Our good friend (and CNS Fellow Alum), Aaron Rowe, has an interesting take on the global race to create a nanotechnology infrastructure here. ** His Wired blog entry also inspired some commentary at IEEE's blog, here, about how nanotechnology infrastructures won't bring about the "nanotech revolution."
While both Aaron and Dexter, the IEEE blogger, make some good points about government-supported research initiatives, I particularly support one of Dexter's secondary points, his take on nanotechnology as an enabling technology - meaning that nanoscale technological innovations are most likely going to be tools for other technologies.
Mary
** in reference to Aaron's blog entry: Interestingly, Biopolis (a huge science park in Singapore) was supposed to be the stem cell research center of the world by now...
Thanks for pointing this out...and it's good to see that someone other than Chris and me are reading this.
ReplyDeleteI saw an ad for biotech lab equipment on the side of a public transit bus too. That says volumes to me about how ingrained technology has become in their culture. Your comment about the original intention to become a leader in stem cells is great. Nanotechnology is ripe for incremental improvements; think of Moore's Law. By comparison, stem cell therapies may be harder to achieve than anyone expected and you can't make a product out of intermediate advances. Also, there is only one market for stem cells. With nanotech, you can sometimes make a new material, then find a niche for it.
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