Where Did All Our Nanotech Companies Go?

My colleague Dexter Johnson (aka the Nanoclast) highlights a forthcoming report about the decline in the number of Australian nanotech companies, but it’s hardly surprising. Before anyone heralds the death of anything consider this: The global economy has resulted in a reduction of the number of companies in just about every sector of the economy. High streets where a third …

Swiss Nanotech Colon Cleanse – No, no no!

After Sunday’s magic nanotechnology glass,  today’s nanotechnology con is an organic colon cleanser “Manfactured using Swiss Nano technology For highest bioavailability” It has to be one of the funniest videos I’ve seen for a long time, and seems to have been made by the same people who keep sending all those mails telling me I have won the lottery. Poor punctuation, …

Nanotech Powered Glass – Poisoning The Well

An article in Uganda’s Sunday Monitor illustrates the difficulties of policing nanotechnology claims, with the arrival of a new nanotechnology powered kind of glass… There is frenzy in Kampala, especially among the middle class, of a new type of small glass, with near magical powers, claimed to enhance body mood and replenish water and other beverages with lost essential minerals. …

New HSBC Report Predicts Supercities Built On Codswallop

I was puzzled by a recent HSBC report claiming that technology would transform the UK landscape with places like Dundee becoming a computer gaming hub and Newcastle, where much of the post industrial activity consists of handing out or receiving government benefits would be transformed by nanotechnology. The report seems to reveal a previously unknown Geordie fervour for science as …

The Hype That Came Back to Bite

I received an email from the US NanoBusiness Alliance (yes they are still limping along) appealing for data on jobs created by nanotechnologies, a clear case of the hype that came back to bite. We Need Your Jobs Data During the Public Policy Tour, we received an assignment from Senator Wyden, Tom Kalil, and several other champions of nanotechnology: in …

Politicising Nanotechnologies

EurActiv had a nice summary of the positions of various organisations on the regukation of nanotechnologies which showed some very clear political splits. Trade Unions and environmental groups want tighter regulation/labelling or a moratorium while the chemical industry and other business regulations just seem wo want some clarity. The political agenda is worth noting in the light of a piece …

The Nanotech Taliban Claim “Dexter Johnson is an ignoramus whose ignorance leads him to view optimists with contempt.”

My estwhile colleague Dexter Johnson who also blogs for IEEE Spectrum received a number of plaudits from readers of the Foresight Institutes Nanodot blog after daring to suggest that the sunny optimism of current President J Storrs Hall might be rather displaced and that the assertion nanobots will save us may be rather missing the point. Illustrating the difficullty of …