Businessweek indicates that new short pulse lasers can also shatter the outer membranes of viruses, which suggests they can be used to purify donated blood. A father-son team of scientists–one a laser expert at the University of Arizona, and the other an immunology student at Johns Hopkins University–built one that emits pulses of light at …
The International Herald Tribune discusses a Middle East literally in flames from the Hindu Kush to the Mediterranean is by no means a distant or unrealistic prospect. On the face of it, neither country has anything to gain from war, since neither can possibly prevail. Syria is too weak reconquer its lost territory and Israel …
Dexter at the IEEE spectrum blog asks “What’s the point?” of all of the billions being spent in the name of something called nanotechnology He talked also about the nanotechnology funding race and asks what is at the finish line My answer around the policies of not having a point for the programs. It is …
Businessweek reports that new financially sophisticated leaders are being promoted to higher positions in China An example: Zhou Xiaochuan, currently head of the People’s Bank of China. The former economics professor and fluent English-speaker is a strong contender for vice-premier in charge of finance. One of China’s most sophisticated economic minds, he can hold his …
I am going to be starting an ongoing series of articles on some of the near term nanotechnology. I am spinning it off in its own blog. Here is the nanoparticle drug delivery site The Drug delivery is a multi-billion dollar business. Some calculate it as a 9.8 billion business. Led by the strong growth …
Something of interest to me being a Canadian and a US citizen. The Canadian dollar and the US dollar are trading at virtual parity It is taking about 1.002 Canadian dollars to buy one US dollar. This is the result of the weaknesses in the US economy, the US wasting a lot of money on …
The Carnival of Space Week 21 is up at whyhomeschool My article on how to win the Google Xprize is included Discoery Enterprise also summarizes various reaction to the Google Xprize Brian WangBrian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked …
In a recent experiment short laser pulses, falling on an organic salt target, momentarily changed the material from an insulator (a bad reflector of light) to a semi-metal (good reflector of light). The change in reflectivity this large—more than 100%-has never been achieved before in a photonic material; photo-induced changes are usually more like a …
Ponoko is an attempt at an online network of people and companies of the total manufacturing chain Currently this version of the concept seems targeted at small producers. There are other attempts to leverage the internet to source components and alternative suppliers. hat tip to futurismic Brian WangBrian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and …
USB 3.0 could hit communication speeds of 4 Gbps and next generation Firewire might be 3.2 Gbps or 10 Gbps USB2 has a speed of 480 mbps. The USB3 spec probably will have to reduce the five-meter reach of USB 2.0, perhaps to as little as two meters. The 1394 has been studying use of …
Tim Harper at cientifica has put up a name calling article with accusations that those who believe in mechanosynthesis are ignoring science Here is his article: The mechnosynthesis fans at places like the Centre for Irresponisble Promotion of Unfeasble Nanotechnologies always get a bit hot under the collar when criticised, and the first line of …