THE FORESIGHT INSTITUTE emails that Peter Diamandis, founder of the X-Prize, has come on board to help with a nanotechnology prize:

Palo Alto, CA — October 14, 2004 – Foresight Institute has appointed Dr. Peter Diamandis, Chairman of the X PRIZE Foundation, to lead the think tank’s Nanotechnology Prize Steering Committee. The leading think tank and public interest organization focusing on nanotechnology, Foresight Institute established the Feynman Grand Prize in 1996 to motivate scientists and engineers to design and construct a functioning nanoscale robotic arm with specific performance characteristics. The prize was named after Dr. Richard Feynman, a Nobel Prize winner in Physics, whose original goal for nanotechnology – systems of molecular machines building with atomic precision, is the guiding vision of long-term nanotechnology.

If you’re interested in this stuff — and you should be — you should consider attending Foresight’s 2004 Conference on Advanced Nanotechnology starting on Friday.