A Little Ray of Sunshine: Nanotechnology�??s Role in Making Cheap Solar Power

It�??s hard to imagine building things as small as a cell, but now we can make things even smaller than that �?? as small as viruses or even DNA. This month, hear about nanotechnology�??s fortuitous interface with the tiny stuff of biology. Research in this area has dramatic implications for the future of medicine. It could lead to artificially engineered tissues, more effective drug delivery, and new kinds of health monitoring devices.

A lot of us would like to get off the grid, and get our power from the sun. But for most of us, it�??s just too expensive. In this edition of SmallTalk, we�??ll hear from Dr. Jeff Grossman at the University of California at Berkeley, who explains how nanotechnology may be used to make solar panels cheaper. And what could be wrong with that? Some ethical dilemmas crop up when we try to improve our lives through nanotechnology, and we�??ll hear from philosopher Patrick Lin of the Nanoethics Group about those issues.

We often think of nanotechnology as something that�??s not going to happen until some far-off science future. But this month we�??ll be talking about the science present �?? nanotechnology products that you could go out and buy, right now! Julia Moore and Evan Michelson from the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars will tell us about what products they�??ve found on the shelves. Should these products have some sort of special label? Journalist Philip Ball will tell us what he thinks about that controversy.

In this edition of SmallTalk, we hear from the man who builds the world�??s smallest vehicles. He calls them �??nanocars.�?? Dr. Jim Tour, a chemist at Rice University, tells us about his nanocars and how he thinks they might lead to nano-sized factories. We�??ll also hear from University of Florida graduate student Diane Hickey, who will tell us some of the interesting reactions she�??s run into when explaining nanotechnology. And we�??ll play our Nano News or Nano Nonsense quiz!

Listen as we chat with Dr. Don Eigler, IBM Fellow at the IBM Almaden Research Center, who says that playing with atoms changed his views of the world. Dr. Eigler is a physicist who specializes in studying the physics of surfaces and nanometer-scale structures. In late 1989, using the liquid-helium-temperature scanning tunneling microscope he built, he demonstrated for the first time the ability to build structures at the atomic level by spelling out �??I-B-M�?? with individual xenon atoms. Also, meet Tom Rockwell, Director of Public Exhibition at the Exploratorium, who describes, in an audio essay, how he imagines the land of the very small. Finally, take the Nano News or Nano Nonsense quiz! Your challenge: Listen to three nanoscience stories in the news then figure out which ones are real and which ones aren�??t. See http://www.almaden.ibm.com/vis/stm/atomo.html for Don Eigler�??s STM image gallery.