1918 Flu genome

Recipe for Destruction

I have to take issue with Kurzweil on this one, as a computer security person, I dislike the thought of "security through obscurity". While this can be a tool to keep information from bad people, you can't rely on it to do so, and IMO publishing this will allow more good scientists to be able to work on a cure or vaccine, so I think publishing the information does more good than harm in this case. With something like an atom bomb (a reference Ray uses to support his argument for not publishing this kind of data) there isn't much you can do to defend against the bomb by knowing how to build it, that is not the case with a virus.

Technorati Tags: 1918 flu virus, flu, genetic sequence, genome

LiquidMetal

Liquidmetal: Redefining metals for the 21st century
Not quite T2, but still cool:

[Vitreloy] showed
massive strength: a one inch wide bar could lift 300,000 pounds,
compared to a titanium bar of the same size that could only lift
175,000 pounds. Although this material had super strength, it lacked
the attributes that make metals tough. Vitreloy, was more robust than
window pane glass, but still cracked.

Paul Kim improved Vitreloy's
toughness while giving it the flexibility to allow it to be made into
many different shapes. Now, the new line of Liquidmetal alloys is on
the rise.

This has been available for over 2 years and isn't everywhere? I'd think this would be great for manufacturing just about anything that was made out of metal, but maybe it's just starting, or people are looking to carbon nanotubes

Technorati Tags: liquidmetal, vitreloy, metal alloy

Predicting the future

Responsible Nanotechnology: Predicting Changes by 2040

Some interesting predictions on what won't be around in 35 years:

1. John Browne: Auto Emissions {S}
   
   
2. Craig Mundie: Doctors' Offices {S}
3. Peter Schwartz: The War on Drugs
4. Esther Dyson: Anonymity {R}
5. Felipe Fernández-Armesto: The King of England {S}
6. Peter Singer: The Sanctity of Life
7. Jacques Attali: Monogamy
8. Minxin Pei: The Chinese Communist Party {R}
9. Julie L. Gerberding: Polio {S}
10. Lawrence Lessig : The Public Domain
11. Richard N. Haass: Sovereignty {S}
12. Harvey Cox: Religious Hierarchy {S}
13. Shintaro Ishihara: Japanese Passivity {R}
14. Christopher Hitchens: The Euro
15. Fernando Henrique Cardoso: Political Parties {S}
16. Lee Kuan Yew: Laissez-Faire Procreation {S}

Those answers followed by {S} are available to Foreign Policy subscribers only. Those marked with {R} require free registration. The rest can be accessed without registering or subscribing.

Here's my take

1. John Browne: Auto Emissions {S} - not at stretch here, this will probably come true, although we may have "emissions" that are quite different than what we now have.
   
   
2. Craig Mundie: Doctors' Offices {S} - I doubt this one, I think doctors are going to always want to be able to see the patient, we may go back to more house calls IMO
   
3. Peter Schwartz: The War on Drugs God I hope this one comes true, the "war" on drugs has been one of the biggest wastes of money ever
   
4. Esther Dyson: Anonymity {R} - probably true as well, you may be able to get some for limited applications, like browsing the internet or something.
   
5. Felipe Fernández-Armesto: The King of England {S} - who cares?
   
6. Peter Singer: The Sanctity of Life - This one is something of a cop-out on a prediction IMO, Singer takes the stance that the "hard-core" view of what life is will change, it will be the concept of an individual, not of life itself, that will have sanctity. He presumes that since we are re-defining when the life of an individual starts and ends (i.e. through the use of embryonic stem cells, and the Terry Schiavo case).
   
7. Jacques Attali: Monogamy highly doubtful, lots of people have been predicting this one for a long time. The only way this will change is through the evolution of the species, not going to happen in a generation.
   
8. Minxin Pei: The Chinese Communist Party {R} - another one I desperately hope is true, but I have my doubts
   
9. Julie L. Gerberding: Polio {S} - Entirely possible
   
10. Lawrence Lessig : The Public Domain doubt it, the concept of group ownership seems to be going up, not down, look at the GPL and it's derivatives
    
11. Richard N. Haass: Sovereignty {S} - no, the US will never give this up.
    
12. Harvey Cox: Religious Hierarchy {S} - it's lasted 2000 years, why would it go away in the next 35?
    
13. Shintaro Ishihara: Japanese Passivity {R} - reading the article, this is entirely plausible, but depends a lot on what happens politically in the region, that part is much harder to forsee.
    
14. Christopher Hitchens: The Euro - did we care when it was created? will we care if it goes away?
    
15. Fernando Henrique Cardoso: Political Parties {S} - nope, that's how our government works
    
16. Lee Kuan Yew: Laissez-Faire Procreation {S} - doubt it, there will always be those of us that are irresponsible.
    

top down nanotech

Responsible Nanotechnology: Accelerating Technology
A good article from the folks at CRN on how quickly the two methods for making nanoscale machines are converging. I think once the two are combined, we will very quickly after that see the first self replicating nanofactories, and the revolution of the Singularity will have begun.

Technorati Tags: nanotech, the singularity, CRN, nanotechnology

Space Elevator

New Scientist SPACE - Breaking News - Space elevators stuck on the first floor
Well, they may not have gotten far, but at least this is generating publicity. When someone actually wins, we'll see a lot more progress, and hopefully soon a working one.

Technorati Tags: space elevator, NASA, Beam Power Challenge

Towards molecular machines

Proofreading And Error-correction In Nanomaterials Inspired By Nature
More steps in the molecular machine direction. This process would keep incorrectly formed base nano-particles out of the assembly of complex nano-machines, so we don't have to compensate as much in the design of the machines to allow for error.

Technorati Tags: nanotechnology, molecular machines, nanomachines

Alternative fuel

The car that makes its own fuel
This could be big, evidently there isn't much that would have to be changed in the manufacturing of the cars, the main change is substituting a fuel coil for the gas tank. The biggest investment would be converting the infrastructure over from gas stations to coil exchanges.

Technorati Tags: energy, alternative fuel, green cars

Spintronics

Spintronic transistor is developed

This has promising potential. Spintronics are also being looked at for RAM which doesn't lose it's state when the power is turned off. They can also be smaller as you don't have the problem of leakage you get with normal RAM.

Technorati Tags: computer, transistor, spintronic, spin based circuit, quantum computer

Future Economics

An interesting article/review on Tech Central Station discussing Ray Kurzweil's book The Singularity is Near. Arnold Kling discusses the implicit economic implications of Kurzweils predictions in the book. If Kurzweil is right, we have some good times to look forward to, both technologically and economically.

Technorati Tags: economy, ray kurzwiel, technology

Cool

In addition to the medical benefits, this thing would just look cool. Now imagine extending it to about 3 - 4 feet, and you have what would look like a lightsabre!

Nanobombs for cancer

Scientists develop cancer nanobomb

"[Panchapakesan] believes the nanobomb holds great promise as a therapeutic agent for killing cancer cells, with particular emphasis on breast cancer cells, because its shockwave kills the cancerous cells as well as the biological pathways that carry instructions to generate additional cancerous cells and the small veins that nourish the diseased cells. Also, it can be spread over a wide area to create structural damage to the cancer cells that are close by."

This is the kind of wonderful things we should expect to see in the future from the intersection of biotechnology and nanotechnology.   As the biotechnology industry adds to their knowledge base of how the human body works, and the nanotechnology industry develops greater capabilities of creating medical nanobots, these two fields together have the potential to be a great boon to all mankind, with the potential to cure all diseases.  Of course there is also the possibility of their misuse, which could cause greater destruction than any nuclear war ever could.  Just imagine dispersing a cloud of this over a city, then activating them.  This is probably the most crude and least destructive thing that you can do with nanotechnology.

Get a job in nanotechnology

Monster has an article about getting a job in nanotechnolgy.
Websites which specialize in nanotechnology jobs include Working in Nanotechnology and Tiny Tech Jobs.

Kinematic Self-Replicating Machines book now free online

Technorati: nanotech

Molecules of light

This could lead to some very interesting development, how about a computer based on light?  The technology appears to be converging on that possibility from a couple of different directions, light based switching, storing and altering the data in light, slowing the speed of light to a crawl, and now encoding more than just "on" or "off" in "molecules" of light.

Is hydrogen a viable fuel alternative?

Even if hydrogen can be used as a viable fuel alternative to gasoline, with the kind of funding we're giving it, we'd never know!  300k to study what could quickly become a major world issue is patently ridiculous.  We spend more money than that studying ketchup.

HLV's

Looks like we still haven't learned much from the past 50 years of automobile manufacturing, and how the Japanese kicked our ass with QC controls and mass manufacturing.  You would think that we would learn that doing something repetitively leads to doing it better, and with fewer mistakes.  Limiting our launches to as few as possible to get something done would seem to be the exact opposite of what we should be doing in order to get affordable space flight kick-started.

Small reusable vehicles can revolution access to space the way microcomputers revolutionized access to computing. NASA can help enable a vibrant future where thousands of people travel into space every year -- or it can cling to the super-boosters and mega-modules of the "mainframe" era, in which case the NASA manned space program will continue its slow downward spiral.

An even better idea would be to get a space elevator constructed as quickly as possible.  This would both reduce the cost of getting mass up into orbit by orders of magnitude over current methods, and over small RLV's as well, but would also eliminate the risk of the rocket exploding under you a la Challenger and Columbia (I wouldn't take a ride in one that's name started with a C either).  Once we are able to construct the ribbons with the necessary tensile strength, which may already be possible, the rest is cake, and all we have is a long elevator ride to get into orbit.  It is this event that will push mankind into space more than anything that NASA is currently working on.  From there we just need to develop ways of getting around the solar system a bit faster.

some neural network links

Here are some neural network links
Neural Networks at your Fingertips
Neural Network Usenet FAQ
Neural Network Usenet basic information
Neural Networks wiki
IEEE Computational Intelligence Society
International Neural Network Society
An Idiot's Guide to Neural Networks
Game AI Resources: Neural Networks & Fuzzy Logic
AI Junkie