Will Small be Beautiful? Making Policies for our Nanotech Future

With the passage of the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) in 2000, US investment in nanotechnology research and development soared quickly to almost US$1 billion annually. The NNI emerged at a salient point in US history as lawmakers worked to reshape national science policies in response to growing international economic competition and the increasing commercialization of academic science. This paper examines how advocates of nanotechnology successfully marketed their initiative. It pays especial attention to their optimistic depiction of societies and economies improved by nanotechnology, and considers why utopian techno-visions continue to flourish despite their tendency to ultimately disappoint

Cosmic Journey: A History of Scientific Cosmology

Understanding the universe and space in all its complexity has consumed the passions of many people over the millennia. With an interest in bringing material from the world of scientific cosmology to the web-browsing public, the American Institute of Physics and the Center for History of Physics have created this website. The site is divided into two primary areas, titled "Ideas" and "Tools". In the "Ideas" section, visitors can read essays about the development of cosmology from the time of the Greeks all the way up to the present. And moving over to the "Tools" section, visitors can learn about important related events, including the invention of the telescope and the golden era of refractors. The site is rounded out with a collection of links for further reading, such as the "Cosmology 101" site created by NASA and a 1955 National Academy of Sciences briefing on cosmology

Persistent Gene Expression in Mouse Nasal Epithelia following Feline Immunodeficiency Virus-Based Vector Gene Transfer

Gene transfer development for treatment or prevention of cystic fibrosis lung disease has been limited by the inability of vectors to efficiently and persistently transduce airway epithelia. Influenza A is an enveloped virus with natural lung tropism; however, pseudotyping feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV)-based lentiviral vector with the hemagglutinin envelope protein proved unsuccessful. Conversely, pseudotyping FIV with the envelope protein from influenza D (Thogoto virus GP75) resulted in titers of 10(6) transducing units (TU)/ml and conferred apical entry into well-differentiated human airway epithelial cells. Baculovirus GP64 envelope glycoproteins share sequence identity with influenza D GP75 envelope glycoproteins. Pseudotyping FIV with GP64 from three species of baculovirus resulted in titers of 10(7) to 10(9) TU/ml. Of note, GP64 from Autographa californica multicapsid nucleopolyhedrovirus resulted in high-titer FIV preparations (∼10(9) TU/ml) and conferred apical entry into polarized primary cultures of human airway epithelia. Using a luciferase reporter gene and bioluminescence imaging, we observed persistent gene expression from in vivo gene transfer in the mouse nose with A. californica GP64-pseudotyped FIV (AcGP64-FIV). Longitudinal bioluminescence analysis documented persistent expression in nasal epithelia for ∼1 year without significant decline. According to histological analysis using a LacZ reporter gene, olfactory and respiratory epithelial cells were transduced. In addition, methylcellulose-formulated AcGP64-FIV transduced mouse nasal epithelia with much greater efficiency than similarly formulated vesicular stomatitis virus glycoprotein-pseudotyped FIV. These data suggest that AcGP64-FIV efficiently transduces and persistently expresses a transgene in nasal epithelia in the absence of agents that disrupt the cellular tight junction integrity