A big step closer to nanoscale assembly

Photo (CC) jurvetson from Flickr

One of the key steps in the development of molecular-scale assembly is the creation of similarly-sized assembly tools that have sufficient accuracy and reproducibility to place atoms in exactly where they need to be, following a predefined plan.  Researchers in New York and China have been able to create a nanoscale robot that can place molecular components accurately at atomic scale.  The real breakthrough appears to be the unique error-correcting mechanisms that they implemented.

The details can be found in this paper in Nature Nanotechnology, and a nice overview is here at the NanoWerk blog.

Hack the Genome Shmoocon Presentation

genome_picture1

Had a bunch of really interested folks at the “Hack the Genome, the age of biomolecular cryptography” talk today at Shmoocon.  Lots of fantastic ideas and great discussions afterwards with interested hackers.  It is great to see how much creative knowledge and energy there is in our community.  I was asked to share my slides, so I have put them up on my site over at Radio Free Genome, and you can download the presentation directly from here.

Headed to Shmoocon

I am headed to Shmoocon, and looking forward to seeing my HacDC collegues there!  For those of you who might forget, I am giving my talk, “Hack the Genome, the age of Biomolecular Cryptology” tomorrow at noon in the “Break It” session.  Pam was not surprised at the choice of session – I don’t know if I should be pleased or mad!  See you there!

Categories: UncategorizedAuthor rmadams

Party Mode! HacDC Style!

From https://hackerspaces.org/blog/

Those of you that were on the conference call last Sunday were the first to be made aware that I’ve been working incognito for the last two months scheming, planning, plotting with fellow members of HacDC to pull off a really cool event.

For those that were not made aware, ShmooCon is an annual computer security hacker conference in DC that covers many topics, including 0-day exploits, Hack the Genome! The Age of Bimolecular Cryptology, or The Gentlemen’s Agreement: Pwning Friends Legally for Fun, ????, and Profit, how the Ohio voting machines were able to be compromised (a ’08 favorite talk of mine), and – if you have an itchy trigger finger – Hack or Halo.

So how does HacDC play into this? Well, some short background:
HacDC didn’t exist when ShmooCon was around last year, it was only spoken about in hushed tones till after the conference. Now we’ve been around for almost a full year with lots of stories to speak of.

Now at this ShmooCon we’re very loud and very proud of how far we have come and we’d like to say thanks to everyone by hosting the official ShmooCon Friday night party.

The details are forth coming but the basics are:

Location: HacDC Sanctuary (4 meters from the Altar)

1525 Newton St NW, Washington DC 20010 USA
(near corner of 16th and Newton NW)
Google Map

Time: 10pm till past 3ish.

How/Who: If you’re a member of a hackerspace or an attendee of ShmooCon, just show up for the festivities.

Venue:
hacdcchurch
This is where the action happens.

What to expect:

Three DJ’s:
DJ HSO
DJ Just Joshin
DJ Keith Myers

Plus a number of fun projects that hackers from other hackerspaces are bringing in to show off.

Party Mode On!
–Eric Michaud

*****

UPDATE: Bring your laser pointers!  Shuuush. 😉