Comments, Errata, Odds and Ends

Hopefully, we will eventually have a forum associated with this blog or at least a way for readers to attach comments to various posts. In the meantime, I will periodically try to respond to e-mails. If you have comments, send them to steven.alan.edwards@gmail.com.

Patent fight?

Cedric Loiret-Bernal, CEO of NanoInk, objects that Bioforce Nanosciences should not have been mentioned in the post Writing very,very small about dip pen nanolithography. NanoInk has an exclusive license with Northwestern for this process and the term “dip-pen nanolithography” has been trademarked by NanoInk.

Both companies make systems, more or less based on the atomic force microscope, in order to print in small spaces with molecular ink. Bioforce makes a “Nanoarrayer” that is able to shrink the area used for biological “microarrays” by a factor of 10,000. The Nanoarrayer is optimized for making dots quickly, whereas NanoInk’s Nscriptor system is a more general purpose machine—it can make lines and even letters

Does NanoInk’s exclusive license portend a patent fight between the two companies? Not until Bioforce makes enough revenue to share between the lawyers would be my guess.

Thank you, Wikipedia

Jonathan Depres, apparently from Alcor, complains that I have confused the terms cryogenics and cryonics in my post on Immortality, Nanotech and Magic.

According to Wikipedia:

Cryogenics is the study of very low temperatures or the production of same and is often confused with cryobiology, the study of the effect of low temperatures on organisms or the study of cryopreservation. Likewise, cryonics is the nascent study of the cryopreservation of the human body. Unlike cryogenics, cryonics is not an established science and is viewed with skepticism by most scientists and doctors today.

Mea culpa. I will go back and edit the post.

Jonathan also complains about my description of the Alcor’s cryo-preservative as a mixture of “polyethylene glycol (automotive antifreeze) formic acid, dimethyl sulfoxide and glycerol." He says that they use M22, a new cryoprotectant invented by 21st Century Medicine for the preservation of small organs like corneas and the meniscus of the knee. I specifically asked Brian Wowk, Senior Scientist at 21st Century Medicine what M22 was composed of, and he said “polyethylene glycol, formic acid, dimethyl-sulfoxide and glycerol.” [This is in error, corrected in a later post. Actually, M22 contains ethylene glycol, formamide, and dimethyl-sulfoxide but no glycerol.]

On the Lux Research/Powershares exchange traded fund

Cientifiica comments on my previous post, Nano and Not-so-Nano. “We actually agree with Steve that most of these so called 'nano' [in the Hardly Any Nano category] companies derive little of their income from anything nano related, or ever will,” they say.

Von Ehr Interview

Nanotechnology.com has posted my interview with Jim Von Ehr, CEO and founder of Zyvex. In it, Von Ehr talks about his reasons for starting the company, carbon nanotubes in baseball bats, nanomanipulators, MEMs-based miniaturized electron microscopes, atomically precise manufacturing, his investment in Atomate, and nanotech solutions for energy. A preview of the interview has been given in a previous post, Of Nanotech Dreams and Revenue Streams.

RSS Feed

I have been asked if I will send out e-mails of my posts. I can't do that. However, there is an RSS (really simple syndication) feed. Just paste the following into your RSS aggregator, http://www.nanotechnology.com/blogs/steveedwards/atom.xml. That way you will know when the page has been updated.