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| 1991-01. Chandler, D. 4/1/91. Images Reveal Shape of Thin Film Crystals. Boston Globe. No page | Los Alamos National laboratories, IBM | used techniques like scanning tunneling microscopy and atomic force microscopy | wanted to be able to see the microscopic structure of crystalline | "crystals form corkscrew-shaped pyramids, rather like the ancient ziggurats that were the basis of the biblical story of the Tower of Babel."
"The resulting pictures show that the crystals form as small islands and then grow upwards and outwards in columns following a corkscrew pattern." | computers- computer chips, electronic devices | scanning tunneling technology, a product of nanotechnology is now seen as a useful and practical method of viewing objects microscopically |
| 1991-02. O'Connell, L. 4/11/91. Your PC may become a source of sexual ecstasy. ATU. P. T23 | sci-fi author Joe Haldeman, researchers of MIT, Milton Wolf, sci-fi and sociology professor at U of Nevada | N/A | nanotech is used in aiding with virtual reality, specifically sexually satisfying VR. | "the equipment includes the traditional joystick or mouse, plus more sophisticated gizmos such as 'data gloves' and 'data suits.'" (T23) | virtual reality, science fiction, entertainment | "The only people who really have a grasp of this stuff are the technocultists who speak a language no one else understands. It includes lingo such as 'nanotechnology' and 'tweaking the equations.'" (T23) |
| 1991-03. Carroll, J. 4/24/91. Where Everybody Knows your "Nom." SFC. p. E12 | Dave Vohaska, owner of intellectual sports bar in Oakbrook, Ill. Called Sidd Finch's | N/A | this is an educational sports bar for academics, scholars, Harvard graduates, and scientists to discuss things such as nanotech | baseball players: Nolan Ryan, Oil Can Boyd, Rickey Henderson, musician John Cage, writers Alice Miller and Oscar Wilde | science, literature, art, music, all academic fields are encouraged at this bar | in a comedian show, a joke was made about nanotech "And Oil Can Boyd. Ever see that guy play? I think they're beta-testing nanotechnology there. Every time he gets shelled, three guys at Cal Tech lose their grant money." (E12) |
| 1991-04. Kelley, P. 5/28/91. Lucrative award to boost scholar's magnetic levitation study at UNCC. Charlotte Observer. P. 5B | David Trumper, MIT doctorate; UNCC precision engineering professor Robert Hocken | "his work concerns precision motion control, which deals with movements and measurements of microscopic proportions. A magnetically suspended spindle might be used, for instance, when a precision lathe requires very precise rotary motion." (5B) | "magnetic levitation has many potential engineering uses, ranging from high-speed trains that float above their tracks to high-powered microscopes." (5B) | "A nanometer equals one-billionth of a meter. One human cell averages about 10,000 nanometers in diameter. It takes 100,000 to equal the diameter of a strand of hair." (5B) | physics | "...a reasearch team working in nanotechnology, which has been hailed as the next technological revolution." (5B) |
| 1991-05. Saffo, P. 6/26/91. Good things to come in tiny packages. LA. P 3 | Eric Drexler, nanotechnology researcher | Drexler's idea: "memory device made up of a millimeter-square cube of folded protein crystal that has been 'grown' onto a more conventional silicon substrate in such a way that its memory structure matches up with micrometer-scale circuitry." (3) | silicon is reaching its limit of what it can do for electronic devices, need something more efficient, like nanotech | "The result would be a thumbnail-sized chip with a storage capacity exceeding that of several thousand of today's floppy disks." (3)
currently (1991) they can fit 1 million transistors on a die, in 10 years 100 million | computers, memory devices | looking at nanotech more realistically and practically saying nanotech will not be seen in every workstation by 2000, but it will help fill in some of the gaps of silicon and be used in specialized devices. Does not say nanotech is all powerful but rather refers to it as "infant nanotechnology" |
| 1991-06. 8/16/91. World's Tiniest Device: Just an Atom. The Miami Herald. P. 1A | team of US scientists, physicists at IBM's Almaden Research Center. | using most sophisticated electron microscopes | "an electrical switch consisting of one atom." (1A) | "the prefix nano- means one billionth" (1A) | electronics, medical | "The tiny device could be an important first step in developing microscopic machines used to maintain microprocessors or to repair damaged arteries inside the body, a field of emerging science known as nanotechnology." (1A) |
| 1991-07. Brotman, B. 9/2/91. Universe of the mind Sci-fi convention a party for the misfits who run the world. CT. P. 1 | Glenn Chambers - a computer programmer, 49th World Science Fiction Convention, Erica Van Dommelen, assistant editor of BioScience magazine | Journalistic report on the conference by the author | nanotechnology is seen as something confusing, something that only scientists understand, and need to explain to non-scientists: "Happily, there are fans willing to explain planet-building and terraforming and nanotechnology" (1) | N/A | sci fi | Nanotechnology is seen as a term that only scientists understand, and is often associated with science fiction. |
| 1991-08. Kening, D. 9/2/91. Hugo Awards Honor Science Fiction's Finest. CT. P 10 | science fiction writers- lois McMaster Mujold, Joe Haldemon, Mike Resnick, Terry Bisson
Tim Burton- Sci Fi director | N/A | Worldcon Conference, known as Chicon V- one seminar discussed nanotech | 6100 attendees, from 20 countries, 80 seminars in many fiels - literary, scientific, academic, etc. | sci fi | In the debate about nanotech, the article did not make it sound positive, quoting scientist/novelist James Killius "I don't know about you, but I don't want a hardware crash to take place in my pancreas." (10) |
| 1991-09. DeGregori, T. 9/22/91. A glimpse of the future: books to be read with caution as well as interest. Houston Chronicle. p. 15 | Eric Drexler and Chris Peterson | Unbounding the Future book reviw | critic not convinced that nanotech is such a big part of our future that we should decrease spending on other sciences to spend more on nanotech | -the author is a big proponents of nanotech and uses the book to convince people of its importance
-"'Nano' is a prefix meaning 'one-billionth,' so they are talking about very small machines that do big things." (15) | sci fi, foreign competition- beating Japanese in technology race. | "No problem, be it pollution, disease or restoring species, seems unsolvable or beyond the amazing powers of this technology." (15) -the critic says sarcastically about nanotech |
| 1991-11. 11/24/91. Science. SF. P. 23 | K. Eric Drexler-Stanford Scholar
Chris Peterson- Science writer | Unbounding the Future book review | praises nanotech as being revolutionary | N/A – report from conference | Sci fi, disease and pollution | "'revolutionary' science of nanotechnology, the molecular manipulation of matter, which they believe may one day result in the elimination of disease and pollution." (23) |
| 1991-12. 11/28/91. Studies at Molecular Level Excite Scientists. CT. P 37 | Dr. J. Fraser Stoddart, a chemist at the U of Birmingham in Britain, Dr. Ralph Merkle, a scientist at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, Dr. Nadrian Seeman- chemistry professor at NYU | -"To a certain extent, we're going to emulate the way things are done in cells." (37)
-nanometer-scale devices will be made etching pieces of selicon or by chemical synthesis
-molecular manufacturing: snapping atoms and molecules into place, as radios are | "scientists are beginning to manipulate matter by its most basic components molecule by moledule and even atom by atom." (37) | -Anti-boosting: "molecular-level computers are decades away and might never be practical" (37)
-molecular manufacturing will lead to advances in electronic devices, new materials and understanding of nature
-finest microelectronic circuits one micron wid | chemistry, computers, mechanical engineering | "Nanotechnology is a very fancy buzzword for the chemistry of the next century." (37) - Dr. Nadrian Seeman- chemistry professor at NYU
"The emerging field, which draws on advances in physics, chemistry, biology and computer science, is called nanotechnology because the structures being built would be measured in nanometers, or billionths of a meter." (37) |
| 1991-14. Dietrich, B. 12/27/91. Mini-Robots in a world where a small is big, 4-inch-high "Rex" is a giant. CT. P. 2 | U of Washington electrical engineering graduate student Pierre-Henry Marbot, California Institute of Technology | N/A | the idea is that we can create robots such as Rex to create even tinier machines because our human fingers cannot manipulate individual grains of sand | "4 in. high robot named Rex capable of making computer-guided movements as small as 1/5,000th of an inch" (2) | robotics, electrical engineering, medical | this precision from the robot can help for testing computer circuit boards, extracting or injecting material from individual cells, or doing ultrasonic welding
"There are also dreams of nanotechnolgy, robots built of individual atoms and molecules that would be able to manipulate and repair at the same scale, even inside the human body." (2) |