Nano visionary Richard Smalley dies

Richard Smalley, a Rice University professor who helped jump-start the field of nanotechnology, died Friday after a long bout with cancer.

In the past few years, Smalley became an outspoken advocate for dedicating research to alternative energy technologies.

“It may be a greater challenge for us than the Cold War…to make it possible for 10 billion people to live the lifestyle you are used to in a way that doesn’t cause unacceptable impacts on the environment,” he told an audience of scientists at the International Electron Devices Meeting in San Francisco last December. “There is no escaping the problem. The consequences will be terrorism, pestilence, famine.”

CNET