As we gear up to tomorrow's Atlas of Ideas launch, focussing on science in China, India and Korea, I've been thinking about some new bits of world-class British science. I spent last week in a Nano-sand-pit, working with 20 of the countries leading nano-scientists on new ways of turning information into stuff (towards a sort of mini 3D printer). The Ideas Factory blog, which over the course of the week climbed into Wordpress's top-ten, attracting over 100 comments, has just announced one of the projects that emerged.

The concept is a molecular machine that reads a pre-coded bit of DNA, putting together chains of chemicals in whatever format we ask it to. As one participant put it, "I don't know it it'll work, but shit it's beautiful." The work will be done at Oxford, Cambridge, Southampton, Exeter, Belfast and York, and is truly multi-disciplinary - chemists, physicists and computer people.

We've been following the nanotechnology debate for some time. As government turn their attention to the rather prosaic task of regulating nanoparticles, it's worth remembering that there are some spectacular things still going on that demand a deeper set of discussions.

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