Walmart targets selling 100 million compact fluorescent bulbs each year by 2008 If it succeeds in selling 100 million compact fluorescent bulbs a year by 2008, total sales of the bulbs in the United States would increase by 50 percent, saving Americans $3 billion in electricity costs and 3 million tons of greenhouse gas per …
The first in a new generation of nanotechnology-based cancer treatments will likely begin clinical trials in 2007, and if the promise of animal trials carries through to human trials, these treatments will transform cancer therapy. One of these new approaches places gold-coated nanoparticles, called nanoshells, inside tumors and then heats them with infrared light until …
Lifeboat has published an interesting view of what the world energy situation could look like in 2020 It was written by Jose Luis Cordeiro, M.Sc., MBA Some main things envisions being developed: Cars with electrical engines with nanobatteries for hybrid cars with flexi-fuel engines. (EFH electric-flex-hybrid” cars) Synthetic bacteria that efficiently produced hydrocarbons from carbon …
New lighter ceramic armor with some nanotechnology material aspects may appear in Iraq in 2007 They intend to mimic sea snail shells. By alternating very thin layers of a hard chalk-like material with layers of its own sticky proteins (snail spittle, if you will), sea snails create shells that are tough, light and durable. “We’re …
George Church predicts 2007 as the year of personal genomics The price to sequence the 1% of the genome that differentiates people will drop to a street price of $3000 in 2007. Momentum is thus building for millions of people to volunteer to have their genome data correlated with their physical-traits to benefit the billions …
The EPSRC Ideas Factory has opened up a public blog to accept ideas for software control of matter Chris Phoenix has contributed Silica-nucleating proteins (e.g. silicatein) might be used to make silica structures. Chris points out mechanosynthesis of [molecularly precise] structures is much broader than diamondoid or Drexler, and blends into approaches that don’t even …
A link from CrNano, a paper called Making molecular machines work which surveys recent advances in the achievement of control of motion at the molecular level including solid-state and surface-mounted rotors, and its natural progression to the development of synthetic molecular machines. Brian WangBrian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger …
CNN discusses a survey of 18-25 year olds by Dittmar Associates and finds them indifferent to NASA’s plans for a return to the moon. My opinion on why NASA’s plans inspired in the 1960’s but meets with indifference now. 1. NASA is no longer seen as leading the way to the future. In the 1960’s, …
Researchers from Washington University in St. Louis have used advanced brain imaging techniques to show that remembering the past and envisioning the future may go hand-in-hand, with each process sparking strikingly similar patterns of activity within precisely the same broad network of brain regions. First, the study clearly demonstrates that the neural network underlying future …
From physorg.com and the university of Rochester, the theorists who first created the mathematics that describe the behavior of the recently announced “invisibility cloak” have revealed a new analysis that may extend the current cloak’s powers, enabling it to hide even actively radiating objects like a flashlight or cell phone. Greenleaf and his collaborators used …
DNA computers are likely more than a decade away so they will not be used and minimally useful. The performance will probably not be more than traditional computers of that time and for massively parallel comparison searches it will be faster to use quantum computers. Analog Quantum computers should start to see introduction in 2007 …