White House Memo on R&D Budget Priorities Stresses
Competitiveness
Federal Computer Week (06/29/06) Sternstein, Aliya
A memo detailing the Bush administration's budget priorities for fiscal
2008 identifies competitiveness as the top priority of research and
development spending, ranking ahead of cybersecurity, energy, and other
areas. The memo cites the American Competitiveness Initiative, the policy
program that Bush introduced in the State of the Union address. The plan
would double basic research funding for the National Science Foundation,
the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and the Department of
Energy's Office of Science over the next 10 years. The memo states that
those agencies will need annual budget increases of 7 percent to meet that
goal. "Specific allocations will be based on research priorities and
opportunities," the document states. The memo identifies supercomputing
and nanotechnology as research priorities, as well as efforts to ease the
United States' reliance on foreign energy. In addition to cybersecurity
research, the memo calls for agencies to develop sophisticated networking
technologies for the rapid transmission of large datasets. "There seems to
be strong support for high-end computing and networking work, including an
encouragement to focus efforts to build large-scale testbeds for networking
research--which aligns nicely with the computing community's interest in
moving ahead with the programs like the Global Environment for Networking
Investigations," said Peter Harsha of the Computing Research Association,
referring to a project funded by the NSF to develop a new Internet.
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New Method Better Predicts Software
Vulnerabilities
Colorado State University (06/28/06)
Researchers at Colorado State University are studying the process of
discovering vulnerabilities in operating systems and major software
applications in an effort to better predict the number and severity of
vulnerabilities that are likely to arise in the near future. The
complementary method employed by Yashwant K. Malaiya, a professor in CSU's
Computer Science Department, and doctoral student Omar Alhazmi consists of
modeling the vulnerability detection rate with the Alhazmi-Malaiya Logistic
model and based on the developer, predicting the number of vulnerabilities
per 1,000 lines of code. The approach would help give developers and
companies a better indication of when and how many patches they will need
to develop for applications and systems by a certain time, and before
hackers have an opportunity to exploit them. For example, the
Alhazmi-Malaiya Logistic model predicted last year that Windows XP would
have a rapid growth in vulnerabilities, which have now risen to 173 from 88
in January 2005, and it was just as accurate in determining that there
would be few new vulnerabilities for Red Hat Linux 6.2, which has been
unchanged at 117. "The hope is that a vulnerability gets patched before it
gets exploited," says Malaiya.
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Next Generation of Computer Geniuses Vie for Microsoft
Prize
Seattle Post-Intelligencer (06/29/06) Bishop, Todd
Finalists in the software-design category of Microsoft's annual Image Cup
contest had a chance to show off their projects to Chairman Bill Gates this
week as the seven teams vied for the top prize of $25,000. The projects
all related to improving global health care, and included a technology that
emits noise as a cursor moves across a screen to help the sight-impaired
use a computer, as well as a 3D viewer designed to help doctors treat
patients. Other projects included prototype technologies to improve
exercise habits and to help the disabled negotiate streets. The U.S. team,
from Virginia Commonwealth University, developed a system called Pocketdoc
that enables doctors to transmit reminders to take medicine, instructions,
and survey questions to a patient's portable device via a Tablet PC, and
they plan to develop a new version for the forthcoming Windows Vista. "On
the doctor's side, they can really develop any sort of alert or task that
they want--that's what's so powerful about Pocketdoc," said Joanne
Cunningham, a graduate student at VCU. The Image Cup competition, now in
its fourth year, is partially aimed at getting students to work with
Microsoft's .NET language. The competition, which includes other
categories such as a programming challenge and a short-film contest, drew
more than 65,000 entries this year. A team from the University of Hull in
the United Kingdom developed a technology that enables friends and
relatives to upload audio, photos, and video to a patient's bedside
computer. The winner of the contest will be announced in August.
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Disney Exec to Keynote SIGGRAPH
Animation Magazine (06/27/06) Ball, Ryan
Joe Rohde, executive designer and vice president with Walt Disney
Imagineering, will give the keynote address at ACM's 33rd annual SIGGRAPH
computer graphics conference and expo in Boston. Before Rohde delivers his
speech, ACM SIGGRAPH will present its ACM SIGGRAPH Outstanding Service
Award to John M. Fujii of Hewlett Packard, its Computer Graphics
Achievement Award to Thomas W. Sederberg of Brigham Young University, and
its Significant New Researcher Award to Takeo Igarashi of the University of
Tokyo. Rohde's address is titled "From Myth to Mountain: Insights Into
Virtual Placemaking," and focuses on his efforts to oversee
conceptualization, design, and production for the Animal Kingdom amusement
park. Rohde led the development and production of the amusement park's new
attraction Expedition Everest, a project that took him to the Himalayas in
an effort to incorporate the authentic environment and the myth of the Yeti
into the ride. Scheduled for July 30 through Aug. 3, SIGGRAPH 2006 is
expected to bring together some 25,000 computer graphics and interactive
technology professionals from around the world for technical and creative
programs on research, science, art, animation, gaming, interactivity, and
education, as well as an exhibition of products and services from more than
250 companies. For more on SIGGRAPH 2006, or to register, visit
http://www.siggraph.org/s2006/
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The Image of Computing
USACM Technology Policy Weblog (06/27/06)
Speaking at the opening session of the Computing Research Association's
Snowbird conference, Ed Lazowska gave an overview of the key funding issues
facing computer science. Lazowska argued that computer scientists must
demonstrate why their discipline deserves to be considered a high-profile
science. In a speech on the image of computer science, Microsoft Research
head Rick Rashid contrasted the boundless optimism about "convergence" and
the so-called "superhighway" that characterized the field in the early
1990s with the gloomy media proclamations that the field was in its death
throes in 2002. The three main perceptions that keep students from
pursuing computer science as a major are the image of the friendless
programmer toiling in isolation, the fear that offshoring is taking away
all the good jobs, and the gender issues that keep women from entering the
field. Rashid noted how important these issues are to Microsoft, which is
already having a difficult time finding qualified workers. If the trend
continues, technology companies will have no choice but to pursue foreign
workers and move operations overseas. Rashid noted studies from the Dice
IT job Web site that highlight the strength of the job market, supporting
the conclusions of ACM's recent study on outsourcing and globalization.
Rashid cited a report by Money Magazine that ranked software engineering as
the top job in the United States. To overcome the image issue, Rashid
argues that the romance needs to return to computing, and that students
need to understand that it is a field with limitless opportunities. To
restore the sense of wonder and create an emotional appeal, Rashid touted
the potential of technologies to convert any surface into a computing
interface, store the entire constellation of an individual human's
experience, and develop detailed astronomical maps due to terascale
computing.
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Working the 80/20 Rule Is the Theme for the 11th Annual
Workshop for Women in Design Automation
Business Wire (06/26/06)
The 11th annual Workshop for Women in Design Automation (WWINDA) will get
underway on the first day of the 43rd Design Automation Conference (DAC),
which will take place at the Moscone Center in San Francisco from July
24-28, 2006. The workshop, "Working the 80/20 Rule for Success--Focusing
in on What Matters," will be held Monday, and Reynette Au, vice president
of business licensing for nVidia, will give the keynote address. "This
year's WWINDA focuses on a topic that is a constant struggle for everyone,"
says Daya Nadamuni, WWINDA chairperson and Gartner Dataquest chief analyst
and research vice president. "Whatever your struggles in terms of time
management or meeting the expectations of others, this panel will have
messages that reach everybody who attends." Sabina Burns, senior director
of corporate marketing and communications at Virage Logic will moderate the
panel discussion on the 80/20 rule, and other participants will include
Denise Brouillette, founder and president of The Innovative Edge; Kathy
Papermaster, director of the Sony/Toshiba/IBM (STI) Design Center; and Soha
Hassoun, associate professor in Tuft University's Department of Computer
Science. WWINDA will present its Marie R. Pistilli Women in EDA
Achievement Award to Dr. Ellen J. Yoffa, director of Next Generation Web at
IBM's T.J. Watson Research Center. ACM's Special Interest Group on Design
Automation (ACM/SIGDA) is a sponsor of DAC, and registration for WWINDA is
$50 for ACM members. For more on DAC, or to register, visit
http://www.dac.com/43rd/index.html
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Transparent Chips Could Usher in New Era, But Outlook Is
a Bit Blurry
Wall Street Journal (06/29/06) P. B5; Sechler, Bob
A team of researchers has developed a transparent chip made of indium
gallium oxide that could lead to a host of see-through electronic devices.
"You could look at a window as a new way of having electronic
functionality," said Oregon State University professor John Wager, who led
the research. The development could lead to transparent computers that
could be operated by touch, or windows that also function as solar cells.
Though Wager acknowledges that the technology is at least five years away,
Hewlett-Packard has already licensed the research for commercial
development with an eye toward printable circuits. The technology could
also lead to inexpensive flexible circuits created by industrial printing
devices rather than being manufactured in expensive fabrication plants.
Though they would not compare to the speed and power of silicon chips, the
cost advantage of the transparent chips could make them ideal for smart
product packaging or other disposable applications. Some industry
observers remain skeptical about the market potential for transparent
chips, however. Chips have already scaled down to a size where they are
hardly even noticeable, and could scale even further with the help of
nanotechnology, according to Daniel Morgan of Synovus Investment Advisors.
Morgan also noted the continued scaling of the devices that use those
chips, such as cell phones and mobile gaming devices. Researchers have
been exploring inorganic conductive materials for decades, using them for
applications such as transparent wiring for laptop displays, though they
lack the ability to control the current running through them. Wager has
been tinkering with his transparent chips in an attempt to control the
current electronically, inviting the possibility that the materials could
be used to fashion inexpensive printable circuits.
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Media Distribution Rights: Here Come the Judges (and
Congress)
InformationWeek (06/29/06) LaPlante, Alice
Several bills pending in Congress could severely cramp entertainment
device manufacturers' ability to meet consumer demands and evolving
technology. A preview of what the industry could face came from last
year's Supreme Court decision against Grokster that held the peer-to-peer
download facilitator liable for illegal downloads taking place using its
technology. The ruling ran counter to a decision made more than two
decades ago in favor of Sony, who was then being attacked by Universal City
Studios and Walt Disney Productions for its Betamax video recorder that
allowed consumers to record television content. The Supreme Court in that
case ruled that Sony could not be held liable for the use of its technology
for illicit purposes. The ruling upheld a consumer's right to copy content
for his or her own use. The recent decision could change all that,
depending on which way the legal win blows. Three bills now moving through
Congress could have a huge impact on devices such as DVRs, video capture
cards, and other technology that converts analog signals into digital data.
The Audio Broadcast Flag Licensing Act would require every device able to
receive digital television broadcasts to be integrated with technology that
prevent redistribution of content. The Platform Equity and Remedies for
Rights Holders in Music Act would ban consumers from breaking up music
downloaded from broadcasts unless they pay for individual songs. The
Digital Transition Content Security Act, meanwhile, would force analog
video input device manufacturers to impose restrictions on the conversion
of content into a digital format.
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Coding Da Vinci
PC World Canada (06/27/06) Lombardi, Rosie
Modern movies are increasingly relying on sophisticated software
applications to create realistic special effects and complex animation.
"Movies aren't about creating reality. With computer-generated graphics,
you can create the hyper-real. You can take what's in the real world and
take it to the next level," said Maurice Patel of Autodesk, the
Montreal-based company whose animation software was used to create special
effects for "The Da Vinci Code." While animated monsters and impossible
camera angles are obvious uses of computer-generated graphics, production
companies are using software to enhance more realistic shots, such as the
airplane scenes in "The Da Vinci Code." In those scenes,
computer-generated images were intended to make the shots seem real, rather
than creating an illusion. Animation software can also help with scenes
that may be difficult to control, such as a car exploding, where the pieces
might not fly where the director wants. Shots of scenes such as buildings
blowing up shot in real time with no graphical enhancement often look slow
and unimpressive when they translate to film. "With today's MTV audience,
explosions have to happen 10 times faster than real time. They have to be
a lot more impressive than they could ever really be, faster, more flame,
more red," said Patel. Audiences are more likely to accept
computer-generated monsters and dinosaurs, but when the same tricks are
used to create realistic humans, the results are often unsettling to
viewers, Patel says. He makes the comparison to artificial intelligence,
where realistically simulating human behavior has stymied scientists for
years. One of the most difficult parts of the human body to simulate is
hair due to the intensive calculations required to make it look realistic,
according to Steve Garrad of Double Negative studios.
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UCLA Engineering Announces Breakthrough in Silicon
Photonics Devices
UCLA News (06/28/06)
Researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, have developed
an optical-amplification technique in silicon that consumes no power, and
actually produces energy by combining Raman light amplification with a
photovoltaic effect. "After dominating the electronics industry for
decades, silicon is now on the verge of becoming the material of choice for
the photonics industry, the traditional stronghold of today's
semiconductors," said UCLA engineering professor Bahram Jalali. The
intensity of the light dictates the volume of information that can be sent
through an optical wire. Illuminating silicon with intense light is the
only way to take advantage of its nonlinear properties, such as the Raman
effect, which has led to several recent discoveries in silicon photonics,
including the first silicon optical amplifiers and lasers. Silicon loses
its ability to carry light and data as light intensifies, an effect that
also increases heat. Losing its light-carrying capacity makes it
essentially impossible to develop continuously operational optical
amplifiers and lasers, Jalali said. Previous efforts to resolve this
problem led to sharp increases in power consumption. "In the past,
two-photon absorption in silicon has resulted in significant loss for
high-power Raman amplifiers and lasers, reducing efficiency and
necessitating complex mitigation schemes," said Northop Grumman's Robert
Rice. "In space and military laser systems, the impact of device
efficiency on electrical power and thermal management is a prime
consideration." The convergence of photonics and electronics could lead to
a host of new inexpensive photonic components, make optical computing a
reality, and breathe new life into Moore's Law.
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Critic: Paper Vote Records Vital
Miami Herald (06/28/06) Benn, Evan S.
Stanford University computer science professor David Dill told two Florida
groups that their state is behind the curve in having a system of paper
records to verify electronic votes during a lecture in Coral Gables. Dill,
an e-voting expert, told members of the Miami-Dade Election Reform
Coalition and the Human Services Coalition that 27 states have passed laws
that require votes from e-voting machines to be verified by paper records.
Dill helped create the Verified Voting Foundation, which has found flaws in
Diebold touch-screen voting machines that would enable a hacker to
manipulate election results. Touch-screen voting machines must allow for
independent verification of votes to ensure accuracy of results, said Dill,
who added that his group is working with government officials to improve
the voting process so that counties use "the best practices for running
elections." Dill said more citizens need to get involved in monitoring the
e-voting process. "You can have the most transparent system in the world,
but unless you have people looking into that transparent system, you're not
going to have the trust of the voter," he said. After the lecture, Dill
took questions from the audience, including one about the possibility of
Internet voting, but he said it was unlikely unless there are a number of
breakthroughs that could ensure votes were trustworthy. For information on
ACM's e-voting activities, visit
http://www.acm.org/usacm
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Cluster Computing: ISC 2006 Innovation Awards
HPC Wire (06/28/06) Lazou, Christopher
A panel of academic and industry experts picked the winners of this year's
International Supercomputing Conference (ISC), which concentrated on two
research segments: Life sciences and application scalability on very large
systems. Shantenu Jha, Peter Coveney, and Matt Harvey of University
College London's Center for Computational Science were chosen as winners
for the first segment with their paper "SPICE: Simulated Pore Interactive
Computing Environment--Using Federated Grids for 'Grand Challenge'
Bio-molecular Simulations." Uni Erlangen's B. Bergen, F. Huelsemann, and
U. Ruede won for the second segment with their paper " Hierarchical Hybrid
Grids: Achieving TERAFLOP Performance on Large Scale Finite Element
Simulations." The first group of winners offered an example of how
federated grids can be effectively applied to important large-scale
problems, with a particular emphasis on qualitative and quantitative
benefits of steering large biomolecular system simulations. The second
group of winners detailed how the desire to squeeze high performance out of
large-scale, parallel, finite element supercomputer simulations drives the
design of the Hierarchical Hybrid Grids (HHG) architecture, while stressing
the need to carefully analyze computationally intensive low-level
algorithms used in the HHG library's deployment. The researchers presented
a pair of performance metrics (the Balance metric and the Loads Per Miss
metric) that can anticipate and interpret measured results of various
deployments of the standard lexicographic Gauss-Seidel algorithm. Bergen,
et al concluded that "In any scientific endeavor it is important not only
to produce great results, but also to be able to explain them...The use of
metrics to try and model the underlying interactions that take place during
the execution of complex scientific codes has proved to be quite
useful."
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I Robot, Your Companion
IST Results (06/29/06)
Researchers working under the IST-funded COGNIRON project are attempting
to develop cognitive robotic companions that could help people in everyday
tasks and eventually serve as assistants for the elderly or disabled. The
principal challenge to the transition from single-function robots to
full-fledged companions is intelligence. The COGNIRON project addresses
robotic intelligence on seven fronts: multimodal dialogues, awareness and
comprehension of human activity, social behavior, skill and task learning,
spatial cognition, intentionality, and initiative. Regardless of what a
robot is tasked to do, the ability to make decisions and understand its
environment are key to its success. "Getting a robot to move around a
human, without hurting them, and while making them feel comfortable, is a
vital task," said Raja Chatila, coordinator of the COGNIRON project. That
requires robots to pick up non-verbal environmental clues, such as the
meaning behind a subtle movement or gesture. In an effort to give robots
the ability to learn in a similar manner as humans, the researchers are
developing a topological model by which a robot could learn the functions
of objects such as a door or a corridor, rather than the more quantitative
model common to machines that might define objects by their dimensions or
geometric properties. To measure their success, the researchers will
conduct three trials, showcasing the ability of a robot to build a model of
its environment, infer that a human wants something to be done, and learn
through repetition and imitation.
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Computers and Art Meld in Virtual Reality
Underworld
Duke University News & Communications (06/28/06)
Duke University researchers have developed a virtual-reality world where
"travelers" can experience a host of activities in an evolving, immersive
setting. The Duke Immersive Virtual Environment, or DiVE, is powered by
six computers that create and coordinate images that are projected on the
ceiling, walls, and floor of a six-sided chamber. Wearing stereoscopic
glasses, users control their experience with a joystick. Rachel Brady, an
adjunct associate professor of computer science, oversaw the development of
the DiVE project. Brady had previously led the development of the CAVE
virtual-reality chamber at the University of Chicago. DiVE has become a
magnet for scientists and engineers of a host of disciplines looking to
conduct research in a virtual environment. Biomedical engineers intend to
use the chamber to create giant simulations of hearts that they can crawl
through; biochemists are studying the spatial relationships between
simulations of complex proteins; and cognitive neuroscientists are studying
the way that humans sense that objects have been moved by creating a
virtual room and manipulating its contents. The chamber is simple enough
to use that students without technical backgrounds can create simulations.
Brady intentionally took a multidisciplinary approach to the DiVE project.
"What's missing in a lot of engineering education is at the brainstorming
level. I'm trying to teach students how to think more divergently--more as
art students are taught," she said. "I've been communicating with art
professors, reading about art, and teaching my students to draw. I'm
teaching them how to communicate visually."
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Net Neutrality Battle Shifts to Full Senate
TechWeb (06/29/06) Gonsalves, Antone
The Senate appears split on the issue of whether telephone and cable
companies can charge other companies for delivering high-bandwidth services
over the Internet as the Senate Commerce Committee reached a deadlock on
the issue. The committee vote is a strong indication to some that the
Senate might actually be divided on a telecom reform bill approved by the
committee without the Net neutrality amendment. "There will be an epic
battle in the Senate over Net neutrality," says Adam Green with MoveOn.org
Civic Action. The issue of Net neutrality is not going away quietly.
MoveOn.org Civic Action recently emailed constituents who voted against the
amendment requesting that they telephone their senator's office to voice
their opinion on their opposition to the vote. There is speculation if a
Net neutrality amendment does not make it in the telecom bill, Democrats
will try getting a filibuster. Yahoo! and Google support the amendment
because they say the Internet should be open to smaller companies that may
not be able to afford fees for faster service, while opponents say there is
no evidence companies would discriminate against other companies that do
not pay for high-speed bandwidth. Rep. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said he is
against the Senate considering the telecom bill without the amendment
included. "I believe these changes are so important, mean so much to our
country, it ought to be possible for the Senate to slow this down and take
the time to really consider what the implications are of a badly flawed
piece of legislation with respect to its treatment of the Internet," said
Wyden.
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The R&D Funding Crisis
Network World (06/26/06) Vol. 23, No. 25, P. 37; Johnson, Johna Till
The National Science Foundation is one of the few organizations fighting
hard to reverse recent decreases in U.S. R&D funding, writes Johna Till
Johnson. The NSF's budget will be increased by 7.8 percent to $6 billion
in fiscal 2007. About $16 million of the increase will go toward the
professional development of teachers. About $803 million of the budget is
earmarked for the multi-agency Networking and Information Technology
Research and Development (NITRD) effort that seeks to retain U.S.
leadership in networking and information technologies by investing in
long-term research. Although Johnson applauds the government's new
willingness to fund research, she notes that it is in part a response to a
growing lack of research investment on the part of private enterprise.
According to the NSF, private-sector funding for R&D in the U.S. dropped by
18 percent from 2001 to 2003. And although about 70 percent of yearly R&D
spending in the U.S. comes from the private sector, Johnson argues that
"single-digit increases in federal R&D investment...can't make up for
double-digit decreases in private-sector R&D investment."
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Human Trails in Cyberspace
Chronicle of Higher Education (06/30/06) Vol. 52, No. 43, P. A18; Young,
Jeffrey R.
Techniques for mapping online activity and the challenge of drawing
insightful conclusions from this information were detailed by a panel of
academic and industry experts at a University of Pennsylvania conference
titled "The Hyperlinked Society." University of Michigan professor Lada
Adamic demonstrated a map of connections between political bloggers at the
start of the 2004 U.S. presidential election, which was used to determine
whether blogging activity corresponded to preconceived notions about
conservatives and liberals' offline behavior. Adamic says conservatives
were more interlinked than liberals, but not by a wide margin, while both
sides were virtually tied in terms of blogging activity. The distribution
of political blogs in visual space is a reflection of the frequency of
their links, which also holds true for a map of over 1,000 popular blogs
created by Matthew Hurst of Nielsen BuzzMetrics. Hurst's map indicates the
number of links to the blogs, the type of blog software in use, and what
type of server hosts the sites; according to the map, the blogs with the
most links cover technology and social-political commentary, which helps
Nielsen BuzzMetrics give clients advice on tapping the Internet. The goal
of Microsoft Research's Netscan project is to make online community
dynamics more comprehensible through the analysis of behavior on the Usenet
online discussion forum. "What we're trying to do is show patterns of
contribution to threaded conversation communities," explains Marc Smith,
who helms Microsoft Research's Community Technologies group. Smith and
colleagues have invented a method to outline a user profile by studying
data maps of their posting behavior rather than the content of their
messages.
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Too Small to Grasp
Government Executive (06/15/06) Vol. 38, No. 10, P. 46; Dickey, Beth
The U.S. government's attempts to regulate the manufacture and sale of
nanotechnology products as well as devote more resources to the assessment
of nanotech's health and environmental risks are being overtaken by the
speed of nanotech innovation. "Something is going right--products are
being commercialized--but clearly, things can go wrong if we fail to
provide the adequate oversight," declared director of the Woodrow Wilson
International Center for Scholars' Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies
David Rejeski before the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation
Committee in May. The National Science Foundation sponsored several
studies demonstrating that the meaning of nanotech and much of its
potential is unknown to a large portion of the public, while many people
who doubt the government can effectively manage nanotech's risks are
nevertheless averse to the idea that new products should be outlawed
pending further evaluation. Agencies participating in the National
Nanotechnology Initiative have been given a budget for research into
nanotech's impact on health, safety, and the environment of below $40
million, an amount that equals less than 4 percent of their combined annual
outlays for nanotech research and development. Both industrialists and
environmentalists would like the risk assessment budget to be doubled or
even quadrupled. E. Clayton Teague with the National Nanotechnology
Coordination Office claims the administration's 2007 budget request is
sufficient, using the high marks the President's Council of Advisors on
Science and Technology gave the National Nanotechnology Initiative as
evidence. Rejeski is less sanguine, arguing that the government cannot
understand and manage nanotech's questionable aspects more efficiently and
effectively without additional resources and funding. The Woodrow Wilson
Center reported back in January that the federal regulatory structure is
weak due to statutory gaps, a lack of resources, and misalignment between
regulatory programs and the nature of nanotech.
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