Author: Jonny Hankins

Jonathan's Author Bio: Co Editor of the International Handbook on Responsible Innovation, and author of Responsible Innovation, A Narrative Approach, Jonny works for the Bassetti Foundation in Milan publishing articles on innovation and responsibility on their website and in academic and trade journals and also blogging about his interests. He is on the editorial board of the Journal of Responsible Innovation and member of the the Virtual Institute of Responsible Innovation

NanoArt

5 Replies Jonny Hankins

A couple of weeks ago whilst writing about nanotechnology and the associated risk involved in such engineering techniques I mentioned Nanoart.  This week I would like to expand and to present a gallery of examples.

nano playboy logo

To quote Cris Orfescu, founder of Nanoart 21, “NanoArt is a new art discipline at the art-science-technology intersections. It features nanolandscapes (molecular and atomic landscapes which are natural structures of matter at molecular and atomic scales) and nanosculptures (structures created by scientists and artists by manipulating matter at molecular and atomic scales using chemical and physical processes). These structures are visualized with powerful research tools like scanning electron microscopes and atomic force microscopes and their scientific images are captured and further processed by using different artistic techniques to convert them into artworks showcased for large audiences.”

One of the issues raised during discussion in my previous posts was about the usefulness and point of such artistic expression, so here I quote the NanoArt 21 website:

“The purpose is to promote  NanoArt worldwide as a reflection of a technological movement… a more appealing and effective way to communicate with the general public and to inform people about the new technologies of the 21st Century. NanoArt is aimed to raise the public awareness of Nanotechnology and its impact on our lives”.

There are several organizations that promote this form of expression and at least one international competition that offers cash prizes for the best examples (NanoArt 21 have an international competition). The German Centre for Research and Innovation hosted an exhibition of their collection in New York in 2011 and the number of artist/scientists involved seems to be growing.

The following gallery should give you an idea of this particular art form. Also take a look at the Nanobama here. The image is of nanotubes made in the shape of President Obama’s face, similar in style to the playboy above.

a guitar

A guitar

 

self explanatory

 

extra planetary

in blue

A nano landscape

You can find many other examples online. Do you like them? I personally like the 3D effect. It seems more accentuated because the images are created by electrons (electrically charged particles) rather than photons (particles of light). The electrons penetrate deeper into the structure creating images with more depth.

The Final Frontier

14 Replies Jonny Hankins

Have you ever looked up at the star filled sky and wondered what is out there? Thought about advances in technology that may allow you, yes you sir or madam, to venture forward and to boldly go. Well now you and your loved ones have the possibility!

Yes indeed, US based company Celestis is offering to take you into space, orbit the Earth and even bring you back. They also offer an orbit of the moon, and maybe even a landing, and all at a price that mere mortals can afford (Earth orbits for under $1000, the moon for under $10 000 and deep space for just a few thousand more).

All trips are guaranteed and insured and promise the highest level of space travel technology. The only drawback is that you have to be dead and cremated.

Spock had a space burial in Star Trek

Yes, Celestis are offering to take you or your loved one’s ashes to space (well about a chap stick sized capsule of them) for the experience of an after-lifetime. They have already conducted 10 Memorial Spaceflights and provide tracking data straight to the comfort of your laptop or phone.

Just imagine the scene, your relative passes every 90 minutes above your head, you take your laptop into the garden with your kids or even use your Starwalk app to follow the trajectory on an easy to understand user friendly map, and soon a dot in the sky passes and you wave at Grandma looking down at you. No need to change the flowers or trek half way across the country every anniversary, she comes to you. Some people are on several different trips so you choose frequency for you and the view for them.

Now my first thought was ‘what an incredible waste of resources, money, fuel, and willful creation of space junk’, but these thoughts are a bit harsh. The ashes are sent up on commercial satellites as paying passengers, so they do not in themselves create any of these problems and as the website argues, help to fund launches that may be of advantage to everyone and “support the vision of a robust future for humanity in space”.

So what do you think? Is this just folly or an interesting way to fund space exploration in this era of cutbacks and a business opportunity for the future? It might sound like a strange idea but would you like to give it a try?

Nanotechnology, risks and benefits

15 Replies Jonny Hankins

Last year Hayley posted a really good article on this site entitled ‘What do we need to know about Nanotechnology?‘ She raised some important issues about the governance of such high technology including the facts that little research has been conducted into health implications, legal regulation is minimal and nobody really knows how much of this type of material is produced. It is however already everywhere, in cosmetics, car wax and sunscreen to name but a few.

She followed the post earlier this year with another, ‘Nanobots, the future in Nanotechnology‘. This is also an informative piece in which she describes how nanotech engineering is moving away from top down construction to a bottom up approach, and goes on to talk about the possibility of building autonomous and even self replicating robots on the nano-scale.

Last week I posted an article about synthetic biology, another branch of science that deals in the nano-scale. With synthetic biology one of the issues raised by Hayley, that of power source, is resolved, as the machines are in fact alive and get their power from the organism that they are implanted into. The two are very much related and entwined forms of science.

And all this leads me on to looking at regulation regarding these types of research and a recent publication entitled ‘A Research Strategy for Environmental, Health and Safety Aspects of Engineered Nanotechnologies’.

The document was prepared by the National Research Council and a pre publication copy is available from the National Academic Press for downloaded here.

This is a long and detailed document written with the help of a host of academics, and it raises some very important points about an industry that Barak Obama has placed at the forefront of his innovation policy. In this year’s budget Obama is asking for 123.5 million dollars to invest in nano-tech research, which if seen next to the relatively small investment of 34.8 million in 2005 signals the importance attached to this form of innovation.

Nanobama

But all of this investment is made in a technology that is as yet practically unregulated and severely lacking in health and safety legislation, with the problem being that exposure limits and contamination issues have yet to be formalized. All of this is despite the ever growing use of such particles in our everyday life.

The National Research Council document aims to develop such a research strategy starting from a conceptual framework for considering environmental, health and safety risks, through critical questions to understanding the problem, tools and approaches for identifying properties that may cause risk, resources needed and how to implement the strategy once it has been described.

The document is extremely thought provoking. The fact that safe (or dangerous) exposure levels to such particles have never been determined nor possible environmental release dangers quantified or analyzed seems to paint a picture of an entire industry that operates without a clear understanding of how to manage the risks involved in their work.

This week a rather alarming report was published on the Science News website in which scientists have discovered that exposure to nano-particles changes the way blood vessels in animals behave. They were not using a poisonous substance I might add, but a common compound of nano-particle size.

Now I am not a biologist but I imagine that if it affects mice in this way then it will probably do the same to me.

I would summarize the problem as this; regulation and law making always has a problem when dealing with high technology, lawmaking is a slow process, but technological advancement is not. Laws chase while science runs ahead. But here we are dealing with a serious situation, something is in mass production and use, generating large sums of money but practically unregulated and untested.

The possible up-sides of nanotechnology are enormous, but I would say that the down-sides need to be taken into account too.

For a more in depth debate see my and other’s posts on the Bassetti Foundation website.