Howard Lovy's NanoBot

The following is an edited transcript:

Hi Howard,

I'm working on a story about nanotech for our show and would love to do a brief phone interview with you. If it was at all possible to have you go into the studio at your nearby public radio station, it would make the sound quality even better. Please let me know if you're game and if there's a convenient time in the near future.

Thanks in advance for your consideration,

Lisa Napoli
Senior Reporter
Marketplace Public Radio

Lisa,

Sure. I'm a 'Marketplace' fan. I'd love to do it. Maybe even through the magic of editing you can remove my "ums" and "ers" to make me sound slightly intelligent!

I live near Detroit (WDET) and work in Ann Arbor (WUOM). Either one would work for me. Early mornings are best.

Howard

Lisa: Howard, great, thanks---you know if you listen to the show that all ums and ers get erased! Could you do it Friday morning. And you are on Eastern time, right?

Howard: Yes, I'm on Eastern Time. I usually wake up very early. Anytime between ... um ... 6 and 10 a.m. would work for me. Whenever you get a chance, let me know what you'd like to discuss so I can make sure I'm prepared. Thanks.

Lisa: Just a general state of the nanotech universe for the layperson, with an eye toward the money side of things--why does it seem so much is being invested, what the heck is nanotech, etcetera? That okay?

A day goes by. The interview happens. I was in a scary room with lots of dials and switches and a big microphone.

Howard: Lisa, Thanks for your patience while I rambled on. Now I remember why I never went beyond my college radio station in the broadcasting business. I hope I gave you something you can use. Please feel free to contact me at any time if you'd like any more information ... or more nano-meanderings!

Lisa: Howard, you were great. Thank you so much for your time. I'll keep you posted as this comes together--now I hear it has to run next Wednesday, so I've got to move quickly after interviewing Mr. Bionic Crotch later today.

Howard: That's great. I'm glad Mr. B.C. will get his 15 minutes! (or, in radio time, 15 seconds?). Do you mind if I tell my blog readers that I was interviewed?

Lisa: Not at all!

Discuss

Another "Century City" review:

Legal time warp: "'Century City' is at its best when it embraces the silliness of trying to forecast the future, like a plot from tomorrow night's episode where a jilted boyfriend accuses his ex of programming his personality into all of her clothes and appliances. Even if you remember nothing else of 'Century City' months from now, a line like 'Give me back my nano-pants!' may stick for a while." More here.

I'm really going to have to start watching this show. I can't help but wonder whether the show's writers read nanotech blogs?

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Discuss

From the Herald Sun in Australia:

A son wants to freeze his parents after they die in the hope technology will one day be able to revive them.

Philip Rhoades, 52, a member of the Cryonics Association of Australia, has spent almost $100,000 preparing an underground storage.

...  Mr Rhoades' mother, Dorothy, 72, a former maths and science teacher and his father, Gerald, 77, an industrial chemist, have agreed to take the slim chance they may one day be brought back from the dead.

They believe there is a chance technology, especially in nanotechnology, will develop to a level where successful reanimation of dead people will be possible.

Without religious or moral objections to the concept, they believe cryonics is worth trying.


... The Cryonics Association of Australia has about 30 members and 16 living people have signed on to be frozen in the US-based Alcor and Cryonics Institute, which typically costs $70,000. More here.

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All things considered, I'd rather be in the Bay Area (rather than gray, frozen Michigan). This event tonight sounds fun:

The Bay Area Nanotechnology Discussion takes place twice a month in the San Francisco Bay Area to provide a forum for the communication and exchange of ideas, brainstorming, napkin drawing and networking related to the developing field of nanotechnology. Experienced professionals and those with general interest are encouraged to attend. More here.

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For all the high-minded talk of nanotech curing cancer and creating world peace, do not underestimate the power of the true killer app: Vanity.

As this article shows, beauty is serious science as well as business.

Growth in ethnic hair and skin care technologies is due to the fact that 35% of the U.S. population is non-Caucasian and 80% of the population outside the U.S. is non-Caucasian. Delivery systems that now play a dominant role in cosmetics and personal care products are micro and nano particles (core shell and matrix systems), porous micoparticles, liposomes and cyclodextrins. Nanotechnology is extremely important to future innovations in active ingredients used in innovative products. Nanoparticles, microcapsules and nanoemulsion technologies are the desired delivery systems for cosmeceuticals, color cosmetics and personal care products.

... Anti-aging treatments account for the lion’s share of growth in the skin care market. Consumers expect fast, visible results. To deliver these results there is a growing trend by companies to rely on the use of advanced technologies. Delivery systems play an increasingly important role in the development of effective skin care products. Nanoparticles can be subdivided on the basis of the encapsulating membrane structure into liposomes and nanoemulsions/ nanosomes/nanotopes. Read the rest.

Check out Small Times on Friday, by the way. Yes, the only nanotech news organization with its own sports correspondent will also introduce a reviewer on the nanobeauty beat. Correspondent, and part-time model, Jennifer Foss will report from the front lines as Small Times' nanocosmetics guinea pig.

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Discuss

I'm going through my notes from yesterday's Michigan Small Tech event and decided to go ahead and post the rest of the intro I gave before my panel on defense and security. Those who were there will notice some variation from what I actually said because, thankfully for the audience, I made some on-the-spot edits because this intro was much too long. I guess blogs are supposed to be ego- and well as news-driven, so I thought this might give the few people who care a glimpse into "my motivation" when it comes to military technology and the media. I haven't discussed military nano all that much, but I plan on writing more about it.

OK. There's probably just one of my regular readers who might really care about "my motivation." Hi, Mom.

When last we left your humble narrator, he had just redefined the meaning of the word "joke." We'll pick it up from there:

"Just a brief introduction. I'm Howard Lovy, news editor at Small Times Media. I oversee a network of correspondents around the world who contribute news to Small Times' Web site and print magazine. I also oversee Michigan Small Tech's Web site and Small Tech Advantage, which is a subscriber-only news clipping service. I'm also a proud alumnus of Wayne State University, although I have to admit that this is the first time I've ever set foot in any building labeled "engineering." I mostly hung out over in the journalism and English departments.

"For many reasons, journalism and the military have experienced a tempestuous relationship since the Vietnam era. I'd like to think that I have a somewhat unique perspective because my father served in Vietnam from 1967-68 as a surgeon with the 101st Airborne. I grew up listening to my father grumble about how the media can distort and misreport military actions and policies based, largely, on ignorance of how the military works. I think my dad believes I'm still going through my teenage rebellion phase by going into journalism. But I do have an understanding of what the men and women in uniform face, and some of the special challenges also faced by people like my dad, whose job was not to kill but to try to heal on the battlefield. I also have a little brother who is now serving in the U.S. Marine Corp. Thank God he's in a relatively safe place now, serving in Okinawa.

"So, for me, issues involving safety of soldiers in the field is more than just theory, and that's one of the reasons I'm fascinated by the work being done by our panelists and others involved in using small tech in the quest to make our soldiers safer in the battlefield, and all of us safer in the war on terror here at home."

Related Post:
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Irish Nanotechnology Association

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listing top nano stocks

nanotechnology+environment protection+ethics

MONOBOT

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blood brain barrier +nano

'nano-dog' news

cave men with big heads

Discuss

Forbes* Ranks NanoBusiness Alliance Director as One of Nanotech Industry's Leading Power Brokers (news release on BusinessWire)
The Forbes/Wolfe Nanotech Report, the leading investment publication for the nanotechnology industry, ranked NanoBusiness Alliance Executive Director F. Mark Modzelewski as one of the top power brokers in the nanotechnology industry. More

Hernia patient can continue active life with nano-enhanced device (Small Times)

"An avid swimmer, bicyclist and weightlifter, Bruce Baughman strives for strength and flexibility. As he recovers from hernia surgery, he's grateful that a new medical device is designed to offer both benefits. Baughman was among the first in the U.S. to receive TiMESH, a nano-enhanced mesh device for hernia surgery developed in Germany." More

Veeco eyes nanotech long-term payoff (CBS.MarketWatch.com)

"Ed Braun, chief executive of Veeco Instruments, keeps a critical, though optimistic, eye on the nanotechnology market." More

Europe is lacking in good nanotechnology infrastructure, thinks Ottilia Saxl (euractiv.com)

"Europeans are smarter than Americans when it comes to nanotechnology, but hindered by the fragmentation of the market, thinks Ottilia Saxl of the UK Institute of Nanotechnology. She calls for a better co-ordination of the EU's efforts in this field." More

Budget should advance our innovation agenda (Toronto Star)

" ... the government will create access to capital for the commercialization of science in areas where we can be among the world leaders — in environment, in health, in biotechnology and in nanotechnology." More

Related Post: Nano knowledge going south? Blame Canada!

* /Wolfe Nanotech Report

Discuss

An extremely successful Michigan Small Tech event today. It will take me a little while to sort through all my notes, but here are a few initial impressions. Well, first, let me try out an opening joke that completely bombed during the panel discussion I moderated on defense and homeland security.

Thank you, and welcome to our breakout session on defense and security. All of you might feel a slight tingling sensation as our swarms of microscopic smart dust surround you. Don't panic. They're merely taking DNA samples. They're perfectly harmless ... unless you put up a fight.

Silence.

No sounds but the mid-March Motown snowstorm raging outside.

I got a couple of pity chuckles when I added. "That was supposed to be a joke."

Yet another reason why I'm a PRINT journalist.

Anyway, things went much better after that. My panelists were Paul Decker of the U.S Tank Automotive Research and Development Center (TARDEC), Rao Boggavarapu of General Dynamics Land Systems, Uwe Michalak of Sensicore Inc. and Fred Grasman of the Michigan Economic Development Corporation.

Among the many topics we discussed was the U.S. Army's Future Combat Systems program that will completely transform the U.S. fighting force, from the vehicles they drive to the clothing they wear. Along the way, there are opportunities, through Small Business Innovation Research grants, for small tech companies to get in on the military spending spree. By the time the project is scheduled to end in 2015, companies that make nanomaterials, biothreat detectors and other small tech products will have had a piece of the action.

The technology isn't all there yet. The military is looking for a few good companies to supply them with nanomaterials and to help them catch up with the Japanese in robotics.

One audience member brought up an excellent point -- and one that I've heard many times in relation to the nanotech and other industries. Everybody is working on their own, proprietary technologies, but they are giving little thought to how they will work in tandem with one another. The government is not providing any guidelines or standards on how these devices to be used in the battlefield will talk to one another.

For example, a soldier's portable bioagent detector may pick up traces of anthrax, but then the data needs to be quickly, wirelessly transmitted to battlefield commanders who can make decisions based on that information. Instant detection of biohazards or point-of-care diagnostics of injured soldiers are not adequate if there is no real-time transmission of the data, a smart, distributed network of sensors to span large spaces, a power source to keep the juice flowing for weeks of possible isolation, etc.

Companies and researchers are now competing fiercely to provide the military with these necessary tools. But, like their counterparts in consumer electronics, these companies are largely working within their own closed, proprietary systems.

Competing companies are not necessarily thinking of how their applications can interact with another company's proprietary applications. Right now, who has the birds-eye view of the battlefield? Who is going to set the standards? It's possible that it's too early for that. Perhaps it's organizations like TARDEC that can set those standards after the companies compete with one another just to get to the test battlefield.

A great deal more was discussed on the panel, but I'll save it for later.

One more point on birds-eye view, though. During the keynote by Louis Ross of the Global Emerging Technology Institute, one audience member asked what nanotechnology's "focus" is right now. Comparisons had been made earlier to the way Sputnik had forced the U.S. government to focus its own space program on putting a man on the moon. Joe Giachino of the Center for Wireless Integrated Microsystems asked, "What do you see as the focus of nanotechnology" that would be comparable to the moon challenge?

Ross hit on the NASA theme and mentioned that the space agency does need to reduce weight on spacecraft using nanomaterials. Then, he added: "I think that's a question that can't be answered. You can see how it applies to industries and then you can just take it from there."

Giachino (and, no, I didn't put him up to this), tried again: "I think the thing that captured the public's imagination was the 'man on the moon.' We know what gets Allen Greenspan excited, but what is the thing that will get everybody else excited?"

Ross replied that the answer right now is simply "education." The public doesn't really know what it wants out of nanotechnology because it does not yet know what nanotechnology can do. "People have to be educated," Ross said. "Small Times magazine is educating people. I think that once they understand it, they'll change."

He went on to say that a few years ago, it was hard to convince mobile phone makers in the United States that customers would want to listen to music on their cell phones. Today, the trend is catching on.

"They just didn't have the devices. If they had the devices, they'd say, 'Wow. I want that.' "

Both Ross and Giachino brought up excellent points. I'm with Giachino on the "moon shot" for nano idea, as I've written on this site before. But, as Ross indicated, perhaps an overriding government vision would be confusing for an industry that is still too young and an American public still too unaware.

Discuss

I'm attending a Michigan Small Tech event today, going full circle back to my old college stomping grounds at Wayne State University in Detroit. I never would have guessed when I left in 1986 that I'd come back 18 years later to enter, of all places, the engineering (!) building. It's been a long journey from English and journalism.

Despite the better judgment of conference organizers, they've asked me to moderate a panel on Defense and Security.

Michigan Small Tech, by the way, is a great joint effort between the Michigan Economic Development Corporation and Small Times Media. We're helping to encourage communication between universities, government and business to build the small tech community in the Great Lakes State. It's been very successful so far, and Small Times hopes to take this model to other states and regions. This event and others like it help bring together the various elements that make up an industry that is only now beginning to come into its own.

Lots of cool stuff going on, too, in life sciences, defense, wireless integrated microsystems and, of course, automobiles.

I'll try to do some blogging during the event, too.

Discuss

Cryonics for crustaceans

Eh, what?

Ug

Discuss

The Denver Post's Joanne Ostrow, on the new CBS show, "Century City," which imagines a future world in which lawyers are kept way too busy with technological case law:

"A pair of pants enhanced by nanotechnology means a woman can preserve the feel of her ex-boyfriend's hand on her knee when he's gone."

Are you paying attention, Donn Tice?

Discuss

From Project Trinity:

Part 2 of Michael Crichton's interview is up. In this dialogue, Michael and Ken discuss the concerns (popularly raised by Bill Joy) about runaway nanotechnology, viral plagues, and genetic engineering. Specifically, how likely at this time is a world-wide catastrophe due to the unintended consequences of those new technologies? Is the nanotech genie already out of the bottle? Will it be soon? Is there anything we can do to stave off the potentially disastrous consequences of tomorrow’s technologies?

It's a premium site, so you'll need to plunk down $10 to listen to the interview. I haven't listened yet.

Discuss

Excellent case study in the Mercury News on how nanosize particles are being used as a disinfectant by EnviroSystems of San Jose, Calif. The story pretty much encapsulates nanotechnology from the customers' and (smart) investors' point of view in this passage:

Some EnviroSystems investors don't seem to care that EcoTru uses much-hyped nanotechnology. Board member David Druker, a Los Altos Hills dermatologist, said he invested in the company because he knows other disinfectants are harmful to the skin.

"At the time I invested, they didn't even know that nanotechnology would be useful,'' he said. "What's interesting is that it's effective and non-toxic.''

Exactly. Forget about what hypesters (hype hucksters?) like this guy say. The reality is: nanotech, shmanotech; if it works, then it'll sell.

One confusing part of the Mercury New story, though:

Whether EcoTru constitutes true nanotechnology is open to debate.

By some definitions nanotechnology really involves designing unique particles that exist on the nano level, a size on par with atoms and molecules.

I'm not sure exactly what the "debate" is, then. Ecotrue does, in fact, use unique nanoscale particles.

Small Times covered this story about a year ago. At the time, I questioned the reporter on whether this really was nanotechnology. I decided to go with it because it really was the nanoscale size of the particles that gave them their unique properties. Small Times reported in February 2003:

EcoTru uses nanospheres of oil droplets ranging from about 170 nanometers suspended in water to create a nanoemulsion that adheres to bacterial cells. According to Brent Nixon, EnviroSystems' vice president of marketing, the nanospheres are not only valued for their surface area, but also allow EcoTru to be manufactured with .2 percent of the biocidal compound PCMX, compared to the 3-5 percent solution found in non-nano solutions.

The Mercury News story placed the particles at 250 nanometers in width, but either way it's a bit larger than the generally accepted 100-nanometer threshold. I decided to make an exception, anyway. Close enough for me.

If the "debate" that the Merc is referring to is not over the difference between 250 nanometers and 100, I'm guessing a clue can be found in the story's first paragraph:

Nanotechnology enthusiasts envision a world of microscopic robots, cell-sized computer chips and other fantastic devices.

I'm working on a piece right now that discusses whether nanotech creates new markets or merely enhances old ones. One point that I make is that we are seeing a new skepticism in the way the popular media cover nanotechnology because there's a frustration with the disconnnect that exists between promises and current reality. Nano promises everything, yet produces nothing but scratch-resistant paints, stain-resistant pants and better anti-bacterial soaps. It's all neat stuff, but is this what the government is spending billions of dollars on? Where are my targeted drug-delivery devices? Where are my molecular memory chips? Or, if you haven't already mind-melded with the NNI, where are my nanobots?

It's all on its way. But, as you'll read in this piece I'm working on, if the revolution is going to be VC funded and if it's going to produce any short-term products, nano is going to need to integrate into existing products and processes. Therefore, enter EcoTru, the prosaic potty-cleaning nanoparticles.

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