Advanced courses in Applied Crystallography for Nanosciences are not often delivered in Academia and, consequently, require the organization of events specifically tailored to PhD students, postdocs, and young researchers at the very beginning of their scientific careers.

Sustaining Earth, in the face of both technology thrusts and population dynamics, depends on our ability to maintain a delicate balance between human-promoted planetary modification and decline thresholds for land (soils), water, atmosphere, and biological systems. Mineralogy, as much as any other single science, will be central to this process. A set of links between Earth sustainability issues and the science of mineralogy are formulated and discussed in this discourse. The strongest ties exist in the areas of mineral-water and mineral-atmosphere interactions. Minerals are also particularly important in human disease generation. In addition, due to the role of minerals as invaluable economic resources, the environmental consequences of mining also come into play. New subdisciplines have recently emerged to bring mineralogy even closer to Earth sustainability issues, particularly mineral-microbe interaction science and nanomineralogy

The scanning tunneling microscope is essential to nanoscience and nanotechnology because it can provide images of surfaces at the atomic level with sub-nanometer resolution. Now a LabVIEW-based virtual instrument is available as a free-download at our company website (www.newpathresearch.com) for simulating the full operation of a scanning tunneling microscope. This is an executable version to be run on a Windows operating system without requiring other software.

The following article is based on the plenary presentation given by Mildred S. Dresselhaus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on November 29, 2004, at the Materials Research Society Fall Meeting in Boston. Advanced materials offer new promise for addressing some of the grand societal challenges of our future, including that of global energy. This article will review opportunities that have opened up at the nanoscale, with materials of reduced dimensionality and enhanced surface-to-volume ratio. Some examples of research accomplishments and opportunities at the nanoscale will be described, with special attention given to the potential for advanced materials and nanoscience to have an impact on the grand challenges related to a sustainable energy supply for the 21st century and beyond.