells that can form into any tissue of the body. Many scientists believe harnessing them might one day allow tissue regeneration to treat numerous diseases. Harvesting stem cells from embryos kills the embryo, and some argue that it is tantamount to taking a life. President Bush has signed an executive order limiting federal help to all but existing stem cell lines. Democratic challenger John Kerry supports widespread stem cell research. The research group asking for a green light to advance its work is one of two teams affiliated with the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, a facility set up earlier this year to fund such research. http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/science/10/13/human.cloning.ap/index.html Robots set to get homely by 2007 Child and the Irobi robot ponder each other Robots are set to become increasingly familiar companions in homes by 2007, says a United Nations survey. Seven times more robots will helping us out with the cleaning, security and entertainment in three years' time, as their price falls and they get smarter. It is not quite the humanoid vision of blockbuster film I, Robot as many of them will be vacuum bots. Two-thirds of the 607,000 domestic robots in use were bought in 2003, says the UN's annual World Robotics report. By the end of 2007, 4.1 million robots will be doing jobs in homes, says the report by the UN Economic Commission for Europe and the International Federation of Robotics. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3764142.stm |