The editors at R&D present a lot of nanotech news on our website and in the R&D Daily. We also try to bring you some of the biggest headlines in industrial technology. But much of what we find in “news of the extremely” flows from pure research labs. If there’s nanomanufacturing to be seen, it’s typically being used as an added value process on top of conventional industrial processes. Component-to-OEM, if you will.

If the sci-tech advisory team to the president is to be believed, nanotechnology will soon come into its own as a proper manufacturing sector. This group presented a report last Friday reviewing the last 10 years of the National Nanotechnology Initiative, and the least controversial topics therein were the positive value of NNI, the growing importance of nanotech to manufacturing, and how industries are rapidly adapting to make use of new sub-100-nm materials and methods.

Instead, a glass half empty attitude prevailed during proceeding. To experts on hand, according to IEEE’s Dexter Johnson, the central issue of the day aside from domestic brain drain was the difficult task of measuring the actual economic value of nanotechnology. As has been learned the hard way, materials-based nanotech is much different than pharmaceutical products in that the value of a product using nanotechnology is not valued solely on the nanomaterials used. A plane is still a plane, with or without carbon fiber coatings, whereas a drug without the associated technology will likely have no value at all.

As a result, the true value of nanotech to industrial (and thus to investment) has been overblown in many ways, casting doubt onto the viability of some government-backed ventures, says Johnson, particularly in the dim light of recent venture capital performances in nanotech.

But with Russia and China investing heavily in nanomaterials research it’s a cinch that government backing for these areas of research will remain a priority. In fact, the 2011 NNI budget as proposed in February seems relatively cautious. That buzz about nanomanufacturing? It would result in an increase of about $26 million, or 34%, over 2009. But out of a budget of $1.7 billion that’s next to nothing. Much of it will be used at NIST to find ways to actually use some of these new materials to emerge from R&D. The agencies with perhaps the most interest in nanomanufacturing, the Dept. of Defense, would get a largely modest overall budget increase and refocus its efforts on deploying a variety of sensor, catalyst, and bio-based technologies that have been pioneered. The NSF, too, would some use its $32 million jump in 2011 to investigate new concepts in nanomanufacturing and complex nanosystems.

Where’s the rest of the funding growth? Agencies such as NSF, DOE, DOD and NIH still claim the lion’s share of the estimated $1.7 billion NNI budget, but it seems like EHS issues are capturing big attention, with agencies like the USDA, FDA, and EPA all getting a nod for large percentage increases for testing-related technologies.

It’s nice to see nanotech begin to have a broad appeal in R&D, but if nanomanufacturing really is going transform nanotechnology as we know it—and attract the sort of investors who want to back promising industries—then it’s going to need some convincing funding levels to see it through. For now, it appears, we still have a lot to learn about basic nanoscale phenomena.

I typically attend the annual Pittsburgh Conference on Analytical Chemistry and Applied Spectroscopy each year in pursuit of specific coverage. This year, I sought out candidates for coverage in a vacuum technology article, and pulled together some instruments for a spectroscopy guide. As the pre-eminent spectroscopy and analytical event in the U.S., then, I was in the right place at the right time.

But as busy as that kept me, it wasn’t all mass spectrometers and vacuum pumps on the show floor. This a high-technology crossover show, and lab equipment mixes with optics, software and various interesting testing systems to create an environment where the creative spirit shines through. As a result, there were some neat toys and head-scratching surprises.

Moving with the Flow

The world of rheology instrument vendors is a narrow one, probably numbering less than the fingers on a single hand. But industries that require rheological data are probably tough to count. Even a single materials type—powders—are ubiquitous. Brookfield Instruments, a long-time player in this field, has come up with a solution in its Powder Flow Tester. Robert McGregor helped explain this deceptively simple device, which was designed first for the food industry. Its design and cost helped it become a popular tool in other industries, and now pharma is using it.

The key parts of the tester include a trough and a vaned lid that move in a circular pattern until a certain torque is produced by the vertical vanes as they slide against the powder. The slippage lets the machine gauge viscosity and accurately simulates—within a small sample—the physical conditions encountered by the typical industrial powder hopper.

On the Moon. Or an asteroid. Or Mars.

The NASA booth wasn’t really a booth, it was more like a courtyard. And they’re featured “product” wasn’t really a product, it was a prototype. The agency, of course, doesn’t sell analytical devices, but almost every spacecraft they have ever launched has carried a spectrometer on board. So it’s understandable they’d want to show off one of their latest concepts for an extraterrestrial analytical platform: the Scarab. Designed with the input of engineers at Carnegie Mellon, the small four-wheeled rover was unique in that the wheels were articulated front-to-back, allowing the vehicle to shorten or lengthened its wheelbase to aid maneuverability and traction, particularly on the steep slopes of crater walls. Featuring unique weaved wire wheels, the buggy is intended to examine—on-site—the same lunar soil that LCROSS recently revealed contained significant amounts of organic volatiles, namely water.

Biotech in orbit

Low-gravity environments are excellent for crystal-based materials research in part because the lack of gravity allows faster growth. Tom Pickens, CEO of Astrogenetix, a biotech startup out of Texas, took note of successes made in this area of R&D and decided to try capitalizing on the knowledge that cell cultures also had the same predilection for rapid growth when unencumbered by terrestrial hindrances like gravity or convection.

Relying on the space shuttle platform, Pickens’ company successfully ran a program for the development of a salmonella vaccine that is now going through FDA trials. That set the stage for the next vaccine—MRSA. Conducting cell trials on a virus as potentially deadly as MRSA in the confined spaces of the International Space System may seem foolhardy, but Pickens says his biggest worry is how his experiments will run after the space shuttle is grounded. Having lost the battle to keep the program alive, he is now looking for alternatives. One stage of his MRSA effort was on board the latest Endeavor mission.

Of course, Astrogenetix and its parent company, Astrotech, had little more than a mass spectrometer on display at the show. But I expect the union of microgravity and biotech will spread to the strategy portfolio of other adventurous R&D outfits, and that we’ll be hearing more from Astrogenetix—assuming, of course, they can find someone to carry their experiments to the ISS.

Sizing up a tiny situation

What’s the best way to gauge the size of a nanoparticle? It’s typically inferred by a variety of analytical methods, but finding an exact measurement is exceedingly difficult and often requires laborious sessions with a transmission electron microscope.

If Ken Babcock at Affinity Biosensors is right, his company’s particle characterization instrument, Archimedes, will greatly simplify that effort for anything down to 10 to 15 nm in size. The non-optical machine uses a concept that emerged from bio-MEMS research at MIT: a microfluidic channel, cut into the broad side of a microscopic resonant single-tine fork, carries particles along to the end of the fork and back. The fork resonates to frequency, and minute changes in that frequency can be mapped back to particle size when also accounting for volume and density.

As Matt Wilkinson at RSC alerted us earlier this week, the Archimedes has the kind of technology to be an award-winning. Indeed, Pittcon officials later christened it with the show’s Gold Award. Better yet, NIST is examining the device as potentially providing them with a traceable standard for nanoparticle size.

Almost a year ago, the buzz during the downturn was that the economic stimulus will help boost jobs in a sort of national improvement program reminiscent of the 1930s. Our coal would be phased out. Our grids would get smart. Our cars would get hybridized. Well, most of us are still driving the same car, still paying under $3 for a gallon of gas, and still calling the oil guys to put another 250 gallons of fuel in the basement tank. And many of us, if we’re lucky, are still going to work every day.

In the 1930s, the U.S. began building out a new transportation infrastructure based on fossil fuels. Now, fossil fuels are anathema whether some ethically conflicted researchers are right or not. Wind, solar and other clean technology measures—ultracapacitors, hydrogen fuel cells, smart grid—would help us revive manufacturing and restore jobs in the U.S. But that’s not really happening. At least not yet.

According to Kevin Bullis’s story for MIT Technology Review earlier this week, all the hoopla over energy stimulus funding, loan guarantees and initiatives have done little so far to add jobs. Why? Lots of reasons. For starters the only lender in 2009 was Uncle Sam. Of the $45-some-billion directed to energy programs, very little has been actually spent. What was spent was used to help bolster the wind and solar sectors, which got pummeled by the credit crunch and grew last year only through government aid. Much more of it is associated with loan guarantees which are only now coming home to roost.

Traditional manufacturing, meanwhile, got walloped at a scale that clean energy couldn’t hope to offset. Wind energy, for example, which was in a much better position to grow as compared to large-scale thermal or geothermal, only added 8,000 new jobs as a result of stimulus, a drop in the bucket compared to the millions now out of work. And, perhaps unintentionally, many new jobs were actually created outside the U.S. According to research by American University, 80% of stimulus money for wind energy, for example, went to fill orders from foreign wind turbine manufacturers. Not necessarily a bad thing; a few thousand jobs were created somewhere. But it probably didn’t help domestic makers of wind turbines.

The federal government is marching forward, pushing the nation in the direction of energy independence. And some big players are following suit with creative efforts of their own, such as Intel's $3.5 billion VC alliance. But those in need of capital from the usual lenders—banks—are going to be asked to take a seat for a while. Federal loan guarantees may have to shoulder the heavy lifting on rebuilding our nation’s energy supply and distribution framework. Without them, large-scale thermal power plants won’t get up and running. Worse, nuclear plants, like those proposed by the current administration and which are notoriously susceptible to investor caution, will not be in a position to wean us from the energy sources that still, in 2010 and going forward, dominate our economy: oil and coal.

 

In the depths of February, the reality remains wintry despite our thoughts, from the unlikely snowbound locales of northern Alabama and Dallas, Texas, northward to the unusually snow-challenged slopes of Whistler, where the Olympians this year help us embrace ice and snow for a few more weeks.

All of which has helped the Sunday victory by the U.S. in the America’s Cup, held in the comparatively warm Mediterranean waters off Spain, emerge unexpectedly from the headline stream. It’s huge news for sailing, of course—the winning BMW Oracle Racing team’s boat, USA 17, became the first American boat to win in 23 years, and it’s the first successful effort by team founder Larry Ellison, the Oracle exec and yachting enthusiast who has been sinking large amounts of his personal fortune into America’s Cup efforts for the last decade.

But the real meat is how a new and unusual rigid wing-sail trimaran has beaten an advanced flexible sail catamaran in head-to-head competition. The deceptively frail-looking hull of USA 17 was built specifically to support a multi-piece adjustable-camber wing that’s larger than a Boeing 747 wing. At 223-feet tall, the sail is bisected longitudinally, allowing the trailing pieces—each about two stories tall—to pivot independently. The forward, solid wing section is also adjustable by rotating the main mast. The gap in the bisected wing is crucial—it crucially allows the “wing” to reduce airflow separation and generate more lift before the sail reaches its stall point.

The America's Cup winner, USA 17, relied on a new split wing-sail design to claim victory in the America's Cup held last weekend in Spain.

When coupled with a complex arrangement of 250 sensors, the boat becomes an electromechanical wonder that, with the gennaker sail in place, can achieve astonishing speeds of up to 40 knots. USA 17 dominated both races, serving notice to the defending Swiss team that the game had changed. And the sailors themselves are subject to the technical wizardry—the BMW Oracle skipper, James Spithill, was apprised of vital wind and sail load information in real-time via a pair of sunglasses that were more reminiscent of the Borg than of a stiff breeze off Nantucket. Then there’s the environmentally-friendly friction-reducing hull treatment, which is apparently too innovative for anyone to describe in depth.

There’s been a lot of debate about whether the America’s Cup, once a field of many diverse competitors who laboriously hoisted and dropped sails and zigzagged upwind in pell-mell efforts to catch competitors in their dreaded wind shadow, has been completely ruined by the testosterone-fueled ambitions of rich corporations. True, it’s not the regatta of old. It’s an arms race, in which the “bigger” bazooka will win if it doesn’t break first. Maybe that’s a good thing—a specification series in which each boat is exactly the same might be a wonderful test of traditional technique, but it might not resonate with the resource any pro sport needs: sponsors with deep pockets.

Perhaps we’ll eventually see a backlash, a return to single-hull racing. But for now, let’s marvel at an elegantly complicated solution that appears to work as advertised.

The editors at Wired Magazine have pointed out that today is the anniversary of Gregor Mendel's presentation of a painstakingly produced paper about his breeding experiments on some 28,000 pea plants. It happened to be the classic paper that quietly introduced the world to the basic laws of heredity. These laws would help explain and substantiate the theories of Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace.

But a missed connection would help guarantee the obscurity of this work for years to come. Mendel, who tended his plants while living as an Augustinian monk in what is now the Czech Republic, lived a very different life than traveler, lecturer, and science celebrity Darwin. But they do have a shocking connection, pointed out by Randy Alfred’s post in Wired: Mendel had actually sent a copy of his first paper to Darwin in 1866, who is believed to have never read the priceless work because the pages had never been cut.

Of course, Darwin could have cracked open the pages during his many bed-ridden hours in these years, read Mendel’s work, which was first presented in 1865, and not gleaned useful information. But that seems hardly possible—Darwin was conducting his own similar research on orchids and climbing plants during the 1860s. And later heredity researchers often found themselves duplicating the work of the monk who died in 1884. His Law of Segregation and Law of Independent Assortment are now standard high school biology class fare.

I believe Darwin may have shelved the work intentionally. By 1865, the theorist, in a state of nearly constant illness, had already received a lifetime’s worth of praise and criticism for his ideas. Many of the jabs stemmed from those who wished to unite theories of natural selection with faith—namely Christian faith. He was in a constant battle with his peers over questions of faith, and later a target of ridicule by the public for his perceived attacks on it.

Darwin may also have assumed Mendel was a potential rival. The competitive Englishman had had his fill of those already. A letter from Alfred Russel Wallace, who concurrently (or maybe previously) pioneered the tenets of natural selection, had several years earlier forced Darwin to publish some of his “Natural Selection” work before he was finished writing it. And we all know the ghost of Wallace would haunt Darwin’s legacy long after his death.

Sensitive to the issue of intellectual property, Darwin may not have wanted to cloud his own individual effort to explain heredity by discovering someone else had all of the answers. Or even some of the answers.

It’s a shame—it would have been a treat to learn what the so-called “father of evolution” thought of the work of the “father of genetics”. And vice versa.

Ironically, of course, Mendel—not often called the father of genetics—was uninterested in fame or accolades. And it would not be the last injustice suffered by Mendel’s work. Embroiled in a dispute over taxes on religious institutions, he abandoned scientific work and his experiments with bees. After his death the succeeding abbott burned all of Mendel’s papers to mark an end to the tax dispute.

He, like Wallace, would have to be rediscovered.

 

The world of R&D is full of collaboration. R&D Magazine has seen this directly through some of the winners of the R&D 100 awards in the past. However, not only is collaboration important to the world of R&D, but it is essentially important to all aspects of life. For the Army, it is not different.

Located on the Picatinny Applied Research Campus (PARC) at the US Army’s Picatinny Arsenal in New Jersey, InSitech is a non-profit foundation that fosters business relationships between the military and the high-tech business community across the whole country and globally. With a focus on private-sector technology businesses, InSitech “helps companies who are interested in collaborating with the Army get their technology noticed by the scientists and engineers who have a problem it may help solve,” says Alex Cocoziello, director of business development at InSitech.

Picatinny Arsenal has 64 unique labs on base with over 2,400 scientists and engineers that work within the arsenal’s walls. It is a 6,500 acre site where mission- related, private-sector companies can establish their own facilities in the PARC. Essentially, “InSitech is involved in sourcing companies to work with the military,” says Cocoziello.

InSitech is helping to address the Dept. of Defense’s recommendation to emphasize competitive prototypes, conduct technology demonstrations, and establish prospects for “commercial and foreign technologies, and encourage dual use technology,” states Cocoziello. InSitech’s serves as an intermediary between non-traditional private-sector suppliers and the government with the goal of finding dual use technologies that enhance the technologies already used by the Army.

InSitech is currently looking to foster these non-traditional, but needed, relationships through certain topics of interests stipulated by the Arsenal. “We are on contract with the Army to look for solutions in 12 different areas of interest that span a number of different technologies,” states Cocoziello. These areas include:

• Lasers which will improve target designation and further reduce the possibility of collateral damage;
• Batteries/power/energy—in particular energy harvesting—such as taking energy from the heat and vibrational energy generated when a soldier users a rifle and transferring the energy to power other electronics used by the soldier.;
• Guidance navigation and control;
• Advanced electronic components that will improve the reliability of advanced munitions while making more space available for the warhead and other components. This holds a focus on miniaturization of fuze electronics inside the warhead.
• Radios and communications;
• Advanced materials for sensors and transducers; and
• Non-toxic anti-corrosive coatings that do not utilize hex chrome, in the manufacturing process.

So, why not collaborate with national or government labs? Cocoziello states, “We do not preclude the labs, and do actually work with them, but our mission as a partnership intermediary is to conduct the outreach to the non-traditional commercial markets. The Army has a lot of activity and great collaboration with the DOE (Dept. of Energy) laboratories for military technology through their own internal structures. We complement that by reaching out to the companies or communities that don’t have standing relationships with the Army, but do have high technology that is relevant. However, in fact, academia and the DOE labs are definitely part of our outreach.”

Small companies and businesses interested in any of these areas or collaborating with InSitech and the Army can respond to an RFI on www.tech-rfi.org.The deadline for submission is March 12.

InSitech and the Army are greatly looking forward to learning about the applicable technologies the private R&D sector has to contribute.

I’ve always liked looking at the images in National Geographic. They are always so beautiful or so gut wrenching that I fell in love with the magazine during my college years. I also couldn’t live without going to Borders every Sunday and picking up the New York Times and Time to read as well. I was extremely happy when I found out that my family had subscribed to National Geographic recently, and had seen that our first issue arrived yesterday. In the issue there was an interesting article about bionics—something that I never really thought about until last year.

While I have never had to wear an hearing aid, or had to have a fake limb, or a retinal implant to help aid my sight, I count myself lucky knowing that many people have experienced such things, or potentially have been through devastating accidents that cause them to wear these “bionics”. I am fascinated how such technologies improve throughout the years.

The first time “bionics” were really brought to my attention, besides athletes with artificial limbs, was during last year’s R&D 100 awards. Two technologies that really appealed to me were the Artificial Retina and the Compas Computerized Prosthesis Alignment System. Both inventions stuck out for me because, first, they improved the livelihood of people with certain disorders or injuries, and also, second, because they are advancing a collaboration between biotech and electronics. R&D is, by its nature, a series of collaborations that lead to inventions.

Not only did the artificial retina make a splash at our awards show last year, winning both an R&D 100 Award and an Editor’s Choice award, as artifical retinas in general made impacts outside of the 100 arena in the year 2009, as well.

And, while the R&D 100 entry form have just been made available, I hope that this years entries are as inspiring and innovative as the last.