The May/June Technology Review (free reg. req’d) features an essay by philosopher Roger Scruton attempting to examine the ethical issues of highly advanced technologies. While the focus is on biotech, nanotech is hinted at: …why cannot machines be produced as humans are now produced, by self-reproduction? Why not indeed. They ...

We’ve written here before about the Environmental Defense/DuPont effort to create a framework to deal with nanotechnology environmental, health, and safety (EHS) risks. Now NRDC has issued its own report and framework. An excerpt from the report: The current approach to chemical regulation cannot be relied upon to prevent harm from ...

Regular readers of Nanodot know that we often disagree with ETC Group — but not always. They have issued a press release condemning a plan by a private firm to seed the ocean with iron particles in an effort to fight global warming. An excerpt: As worrying, Planktos boasts on their website that the [...]

These days Foresight is focused on our Technology Roadmap and policy initiatives such as Open Source Physical Security. But we still have our visionary side, shown in a Fortune profile of Foresight advisor Ray Kurzweil, which also features Foresight director and X PRIZE founder Peter Diamandis: If you went around saying that in a couple [...]

BusinessWeek.com reports that nanotechnology is the next big thing in Russia: Russia will pour over $1 billion into equipment for nanotechnology research over the next three years as it uses massive oil and gas export earnings to diversify an economy now heavily dependent on raw materials, First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov said ...

Michael Berger of the useful Nanowerk website has produced a clarification essay on the size of the nanotechnology market, helping to put the hype in perspective. Some excerpts: First of all, these market size forecasts are dealing with what is called evolutionary nanotechnology. The goal of evolutionary nanotechnology is to improve existing ...

We mentioned earlier a request for comment on a proposed Nano Risk Framework for approaching nanotechnology materials safety organized by Environmental Defense and DuPont. Now a different group of organizations has come out against that framework. Their statement is titled “Civil Society-Labor Coalition Rejects Fundamentally Flawed ...

A wide-ranging interview of NSF’s Mihail Roco includes an opinion on the rate of advance of nanotechnology toward its more advanced stages: If you look toward the future, the field is moving very fast from studying simple components – like nanotubes, nanoparticles, quantum dots – to studying active devices and nanosystems. We are also ...

Small Times reports on a meeting held in Oregon among a wide variety of nanotechnology-based business participants, at which many commercialization challenges were discussed. One was difficulties encountered with the U.S. Patent office: Start-ups expressed frustration with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Long waits for patent ...

Nanowerk brings our attention to a new report by the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress titled Nanotechnology: The Future is Coming Sooner Than You Think (pdf), apparently authored by Senior Economist Joseph V. Kennedy and sponsored by Rep. Jim Saxton (R-NJ). On molecular nanosystems: At this stage a single product will integrate a ...