The UK’s House of Lords is to publish its long awaited report on “Nanotechnologies and Food” this week, but it’s all top secret until a minute past midnight on Friday. We’re curious to see whether the report contains some of oft quoted but wildly inaccurate numbers and/or calls for the usual ‘further public consultation’ or indeed whether there are any …
Happy New Year – 10 Years of TNT Weekly!
This year we are celebrating ten years of TNT Weekly which has progressed from an email newsletter based on manually trawling the web to a blog and twitter feed over the years. When we started it looked more like the example from January 2001 below. While the format may have changed, the mission hasn’t, and we still hope that we …
Control Over Materials Is The Real Technology Revolution
Here’s a slide that anyone who has seen one of my presentations recently will be familiar with – illustrating the shift we are undergoing from using things that we find to producing the things that we need, something beautifully illustrated by the recent slough of news items about the ‘invention” of artificial arteries using nanotechnology. Professor George Hamilton from the …
Got Dem Old European Innovation Blues Again
The European Union is getting increasingly interested in innovation, and convened a Business Panel on EU Innovation Policy to help it. The report is here, and a blogged summary by Diogo Vasconcelos is here. While it’s all good stuff, and the recommendations about broadening the concept of innovation and creating new infrastructure and financing models are sensible, much of this, …
UK Government Announces £1Billion Innovation Fund (for the fourth time)
The UK Government’s £1Bn Innovation Fund was announced for the fourth time this week (although I’m still waiting for the promised explanation from Lord Drayson). I wasn’t too impressed last time it was announced, or this time, and Mark Littlewood at Business Leaders Network is also sceptical It may well be that the money will be raised and will be …
Dodgy Statistics and Seasonal Cheer (hic!)
It seems to be the season for dodgy statistics as well as good cheer – though perhaps overdoing the good cheer has an impact on the statistics (hic!). Firstly the UK Governmemt’s £1Bn innovation fund is accused of shaky maths by Richard Tyler in the Telegraph who also questions the wisdom of the Government setting up its own fund rather …
Hydroxyethyl cellulose dimethyl diallylammonium chloride copolymer (nano) – Because I’m Worth It
The European Union is to make the labelling of nanomaterials in cosmetics mandatory according to Chemistry World. The cosmetic regulation states that all ingredients present in the product in the form of nanomaterials should be clearly indicated in the list of ingredients, by inserting the word ‘nano’ in brackets after the ingredient listing. The ruling defines nanomaterial as ‘an insoluble …
Why Government Nanotechnology Policy is Ineffective
Browsing through various Twitter feeds this morning a couple of seemingly unrelated items caught my attention. The first was that the British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, was unable or unwilling to name his favourite biscuit, despite the questions being posed twelve times, thus exposing himself to understandable ridicule. His handlers later clarified the situation once they had seen this mornings …
Paid By The Word?
I’m slightly puzzled by this announcement from the TSB with the headline “Investment of just over GBP80m in innovative technologies announced at Innovate09” Did a committee of people deliberate whether “just over £80m” sounded better and clearer than a simple “£82.5 million” or were they just getting paid by the word?
From Nanotechnology to Spitalfields Fashion
Today’s Times has four writers explaining their ‘Eureka Moments’ with science, and proving that a lifetime in the arts is no barrier to getting to grips with science. I’ve spent the past couple of months going the other way, and getting involved in fashion! I’ve long been fascinated by the creative arts, but my enthusiasm has been unmatched by my …