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Triple A Learning IB Blogs

November 22, 2011

A micro revolution falls below the radar

Filed under: Business & Management — Tags: , , , — Paul Clark @ 1:00 am

If you were to ask your students to identify the big issues affecting businesses at the present time, they would probably include the effects of the recession, the impact of the social media, the growth of emerging economies such as India and China, e-commerce and new technology. However, if pressed on new technologies, it is unlikely that they would mention nanotechnology; yet developments in this field are set to revolutionise the nature and production of the goods and services we buy every day.

I first posted about a nanotechnology in January this year. Since then I have read articles about nanotechnology advances, but only in specialist sections of the media and not in a prominent position. The mainstream press appears slow to recognise the significance of this technological revolution.

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September 8, 2011

Real Nanotechnolgy

Filed under: Chemistry — Tags: , , , , , — David @ 10:15 am

As I was reading the BBC website I came across a fascinating article on nanotechnology. Not science fiction nanotechnology or ‘pseudo’ nanotechnology, in other words a miniaturised device. No, this was the real thing!

A motor that was made of a single molecule or just 18 atoms! And the molecule is …..

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January 17, 2011

Nanotechnology, Grey Goo and the new industrial revolution

Filed under: Business & Management — Tags: , , — Paul Clark @ 1:28 am

Every stage of technological development seems fraught with controversy, but as the speed of technological change accelerates the social, economic, cultural and scientific issues become ever more complex, extensive and difficult to judge.  Control of information is control of power. As a result, new technologies are frequently met by fear and consumer resistance. The present digital-age has resurrected the spectre of the fabled Luddites, rebellious village workers in early 19th-century England who tried to stop the onrushing Industrial Revolution.

The last decade has been punctuated by bouts of fear related to Genetically Modified (GM) crops and animals. The latest development is news that British scientists have bred poultry that are genetically resistant to H5N1 or any other avian flu virus, thus severing a major link in the flu’s evolutionary chain.  The result, reported in a study in the January issue of Science, is genetically engineered chickens that, while they’re still vulnerable to H5N1, don’t seem to pass on the disease to other poultry.

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