NANOWEAPONRY: THE NEWARMS RACE - Nanofactories make the manufacture of many kinds of weapons possible with incredibly accurate computerized systems. While older technologies were both difficult and costly, nanoweapons could be manufactured easily and quickly. Conventional style weapons made more powerful and new weapons such as poison-carrying nanorobots could be made by the billions nearly cost-free and delivered remotely. Once inhaled, they might even be tailor-made to kill only people with specific genetic signatures, thus used as a means for ethnic cleansing. An arms race could trigger reckless development and testing of new weapons with unpredictable results. Experts agree this is probably the #1 potential danger of molecular nanotechnology.

ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT AND EXISTENTIAL DANGERS - The use of nanofactories to make countless cheap, durable products could lead to 'disposable thinking' where products are created en mass and discarded in abundance, overwhelming recycling needs and the environment.

Poor nations might use biomass (carbon-rich trees) as fuel for nanofactories, leading to increased deforestation.

Experimentation in nano-augmentation of plants and animals (for example, to make them larger, smaller, faster, stronger, etcetera) could easily lead to runaway consequences in the wild ("green goo" vs "gray goo") that could threaten existing plants and animals, affect the food chain, and pose unforeseen threats to human life. This is a prime concern.

Ecophage ("gray goo"), though only a remote possibility due to the complexity of designing self-replicating nanorobots (replibots) capable of the task - and the heat signature the process would trigger that would alert watchdog systems in place — remains at least mentionable in that it is not impossible.

ECONOMIC IMPACT - Another high concern among the potential dangers of molecular nanotechnology is that many predict MNT will arrive suddenly and in full force. The sudden advent of nanofactories producing clean, cheap, durable, products would adversely impact most sectors in the job market. Skilled labor, factory workers, and many lines of distribution would no longer be needed as corporations switched to nanotechnology or folded. Stocks would be critically affected and the likelihood of economic upheaval, high.

DANGERS OF REGULATION - Though MNT has the potential to be the great equalizer, making products, medicine, and drinking water available to the entire world, its ubiquitousness would depend on how it is regulated, by whom, and to what purpose. Many corporations are likely to be motivated by potential windfall profits. They may legally protect then overprice nanotechnology, putting its benefits out of reach for those who need it most, while not passing the savings to the general public.

Other fronts of regulation also frame potential dangers of molecular nanotechnology. If development is too restrictive one set of problems is created (including inadvertent encouragement of a completely unregulated black market); and if restrictions are too lax, another set of problems is created (including possible damage to the environment and increased risk to the public).

UBIQUITOUS SURVEILLANCE - Again one of the benefits of MNT becomes a source for potential danger. Miniaturization of computer technology will allow unprecedented surreptitious surveillance of individuals. Spybots could be inhaled without even being aware. Increased computer power would allow a government to keep real time surveillance records on each and every citizen in a nation, no matter how large the population. The need to regulate the use of home nanofactories could conceivably be an excuse for such an invasion of privacy.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI) AND ROBOTICS - One of the most controversial dangers of molecular nanotechnology is that it will open the door to computers that think faster than the human brain, giving machines a superior edge. As robotics and AI combine to relieve humans of doing tasks that machines can do better, faster and cheaper, some believe we may be paving the way to our own destruction. Will nations secretly create armies of AI-enhanced, nano-augmented (think bionic) supersoldiers to fight wars? Will politicians opt for AI-enhancements? Nano-augmentation? Who will it be available to, and are we as a race headed towards total dependency on machinery to the extent it becomes part of our biology? Will there be equity or will a new class divide be created, similar to that depicted in Gattica? If we do not embrace AI-enhancement and nano-augmentation will intelligent machines ultimately decide we are unnecessary?

 

 

 

                                   

 

 

Society could be disrupted by the availability of new "immoral" products.
New products and lifestyles may cause significant social disruption. For example, medical devices could be built into needles narrower than a bacterium, perhaps allowing easy brain modification or stimulation, with effects similar to any of a variety of psychoactives. Most societies have found it desirable to forbid certain products: guns in Britain, seedless watermelon in Iran, sex toys in Texas, various drugs in various societies such as hashish in the United States and alcohol in Muslim societies. Although many of these restrictions are based on moral principles not shared by the majority of the world's population, the fact that the restrictions exist at all indicates the sensitivity of societies—or at least their rulers—to undesired products. The ability to make banned products using personal factories could be expected to be at least somewhat disruptive to society, and could provide an impetus for knee-jerk and overly broad restrictions on the technology. New lifestyles enabled by new technology could also cause social disruption. Whereas demand for banned products already exists, lifestyles develop over time, so the effects of lifestyle change are likely to be less acute. However, some lifestyle possibilities (particularly in the areas of sex, drugs, entertainment, and body or genetic modification) are likely to be sufficiently disturbing to onlookers that their very existence would cause disruption.

 

 

 

                                   

 

 

Rather than infer that nanotechnology is safe, members of the public who learn about this novel science tend to become sharply polarized along cultural lines, according to a study conducted by the Cultural Cognition Project at Yale Law School in collaboration with the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies. The report is published online in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.

These findings have important implications for garnering support of the new technology, say the researchers.

The experiment involved a diverse sample of 1,500 Americans, the vast majority of whom were unfamiliar with nanotechnology, a relatively new science that involves the manipulation of particles the size of atoms and that has numerous commercial applications. When shown balanced information about the risks and benefits of nanotechnology, study participants became highly divided on its safety compared to a group not shown such information.

The determining factor in how people responded was their cultural values, according to Dan Kahan, the Elizabeth K. Dollard Professor at Yale Law School and lead author of the study. "People who had more individualistic, pro-commerce values, tended to infer that nanotechnology is safe," said Kahan, "while people who are more worried about economic inequality read the same information as implying that nanotechnology is likely to be dangerous."

According to Kahan, this pattern is consistent with studies examining how people's cultural values influence their perceptions of environmental and technological risks generally. "In sum, when they learned about a new technology, people formed reactions to it that matched their views of risks like climate change and nuclear waste disposal," he said.

The study also found that people who have pro-commerce cultural values are more likely to know about nanotechnology than others. "Not surprisingly, people who like technology and believe it isn't bad for the environment tend to learn about new technologies before other people do," said Kahan. "While various opinion polls suggest that familiarity with nanotechnology leads people to believe it is safe, they have been confusing cause with effect."

According to Kahan and other experts, the findings of the experiment highlight the need for public education strategies that consider citizens' predispositions. "There is still plenty of time to develop risk-communication strategies that make it possible for persons of diverse values to understand the best evidence scientists develop on nanotechnology's risks," added Kahan. "The only mistake would be to assume that such strategies aren't necessary."

"The message matters," said David Rejeski, director of the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies. "How information about nanotechnology is presented to the vast majority of the public who still know little about it can either make or break this technology. Scientists, the government, and industry generally take a simplistic, 'just the facts' approach to communicating with the public about a new technology. But, this research shows that diverse audiences and groups react to the same information very differently."

 

 

 

                                   

 

 

This is an excerpt of a recent address delivered at the Free Library of Philadelphia in America by eminent scientist Richard Dawkins speaking about his reasons for being, as you'll hear, a 'tooth fairy agnostic.' He gets this part pretty well right.

Christianity claims to be a monotheistic religion, but you have to wonder sometimes. Rivers of medieval ink, not to mention blood, have been squandered over the mystery of the Trinity and in suppressing deviations such as the Arian heresy. Arius of Alexandria in the 4th century AD, denied that Jesus was con-substantial, i.e. of the same substance or essence, with God. What on earth could that possibly mean? you're probably asking. Substance, what substance? What exactly do you mean by essence? Very little, seems the only reasonable reply. Yet the controversy split Christendom down the middle for a century and the Emperor Constantine ordered that all copies of Arius' book should be burned. Splitting Christendom by splitting hairs, such has ever been the way of theology.

Do we have one God in three parts, or three gods in one? The Catholic Encyclopaedia clears up the matter for us in a masterpiece of theological close reasoning. 'In the unity of the godhead there are three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; these three persons being truly distinct, one from another. Thus in the words of the Athanasian Creed, the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, and yet there are not three gods but one god.

As if that were not clear enough, the Encyclopaedia quotes the 3rd century theologian, St. Gregory, the Miracle Worker. 'There is therefore nothing created, nothing subject to another in the Trinity, nor is there anything that has been added as though it once had not existed, but had entered afterwards. Therefore the Father has never been without the Son, nor the Son without the Spirit, and this same Trinity is immutable and unalterable forever.'

Whatever miracles may have earned St. Gregory his nickname, they were not miracles of honest lucidity. His words convey the characteristically obscurantist flavour of theology, which unlike science, or most other branches of human scholarship, has not moved on in 18 centuries. Thomas Jefferson, as so often, got it right when he said, 'Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct, before reason can act upon them, and no man ever had a distinct idea of the Trinity. It is the mere abracadabra of the mountebanks calling themselves the priests of Jesus.'

Jefferson heaped ridicule on the doctrine that, as he put it, 'there are three Gods' in his critique of Calvinism. But it is especially the Roman Catholic branch of Christianity that pushes its recurrent flirtation with polytheism towards runaway inflation. The Trinity, is joined by Mary, Queen of Heaven, a goddess in all but name, who surely runs God himself a close second as a target of prayers. The pantheon is further swollen by an army of saints, whose intercessory power makes them, if not demigods, well worth approaching on their own specialist subjects. The Catholic community forum hopefully lists 5,120 saints, together with their areas of expertise, which include abdominal pain, abuse victims, anorexia, arms dealers, blacksmiths, broken bones, bomb technicians and bowel disorders, to venture no further than the Bs.

Pope John Paul II created more saints than all his predecessors of the past several centuries put together. And he had a special affinity with the Virgin Mary. His polytheistic hankerings were dramatically demonstrated in 1981 when he suffered an assassination attempt in Rome, and attributed his survival to intervention by Our Lady of Fatima, a maternal hand guided the bullet. One cannot help wondering why she didn't guide it to miss him altogether. Others might think the team of surgeons who operated on him for six hours deserved at least a share of the credit. But perhaps their hands too were maternally guided. The relevant point is that it wasn't just Our Lady, who in the Pope's opinion guided the bullet, but specifically Our Lady of Fatima. Presumably Our Lady of Lourdes, Our Lady of Guadeloupe, Our Lady of Medjugorje, Our Lady of Akita, Our Lady of Zeitoun, Our Lady of Garabandal, and Our Lady of Knock, were busy on other errands at the time. . . Full story: abc.net.au

 

 

 

 

                                   

 

This paper provides a critical analysis of contemporary molecular biotechnology, focusing on the fields of genomics and bioinformatics. In doing so, it raises questions concerning the ways in which computerization, economics, and race/ethnicity affect and are affected by current research.

Beginning with two key events in the biotechnology industry - the announcement of the completion of the sequencing of the human genome, and the first total annotation of human genome data - this essay discusses the intersecting developments in both biotechnology research, as well as "infotech" or information technology research. It goes on to highlight critically several of the scientific assumptions which still inform much of contemporary biotechnology research, which in turn lead to distinct historical phases of molecular biotechnology. Each of these historical phases is characterized by some relationship between the technical concept of "information" and the scientific concept of a molecular genetic code.

 

 

 

                                   

 

The European Commission on September 14 was declared the worlds largest single funding agency worldwide for nanotechnology. According to a report, the EUs 6th Research Framework Programme with 1.4 billion Euro allocated to 550 projects in the field of nanosciences and nanotechnology accounts for one-third of total public funding for nanotechnology. A recent report, focused on the implementation of the 2005 Action Plan for Nanotechnology, highlighted the strategic importance of nanotechnology, an area of recognised European leadership, and the contribution this field of science can make to the quality of life and economic well-being of Europeans, for example through revolutionary activities in key areas such as materials, electronics and medicine.
Nanotechnology is an area where Europe is an acknowledged world leader. This is an opportunity we must grasp with both hands, said European Science and Research Commissioner Janez Potocnik. The successful development of nanotechnologies will depend on a responsible approach to addressing issues such as safety for humans and animals, the ethics of future developments and societys debate about these. The European Commission has already shown in this first phase that it is able to steer this course. Nanotechnology is a broad term that has applications in many fields of science biology, electronics, materials, medicine but broadly encompasses research into the principles and properties arising at the nano-level, that is the level of atoms and molecules. Many nanotechnology-based products are already on the market, including new electronics and chemistry components, intelligent textiles, novel functional surface coatings, new diagnostic and drug delivery systems, breakthroughs in tissue regeneration, and ever faster and more accurate sensors.The EUs 6th Research Framework Programme provided 1.4 billion Euro to 550 projects, accounting for on-third of total public funding for nanotechnology in Europe. Under FP7, EC funding for nanotechnologies and nanosciences is expected to increase significantly. The average yearly funding is likely to be more than double that in FP6, taking into account actions across the programme.

 

 

 

 

                                    

 

European nano-community looks into the future...

More funding, better infrastructure
Broad support (79%) is expressed for a significant increase in funding for nanotechnology in the next EU RTD Framework Programme (FP7) compared to the level under FP6. Some respondents (25%) call for a doubling of the budget or more, while only 12% want the same budget or less. Divided opinions exist as to whether FP7 should be oriented more towards basic research or towards applied research; this division of opinion is reflected in the academic/industrial origin of respondents.

Europe is seen to be lacking a coherent system of infrastructure, and boosting critical mass is identified as the most critical issue (90%). As well as endorsing the value of raising the awareness and exploitation of existing infrastructure, most respondents highlight the need for a new large-scale infrastructure at European (64%) and national/regional level (34%). A number of responses stress the importance of cross-disciplinary infrastructure in fields such as nanomedicine, nanomaterials and information technology/nanoelectronics.

Strategic needs

Concerns regarding human resources are widely expressed, with almost half of the participants fearing a shortage of skilled personnel for the nanotechnology sector within ten years and a further quarter forecasting shortages in as little as five years.

The survey responses identify the development of nanotechnology education and training as particularly urgent: 90% of participants indicated that interdisciplinary training and skills are key requirements in this area. The majority also supports the EU policy aims of mobility for researchers, further training opportunities and equal opportunities for women.

A widely held view is that the EU needs an integrated strategy to be competitive in relation to other countries (85%), and that established industries must recognise the potential of nanotechnology at an early stage (70%). Almost half of the respondents feel that the EU or international bodies should regulate nanotechnology sooner rather than later, 46% indicated within five years and a further 25% within ten years.SMEs and start-ups are ranked as the main source for new jobs and innovation, although it is acknowledged that they face many difficulties in attracting highly skilled personnel, achieving effective cooperation with universities and research centres, and accessing public or private funding.
 

 

                                   

 

The Results
Leading researchers across the state and nation gathered at the Winthrop Rockefeller Institute in January 2009 for the first nanotechnology conference sponsored by the Rockefeller Institute. The Nanotechnology for Health Care Conference explored the role of nanomaterials in faster, better drug delivery; in diagnosing and attacking cancer; combating heart disease; and knitting broken bones.

One goal of the conference was to establish an organized team that takes advantage of talent and tools within the state and develop a strategy that would enable the team to compete for a National Institutes of Health (NIH) Center of national significance, thus placing Arkansas at the forefront of nanotechnology research in health care. The Nanotechnology for Health Care Conference was the first of two nanotechnology conferences funded by the Winthrop Rockefeller Institute. The second is scheduled for October 2009. The plan is to develop yearly, self-sustaining nanotechnology research conferences hosted at the Rockefeller Institute.

HEADON:
Global Dialogue on Nanotechnology and the Poor: Opportunities and Risks

Meridian Institute, with support from The Rockefeller Foundation, International Development Research Centre, and UK Department for International Development, has convened the Global Dialogue on Nanotechnology and the Poor: Opportunities and Risks (GNDP). Goals of the GDNP include: raising awareness about the implications of nanotechnology for the poor; closing the gaps within and between sectors of society to catalyze actions that address specific opportunities and risks; and, identifying ways that science and technology can play an appropriate role in the development process.

 

 

 

                                 

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