DENSO’s big bright green diversionary machine
DENSO warned of its first operating loss since 1950. The main company it supplies, Toyota, says it will see its first losing quarter in 71 years.
So, what else could DENSO Veep Hiromi Tokuda do at the auto show except talk about algae?
Yes, algae. More here
Backgrounder
More assault on batteries at Michigan Messenger
Blogging for Center for Independent Media
My 'respectable' blog launches at Small Times
"We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology's wonders to raise health care's quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age."
The Michigan Messenger has the latest in my coverage of the Detroit Auto Show.
The Messenger is part of a growing family of news sites ready to take over where major metro dailies are sadly lacking these days. It was launched by the nonprofit Center for Independent Media.
If you're not in Michigan, no problem. You can check out the center's publications in Colorado, Iowa, Minnesota, New Mexico and Washington.
In today's Messenger, I continue my obsession with battery technology, which -- as I have written before -- is directly related to nanotechnology.
Will batteries recharge Michigan’s economy?
They will if Congress -- and Detroit's critics -- come to understand that the auto industry is infrastructure.
DETROIT — A year ago, a confident Chrysler opened the North American International Auto Show with Dodge trucks herding cattle down Jefferson Avenue.
This year, Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm came to Cobo on a mule.
A mule, of course, is Detroit-speak for a prototype automobile, and while Granholm’s ride boasted significantly less horsepower than last year’s methane-emitting stampede, the governor seemed at last on the right road after years of a visionless policy for Auto Industry 2.0. More here
Backgrounder
Blogging for Center for Independent Media
My 'respectable' blog launches at Small Times
Freelancing is fine, but I am in perpetual search of a full-time job, with benefits. Yeah, I know. Me and a few million others.
But I come across nanotech-related work in my job search that I am quite underqualified for and that use pretty big scientific words in their descriptions, so I figured maybe NanoBot readers might get a few job leads.
I'll post these from time to time ... whenever I have the time.
The job below, in green energy, seems like a growing field -- although I hope the "energetics" in the company name does not refer to "nanoenergetics," which involves the nasty business of blowing up stuff ... and people.
Nanotechnology/Materials Scientist, Energetics Inc.
Energetics seeks a Nanotechnology/Materials Scientist to be located in our Washington, D.C. office.
The selected candidate will assist clients in DOE’s Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Program with a variety of activities required to run an effective technology research and development program. Specifically, the candidate will assist EERE’s Industrial Technologies Program with its R&D programs in nanomanufacturing, materials, and other areas. Responsibilities may include:
Evaluating energy, technology, and market trends. Evaluating technical and economic feasibility, identifying and assessing applications and markets, and projecting future impacts of new technologies. Characterizing technical and market barriers to commercialization and deployment, and evaluating strategies to overcome these barriers. More here
Small Times launched my new blog today. Here's where I behave myself a little more and stick to the subject of nanotech, MEMS and microsystems.
Crazy rants will, of course, remain here on NanoBot.
The RSS feed for Small Tech Talk is here. Sample below:
U.S., at last, begins assault on batteries
Today, the race is still for second place, behind Asia. And, as I covered the North American International Auto Show again this year, it looks like nanotechnology has come in second, too. GM chose Compact Power, a subsidiary of the Asian LG Chem, to provide the lithium-ion batteries for the Volt.
A close second was A123 Systems, whose nanophosphate formula is an important ingredient in its li-ion batteries. The reason, according to GM, was the the formula seemed too experimental, the company too inexperienced and, most importantly, the battery manufacturing infrastructure just does not yet exist in the United States. More here
Backgrounder
Blogging for Center for Independent Media
Where technology meets humanity
U.S. battery makers finally find the 'on' switch
I took this picture of NBC weatherman Al Roker taking a "test drive" of a Ford Shelby Mustang at the Detroit Auto Show because, well, why not take a picture of Al Roker? That's all that needs to be said there.
I'm blogging from the North American International Auto Show this year for a publication called the Michigan Messenger. It's online only, and part of a growing family of progressive news sites launched by the nonprofit Center for Independent Media. I first came into contact with them at a conference I attended in Lansing, Mich., more than a year ago.
As my hometown Detroit newspapers slowly become shadows of their former selves, it is great to be freelancing for a publication that still asks tough questions. Last year, I blogged the auto show for WDIV-TV in Detroit, which failed to even promote the blog since it was not very ... um ... cheerleading.
Below are some samples of what I've written about the auto show, but more will be posted in the next few days -- along with longer pieces (yet to be written) about the big focus on lithium ion batteries for the future of the auto industry and the future of many Rust Belt communities. More to come
RIP internal combustion engine
Back when I was a copy editor for The Detroit News a decade ago, our ultraconservative editorial page would go on red-faced tirades against then-Vice President Al Gore for his prediction of the end of the internal combustion engine. Today, The Detroit News is on its way out and, well, so is the internal combustion engine. More here
Who stole the electric car — redux? GM Volt in ‘07 and in ‘09
When General Motors unveiled its electric hybrid Chevy Volt an economic epoch ago — at the 2007 North American International Auto Show, what it gave us (PDF 219k) seemed almost too good to be true. GM appeared to “get it” when it came to the new environmental consciousness sweeping popular culture. For the first time, a major auto company acknowledged the eventual demise of the internal combustion engine. What it gave us was something of a transitory nature, but it was a start. More here
Instant Karma’s going to get you? The Karma and the Tesla -- West Coast invades Motown
At last year’s auto show, I wondered whether Karma could also mean “covering all bases.” A main investor in Fisker Automotive, which makes the all-electric Karma, is Vinod Khosla, an important player in the next phase of the auto industry — whatever form that may take. More here
EcoXperience tiptoes through the dying tulips
Here’s Michigan Economic Development Corporations’s EcoXperience track in the basement of COBO Hall. My initial impression? It smells like rotting vegetation down there. In the picture, though, you can see one of the cool little Jetsons’ cars in the background. More here
Backgrounder
U.S. battery makers finally find the 'on' switch
Innovation in Detroit ... yes, Detroit
Where technology meets humanity
At last, Minnesota has gerrymandered a joke we can all take seriously. Al Franken will be declared the winner in the Senate race.
What does this have to do with nanotechnology, you may ask? Well, you might know that nanotech is playing an important role in helping some Minnesota communities recover from bad times. So, I searched and searched for anything Franken might have said about the subject. To my disappointment, the only item I could find came from an Air America bulletin board:
There was a segment where Al and Katherine talked to someone about nanotechnology and Al came out with this idea of having Nano-Robot Bees for military purposes. The discussion then devolves into about 3 or so minutes about the potential use of the Nano-Bees. It was the funniest thing ... More here
Oh, Al. I'll have to find you a Minnesotan or two who can educate you about all the nanotech economic development going on in your own frigid state.
Meanwhile, enjoy the picture above. The photo, and the baby being kissed, belongs to Robin Marty, a Minnesota journalist I met more than a year ago at a journalism conference in Lansing, Mich.
Backgrounder
The Great State Of Nanosota
Misspellings and grammatical errors aside, this writer to the Raleigh (N.C.) News & Observer makes a great point about what our culture values from our universities.
Athletes are admired and nanoscientists ... not so much.
But, thanks to N&O newspapers, UNC-Chapel Hill nanotech researcher Joseph DeSimone is being recognized for his work on a new class of nanoparticles that can take any shape, with the goal of making chemotherapy easier for cancer patients.
The N&O named DeSimone "Tar Heel of the Year". And while I am not entirely certain what exactly a Tar Heel is, I can only suppose that it is a good thing to be named the best one of the year.
Not sure what his rushing record was for the 2008 season. Nor do I care.
Backgrounder
Nano Carolina
Not your father's 'shop' class
Teen Meets The Nano Clumps
U.S. battery manufacturers have, at last, realized that working solely within their own closed, proprietary worlds will not help them catch up with the Asians, who are laps and laps ahead in the race to power next-generation electric and hybrid vehicles.
Somebody finally had the bright idea to form an industry consortium to move U.S. innovation along.
Recently, as battery consultant Ralph Brodd declared that the country "who makes the batteries will one day make the cars," 14 U.S. companies, including Altair Nanotechnologies, formed an alliance to speed the development and manufacture of li-ion batteries.
Hopefully, this group will do for batteries what SEMATECH did for the U.S. semiconductor industry.
And on the government side, Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm proved she understood what was at stake when she said on Meet The Press a couple of weeks ago that lack of government funding would mean "replacing our reliance on foreign oil with the reliance on foreign batteries, because it's the battery that's going to be driving the electric vehicle in the future."
The Michigan Legislature followed up the governor's words by approving up to $335 million in tax credits to make the state a center of lithium-ion innovation and manufacturing.
Also recently, Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) appeared at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, with the chairman of nanotech li-ion company Ener1 Inc. at his side, to propose $1.6 billion in federal grants to try to put U.S. battery makers in the passing lane.
It's still a race for second place, but at least the United States has reached the starting line.
Backgrounder
Innovation in Detroit ... yes, Detroit
Big Three Are Dead; Long Live The Little
Nano Powering The Auto Revolution
And so ends the single worst year in the life of your humble narrator.
But what is that old proverb? "May you live in interesting times."
With that blessing or curse as a criterion, 2008 has fulfilled wishes beyond reckoning. And not only for me, but also for my battered hometown of Detroit.
And it is in times like these that I remember why I enjoy learning and writing about nanotechnology. It leaves the future wide open for imagining. And I choose to imagine a better world. Before nanotech became my obsession beyond reason, I wrote about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. No more explanation needed there.
I have alluded before to a better, nano-enabled future for my down-and-out Motown hometown, where the seeds of the new auto industry have already been planted.
The next age of the automotive industry has begun, and nanotech will fuel the innovation that will make possible the long-lasting, safe, affordable batteries that will power our automobiles.
And it is in automotive technology where nanotech will at last have its first real chance at making a difference in the creation of cars that are safer, more comfortable and more fuel-efficient.
In 2009, I plan on making this a major focus of my work and you'll see it reflected more on NanoBot and elsewhere.
The first major "elsewhere" will be back where my nano obsession began back in 2001, when I helped launch one of the first nanotech magazines and Websites. Small Times has asked me to return as a contributing editor and blogger. The focus there is broader -- nanotech and microscale technologies such as MEMS and microfluidics. So that will be reflected in my new blog, which will launch after the New Year.
For NanoBot readers only, here's a sneak peak at my first post, which centers on new signs of hope for U.S. battery makers.
If you could just tune your ears above the recent clatter and racket that passed for debate over a bridge loan for the Big Three, you might have been able to just make out the tiny baby cries of a newborn U.S. auto industry.
I live in Detroit, so I heard the slap on that baby's ass, followed by the opening shrieks of a brat already born into a disadvantaged, dysfunctional family.
You see, in the literal power struggle over the next age of the automotive industry -- the electric age -- the U.S. battery industry is arriving late.
Well, we'll see if they let that through. I'll link to it when it's posted. If not, it wouldn't be the first time my blogging has annoyed my employers.
So, look for signs of a better year in 2009 for nanotech and for me, personally. I will have new writing and editing projects to announce as new life is breathed into this old hack.
Longtime NanoBot readers know that this blog has my name on it for a reason. It's not only about nanotechnology, but also about some of my personal struggles in covering it. I have managed to retain and grow readership over the past 5 1/2 years of blogging despite force-feeding some of my own developing philosophies about technology's impact on culture, society and religion.
In 2008, I had some time -- a great deal of time -- to think about it. So my readers will be forced to endure more of it. The subject ties in perfectly with some of the major nanotech news developments this past year, including new studies on negative religious and cultural attitudes toward nanotech.
Almost four years ago, I wrote: "Religion. Superstition. Ideology. Dogma. Scientists can ignore them, mock them, place themselves above them at their own peril."
In 2009, this blog will take on an even more personal tone, since much of it is also my scratchpad for ideas. Many articles I have written over the years have been part of a larger narrative, with overlapping themes.
I will, eventually, gently ease into explaining why I disappeared for five months and what I accomplished during that time. I alluded to it cryptically here, but more will be explained as I am able to publish what went on that changed my life dramatically between May and October 2008.
In a way, it mirrored our times, since there was incredible pain mixed with a spark of hope.
It had nothing to do with nanotech, but it did follow the narrative of my life's work and solidified some fundamental ideas about technology and society that I have been thinking about for many years.
Here is where I begin to sound like I am completely out of my mind. But perhaps that is only because I lack the academic background to couch these ideas in the proper format.
You've read on these pages before some nonsensical rantings about how we are forcing the digitization of an analog world. When I say this, I mean it in both the literal and metaphorical sense. It is where I part ways with those who advocate molecular manufacturing. We cannot turn waves into particles, mold clay into golems, and mistake the metaphor for the object.
We are analog in a digital age, where we pretend reality can be segmented. I have seen victims of, become the victim of, people who live by machine thinking, who believe the law can handle essential human affairs, who believe they are doing right, who lean back with self-satisfaction that a scientific mind has captured an act, a thought, an emotion and found the proper hole in which to bury it.
What is lost in science, in all our attempts to segment, measure, adjudicate, is an essential humanity.
I have no use for scientists who mock the superstitious public. Superstition, religion, even metaphor, are part of our nature as humans. To deny that fact, or place yourself above it, is not even very scientific since it ignores important data about the people for whom technology is being developed.
In science, in all attempts to segment human affairs, all it takes is a little humanity, where our reactions to situations, to technological change, can be found on a spectrum and not segmented into bits. It is within that spectrum that we can solve misunderstandings between science and society.
Humanity dwells between the digits, between shadow and light, between beach and shore, between madness and sanity, where explanations can be found in the indescribable.
May the coming year be a time of peace, healing, success and humanity for us all. Happy New Year.
This Hanukkah, I celebrate my own personal "miracle" -- the simple freedom to be with my wife and children.
Yes, I know. No such thing as miracles, right? Well, I am a believer in science, too, but I choose to believe in miracles, as well.
I know there are rational, prosaic explanations for the "miracle" of my children and my ability to be with them, but I choose to turn on the portion of my brain that calls it a miracle.
What's that Arthur C. Clarke quote? "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
Perhaps the Maccabeans were nanoscientists who discovered how to optimize each molecule of oil to make the menorah burn for eight days, rather than one? Miracle? Science? Does it matter? We make our own metaphors, choose our own symbols.
Happy Hanukkah.
Backgrounder
Freedom is no small thing
The Case Of God v. Nanotech
Zeno, nano and quantum cwaziness
News headline that makes me believe I am living in a B science fiction movie:
British scientist warns we must protect the vulnerable from robots
Backgrounder
'Star Trek' warps nanotech news
Apparently, "nanobot" is a corporate-speak term that has nothing to do with nanotechnology. According to the Wall Street Journal, "A nanobot is someone who operates autonomously from a company, probably telecommuting or on the road. They may have no ‘cultural’ or community tie to the company because they have so little interaction with it."
Yeah, that pretty much describes what I do, too.
In South Carolina, Clemson researchers are using nanoparticles to develop healthier chickens. There's really nothing else I need to say here. I'll let the chickens do the talking. Enjoy.
Backgrounder
'Star Trek' warps nanotech news
'Transhuman cybersomething crazy ...'
HP teaches us the 'n' word
Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands is offering two new nanoscience courses on its OpenCourseWare site: Advanced Solid State Physics and Quantum Information Processing.
While I am certain my readers can take advantage of these free online courses, it all sounds too difficult for an undereducated writer like me.
Just this morning, I learned that I left my kids' lunchboxes at their preschool and I had failed to properly read a bottle of baby soap, mistaking it for baby lotion -- thus drying out my two young sons' skin even more during this cold winter.
Quantum information processing? I'd be happy with any information processing in my 43-year-old, ancient senile brain.
Backgrounder
Nanotech for undergrads
High School Nails Nano
Penn State's Little Recruiting Video
In their 2005 book "Freakonomics," authors Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner wrote about the symbiotic relationship between journalists and "experts."
"Journalists need experts as badly as experts need journalists," they wrote. "Every day there are newspaper pages and television newscasts to be filled, and an expert who can deliver a jarring piece of wisdom is always welcome."
And the more "jarring," the better for both. Find a piece of news that creates conflict or goes against conventional wisdom or exposes an "outrage," well then the journalists gain readers and the "expert" or his organization gets to bathe in publicity.
Levitt and Dubner pointed out a problem with this relationship, using the example of a self-serving "expert" who cooked up his own "statistics" to be feasted upon by a gullible media.
The good news is that when it comes to nanotechnology, this symbiosis between journalist and expert cannot reach the level of that kind of deceit. The bad news is that it cannot reach that level because nanotech research and commercialization is in its infancy, and neither the "experts" nor the journalists can agree on what constitutes nanotechnology.
Still, the beast must be fed. And the next best thing to a real expert on nanotech is one who claims to be one based on his or her own agenda. So, the stories that see print and make the airwaves are the ones that focus on dreams or nightmares.
If you think politically, the religious right has a problem with "playing God," while the left does not want the corporate world messing with Mother Nature. Both sides take their lessons from science fiction: take a kernal of fact and extrapolate strange, new worlds via acres of "therefores."
And, meanwhile, in the world of real nanotech research, science advisory panels in both the United States and Britain have recently come out with more reports that pretty much say the same thing. We really need to study nanotechnology more.
There was something for everybody in the latest National Research Council report on nanotech.
From a scientific perspective, more study is good since, as British scientist Richard Jones put it so well in Nature, researchers are "fearing the fear of nanotechnology." They all remember the backlash against genetically modified foods in Europe. That's what happens when you let agenda groups claim the early mantle of "expert."
The nanotech business community, in a turnaround from their position a few years ago, is all for increased funding for environmental health and safety of nanomaterials.
Raymond David of BASF told Reuters that it's imperative that the U.S. get a handle on what's safe and what's not.
The alternative "puts a bit of fear in all of us that all of this effort will not be well received or may go the route of genetically modified foods in Europe," David said. "We certainly wouldn't want that."
No, we wouldn't. If we're going to avoid hysteria and ignorance on a massive scale, then we need to quickly fill the void with real knowledge. And quickly, before more "experts" talk to journalists.
Backgrounder
The knowledge void: Here there be monsters
How PR 'spins' the atom
Wilson Center's nano numbers racket
Backgrounder
Everything is Animated
NanoEngineering Puts On A Happy Face
This little joint is jumping
Thank you, Foresight
Siemens AG is, no doubt, bringing its Davis Polk & Wardwell lawyers with them to Russia as it invests in nanotechnology.
In Russia, bribery is often simply a built-in cost of doing business, and Davis Polk, among others, appears to be quite proud of helping Siemens get off a little lighter after a decade of corrupt business practices.
Lost in all the sickening political posturing in Washington over the lives and livelihoods of millions of human beings is the fact that innovation is indeed occurring in my hometown of Detroit.
It's just not happening at the Big Three.
But it is at companies like A123, which Seeking Alpha recently reported may not have lost out after all to rival battery-maker LG Chem for the coveted contract for GM's new electric hybrid Volt. (I covered the unveiling of the prototype Volt two years ago.)
As I have written before, both companies have ties to Michigan and both are using nanotech to develop safe, long-lasting lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles.
Japanese companies like Toyota develop technologies like li-ion batteries largely in-house. While in the United States much of the real innovation occurs within smaller companies or groups until it's ready to be bought or gobbled by the big guys.
Backgrounder
Nano Powering The Auto Revolution
Big Three Are Dead; Long Live The Little
Well, here in Detroit it is impossible to find a job in journalism. So, while I continue my science/technology freelance career, I am also doing some public relations on the side. The story above represents the first success of NanoBot Media (The unofficial name I've given to all my various attempts to pay my mortgage and keep my kids clothed).
I was able to generate some decent coverage for a local coffee shop's campaign to give a free cup of coffee to every customer who promises to buy an American car. More information here. If you look closely in the middle of the video, about the time the reporter talks about Drew Barrymore, you can see me hunched over at a table in the background.
And, speaking of me, tomorrow I'll have another announcement to make -- this one having more to do with nanotechnology. Stay tuned.
Backgrounder
My other life as a nanotech pitchman
The Times of London asks whether a hair-repair product from Nanomax is "Trick or Treatment?" The verdict from a trichologist: Trick.
The Times explains:
What is it? A permanent hair repair treatment that uses nanotechnology - the science of manipulating matter on a molecular level. Healthy hair is made up of 90 per cent keratin and 10 per cent moisture, but environmental or cosmetic damage can leave it split, with craters or minute cracks. Nanomax claims to penetrate the hair, duplicating its natural structure, helping to heal, repair, strengthen, protect and shine....
Trichologist's verdict: "It is not possible to 'heal' or 'repair' a broken hair, although remoisturising it is beneficial. ... There are more effective ways to remoisturise and condition your hair that don't blind you with (pseudo) science,” says Philip Kingsley, a trichologist. More here
The newspaper used a human "guinea-pig" for its nanotech experiments, by the way. I am proud to say that NanoBot and Small Times (back when I was news editor) bravely pioneered this method of using human test subjects.
Backgrounder
... and I am a trivial boy
Don't hate me because I'm nano-beautiful
Nerd American Idol
Beauty and the Nano Beat
Almost five years ago, in my NanoBot post, Nanotubes and the tale of the rats, I discussed an often-cited Dupont study on the toxicity of carbon nanotubes, the material that will either build us an elevator to the stars or turn into the "next asbestos," depending on whose propaganda you want to believe.
It was a study around which the anti-nanotech movement was built, since at the time it was the only one around that looked at the potential health effects of carbon nanotubes. I questioned whether pumping a rat's lungs full of nanotubes until he suffocated to death really proved anything.
Now, a new study published in the journal Nanotoxicology indeed shows that if you send a nanotube into a cell functionalized with the proper material and in the proper dosage, it does no damage. Increase the dosage, and damage occurs.
This is a point I've been trying to make for years on this blog. Nanotech is not about use of nanoscale materials only. It's also about engineering them to do what you need them to do. Right now, we're only in the beginning stages. Like I wrote back in January 2004:
This is how science works. Small steps, each study building on the conclusions of others. Nanotubes might, as the slogan goes these days, turn out to be the "next asbestos," but it is far too early to convict them of anything except being in the wrong rats at the wrong time.
Backgrounder
Nanotubes and the tale of the rats
Nanotech? Nahh, doesn't exist yet
This report from a Canadian TV station rates a Star Trek NanoWarp Factor of 4 (in a scale I just invented based on the number of times "Star Trek" is mentioned in a single nanotech news story).
The video alongside the news story does not mention "Star Trek" even once, which means one of their news writers decided that Web readers will understand the story better if they sprinkled in a few "Star Trek" references. It's an annoying distraction, since as TV news stories go it actually does a competent job of outlining the hopes and fears of nanotech.
As a former TV Web writer for WDIV Local 4 in Detroit, I understand the attempt to make a connection with the reader. But somebody should inform the writer that the Web no longer appeals only to "Star Trek" geeks, and has not for a number of years.
In fact, if you haven't noticed, local TV news audiences are disappearing. And you know where all your viewers are now? They're getting their news on the Web, where they can find in-depth, substantive stories.
Oh, and this blog post rates a Star Trek NanoWarp Factor of 5.
Backgrounder
Antediluvian NanoBots
NanoBots control the horizontal and vertical
NanoBots are Needed
