NEW YORK, January 24, 2007 - An urgent need for new nanotechnology
policy is highlighted by breakthrough results from a recent British
government funded project. For the first time ever, a group of
high-level scientists assembled for the purpose of inventing something
as close as they could get to the long-sought nanotechnology goal of
building precise products atom by atom. The remarkably advanced
projects those scientists produced -- which they hope to complete in
three to five few years -- suggest that the era of molecular
manufacturing could arrive far more swiftly than previously imagined.
"What this shows, even more strongly than before, is the critical
necessity of additional work on implications and policy," said Mike
Treder, Executive Director of the Center for Responsible
Nanotechnology (CRN). "Existing nanotechnology policies, and most
proposed policies, do not address huge new areas of concern raised by
tomorrow's revolutionary manufacturing potential. That gap could be
calamitous."
Nanofactories will use vast arrays of tiny machines to fasten single
molecules together quickly and precisely, allowing engineers,
designers, and potentially anyone else to make powerful products at
the touch of a button. In a single week of intense interdisciplinary
work, an "IDEAS Factory on the Software Control of Matter" produced
three ground-breaking research proposals that bring the nanofactory
concept closer to reality. The project was sponsored by the UK's
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), a national
science agency that also will fund the proposals.
"If, as expected, nanofactories can be used to build more
nanofactories, then the impacts on society may be extreme," said
Treder. "From remarkable advances in health care, environmental
repair, and poverty reduction, to severe economic disruption,
political upheaval, and the possibility of a new arms race: all these
implications and more must be understood. Now it appears that our time
to prepare is getting shorter."
The goals of the IDEAS Factory project were audacious: to make
progress toward the vision of a "matter compiler" that could build
atomically precise products under computer control. The
forward-looking proposals coming from the IDEAS Factory should expand
expectations as to what's possible at the nanoscale, and hold the
potential to accelerate the development of nanofactory systems.
"This shows that molecular manufacturing, which has been considered a
far-future result of nanotechnology, is now a fruitful topic for
current scientific attention," said CRN Director of Research Chris
Phoenix. "We expect that the IDEAS Factory will be a trend leader,
inducing other nanoscientists to use molecular manufacturing as an
inspiration and target for their work."
Participants in the IDEAS Factory designed research projects using an
innovative process in which scientists from many different fields work
together to bypass the conventional limitations of their fields. The
three proposals they developed are expected to accomplish in just a
few years what might have taken twenty with traditional approaches.
Funding has already been assured by the EPSRC and experimental work
will begin shortly.
ABOUT CRN
The Center for Responsible Nanotechnology (http://CRNano.org) has been
raising awareness about the severe societal and environmental
implications of advanced nanotechnology, and the urgent need for new
policy, since 2002. CRN is an affiliate of World Care, an
international, non-profit, 501(c)(3) organization. The opinions of CRN
do not necessarily represent those of World Care.
MORE INFORMATION
What is the IDEAS Factory? - http://tinyurl.com/ahptw
What is nanotechnology? - http://crnano.org/whatis.htm
What is molecular manufacturing? - http://crnano.org/BD-5MinMM.htm
What is a nanofactory? - http://crnano.org/bootstrap.htm
This is the paragraph that you should keep in mind in the coming weeks, and the one that will generate a lot of chatter:
For the first time ever, a group of high-level scientists assembled for the purpose of inventing something as close as they could get to the long-sought nanotechnology goal of building precise products atom by atom. The remarkably advanced projects those scientists produced -- which they hope to complete in three to five few years -- suggest that the era of molecular manufacturing could arrive far more swiftly than previously imagined.
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