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Science

ACS Adds Nanotech Division 117

Posted by Hemos from the mmm-nanites dept.
Phase Shifter writes, " The Materials subdivision within the American Chemical Society's Industrial & Engineering Chemistry division has now become the Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology subdivision. This means that ACS members researching into nanotech now have their own forum for information exchange, where previously it was scattered among several different divisions. Hopefully we'll be seeing faster progress in the field as a result. "
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ACS Adds Nanotech Division More

ACS Adds Nanotech Division

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  • Re:Nanotech: How do I get it? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    "Woops we just had a big lightning storm and half the United States burnt to the ground!!"

    ... and exactly how would this be a bad thing?

    - SnoTroller

  • Masturbate a lot (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    By the time you grow up you will realize that nothing matters.....

  • Of course I know who Linus Pauling is... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    ...he created the Linux kernel, for cryin' out loud!
  • Now that china has our Nuclear technology, however, the forces of peace, freedom and television need the ultra-force of Nanotech to gain leverage!


  • I don't think you understand human psyche very well.

    > After all, hate is just an expression of
    > frustration/jealosy.

    Hate is many things. Hate has many faces. Hate can come from all places, even places that you can never imagine !

    In fact, there _are_ people who like to hate just for the fun of it.

    I mean, look at the klans in America. They are white, they have more opportunities than the "colored" minorities, and yet, the klans just lourvvvves to showcase their hate publicly.

    Have you ever listen to the hatefilled speech by the klans? I have. I just couldn't understand what motivates those people to hate so much, and yet they do.

    And the hatespeech isn't limited to the klans either. Politicians do it all the time, and what kind of "frustration" or "jealousy" those politicians have?

    I mean, look at Jesse Helms. Look at him. He is rich, well fed, highly educated, and in some manner, is a cultured person.

    But if you listen to his speech, man.... talk about hate, HATE !

    What makes Jesse Helms hate so much? What is there in his well-fed, well-lived, wealthy, comfortable life to make him feeling "frustrated"?

    Is there any OBVIOUS thing that Jesse Helms jelous about?

    No. At least, I can't find anything that worth Jesse Helm's to raise his druff.

    I mean, if I am Jesse Helms, I have so much money, I have so much power, my health is good, I have a good family, everything around me is good, I have no reason whatsover to hate or to feel jealous about.

    But Jesse Helms still operates under the "HATE" banner !

    I hope that by now we should understand that that neigher "Frustration" nor "Jealousy" can explain why people hate others.

    > If you have enough food/energy, you won't wage
    > war.

    Hmmm... really?

    Tell that to the people who were under attacked by Uncle Sam.

    It wages war on Vietnam, on Nicaragua, on Honduras, on so many places, and you like me to believe that America has not enough food, nor enough energy?

    Hmmm.....



  • > scientific advancement is advancement tat is
    > scientific

    First of all, thank you for saying that.

    It is succinct, to the point, and it gives a vvry clear message that "Scientific Advancement" is just that, an "advancement" that is scientific.

    Many people have somehow stop thinking that way.

    They equate "scientif advancement" with "something that is good", or "something that is moral", or "something that will bring peace".

    Not necessarily so.

    Almost everything we have can be used to do things that are good to people, or things that are bad.

    Like fire. We can use fire to cook, and we can use the same fire to burn people alive.

    Like nukes. We can use the advancement in understanding of the nuclear science to make productive things like MRI, or transform onto the power generated by nuclear reaction into electricity, or we can use the nuclear knowledge to make weapons of mass destruction like Nuclear Bombs.

    It is ultimately the people, us, who has to decide what we want to use the tool we have for.

    We are on the Net. We can use the Net to advance humanities, or we can use the net to spread vicious lies, disseminate prejudices, or get little boys and girls to do kiddie porn for us.

    The choice is ours. We can do good if we want to, or we can become the fiercest destructive beast ever existed in time.

  • And Linus thought that the invention of the Linux kernel would end war too. Sadly, he was wrong. :-)

    Trollking, you've got a good point. Nationalism is something we hardly understand here in the United States. We understand money, and grew up with the saying "the root of all evil is the love of money" and so we attribute all evils to it. Don't get me wrong, money is a huge cause of problems, and nanotech might possibly be a tool that could reduce all those problems. But we must not be naive and thing that this is the invention that will end all wars. It is not, and could be used to make war even more horrible than it already is.

    I don't want to sound pessimistic. The world after the invention of nanotech will be better than the world before the invention. But it will not be a perfect world with no war.
  • Since I first saw it I have been impressed by the picture [ibm.com] of IBM written in Xenon atoms on Nickel.
    Now, as the era of nanotechnology gets nearer and nearer, I would like to have a poster sized copy of this for my wall. Anyone know where I can get this (or any other STM pictures or photomicrographs)
  • Nice poem. Really.

    (laugh)

    Bowie J. Poag
    Project Manager, PROPAGANDA For Linux (http://propaganda.themes.org [themes.org])
  • You want me to buy you a t-shirt or something?

    Bowie J. Poag
    Project Manager, PROPAGANDA For Linux (http://propaganda.themes.org [themes.org])
  • if we do get viable nanotech and use it wisely, then our only limits are the laws of physics and our imaginations.

    Yeah, but it's the using it wisely that's the trick. One of the most probable scenarios I foresee is the prolongation of life without a corresponding reduction of the birth rate. If you think we had an overpopulation problem in the 20th century, just wait until the 21st, when nobody dies from old age, thanks in large part to nanotech, and the babies just keep being born.

    We'll need the nanotech that'll make us be able to survive in vacuum just to find a place to stay.


    Always and inevitably everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation
  • It seems to me that nanotechnology is the current research area most likely to transform the way human live. But since that's so, and since so many of the actual technologies that have revolutionised human life have come out of nowhere to surprise everyone, maybe nanotech will not be the next Great Change after all. Or maybe I just need more sleep. ;)
  • I can't comment on Nitro - I don't know if it was a Mil tech first or not.

    Computers are a more difficult subject - it depends on where you look. ENIAC was designed to produce trajectory calculations for World War II, but electronic computers go back further than it - the ABC and Konrad Zuse's machines date further back (Zuse even tried to interest the Nazi party in computers for the war - thankfully, they declined). If you want to consider designs for programmable computers, then Babbages Analytical Engine would most certainly qualify (though it was mechanical, and not electronic or electrical). What you are thinking of the intricate patterns being woven is probably a mis-quote, or someone told you wrong - Babbage got the idea of using punch cards after seeing how a Jaquard loom used similar cards to weave intricate patterns in cloth - he figured that if the punch cards could control the operation of a loom, then it could control his machines as well.

    Penecillan was developed somewhere between World War I and the Korean War - and first used to treat infection on a large scale during the Korean War (incidentally, I would say it was this development, and the MASH units, that really revolutionized war, in the caring for the injured quickly, at least). Sulfa based drugs had been developed earlier, but weren't as effective (?)...

    Space capable rockets? The German V2 approached the edge of space, and there were plans (I have seen very little about them, but they exist) to build something called the "Antipodal Bomber" - essentially a suicide bombing run, using a dual stage modified V2, to put a pilot in a sub-orbital trajectory, where he could "skip" off the outer atmosperic layers, to prolong his course, and then angle sharply downward to explode a 1000 pound bomb in New York City. This was on the drawing boards, but never went past the concept stage.

    Lastly, your comment on DARPAnet is wrong - the internet sprouted from the ARPAnet, a project whose goal was to connect various research campuses via computer at different universities across the country, using the phone system. It was never meant to withstand a nuclear war - this wasn't even a concern. It was meant to give researchers a way to share computing power with each other. DARPAnet (now .mil net?) was started as a seperate network from the infant internet back in the 70's (IIRC - I may be wrong on this) - I am not sure on it's capabilities (it may be designed with nuclear war strikes in mind).

  • Great book; I loved it. Tee hee.
    L.D.

    Is Tis better than Angela's Ashes? That I couldn't stand, I found it very boring, tedious and repetive.

    I found the much vaunted humor to be about as funny as tying two cats together at the tail and flinging them over a clothesline.

    The pathos was terrible, a rehashed Dickens.

    These sentiments make me a pariah in my wife's Irish descended family, but their literary tastes are suspect, never having even read any Pynchon.

    About the only saving grace is that I can't wait for Lego to come out with official Angela's Ashes sets, so I can build lots of grey, dingy buildings.

    George
  • From the ACS web site: "ACS was chartered by the U.S. Congress in 1876 and is the world's largest scientific society with nearly 159,000 members."
  • I suggest reading lots of science fiction novels that have to do with nanotech cause then you'll see that nanotech is scary and you should go lock yourself in the closet rather than get anywhere near nanotech.

    But seriously folks nanotech may be the future but if we don't watch out it will be a very short future so we need smart people who are educated on the subject of how it can go wrong (nanotech novels) be the ones who actually do research in the field. Not the people who are like:

    "I know how to combine molecules, lets see what happens when I change the largest plant on the face of the earth (algea) to create highly explosive gas. Then we'll accidently drop some in a local pond and in 6 months all the algea in a 2000 mile radius is producing gas. Woops we just had a big lightning storm and half the United States burnt to the ground!!"


    ================================================ ========
  • The good trolls only come out at night! I wish I was moderating because every post to this thread would get a +1. Keep up the good work, ninja!
  • I disagree. I think nanotechnology can be used to avert poverty and energy shortages, the major causes of war.

    After all, hate is just an expression of frustration/jealosy. If you have enough food/energy, you won't wage war.

  • First saleable use of technology:


    As much as I love to hate the War Machine, I have to question the accuracy of your assertion. Can you document these, especially against these top-of-my-head alternatives:

    • Nitroglycerine: Military munitions. or construction demolitions, especially train tunnels.
    • Computers: Military codebreaking, artillery trajectory computation.I've always been taught that the earliest Von Neumann computer was desgined to weave intricate fabrics. And then there's the Pascal calculator.
    • Penicillin: Treating war wounds or any infection; this especially beg documentation
    • Space-capable rockets: Ballistic missiles. I always understood that the first Space-capable rocket put Sputnik in orbit, and that ICMBs follow much later.

    Aircraft and Submarines I'll grant. The DC-9 was a military transport far before it became a passenger craft, and submarines were a military fantasy long before anyone cared about laying cable or exploring the ocean floor. However, consider:

    • Bioengineering, a Johnny-come-lately in warefare
    • Internal combustion, which was on America's throughways long before the High Command would give up cavalry charges.
    • Lasers, which have military targetting applications, end of list. Their scientific applications have been myriad since their inception.
    • Photography, including movies, which wasn't used in warfare until it'd been around for decades. (More if you count the Camera Obscura.)
    • A whole host of specialized developements without military application. MRI, radiation therapy, Silly Putty, lay-flat binding, espresso. Wide ranging, not all practical exactly, but certainly not military.
    • And then the tech that the military wanted but couldn't put to a good use. You're looking at one of them. Hardly profound, but DARPAnet was originally a military project.

  • What you are thinking of the intricate patterns being woven is probably a mis-quote, or someone told you wrong

    Actually, the Jacquard Loom has been presented to me on a number of occasions as the first von Neumann machine. It fetched instructions from wooden cards, decoded them mechanically, and then performed operations on warp and weave. As far as actual implimentations of Turing machines go, von Neumanns are pretty much it.

    The German V2 approached the edge of space,

    The V2 reached the edge of orbit, but was never capable of putting anything in orbit. And as much as Werner von Braun was instrumental in the US spcae program, Cosmograd had Sputnik blipping along before we had anything in orbit.

    Finally, every history I've read of DARPA and ARPAnet has related them initimately, usually suggesting that the military had been working on ARPANet for longer than they let on (big surprise) and that they'd asked the academics into it. Furthermore, part of ARPANet's mission was designed around having a headless communication network that would continue to transmit orders and intelligence around holes (like those created by nuclear strikes), which accounts for much of the research into modern packet switching. I suspect we may be at opposite sides of the elephant on this one, though.

  • That's a very simplistic view. (and on some points incorrect since germany DIDN'T start the first world war.)
  • Do Physics, and Atomic chemistry.

    Seriously, Nanotech is such a young, immature field of science that we still do not know what knowledge is applicable. Get the basics right, then branch out into it when the field turns really hot. That is the chance to make your contribution.

  • Self-assembly isn't the same as self-replication, and the latter may not be necessary or desirable, at least for a long time. At least as I understand it, self-assembly simply means that the pieces assemble themselves into complex, organized structures. What you really need is mass-production. Milk is as cheap as vegetables, but is not self-replicating. Admittedly, cows are, but if you had a cow-manufacturing plant you could acheive the same result. In order to avoid unintended consequences, it will probably be preferable to design along these lines, rather than aim for self-replication.
  • Can't say we haven't seen this before, but hey Nanotechnology is good, and more discussion of it is always good. Now if these guys just listen to Ray Kurzweil and made the shit he predicts, I'd be happy.
  • Absolutely nothing.
  • I know that, I was simply making a point that someone would understand.

    Oh, and you also forgot a few things. Let me list them. Being able to survive in hard vaccum without a suit or external air supply, DNA alteration, and the ablity to survive on nothing but heat and light.

    If I forgot anything, feel free to add to this.
  • It's people like you who help us understand the threats things like this have. -sigh- If only our governments were less agressive and would focus instead on active shielding systems...
  • LOL! Yea, just what we need, alage that produces explosive gas...as if people and cows didn't make enough methane as it is...

    But seriously, if we do get viable nanotech and use it wisely, then our only limits are the laws of physics and our imaginations.

    Just think, more computing power in your underwear than in the biggest Beowulf cluster to date.
  • Just an FYI, but Haldeman's got "Forever Free" out now. It's the conclusion to "Forever War".

    Anyone read James Halperin's "Truth Machine" or "First Immortal" ?

    I ate grits this morning, but did not put them down my pants. Shmoooooo.
  • ohhhhhh, scifi said we'd have flying cars, contact with a the monolith and a big brother.

    some people rather hide there head in the sand than realize the fiction part of sci fi.

    beg borrow steal what you need to get into nanotech U (lol) i wish you the best of luck! wish i was going with you and cant wait to try out the uber server the size of a dime.

    but im sick and tired of people belittling ourselves over science. look if some maniac getts the grey plague going then it will happen. same way anyone can push the button, shoot/stab you in the street and get hit by lightning.

    chop up animals, blow up small islands in the south pacific, train ants to organize small screws in space! if i gets the rest of us who dont get to play with the real toys something like silly putty then im all for it!
    (mmmmmm real toys... imagine no budget and a industrial/millitary machine to caiter to your every whim...)

    yay! science!
    BOO! ignorant parinoia!

    "this is my computer, there are many like it but this one is mine" -AYP?
  • Okay, this is really bad stuff! Don't you know this is how the BORG started? We're all gonna die!
  • Computing power would be the least of it. You would live a healthy life for as long as you cared to continue. Poverty, strife, disease, famine, all would go by the wayside. You could go anywhere you want, any time you want. Cancer, diabetes, Lou Gehrig's disease would all be irrelevant. Computing power is the tip of the iceburg.

  • Well, I don't know about all the possible Illuminati overlords that could be controlling the ACS, but on any level of rational thinking, they are not some shawdow industry puppet. The ACS is not a chemists organization, they are the chemists organization. They have been around for a hundred years now, I would think. Also, they are generally pretty liberal...read their book "The chemistry of mind altering substances".

    Linus Pauling was a president of them for a while...I am not sure about that, although they could have swerved to the right in the forty years since his heydey. BTW, you all know who Linus Pauling is, don't you?

  • I have actually thought of that before. Haven't made the perfect joke on it quite yet though. I didn't think of it while writing this post though. And I think that Torvalds and Pauling would have gotten along quite fine.

    They were both alike in being geniuses both in science\technology and in politics. Although Dr. Paulings politics and science were more grounbreaking\revoloutionary then Torvalds', although they wern't as closely linked.

  • Nanotechnology would definitely be something to look forward to - just think: microscopic machines in your blood stream that automatically help your body repair itself, microscopic surveilance and, of course, they would be great for computer maintenance.
  • I must admit that I haven't read "Forever War", but after hearing it compared favorably with Starship Troopers I'll have to give it a look.

    I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Haldeman at a sci-fi con a while back- he's an interesting gentleman.

    I can assure you that the ACS is a reputable organization. My wife works "in the biz" and has been affiliated with them for some time.

    It seems like just a few short years ago the very idea of molecular nanotechnology was ridiculed by the mainstream. Now the discussion seems to center around "when", rather than "if". It's good to see organizations like the ACS (and IBM, for that matter) lending some respectability to this field.

    As far as literature on the subject, I highly recommend "Engines of Creation" by K Eric Drexler. This was my first introduction to nanotech, and it's well thought out. Drexler leans a bit toward the optimistic side (probably rightfully so), but he does cover the potential abuses of nanotech. The entire text of the book is now available online at

    http://www.foresight.org/EOC/index.html

    As far as fiction goes, there's a wonderful anthology called "Nanotech", edited by Gardner R. Dozois (ISBN 0-7394-0154-8). It kicks much ass! There are several different takes on nanotech provided, and they're all well written and insightful.

    For what it's worth.

    -Eric Krastel

  • News? (Score:2)

    by pb ( 1020 )
    Sure, you guys don't think this is news, but you're forgetting something.

    In nanotech, it's the little differences that count. ;)
    ---
    pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate [152.7.41.11].


  • I do have lots of respect for Mr. Haldeman. His is the kind of person whose integrity and his dignity will never be compromized by anything.

    MR. Haldeman is a Vietnam vet, and he has experienced many unspeakable things back then. Instead of feeling pissed off, (lots of vietnam vet are living the life of being pissed off all the time), Mr. Haldeman channeled his anger, his frustration, his feeling of helplessness and loneliness into strength, and he wrote many heart-wrenching stories to remind the world of our potentially destructive manner.

    I respect Mr. Haldeman not because only his writing - which are very good, btw, his stories are of the highest quality, highly recommended - but I respect him because Mr. Haldeman can cut through his hatreds and his prejudices and in his stories, again and again, the hero fought hard against all the injustice, all the craziness, all the mind-boggling stupidities, to achieve the ultimate aim for a human being - to be honest to oneself, and to cling onto one's moral value and never let up one's dignity and integrity.

    The message from Mr. Haldeman is clear - that all of us are capable of doing great harm to others, and if we want to become true human beings, we must fight and defeat our prima violent urge, and we must all strive to be a person who, in the end of the day, will come out all the better.

    Thank you for bringing up Mr. Joe Haldeman.

    Thanks again for this chance for me to say the things I have wanted to say for a long, long time !

  • If you read Joe Haldeman's latest book "Forever Peace" (Hugo and Neublar) you'd find out and in what ways nanotechology could be expoloited for the beifit of one country in a war against an inferior nation.

    I also recommend "Forever War" also by Joe Haldeman, another Hugo and Neublar winner.. Though both books are not related, they are excellent reads. I would usually cring at war books, but Haldmean's sci-fi war fiction would grip you and transport you to the horrors of a real war (narrated from a real veteran).

    As a matter of fact, "Forever War" impacted me more than "StarShip Troopers".

    Enjoy.
    --
  • It's good to see interest in the areas they are talking about. Frequently some institution announces their interest in "nanotech" but really they are pursuing some very near-term, such as marginal improvements in lithography. The inclusion here of "molecular self-assembly, with particular emphasis on organized structures and machines" is important. Most of the nanotech "economy of plenty" scenarios depend on the idea of self-replicating assemblers. It's the reason vegetables are so affordable, despite the fact they're more complex than 99.9% of human artifacts.

    It's also good to see interest in "molecular-scale biomedical engineering", though this far along in the human genome project it's a bit of a no-brainer. Nevertheless, it's one of the areas where nanotech offers the greatest long-term promise, and it represents another point for long-term thinking on the part of the ACS.

    • A whole host of specialized developements without military application. MRI, radiation therapy, Silly Putty, lay-flat binding, espresso. Wide ranging, not all practical exactly, but certainly not military.
    • And then the tech that the military wanted but couldn't put to a good use. You're looking at one of them. Hardly profound, but DARPAnet was originally a military project.
    Actually, Silly Putty falls into that last category too. It was developed from military research into rubber substitutes.
  • As a matter of fact, "Forever War" impacted me more than "StarShip Troopers".
    I think Haldeman wrote The Forever War largely as a response to Heinlein's pro-military Starship Troopers.

    I recommend both The Forever War and Forever Peace. Also see if you can find his All My Sins Remembered.

  • ? (Score:2)

    by Zan Thrax ( 53693 )
    Ok, it's nano related, so Hemos posted it. But, who are these guys? Can't say I've heard of the ACS... (not that that's neccessarily a signifigant statement about anything but my own ignorance)

  • Umm in the 17th,18th & 19th centurys the Brits had bags of food, bags of Energy and decided to invade pretty much every one on planet earth. The French and Spanish tried the same, in this century Germany started two world wars and they had energy and food. The US went to war in Vietnam and Nato went to Iraq.

    The military always find a reason to go to war, and a reason to fund scientific research. The first use of most technologies are for the military.
  • It just won't happen, humans won't just use any technology wisely, just look at what script kiddies have done with computers!
    Obviously we will have to find a way to use nanotech for good to combat the people who use it for evil. But we first reach a useable level of nanotech it will be easier to make weapons of mass distruction than it will be to make things to protect ourself's against the weapons. On the internet when a root exploit is found and used against people maybe a few sites go down and crackers steal some passwords and creditcard #'s, then 24 hours later we fix the bug and people update the software and the world keeps rolling along. Now when someone makes a nanotech weapon that kills hundreds of millions of people and 24 hours later we build some nanotech that combats it those hundred million people are dead and 100 of those weapons will wipe out the human race.

    So in closing nanotech is cool and all but we all should be very afraid and cautious of it.



    ================================================ ========
  • God I hope they're not close, and that I'm wrong that it will see use as a weapon. But they will inevitably be the first to have it at their disposal. Besides, I was joking at that point anyway..

  • Re:? (Score:2)

    by jesser ( 77961 )
    I'm not sure, but I know they set up all of the high school chemistry contests (local and national) in the United States that eventually decide who gets to go to the International Chemistry Olympiad [win.tue.nl].

    --

  • The way I see it, I'm the perfect age to be in on the nanotech revolution. I'm 16. By the time I'm in the workforce, the shit will just be hitting the fan. I am exceedingly interested in getting into this field.

    So what do I major in? I was thinking I would take Engineering Physics. Is that the right route? Does anybody have any idea/clues/suggestions?

  • Re:Nanotechnology (Score:4)

    by technos ( 73414 ) on Thursday February 24, 2000 @10:01PM (#1247235) Homepage Journal
    First saleable use of technology:

    Aircraft: Military scouting/surveillance
    Nitroglycerine: Military munitions.
    Computers: Military codebreaking, artillery trajectory computation.
    Penicillin: Treating war wounds
    Space-capable rockets: Ballistic missiles.
    Submarine: Military spy vehicle, war machine

    I think the Troll King has a valid point. Any new technology is optioned for and funded by the military first, regardless of the infinite number of peaceful uses. I'd expect one of the 'black budget' projects to actually get something akin to nanites working.

    Project A1017, codename Alephnul. Covert infiltration, surveillance, and elimination of Known Foreign Hostiles through use of self-replicating micro-miniature nanostructures.

  • I swear on the tiny periodic table in my wallet... (Score:4)

    by shiwala ( 93327 ) on Friday February 25, 2000 @12:07AM (#1247236)

    As a chemistry major at Rice University and a student affiliate of the American Chemical Society, I can tell you that we aren't up to anything sneaky. I swear on the little periodic table that I carry in my wallet!

    As far as the different divisions go (American, European, etc.), the society strives to promote active fellowship between members by having regional and national meetings to share ideas and promote chemistry. Among the student affiliate chapters, one of the main goals is generating support and interest in chemical education from the elementary level to the college level.

    Those of you in the San Francisco area might want to visit the ACS National Convention [acs.org] being held there the week of March 26th. You're likely to find more information on this new nano division there.

    For more official information as to what the ACS is all about, visit this [acs.org] site.

  • This takes more than chemists (Score:5)

    by Captn Pepe ( 139650 ) on Thursday February 24, 2000 @10:32PM (#1247237)

    From the ACS page:

    • carbon nanoscience, including fullerenes and carbon nanotubes
    • molecular-scale electronic devices, including wires and components
    • molecular self-assembly, with particular emphasis on organized structures and machines,
    • quantum size effects, including electronic and photonic phenomena
    • nanotechnologies, including lithographies, microscopies and manipulators
    • crystal engineering, including detailed architectures for electronic and photonic applications
    • engineering of nanoscale dots, films, and 3-dimensional structures
    • molecular-scale biomedical engineering

    Quite a breadth of fields represented here, and a list that illustrates an important point about nanotechnology -- by its very nature, you're combining a lot of areas of expertise. Right now, most of the work is arguably in the area of chemistry, but in the next few years you're going to have chemists, physicsts, mechanical/electrical/some new field? engineers, and even computer scientists working in the area. In the end, we're going to need to combine more people than just the physicsts.

    Along these lines, I like what some universities are doing: check out Rice's Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology [rice.edu] and Cornell's National Nanofabrication Facility [cornell.edu] for examples of institutes that have been set up specifically to bring together the various disciplines needed to tackle this problem.

    Oh, and a note to Technos -- as much money as even the military black budget has to throw around, we're nowhere near developing weapons-grade nanotech. If you want self-replicating weaponry, biological warfare remains your only "good" option.

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