C-R-Newsletter #1    January 28, 2003

Thank you for signing up for our newsletter list.  We have not yet
started a regular newsletter, but we wanted to send a quick note anyway
to tell you what we're doing, and to reassure you that we did not lose
your email address. 

Chris has been writing papers non-stop.  One of them is a 40-page
technical paper, demonstrating how quickly a tabletop nanotech
manufacturing system can be created once a basic "assembler" is
developed.  This has been sent out for preliminary review, and we plan
to publish it in a peer-reviewed on-line journal.

The other paper extends our published Safe Utilization paper by covering
some issues involved with Effective Administration.  The basic
conclusion is that effective administration is possible but will not be
easy.  Chris is already thinking about additional papers.

On the media side, CRN is very pleased to report that our Safe
Utilization paper has been re-published by the Kurzweil AI website.
(They also re-published Chris's review of Michael Crichton's _Prey_.)

In the next few weeks, Mike and Chris will be working on polishing and
publishing the two new papers mentioned above; getting our fund-raising
activities into full swing; soliciting speaking opportunities at
conferences; getting media attention for our message that advanced
nanotech requires careful preparation; and starting work on at least two
additional papers.

Thanks again for your interest in CRN!

Chris Phoenix
Director of Research

C-R-Newsletter #2    February 7, 2003

We have a lot of new people on our newsletter list.  Welcome!  This is
another quick, informal note to let everyone know what's going on.

Mike is busy researching granting organizations; we're looking for money
to support paper writing, publicity, and going to conferences, among
other things.

Chris, as always, is busy writing.  The technical paper we mentioned
last week has gotten good preliminary reviews and is almost ready for
submission and formal review.  We've decided to put the policy paper on
hold for a week or two while we write up a summary of our research
results so far; we'll post that on our web site for comment. 

Thanks again for your interest in CRN!

Chris Phoenix
Director of Research

C-R-Newsletter #3    February 23, 2003

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Mike Treder, Executive Director, reports on CRN's first presentation
Chris Phoenix, Director of Research, discusses his current work
------

Report from Mike Treder:

As Executive Director of CRN, I was invited to make a presentation
at the February 20 science symposium at New York University. CRN was
part of a panel discussion on "Global Impacts of Emerging
Technologies". I presented a 10-minute PowerPoint slide show on
nanofactories and answered several questions. 

CRN's presentation seemed to generate a great deal of excitement
and audience interest. Among the topics raised in the Q&A segment
were concerns about preventing environmental damage, the risk of a
black market in advanced nanotech, and the possibilities for creating
an international regulatory regime.
 
This event represented the first formal opportunity for CRN to
present our ideas and positions in a group setting. I came away from
this rewarding experience with three clear impressions:
 
1. CRN's policies have been well-developed and will meet with
  approval from most thinking people.
2. CRN is ahead of the curve. There were techno-savvy futurist
  thinkers in the audience who had not yet seen the implications of
  nanofactory technology.
3. It's going to be a long haul -- CRN is on to something vitally
  important, but there are years of hard work ahead of us as we
  continue advancing our policy ideas.

--------

Report from Chris Phoenix:

Two weeks ago, I mentioned a big technical paper that was "almost" ready
for formal review.  That was slightly too optimistic.  It's now six
pages longer (48 pages total!) and has five detailed illustrations--and
I know a lot more than I wish I did about how to use Adobe Illustrator.
But it will finally be submitted for review on Monday, and if the
reviewers don't find any serious problems, it should be published online
by mid-March. 

The paper goes into great detail to describe how rapidly a tabletop
"nanofactory" can be developed after we get a basic nanotech
"assembler".  The paper has survived several rounds of review from some
very smart people, and I'm now pretty comfortable saying that the time
could be less than two months.  A week after that, the factory and its
duplicates could be producing pre-designed products by the kiloton.
Needless to say, this could be extremely disruptive!

I have wondered whether I'm being irresponsible by writing and
publishing a semi-complete recipe for how to do a crucial step in the
deployment of advanced nanotechnology.  I have concluded that, although
most people may not realize how easy this step really is, there's
nothing very innovative in the paper.  The basic ideas took me only a
few weeks to work out.  I'm not making the step easier--I'm just proving
how easy it already is.  Which is very important information for
policy-making.

At the same time, I've been writing up some "preliminary results" that
we'll be publishing on our website to get discussion flowing.  They're
up to about 25 pages already, and will probably be double or triple that
by the time I'm done.  We hope to find some agreement, some argument,
and possibly some co-authors to help turn the information into formal
papers.

I've been keeping half an eye on the media, and I have to agree with
what Mike said.  CRN's topic and message is extremely relevant today,
and its importance will continue to grow.  People are talking about
nanotech risks, calling for discussion and education, wondering where
the technology will take us.  We've been pretty quiet the last few
weeks, but we have been far from idle.