Focus 580; Nanotechnology

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it. Well in this part of focus 580 we will be talking about nanotechnology as a subject that we have discussed I suppose often on on this program in the past. And every time I'd do it I think that we actually have to begin by talking about what it is we're talking about because I think a lot of people don't quite understand it that the long and the short of it is we're talking about a a developing emerging kind of field that a lot of people think could well be the basis for a new kind of industrial revolution. Some people argue that it's already on the way. So we're talking here this morning with three researchers all from the University of Illinois. Who is the assistant director at the Center for nano scale science and technology. Brian Cunningham associate professor in the Bartman of Electrical and Computer Engineering here at the U of I and John Rogers He's professor of materials science and engineering He's also founder professor of engineering and professor of chemistry at the UI. And I'm pleased that they could all be here in the studio to talk with us questions are welcome I'm sure that if someone like to call in. With some nano questions they will do their

best to give you an answer. The number here in Champaign Urbana 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. We also have toll free line good anywhere that you can hear us and that's eight hundred to 2 2 9 4 5. Well thank you all three. Thank you much. Thank you here too to I think as I said I think to start it's probably important that we give people a basic kind of definition of understanding of what it is we're talking about nanotechnology. It does get some coverage in the media perhaps people have read articles about it but I think that's still there. People will not be sure what it is they were talking about. So let's start there. Yeah OK so this is John Rogers. I think the best way to start to think about what nanotechnology is is to sort of consider what what the term nano sort of refers to it's. It characterizes a certain range of length scales. And so and these these length scales are so small that it's difficult to think clearly about them and so. One way to begin is to kind of step through

a range of size scales and associate with things you may be familiar with. And so sort of on the very large scale you know in terms of the things that we'll be talking about today is the diameter of a human hair that's about 100 microns in diameter and there are a thousand microns per millimeter. So we're talking about you know a diameter of about point one millimeter So that that's you know on the long scale stepping down a little bit a red blood cell has a diameter of about 1 micron and 1 micron is equal to 1000 nanometers and so nanometers is the characteristic length scale of nanotechnology on the small side the size characteristic size of an atom which you know is a constituent of molecules and everything that we interact with in the world and that has a characteristic size of about 0.1 nanometers. So nanotechnology really refers to objects and devices that have sizes that range between the size of a single atom and

about the size of a red blood cell just justice set the length scales and so. So why why are people interested in objects that have those kinds of dimensions and so one is the issue is just sort of a practical engineering. Consideration is that you know if you have smaller component objects or smaller devices then you can put lots more of them in a given space than you could if those devices were larger and so from the standpoint of just being able to pack a lots of things into small spaces. Nanotechnology is of interest and you can see examples of that in all kinds of devices that are used to store data you know on your computer hard drive you want to be able to pack as many bits as possible per unit area in into that hard drive so that you know your laptop is lighter and easier to carry around and so don't nanotechnology is an intrinsic component of storage technologies another example of that is in the microprocessor that you know forms the

the brains of your computer being able to put more and more component elements switching devices transistors per unit area allows that computer to be able to more things more quickly and so. So there are advantages in the sense that nanotechnology allows you to do more per unit area. Probably the more interesting thing from from a scientific standpoint is that by structuring materials on these length scales you can achieve. And you can tune into just the intrinsic properties of the material without changing the atomic constituents of it. And that's a slightly more subtle concept of I think it's substantially what drives a lot of interest in nanotechnology to being able to tune physical properties such as the color of a material or the way that it transports electrons or the way that it interacts with magnetic fields can be tuned in in very exquisite ways by by controlling shape and size on these on these wings scales. So I think that I think for me the one of the things I latch onto is just that this very idea that you've

touched on and that is the idea that it's it's being able to build something using building blocks that are very small much smaller than in the past perhaps we could have done. And what that does is it gives you an opportunity to then construct something that has different properties than you could have in the past and that it's something that crosses a wide range of disciplines. We've talked about. Things like micro electronics but also other kinds of material sciences. I'm sure ceramics textiles all sorts of stuff like that. It gets into medicine. It gets into developing new drugs. It gets into developing new medical devices so it can be everything from something that might be used to treat heart disease to making pants that you can pour wine on and the wine doesn't stay in the pans. So then I think that people need to appreciate that that the potential range of applications and I suppose that's why so many scientists and people who might then

develop commercial products get so excited is that there are an awful lot of different kinds of things that you could do with this almost. It's a matter of well we don't know how good your imagination. It can take you in an awful lot of different directions. Yeah yeah I think I think that what you're expressing there is is the very next point that I was going to make which which is really addressing the question of you know OK so we've established in the end of technology a nano scale materials are interesting you do all these different things why now you know why not 20 years ago you know why why is that happening now in the reason why it's happening now is exactly what you said is that the multidisciplinary set of skills that have developed over the years are converging on this set of length scales and you can see it happening over the last few decades in chemistry where sort of the ability to assemble you know small collections of Adams into well-defined molecules were sort of molecular scale control over the geometry of those

objects has increased over the years in the sense that the bigger and bigger molecules are possible. Now the synthetic skills of a chemist have extended to very large scale molecules proteins and DNA and very large biomolecules at the same time you had that trend going on towards longer length scales a bigger objects in chemistry you had in the electrical engineering and materials science world's trend towards smaller and smaller objects being able to build transistors that have smaller and smaller feature sizes using sort of top down kind of machining and etching in lithographic approaches and. What's happening now is that those length scales are being getting to converge so the ability to build molecules is approaching the size scales of the kinds of structures that people can etch directly into the elements of a transistor. And so it's that chemistry and electrical engineering coming together and biology of course involves you know a whole host of

objects that have these these kinds of sizes that's really driving a lot of the excitement in this field and I think there are tremendous opportunities for you know both both science and technology to emerge from it. You know we have a caller here to say what why don't we bring them in the conversation and we can talk some more. This caller is in Indiana so we'll get to them on our toll free line right here. Hello hello. GET THE SOUND LIKE AN UPDATE promotions thing going on here and I just like to know if there are any disadvantages such as fish in the sea of moving these small things around to take any hazardous chemicals. To do certain parts of things or talk about anything along those lines that are negative. Okay what's the what's the downside. Are there potential downsides of the technology. Well I think one one has to be cautious. Any time you're exploring new science or new technology and I think one has to be prudent about you know assessing the risks and the dangers and there's certainly a substantial amount of research going on in the in that field looking at the toxicity for example of various classes of nanomaterials

but I don't think they were interesting. A fundamentally new phase I mean these these are varieties of materials that have existed for a very long time they're being assembled in in a way that they haven't been in the past to make functional devices and so on but I think in in many cases the materials themselves have been around and been in our environment for you know hundreds and thousands of years and so I think that while you know you have to be cognizant of possible you know downsides and risks and so on I don't think there's cause for you know you know being overly concerned about that to the extent that you kind of stifle it you know additional developments in research in this area. So sort of the parallel that I think about is that some of the questions that people raise about genetic engineering and they say they at least raise the question if you. Develop something that is a novel lifeform that didn't exist before. Essentially you're talking about an intruder an introduced species and we know how difficult and how

problematic magic that can be. When that happens now we take something from one ecosystem and put it into another where it never existed. Is there anything like that that you any anybody even thinks about the possibility that you would develop something that did not already exist in nature that then would be problematic because you were introducing something into nature that didn't exist before. Or is it not that kind of thing. Well let me jump in here. One of the discussions that we have had is and has been also prompted by the NSF in terms of the societal implications of nanotechnology. And this is it primarily led from the previous experience of dealing with biotechnology. We had there was a backlash. And there was no public awareness created and a technology like biotechnology is not being accepted even in Europe and in parts of Africa and other areas. So that has led for the

researchers and the policymakers to actually start discussing these issues and concerns head on. While the research is going on as John pointed out I mean some of the data are definitely upsides to technology and there are some. And in negative issues which which can come about with technology. What we have to be careful in assessing and in those implications of the technology and how do we address them by creating standards and better meters and features. We have issues like toxicity of nano particles and the salt would have to be discussed. So to backtrack a little bit the center here which is hosting this workshop that we were talking before the program is the center for nano scale science and technology on campus. Its goal is to actually promote boat research and education and then to also bring about the discussion related to the

nanotechnology and the implications and by implications we mean the societal effect and the health care effect the legal effect the economic effect and all of those. So we've started working with more than seven colleges on campus now. We're discussing it at reduced levels. All of these activities. And they started talking about it. Of course there are other campuses around the country who are discussing it and with some promptings and funding from the National Science Foundation and they're what this workshop where we're bringing in on May 5th and 6th on campus is covering and then all materials so using nanomaterials and then then no devices no electronics and bio nano technology application and when you bring in to buy into the Legation we talk about advanced drug delivery drug delivery and that and those kind of applications. And so those all of these would be discussed and researchers would be presenting

papers and interacting with the industry. Maybe I should introduce again real quick all of our guest Irrfan Ahmed is the assistant director at the Center for nano scale science and technology at U of I. Brian Cunningham is associate professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and John Rogers is professor of materials science and engineering. He's founder professor of engineering professor of chemistry at the U of I were talking about nano technology and as her father mentioned there is a conference going on this week and that's part of the reason for us here having the conversation is to talk a little bit about nanotechnology and what it is but also to just mention that this workshop is going on now for quite a few years now. You've been doing this as an annual event and you have been so maybe you've been doing this for the last two years and as you recall that first one was the nanotechnology industry bookshop. And the dead that will show up actually then has led to industry to campus collaboration and so some of the industry has come

back to the research as I'm an established partnerships and this is very well the dissent itself was brought up recognizing the need for unifying the campus in terms of presenting larger ideas for the nanotechnology development and one of the key successes of the stellar success of the Center has been this bringing in an organic chemical electrical manufacturing and mechanical Center which is based at the mechanical engineering and Andersen NSF Center which is 2 million dollars per year for five years and expendable in the five years. So those going to finish your drives and then you have you have been in Walvoord and trying to bring on vent onto this campus. Historically this campus has been very rich individually and working on nanotechnology. But collectively what the campus administration recognized that need and since about two and a half years that this has been done so last year we had another whole shelf which we added to homeland security

and so we broadened the whole nanotechnology and user research and development would be used for bio sensing and detection of. Dioxins in my biotoxins and for detection mental detection and so forth and so doing those interactions have actually led to some of the companies being formed some of the companies coming out of the micro-manager going up in some of them are actually going to have booked it with a microphone or associated with faculty. What it did with the micro and lab are based on the research. And have since then continued to develop further. And people I guess I should mention too that if people are sort of interested in finding out more about the Center for nano scale science and technology and what it's all about they do have a website as if you had an excess excess you can go there it's w w w dot c n s t for Center for nano scale science and technology. You are You see dot edu so you can very easily go and get a little bit of an idea of what it is that it's all about.

Can we talk a bit more about applications I guess. Again I'm sure that people are maybe they're just kind of getting an idea what we're talking about. The science may elude them a little bit but I'm sure that one of the questions they will have is well so what. What exactly can you do with nano science. This is Brian Cunningham who John already mentioned is some of the applications that people are already very familiar with and so your nanotechnology is used you know all the time for making every new Intel microprocessor every you know memory circuit in every hard drive has new features that are being manipulated intentionally by engineers hit and mass produced very inexpensively at the nanometer scale. Some of the other applications of people are less aware of being able to make very sensitive sensors or detecting devices that can be used for various things and so on you mentioned for example how you have biosensors using nanotechnology can be used for detecting your toxins in the environment

or as a tool that can be used in the process of drug discovery research. So that's the area that I work in primarily. Well you know I tell you what. We need to take just a very quick break here in the conversation and then we'll talk some more about nanotechnology. The reason we need to take the break we need to continue to remind people how important the support is their financial support is for the radio station so we do that for just a moment here and give an opportunity for people to if even if they were there want to they can make a call and make a pledge. And then we'll get back to our conversation with our three guests is with us this morning all morning has been made of Riley She's the editor of patterns that's our program guide and she is in pledge Central and I'm told may that we just hit a major milestone yes we sure did we hit $50000 so that's great that's well on our way to $150000 which we'd like to reach by the end of this fund drive at the end of the week. But we can only do that if we hear from you 2 1 7 2 4 4 9 4 5 5. You know David I know we call this your shows a thinking person's show.

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And it would also help us increase our membership base and that's a really important idea. You know over time what we're trying to do is getting as many people as many different people as possible to be contributors. That's very important that we continue to get that number up. Every time that we do this right. So again let's give the telephone number one more time. OK. Do you want 7 2 4 4 9 4 5 5 1 I think very much made here this morning in this part of focus 580 we are talking about nanotechnology and with three guests are Fatah maad he is the assistant director at the Center for nano scale science and technology here at the Year of Our Brian Cunningham soci a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at John Rogers. He's professor of material science and engineering also chemistry and he is founder professor of engineering and we are all they're all interested in the same area in different sorts of ways. Questions are welcome 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 toll free 800 2 2 2 0 9 4 5 5.

One of the things I wonder maybe one or more of you can talk a little bit about is what is it that had to happen as science developed to get to the point where you could do this because I'm sure that before there probably were scientists who thought well wouldn't it be great if we could move atoms around. If we could work at that kind of level and instead of dealing with big bulky molecules we could be dealing with individual atoms in a way if we wanted to build something from the ground up we could build that one atom at a time. What had to happen so that you could actually get to the point where you could do that. Could I start you know in 1959 Richard Feynman and he was a Nobel laureate and he and proposed in his No. Ready recognized article that there is plenty of room at the bottom and besought the thinking that started a long long time ago. But then there were a number of activities or difficult moment which occurred during during the next

several decades which is prompted and don't nanotechnology actually was proposed by 1970. And then Gordon Brown Jerry Brown in 1994 said Small is beautiful in those kind of things. And then at IBM Zurich a scanning tunneling microscope was developed in 1981 and followed by the SVM and if I'm the force microscope which also led to a Nobel Prize in Physics in 1996 so devoted onces and in microscopes microscope me and others continued the development of this science. Then in 1991 the Japanese researcher discovered the nanotubes and there's a great deal of research now going to be underway and John Rogers and some other colleagues here on campus are actively involved in the development of

nanotubes and associated activities. And then in 1996 gained the carbon for learning's were discovered and reported by Rick Smalley from Rice University. All of these events or occurrences that prompted the development of nanotechnology and then in the previous government. During President Clinton's time there was an establishment of this and then the next minute Technology Initiative at the federal level and that then led to money being a locator to NSF and then for there to other federal agencies which was then transferred to transfer for research funding to academic institutions and also to towards companies who were engaged in or were planning to work on nanotechnology some of this ports to the United States to be quite ahead of other countries. But over the

last three to five years we have seen that other countries are catching up catching up in the sense that they are putting in a lot of investment dollar investment in terms of equipment and manpower and in being competitive. This includes Europe but China and most recently and Ireland and South Korea have come on board big time in terms of their commitment to. And then a technology research and then some of the U.S. companies leading companies like IBM water old Lucent at that doll Corning and a number of other for winter capitalist. They have put in money. To get this rolling in terms of the nano technology and there were a lot of startups really which have been created. We reach out also delivering some products and some of the details of which we currently are the stain proof trousers on the shorts

and then the glossy non-abrasive sunglasses and the like and lotions and all those have some aspect of nanotechnology in built into it. And there and this and this has led to where we are today in terms of that. Then at the same time what we on the disc campus had recognized that there are at least five critical areas in energy research and what would be beneficial. And one of them is in agriculture and food that is medical and pharmaceutical. The third is and what a mental and then an atmospheric in the 40s of course in electronics and devices and a fifth is competition a lot of those at least agriculture in the food and the medical and pharmaceutical areas are the key it has been predicted to be the most discoveries would be made and would have profound effect on the way we act and interact with that in what I meant. And anything else you want to add.

Yeah I would say that a lot of the development has been spurred by as John mentioned the development of a faster and faster microprocessors and Moore's Law which states that you know computers get faster you know double in speed over a certain period of time and that that has really driven the development of tools that can be used to manipulate and observe new features that people can build. You're getting closer and closer to the atomic scale. And then once those tools and become available to you semiconductor manufacturing you know they seem also to fall into the hands of researchers in other areas which is devoted to the development of the sensors and the development of products that that you know aren't microprocessors at all but still take advantage of the technology that was developed around your microprocessor manufacturing. And then as the size scale has gone lower and lower you know that that's converge with biotechnology and the ability to

manipulate genes in nippy you know proteins and even you know to you know then use a semiconductor technology to manipulate your proteins or DNA molecules in such a way that you can you manipulate you know a single strand of DNA or you know perform some type of biological test that allows you to see you know a single gene on a single strand of DNA using tools that were developed you could only have been developed through through the microprocessor industry. Yeah I guess that's the thing that really interests me is the idea that you would never have been possible if you could not first of all actually see things on that level that small and then had the means to manipulate them. Because before that you could think all you want about what you what you thought life was like on that level but if you couldn't see it you couldn't do it and then if you couldn't actually after the fact you could actually see it if you couldn't move. Work with it move around. Then you couldn't really do it so it seemed like the sort of at least a

couple of big technological hurdles that had to be in place first before you could even before we could go from thinking about what you'd like to be able to do when you could actually do it. I think that's a very interesting concept and I think it really really describes the reality sort of follow up. You know Brian's comments I think a lot of you know nanotechnology is arisen due to engineering necessity. You know it wasn't as if somebody sat down one day and decided no nanotechnology be a great field let me invent it you know it started like that you know it was more that you know since the birth of the transistor I think it's been pretty clear that smaller is better you know as far as the operation of a transistor goes you know you can switch faster it operates with less power at lower voltages the smaller and smaller you get it and so from the very beginnings of you know the integrated circuit in industry there's been this push to downsize the features in the fundamental switching elements the transistors and again both both because you can pack more of them in a given area but also

because they have favorable. Operating characteristics of smaller and smaller size scales and so all of the manufacturing infrastructure that needed to be developed in order for that to happen has really spilled over into also all sorts of other disciplines in it serve to sort of catalyze developments in other fields and so sort of the metrology the capability of measuring atoms in moving them around individually has really you know been a direct outgrowth of the storage in the electronics industry and I think when we can make similar arguments about developments in chemistry a lot of the the outlets for the products of a research chemistry are in biology in the forms of drugs or agents to to image biological structures and those biological model molecules are very large macro scale molecules and so the push from the chemistry is to make things bigger and bigger so you can interface with biology and so you have these things kind of converging over you know over the last you know five 10 years you've really really seen all of these disciplines end up in the

same range of length scales in in there's a lot of cross-fertilisation to really you know you know for the progress of what we're talking about now is is doing manipulation on the atomic level does it right. You forgive the this is a question from a guy who was challenged when it comes to understanding physics but is are people thinking about going to the subatomic level. Can you go even smaller. Or is that something that's just be there some of the sort of law in physics says no you can't do it or either we just don't really quite understand how the world works on that level well enough. I think that that would characterize it I mean there's a whole branch of physics you know. High energy physics which which is the study of particles that result from smashing atoms together in you can produce in certain Certainly there are particles and objects that are much smaller than atoms but I think from an engineering standpoint it's difficult to conceive of ways to actually build machines out of those component parts the atom is you know one of the smallest stable structures with which one can

build molecules or devices of various types of thing. So here perhaps there would be really no good reason to do that and see if you could if you could do it on the atomic level maybe you'd say well that's just fine we don't need to build atoms. We can start with atoms and we can build things up from there. Yeah maybe that I think the engineering practicalities and the kind of devices that humans ultimately would need to interface to are probably most realistically constructed out of atoms as opposed to quarks or electrons or something like that. I'm just asking. Just curious. Most is most of the money that funds this research. Does it ultimately come from federal sources. The majority of the money coming to this campus or as a matter of fact any of that campus is from federal agencies as I mentioned and if NSF is one of the prime movers recently there and I used an S in the student health also started a program called and then a technology center of excellence and

we're going to fight targeting cancer. You're using nanotechnology and so in fact our center actually in collaboration with cross campus researchers and also Washington University in St. Louis. Proposal recently to go for that center. And so and then the Department of Energy has put in considerable money and then of course and other federal agencies have already historically been doing that and they have talked about various aspects of it and with new challenges concerning the security and the safety of it prompted new initiatives on the part of the different agencies and more projects coming about. And one of the things that the state has done and the Illinois state is that why did the 18 million dollar to the micro nanotechnology lab in terms of an expansion of the micro-manager live on campus and so the construction has just

begun and is included in expansion in terms of the clean room space and would add another layer in terms of adding bio nano technology to that. And building and it's scheduled to be completed in Fall 2006 and so the state doesn't recognize and the governor in his State of the state address had to actually mention nanotechnology as an economic engine for the state of Illinois and although Illinois itself stand Samant and international and scaled in other states in terms of financial technology investment but did is get considerable activity going on and this campus has lead campus and northwest and us from the washer goggle and then there's some activity has started happening in Northern Illinois University. We have another caller here to talk with and I want to make sure the people who are listening understand that we'd be happy to take questions. We have maybe about seven eight minutes left in

this part of focus 580. The number here in Champaign Urbana 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. Also we have a toll free line good anywhere that you can hear us 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5. Here is a caller in Urbana and line 1. Well yeah. Comment to question one of. The comet is that last night I heard that somebody setting up a Nobel Prize kind of thing with their fortune and they announced that last night I doubt it's going to award prizes in technology. I don't know if they're just know that or not but that's a fair question comment. I had two questions One is I'm wondering when I was reading about nanotech there was a thing about Prince Charles coming out against it

and you know it's getting a lot of criticism for that. But in the course of that they mentioned that there was some something happened where they found. Nano particles and the livers research animals I guess. Over in the UK my first question I was wondering if you knew anything about that. What it what that was all about. Can you respond to that. Well you know I did it with any developing technology and there is lot of apprehension and there are certainly groups did including Prince Charles who had commented on the negativity and and the whole research community in U.K. kind of got after him for making those remarks. And then of course did is a nonprofit organization in Canada which we had been suggesting a moratorium on and then a technology research. So there are of course

fringe groups who try to create a scare that that does not mean that we should avoid discussion of some of the critical issues that we mentioned earlier. But at the same time it should not be a reason for us to give up on research in that activities that we would be engaged in and what was the point the caller was making. But you don't you know you're on the way there. About this specific instance right. Yeah that article showing up to my lovers. There was some research going conducted at Rice University where they had I looked at nano particles in fish and go going and also in mice. But there was a study which which clung to the to the lung and so the dog studies they had to have prompted that. Yes there is continued reason for exploring

and that kind of research in terms of seeing the health effects of those who would handle and then of particles and then definitely there when we talk about injecting materials into the body did our health care concern and there are legal concerns and those have to be addressed and the research is going on and indeed are some of the campuses and we are engaged in that activity. I note i'm not read in particular reference to the incident that you have mentioned. My other. QUESTION Was that kind of a general one. Some people think new science is particularly good when it's particularly counterintuitive and I was wondering if your panel had any and if you could tell us

whether what what what about nanotechnology might be called counterintuitive. And I'll hang up and listen thanks. All right somebody wanted to get out of it. I'm trying to think of a good example. And let me let me just sort of step through the questions that you had and then and then I'll try to try to offer an example that the nanotechnology prize I believe that would that's being offered by a guy who's my last name is Cobb Lee who's a. Self-made you know billionaires something like this and he's established several research centers around the country of different different universities and I think he's had this idea for a prize and that I think is a neat neat idea provided that you know it's judged appropriately and so on as far as from Prince Charles in the comments about nanotechnology it's a it's useful to make a point here that. There are certainly components of research in nanotechnology was to really you know involve new materials where toxicity is certainly issues and you know that kind of thing is studied carefully but. But

mainstream nanotechnology that's microprocessors that's your laptop your cell phone your hard drive all of those things are hard core mainstream nanotechnology and so if Prince Charles is sort of coming out against that stuff and probably should throw away his cell phones computer probably shouldn't fly airplanes anymore because all the flight controllers use computers to coordinate flights and so on and so. So I think the point is there's certainly new stuff here and new science and you know you need to worry about the dangers but nanotechnology is already here you know in in in in the latest computer chips think things have dimensions of 100 nanometers or glass and so. So that's that's what's really really driving it as far as CART counterintuitive. Phenomena this sort of nano scale the the whole way that the world works on those kind of dimensions is inherently counterintuitive the way that you interact with macro scale objects and sort of Newton's laws of physics. None of that stuff applies it at these laws.

Shorter length scales you can have the probability for one object appearing on one side of what is effectively a brick wall and then magically appearing on the other side with some probability that's defined by the characteristic dimensions of that wall and so. So the nano scale word world is really governed by a whole you know non-intuitive set of physics it's quanta It's quantum mechanically dominated and so almost you know anything you can think about it would be sort of counterintuitive in terms of way these systems operate appropriately for anything having to do with light you know interacting with objects on the nano scale that they're taking into account here the particle and the wave nature of light. It is required for things at that that that that length scale. Just one thing I guess I would mention I don't know. Not intending to be a booster of nanotechnology or anything like that but having done at least a little bit of reading about what's going on recently I think it is fair to say that there are people who suggest that it might be possible to use

nanotechnology to produce materials things that we would use in our daily life that would actually be eco friendly. That would be less toxic than things that we're using right now. That and I think there are people who think that nanotechnology could make a real contribution to green green chemistry and in a sense. So while it may indeed be that there you have to be conscious of the fact that there can be drawbacks there are some people who think that it could be and it could result in improvements and things that are actually better less less problematic than some of the. Some of the chemicals and things that we're working with today. Well I think that's the goal of everybody doing research in this field is to make things better not make dangerous things that are going to kill people and certainly that's the that's the goal I think you make a good point there. Yeah. Did is just cite a few examples of the kind of projects that they have into recently 500 to the Center for Medical science technology in the soybean disease by those involved a collaboration with

scientists in color from College of Engineering and call it a faggot culture in terms of like trying to drag green and so we're talking about imprinting on ID techniques in terms of how the green moves from from from the from from the from the harvesting from the farm to the farm gate entered it again elevated and so forth and then and they're detecting plant pathogens and then trying to develop a case or a system and then the electrical mechanical system to see the better part ways in a dangerous cellular activity and hold the message and interact with the cell walls in brine and others are working on the DNA sequencing and also using microfluidics and then a fluid X to do that. In a group. Again talking about nanotubes for stem cell research. So that gives you an example and in that it has a profound and wide

variation Office applications and is likely to affect the way we deal with data groups within electrical engineering. Talking about Microsoft. And then a few years before it was drug delivery and there was the talking about bio degradable of using bio degradable material so yes I mean did it is as John mentioned amended it is a whole effort and concern and realisation that all of this has to be bio friendly and eco friendly as you mentioned. Yeah well I'm sorry to say we're at a point we're going to have to stop here and we have a caller that we can't take obviously this is a this is a broad field and continuing to develop and new things are coming along all the time so perhaps we'll find some ways to talk about it in future. In the meantime if people are interested in finding out more about what is happening on this campus in this area one thing you could do is go to their Web site that we've mentioned the website of the Center for nano scale science and technology. Anything else that you like orange or you could come to the bookshop which is open to public.

And when you talk about me a fifth and sixth day on campus at back meant. And it has some of the topics that we have covered a it would be discussed in greater detail there would be posters as you know and there would be a research and development panel in the afternoon which will do discuss some of the direction from an industry standpoint and from a good timea standpoint. OK well I thank you all very much. Thank you very briefly let me one more time I'll go around the table here we have John Rogers He's professor of material science and engineering at the U of I Brian Cunningham associate professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Irvine Ahmad He is assistant director at the Center for nano scale tech science and technology at U of A. Thanks. Thank you thank you. The broadcast today here on AM 580 is made possible in part by a grant from her reins P.A. plus your Steinway piano show room in Bloomington P.A. plus offers new and Prion pianist by Steinway and sons Boston by Steinway and other fine pianos focus 580 the show is also made possible with support from the art mart in the Lincoln Square Mall Urbana the art Mart is pleased to support public

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a very strong point that the way that public broadcasting in this country is funded is changing. We are never going to go back to the levels of government support we've had in the past. Just that's just not on. So that means that people like you who value the programs have to step up and say this is a great radio station. I like these shows. I'm going to help pay for it. If you can do $40 a month. 40 dollar contribution that's great. If you go to forty thousand mother would be great if you could do $75 you go to 250. You decide. The important thing is that you make that call and make that pledge 2 4 4 9 4 5 5 Well we'll turn things over to the staff of the afternoon magazine the host of the show Celeste Quinn. Hello there David thank you very much coming up today in the 1:00 o'clock hour of the afternoon magazine we'll talk with gardeners Diane Noland and Chuck Voight. They will join us this afternoon following the one o'clock news. Then later this afternoon I'll talk with writer Mark Dunne author of Zounds a browser's dictionary of

interjections. Well now let's turn our attention to the Chicago Board of Trade made weight is trading at 313 and a half down one July three twenty two down one and a quarter make or in one ninety nine and three quarters down three quarters July 2 07 and.