Mike Treder's blog
Does it really matter to the rest of the world if science funding in the United States is flat or declining? I think it does matter, partly because the U.S. economy and federal budgets are by far the largest in the world -- meaning they have the ability to support more basic science research than anyone else -- but also because so much important policy toward science and technology emanates from the United States.
Across eight separate storylines, an international team of policy, technology, and economic specialists has imagined in detail a range of plausible, challenging events -- from pandemics to climate crises to international conflicts -- to see how they might affect the development of advanced nanotechnology over the next 15 years.
Recently, a group of high-level scientists assembled for the purpose of inventing something as close as they could get to the long-sought nanotechnology goal of building precise products atom by atom. The advanced projects those scientists produced show that the era of molecular manufacturing -- with tremendous potential benefits and grave dangers -- could arrive far more swiftly than previously imagined.
Disruptive change triggered by nanotechnology was on the agenda for a recent three-week speaking tour of Australia and New Zealand conducted by the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology.
Changing climates, weapons of mass destruction, shifting balances of power -- the global situation is becoming a vortex, a maelstrom in which multiple risk factors will swirl and combine to create sudden new crises for which we may not have time to prepare. The act of reaching into the vortex to grab hold of and deal with one problem could send others spinning in new, ever more dangerous directions.
Mike Treder, executive director of the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology, will travel to Australia and New Zealand in September for a 12-city speaking tour. He will discuss the future of nanotechnology and will describe its environmental, economic, and geopolitical implications.
Get a group of scientists together to discuss issues of worldwide consequence, and one topic -- human-caused climate change -- is likely to emerge as the most prominent.
If we wouldn't want to rely on ancient sages to give us good directions for crossing the ocean, for preventing infections, or for treating mental illness, then why do we assume that their definitions of right and wrong could not be improved upon?
Ray Kurzweil, Douglas Hofstadter, Cory Doctorow, Eric Drexler, Bill McKibben -- just a few of the stimulating speakers at Stanford University's Singularity Summit two days ago. I was there and provided live blogging...
Eleven new essays about the implications of molecular manufacturing — an advanced form of nanotechnology — were released today. Covering topics from commerce to criminology, from ethics to economics, and from humanity's remote past to the distant future, the articles, which were written by members of a Global Task Force organized by the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology, offer promising opportunities and raise troubling concerns.
Today (March 17) Mike Treder, executive director of the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology, will be a guest on WNYC Radio's "The Leonard Lopate Show."
