Nano – a small word, with big consequences.
Perhaps.
Like many other four-letter words, this one is quite controversial, even more so when tacked on the front of other words such as ‘science’ or ‘technology’. Once a simple descriptor of scale, ‘nano’ has evolved into a highly emotive prefix, one that conjures-up many different things for many different people; from tiny self-replicating nanobots charting courses through our veins, to the revolution of computation and beyond!
Frightening some and fascinating others – after all, one man’s tiny terror is another’s miniature marvel – nano is now. With its own band of scholars and skeptics, it seems as though nanotechnology is here to stay. That being the case, what role does chemistry have to play in this truly multidisciplinary pursuit, in short, how does chemistry fit into the big (or should that be ‘small’) picture?
The message from the American Chemical Society is clear: at the 231st National Meeting later this month in Atlanta, Georgia, nanotechnology is one of three featured multidisciplinary themes. With 50 different symposia listed under this general heading, the ACS obviously recognises that chemistry is one of the fundamental foundations upon which a lot of nanotechnology is built.
The number of nanotechnology-related papers is growing rapidly, and while the pages of Nature and its other research journals have featured some pioneering nano work (as they will continue to do), other topics compete for this space. So, here at Nature Publishing Group, we feel that the time is right for a new journal, one that is dedicated specifically to nanotechnology in its broadest context. Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce Nature Nanotechnology.
Launching in October 2006, Nature Nanotechnology will publish high-quality original research from all areas of nanoscience and nanotechnology, including chemistry, physics, materials science, the life sciences and engineering. Each issue will feature review articles, news and views, reports highlighting important papers published in other journals, commentary and analysis. Preparations are well underway, and our Call for Papers will be made on March 27th, to coincide with the upcoming ACS meeting.
We hope to engage the global nanoscience and nanotechnology community, and to encourage the exchange of ideas between physical scientists, life scientists, engineers and other researchers who are active at the frontiers of this diverse and multidisciplinary field. As chemistry is a central science in this field, I hope that chemists will be eager to contribute to Nature Nanotechnology.
I will be attending the upcoming ACS meeting, so feel free to track me down at one of the many nano sessions or through Nature’s booth at the exposition. I look forward to many small-minded discussions!
So, fact or fiction? Hype or hope? What does nanotechnology mean to you?
Stuart
Stuart Cantrill (Associate Editor, Nature Nanotechnology)
Nanotechnology is just a new name for old chemistry and physics. I even heard to Acting Director of the National Cancer Institute state a few weeks ago “I don’t understand what nanotechnology is about, but I am convinced it will make a big difference to cancer therapy in the coming years”!
Nanotechnology, to me, means trying to think of a way of contriving research grant applications to sound as though my research is related to nanotechnology.
Hi Stuart,
I always thought that Professor Harold Craighead’s “nano guitar” and “nano harp” were really amazing…
I haven’t been following that part of the field lately – are there any new nano instruments that have been made/reported recently?
Thanks!
Joshua
What a great idea the Nature Editors have to socialize with everyone, by using a blog. Congratulations!
I’m sure that more recent advances in instrumentation devices and in data handling may have a great impact in doing very new things out of our very old ones. If the proper name of the modern methods is nanotechnology, for me, it is fine, as long as the concept is getting clearer, everyone will arrive to the conclusion that there is anything new in the horizon, but we only can “see” it better.
The “nano” topic is a hot one, and has been for a while now. There’s some good fundamental work being done and there is a lot of “repackaging” as one commenter points out. I enjoyed a recent meeting sponsored by NSTI, a Nano Impact Summit, that highlighted industrial perspectives on what has been accomplished using nanotechnology and what has not. (Full disclosure: I was one of the speakers.)
I enjoyed hearing smaller companies and groups at IBM, GE, and Motorola talk pretty frankly about the stuff that is making money. While not the only measure of the value of research, there is some insight to be gained from distilling out the hype.
You often need a hype-inducing umbrella like Nanotechnology to motivate and fund research that would have or should have been done anyway. Such an approach can also build an interdisciplinary community that would not have existed otherwise, along with any advances that come about from cross-disciplinary collaborations.
Hi Stuart,
I would start with:
“What is the difference between ‘technology’ and ‘science’?”
Ans: Science is the study of natural phenomena and finding out why they occur. Technology is when when these studies are put together towards an application. Therefore, scientific study has to preceed the development of technology.
An S-curve is a parameter that can be used to chalk out a life-cycle of technology products, with three important divisions: 1) gestation 2) growth 3) stagnation. Towards the end of 3rd period of an S-curve the struggle begings to create new approaches and new explanations. This period can be related to what has been explaned by Thomas Kuhn as “Paradigm Shift”.
Nanotechnology in my opinion can be explained by these socio-science laws where pathways of chemistry and physics crossed during the stagnation phase of the S-curve forcing physicists and chemists to come with a paradigm shift as a result of their “survival tactic,” or “synergism” if one has to be politically correct.
Led by revolution in semiconductor miniaturization and driven by the synthetic capability at molecular level, the physics and chemistry looked upto each other for further advancement. Nano was thus born.
Nanoscience is study of structures and physical and chemical phenomena using tools enabling study at nanometer dimensions. Nanotechnology involves using these newly gained insights into synthesising potentially useful structures with nanometer dimensions, impacting however at macro dimensions.