Two reports out this week hint at a new political alignment in the coming decades. Both reports focus on nanotechnology, but have implications well beyond. Research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison shows a strong correlation between moral doubts about nanotechnology and embrace of religion. Join discussion...

Metamodern isn’t intended to be “a blog about nanotechnology”; its scope includes broader issues involving technologies with world-changing potential. For example, looking well downstream in technology development, I will sketch the requirements for large-scale systems able to restore the atmosphere to its pre-industrial composition. Closer to hand, social software and the computational infrastructure of our society are high on the list. Join discussion...

UK study on nanometerials has concluded with a warning about the dangers posed by the new materials and recommendations for industries using them (BBC News - Action urged over nanomaterials): Urgent regulatory action is needed on nano-scale materials widely used in industry, the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution has concluded. The materials have so far shown no evidence of harm to people or the environment, the commission found. However, it said there was a "major gap" in research about the risks posed by the materials, which are found in some 600 products globally. [...] The commission added that it saw no reason to implement a blanket ban or moratorium on the development and implementation of nanomaterials, because of the societal benefits they represented, for example, to medicine and the renewable energy industry. Instead, it urged co-operative, international action to establish tests for their dangers and regulatory oversight. They also suggested changing the industrial reporting of the use of nanomaterials from voluntary to mandatory, with an industry "checklist" to flag up the products that posed the highest potential risk. Join discussion...

SAP TV shows us how new technology such as 3D printing and the IPhone in daily use. SAP is discovering the new possibilities by combined research and development with other companies. Join discussion...

Recent discoveries of water and Earth-like soil on Mars have set imaginations running wild that human beings may one day colonise the Red Planet. However, the first inhabitants might not be human in form at all, but rather swarms of tiny robots. “Small robots that are able to work together could explore the planet. We now know there is water and dust so all they would need is some sort of glue to start building structures, such as homes for human scientists,” says Marc Szymanski, a robotics researcher at the University of Karlsruhe in Germany. Szymanski is part of a team of European researchers developing tiny autonomous robots that can co-operate to perform different tasks, much like termites, ants or bees forage collaboratively for food, build nests and work together for the greater good of the colony. Join discussion...

Like it or not, the day is coming when we’ll live side by side with humanoids. But although most modern robots can grip objects and avoid walls, they lack a vital quality in any companion: feeling. They don’t need to get your jokes or sense that you had a bad day, but without all-over sensors that can detect things like motion and body heat, there’s nothing to tell them that, for instance, they’re stepping on the baby. Join discussion...

A related term to grey goo, used (jokingly) to refer to the mistaken idea that during the singularity powerful technologies would decimate non-transhumanists, and that some transhumanists would see this as desirable (which is clearly against the Transhuman Principles). [Dale Carrico 1996] Join discussion...

The fields of Nanotechnology, Biotechnology, Information technology and Cognitive science are coming together into a single field of advancement in much the same way as the television, the Internet, the cell phone and the video game are merging today. The ramifications for humans with the convergence of the NBIC technologies is far greater than the entertainment/communications merger of the TV-phone-computer. Like the TV-Phone-Computer convergence, advances in one technology are feeding advances in the others. The result is a rapid development cycle that promises huge changes for mankind, technologically and socially. It's no longer a question of if, but when. And not even when, because it's happening now. The question of when happens when the technologies suddenly appear in the commercial, scientific, industrial and commercial markets. Join discussion...

Nanotech is changing the world. Join discussion...

Despite the rapid progress of structural DNA nanotechnology, one limitation has been the expense and labor involved to construct complex DNA nanostructures step-by-step in the laboratory. In a collaboration between the laboratories of Hao Yan at the Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University and Nadrian C. Seeman at New York University, two basic structural motifs of DNA nanotechnology have been efficiently and inexpensively replicated in bacterial cells. The fact that these artificial DNA nanostructures are tolerated in living cells was surprising, and may open new avenues for synergism between nanotech and synthetic biology. From Arizona State University , via AAAS EurekAlert “Using living cells as nanotechnology factories“: Join discussion...