Small Times brings word of advances in making longer carbon nanotubes. The company involved, Nanocomp Technologies, reminds us why these materials are so intriguing: Individual nanotubes have extraordinary properties as they are: Strong - 100 times stronger than steel. Lightweight – 30 percent lighter than aluminum. Conductive - conduct ...

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 ...

In the long term, we’ll need effective security techniques for advanced nanotechnology-based systems. This will take a while to figure out, so come help us do it at an upcoming open source conference, Penguicon: Open Source-style Security for the Whole Physical World Christine Peterson, Bruce Schneier One of the biggest problems society ...

USA Today covers the challenging but environmentally important issue of making batteries: inefficient, nasty things today that need to get a lot better and cheaper. And they will, with nanotech developed by these two MIT professors: [Prof. Angela] Belcher’s virus-assembled batteries are thin, transparent sheets that look like plastic ...

Nanowerk covers a February 2007 report from the U.S. Defense Science Board titled 21st Century Strategic Technology Vectors (pdf). Excerpts: DOD must also keep abreast of the most rapidly changing and emerging technologies as a necessary complement to the mission-driven perspective that is the focus of this report. Today these include bio-, ...

Though we do not always agree with Gregor Wolbring, his column on nanotech and the military reminds us of a very difficult potential problem: The start of a nano arms race, and the lack of willingness to regulate potential synthetic biology through the modification of existing treaties or the application of existing treaties or the development ...

Long-time nanotechnology trackers have assumed that nanotech will be useful for chemical and biological defense, and sure enough, at least one national government is exploring this issue. See the website for the Nanotechnology Initiative at the Special Projects Office at the Joint Science and Technology Office for Chemical and Biological ...

Speigel Online reports that nanotechnology work at the University of Texas is leading toward a nanotech “exoskeleton” for military use: Now the superpower’s military is hoping to profit from the findings of nanotechnologist Ray Baughman from the University of Texas. He has managed to develop chemically grown nanotubes, which ...

Somehow we missed the original launch of the 12-minute video describing MIT’s Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies, funded by the U.S. Army. It includes animated sequences depicting combat scenarios and how nanotechnologies could be used in response. Some of these are pretty science-fictiony, which means they have at least some chance ...