Nanotechnology

[Guest Kether]

QUOTE

Thinking big served us well last century. All our memorable achievements were conceived on a grand scale. From the skyscraper to the Apollo moon landings, from the motorway to the nuclear submarine. Forget Brunel and his great engineering projects: they’re about to be replaced like the dinosaur, by newer, faster and - most importantly - tinier entities. The future is minute, say scientists, microscopically, fantastically minute. The possibilities associated with Nanotechnology, as it is known, are literally endless. Imagine a world run by robots smaller than this full stop. A world where tiny devices float around your blood stream zapping tumours, tiny transmitters let you know where your keys are so you may never lose them again or super strong lightweight materials that make space travel economical. This may sound like science fiction but nanotechnology is an emerging field in which scientists hope to build machines that have parts just a few thousand atoms across. The thought that our lives may be in the hands of tiny devices has alarmed environmentalists. Campaigners recently warned that their next great anti-technology battle will be fought not in fields of GM crops but outside the high-tech plants of nanotechnology manufacturers. Once again, leading the troops is technophobe Prince Charles who is said to be concerned that nanotechnology spin-offs such as self-replicating nanorobots would annihilate life on earth leaving nothing behind other than a grey goo. This may sound ridiculous but there’s a plethora of films such as ‘Terminator’ and ‘The Matrix’ where the world has been taken over by robots at the expense of humanity. Why shouldn’t this doomsday scenario occur with nanorobots? The fear that machines may be able to spread like an unchecked virus, destroying everything at the molecular level to reproduce is a compelling reason to listen to him. This fear is further perpetuated by novels such as ‘Prey’ by Michael Crichton where nanorobots combine with bacteria to create a flesh eating swarm that feeds on biological matter. It certainly makes an interesting read, playing on our fears about new technology and convincing us that we aren’t half as afraid as we should be but could this science fiction become science fact? The government certainly don’t seem to think so. The Prime Minister has said he believes that nanotechnology could be worth billions to Britain, hailing its "startling potential" in a recent speech. He said nanomachines could eventually be used to cure diseases such as tuberculosis and malaria. It is believed that Science Minister Lord Sainsbury will announce a further £90m of grants to the £50m is already being given to nanotechnology research each year. As with his intervention over genetically modified food, which also put him sharply at odds with Downing Street, Charles is bringing to public notice scientific research few had previously heard of. But Ian Gibson, the Labour chairman of the Commons Science Committee said the Prince should "keep his nose out". The Prince has been backed by environmental campaigners and Zac Goldsmith, the editor of the Ecologist magazine, said: "He can play an enormously important role in the debate. With nanotechnology there is real room for disaster." For the moment, the reality that we may be consumed by these miniature devices is a long way off. In fact, most nanotechnologists believe that tiny robot swarms are unlikely to be part of our lives for at least another 100 years. In the meantime the science of the super-small is going to have have a more gradual and elegant introduction to society, they say. "Essentially, mankind has reached the end of the road in terms of scale when it comes to constructing objects," said Mark Welland, professor of nanotechnology at Cambridge University. "We started off a few thousands years ago when we built things the size of Stonehenge by shifting huge chunks of rock around. Now we have got it down to a level where we are moving atoms about. You can't really get below that in terms of scale." Today’s manufacturing methods are very crude at the molecular level. Casting, grinding, milling and even lithography move atoms on the macromolecular level. It's like trying to make things out of Lego blocks with boxing gloves on your hands. You can push the Lego blocks into great heaps and pile them up, but you can't really snap them together the way you'd like. In the future, nanotechnology will let us take off the boxing gloves. We'll be able to snap together the fundamental building blocks of nature easily and inexpensively. This will be essential if we are to continue the revolution in computer hardware beyond about the next decade. It will also let us fabricate an entire new generation of products that are cleaner, stronger, lighter, and more precise. In areas such as medicine the possibilities are startling. At the moment basic nanostructured materials, engineered enzymes, and the many products of biotechnology are enormously useful in medicine. However, the full promise of nanomedicine is unlikely to arrive until after the development of precisely controlled or programmable medical nanomachines and nanorobots. Once nanomachines are available, the ultimate dream of every healer, medicine man, and physician throughout recorded history will, at last, become a reality. Programmable and controllable micro scale robots comprised of nanoscale parts fabricated to nanometre precision will allow medical doctors to execute procedures in the human body at the cellular and molecular levels. Could this mark the end of the scalpel or hypodermic needle? It’s quite possible that drugs could be delivered by robots swallowed in pill form or that operations to repair damage or even remove normally inoperable cancers could be executed. The possibilities are endless but the ability to direct events in a controlled fashion at the cellular level is the key that will unlock the indefinite extension of human health. This then is the little world of nanotechnology in which scientists are pushing molecules around as if they were snooker balls, aligning them into perfect, precise tips for electronic devices. In the foreseeable future, products will include new ceramics, detectors, and medical scanners. For example, scientists want to copy the incredibly strong, interlinked proteins that cover a virus like chain mail, a development that could lead to the manufacture of powerfully strong fabrics. Other concepts include the creation of steel constructed out of tiny individual nanocrystals, making it stronger and more flexible. With such easy manipulation of molecules, you could create juicy steaks from basic chemical components extracted from sugar beet, maize husks and air. A bovine bypass. Great for vegetarians, and cows. In the end, the manufacture of virtually anything becomes possible if you can begin your construction using individual atoms. As the Nobel prize winner Richard Feynman once remarked, there is "plenty of room at the bottom"'. We are not quite there, of course. But then things can only get smaller. Kether Eaglestone, May 2003.

[Phil rr]

yeah

[Alex]

Any chance of a summary? I'm too full of beer to read more than a paragraph.

[Phil rr]

lil robots do stuff. could go wrong.

[Guest Kether]

I have aboslutely no idea why I posted this thread.

 

It's a good read though, I'm very talented.

 

[Dawn]

You must have felt the need, good read yes, not so sure of the talented part though

[Guest Kether]

QUOTE (Dawn @ Apr 9 2004, 12:18)

You must have felt the need, good read yes, not so sure of the talented part though

IT wouldn't be a good read if I wasn't talented.

[Alex]

QUOTE (Phil rr @ Apr 8 2004, 23:59)

lil robots do stuff. could go wrong.

Cheers for the summary.

[Dawn]

QUOTE (Kether @ Apr 9 2004, 13:25)

QUOTE (Dawn @ Apr 9 2004, 12:18) You must have felt the need, good read yes, not so sure of the talented part though  IT wouldn't be a good read if I wasn't talented. I'm not talented in the literacy sense but sometimes I think to myself 'my that was a good read' when i've read something i've wrote   I know what i mean

[Bungle]

Has it got anything to do with the nanobots in red dwarf?

 

I'm guessing its the same kind of thing, except the red dwarf version was probably funnier

[Lisa]

can someone please give me a quick break down & summary, as i cant read it!!

[Alex]

QUOTE (Lisa @ Apr 9 2004, 14:00)

can someone please give me a quick break down & summary, as i cant read it!!

See a few posts above.

[Phil rr]

QUOTE (Alex @ Apr 9 2004, 13:29)

QUOTE (Phil rr @ Apr 8 2004, 23:59) lil robots do stuff. could go wrong. Cheers for the summary. no probs   Lisa - write on a blackboard "i must read through threads" 10 times

[nuthead53]

mid first word i found it all to much, then gave up