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Now? Not so much.

I wouldn't be so sure about that.

Okay so is it just me or is anyone else thinking that it wouldn't take a high school education to understand how to sap power from the road for free

And anyone with a college education should be able to design the system to prevent this. An obvious solution is to only energize the wires under the car, and then only if a valid credit card number is provided. The charging wire is intermittent, and only available for 10-15% of the road, so it may be possible to allow or disallow power to individual vehicles. There is a better technical description here, but still not enough to know exactly how it works. This is a research prototype so they might not be to concerned about billing issues at this stage.

Those buried conductors are what make repaving an intersection in US a bit more expensive

An obvious solution to this is to not run the wires through the intersection. The cars still have batteries, so they don't need to receive power continuously.

One example of your final paragraph is illustrated here.
According to wiki, more than 200 nanotech-silver products are on the market, which is probably enough to have some effect. Most distinctly, I remember Samsung being sued over their plans to distribute nano-silver lined washing/drying machines to hospitals. Samsung claimed that the machines would be so effective as to eliminate the need for bleach. Others claimed it would wreak havoc on municipal sewage-management which relies on bacteria to break down the waste.

Yes! And the additional health-benefit of inhaling loose, blowing nano-particles - and the subsequent introduction to the pulmonary systems of city-dwellers - is surely the cincher on this!

17 days ago STS-125, the forth in-orbit service of Hubble, ended successfully
12 days ago Gov. Schwarzenegger dedicated the largest laser on Earth to fusion research
Last week the DOE produced video of a potential carbon nanotube memory device in operation.
3 days from now 7 people will blast into orbit, rendezvous with the ISS and further the construction of a giant orbital laboratory.

No government in history has ever, is now, or will ever again (post dollar collapse) facilitate as much raw research as the US federal government.

Just STFU please. Thanks.

Actually i think i heard of evidence that the titanium dioxide particles in sunscreens, especially nano particles are harmful.

http://www.ccohs.ca/headlines/text186.html

"With such widespread use of titanium dioxide, it is important to understand that the IARC conclusions are based on very specific evidence. This evidence showed that high concentrations of pigment-grade (powdered) and ultrafine titanium dioxide dust caused respiratory tract cancer in rats exposed by inhalation and intratracheal instillation*"

http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/health-fitness/nanotechnology-7-07/nanoparticles-in-sunscreens/0707_nano_sunscreen_1.htm

Lab studies indicate that both of those nano-ingredients create free radicals that damage the DNA of cells and possibly cause other harm as well. And even low exposure to nanoparticles of titanium dioxide can damage the lungs of animals if inhaled

http://locokazoo.com/2008/08/05/the-sun-screen-health-disaster/
http://www.nanowerk.com/spotlight/spotid=6838.php

How about an actual health problem that only happens with the finely particlized version of an otherwise harmless product? here.

The ability of nanoparticles to pass the blood-brain barrier is documented and is even being exploited for novel medical treatments. Many products we use daily are generally considered safe only because they do not penetrate the lungs, skin, or blood-brain barrier. This doesn't mean nanomaterials are automatically dangerous but it does mean that they cannot be presumed to be safe simply because the non-nano particle version is safe. Even where a substance is generally considered safe if ingested, a version with nano-particle carriers cannot be assumed safe.

In the field of health and safety, no evidence for safety means it's NOT to be considered safe. Since we know that nanoparticles can interact with biological systems differently than larger particles of the same substance, we know that we cannot infer safety of a nanomaterial based on the safety of larger particles of the same substance.

It really stands to reason. If nanomaterials DIDN'T behave in novel ways compared to micro and larger materials, they wouldn't be interesting at all.

As others have pointed out, asbestos is a great analogy. When fired into stoneware, it's perfectly harmless. When pulled into fibers it causes a serious and often fatal medical condition over a period of years with few advance warning signs.

I submitted this in story form yesterday but also in recent news, Glasgow scientists have made a tiny switch that would make huge leaps in memory storage:

Scientists at the University of Galsgow have claimed a breakthrough that enables them to store 500,000 gigabytes squeezed onto one square inch making way for some hilarious storage for things like cell phones and iPods. The scientists working on it divulged, "We have been able to assemble a functional nanocluster that incorporates two electron donating groups, and position them precisely 0.32 nm apart so that they can form a totally new type of molecular switching device. This is unprecedented and provides a route to produce new a molecule-based switch that can be easily manipulated using an electric field. By taking these nano-scale clusters, just a nanometer in size, and placing them onto a gold or carbon, we can control the switching ability. Not only is this a new type of switchable molecule, but by grafting the molecule on to metal (gold) or carbon means that we can potentially bridge the gap between traditional semiconductor devices and components for nanoscale plastic electronics. The key advantage of the molecule sized switch is information / transistor density in traditional semi-conductors. Molecule sized switches would lead to increasing data storage to say 4 Petabits per square inch. This breakthrough shows conceptually that this is possible (showing the bulk effect) but we are yet to solve the fabrication and addressing problems. The fact these switches work on carbon means that they could be embedded in plastic chips so silicon is not needed and the system becomes much more flexible both physically and technologically. Since these switches are little balls of metal oxide they are made of similar stuff to normal semi-conductors but are much easier to manipulate as discrete molecular units." You can read more about it in Nature's Nanotechnology publication. In related news, researchers have claimed to harness terahertz radiation using circuits.

Another advancement in nanotechnology, thought I would post it here since it's probably not going to be used.

Link about the marbles/pegs/bell curve:

http://www.mapageweb.umontreal.ca/cousined/lego/5-Machines/Galton/Galton.html

Ballistic electrons in graphene:

http://www.nanowerk.com/spotlight/spotid=2340.php

The talk was titled "Nanotechnology; Is there a Risk?", and was given by Dr. John Howard, Director of the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH).

Unfortunately no handouts or slides were made available with the talk. However, there is some good information on the NIOSH Nanotechnology page, and a detailed report on current progress [PDF] has been published. Also, if you do some searches for the obvious terms (NIOSH, Nanotechnology, safety, John Howard, etc.) you will find other statements/discussions on the same topics (e.g. this or this).

As I mentioned in my other comments, I work in the field (specifically studying nanoparticles and block-copolymer patterning right now), so if you have any other questions you think I might be able to answer, I'm happy to help.

Well, after the German scare, which turned out to be http://www.nanowerk.com/spotlight/spotid=726.php/ misguided, we may actually want to look over the whole nano- thing.

Not http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/science/09/01/nanotec h/index.html/everyone is willing to take it on faith that nanotech is harmless or should be assumed to be safe. And I'm guessing that when some nano- product turns out to be worse than asbestos, you'll all be screaming for reform at the FDA, how could they have betrayed us? Oh, the humanity. Figures. In one breath we decry the reduction of the FDA, and the lax inspections. Next, we oppose their expanding into examining new products that plainly need to be studied. Sheesh.

Sorry, better reference is here.

This whole article ignores a lot of new technologies coming out to synthesize usable hydrogen. As long as there is enough water for plants or water in the oceans - we are fine on clean energy. If there is no water for plants or fish, we have other problems.

Foresight Challenge: Providing renewable clean energy

Headline: Nanotechnology advances the efforts to achieve artificial photosynthesis
News source: NanoWerk by Michael Berger

Artificial photosynthesis, using solar energy to split water generating hydrogen and oxygen, is often considered a 'Holy Grail' of chemistry which can offer a clean and portable source of energy supply as durable as the sunlight. It takes about 2.5 volts to break a single water molecule down into oxygen along with negatively charged electrons and positively charged protons. It is the extraction and separation of these oppositely charged electrons and protons from water molecules that provides the electric power.

http://www.nanowerk.com/spotlight/spotid=1098.php

http://www.nanowerk.com/news/newsid=876.php

Is that about the same thing, because I am seeing very old news (18 days)! Someone "from" the Slashdot should begin to read Nanowerk, they've got some interesting news, ... all the time.

PS. I've got nothing against blogs as a primary news source.

And Roland links to a press release, instead of the source,, perhaps because if you click on his own link, you find he's cribbed most of that, including images, on his own blog.

Here it is... http://www.nanowerk.com/spotlight/spotid=791.php

This "article" is really a press release from a company that serves as "the missing link between buyers and suppliers of nanomaterials." However, Dr. Bawa seems to be someone who knows a lot about the subject and has been talking about this to anyone who will listen.

My knowledge of nanotech could fill a nanotube, but I pay attention when someone who does seem to be deeply involved in nanotech raises the alarm about this tide of patents.