Scientists are wrestling with individual atoms to develop molecule-sized computers, tiny cancer-fighting robots that travel the bloodstream and stain-resistant trousers.
Suddenly, Things are Turning up NanoTech
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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have also given rise to the near term fruition of growing fully functional organs and not just tissues.
in a few years, some lucky heart patient will get a new heart grown from his/her own bone marrow stem cells, allowing for perfect matching and no rejection!!!
I hope Kidneys are next as my son would really benefit from that.
Well that’s good and all. But what’s the timeframe?
I want nanoprobes to do one of those of me! And correct any deviations as they arise. Or if I could get a similar copy of Arny or a younger Harrison… maybe even Tom Cruise…
>in a few years, some lucky heart patient will get a new heart grown from his/her own bone marrow stem cells, allowing for perfect matching and no rejection!!!
No not a lucky patient, but a rich one. Even the advanced medical threatments of today only ~10% of the world population can afford. I mean all this progress is great but what about bringing basic stuff like antibiotics to the other ~90%? You know a *large* part of the human population still can’t read/write while we’re talking about nanobots here. This isn’t an leftist rant, I don’t care much about other people but I still think it should be said at least once to knock back some sense of reality into some geek heads.
I totally agree with you and all but i dont really think that its either or. Researching for new technoligies can actually help third world countries get cheaper medications thanks to what the first world come up with. For example, botswana(africa) have some extensive amount of diamon-mining going on and they are not using steam-engine machines to get the stuff out – they are using the same kinda machines that we in the first world do!
And the same goes for medicine. If paracetamol-pills can be made using some cheaper method it is good not only for the US but for the poor guys too!
just my 2 euro-cents
But I tend to stain trousers, so I could use a pair of stain-free ones.
I could always just laminate my pants. Super-thick lamination, so that any water spilled just bounces off and lands on lesser pants.
Best. Trousers. Ever.
It’s trivial but CPU also use nanotechnology .. 😛
I did not said that progress is bad / totally worthless for the poorer parts of the population, just that most of the benefits won’t affect them.
>not only for the US but for the poor guys too!
I don’t remember the exact numbers but quite a lot US Americans live below the poverty line and have no health insurance while in every third-world country there is a small elite of land lords, gangsters etc. that is ultra-rich. Poverty has no nationality.
No, cpu’s are etched at near nanometers in scale, but CPU-technology is not nanotechnology.
Nanotechnology is a wierd buzz-word anyway. “Nanoparticles” have been in commercial chemical products for over 60 years. We used to call them colloids.
I think a fair definition is that nanotech is science that uses very small components or particles, and that excludes CPUs.
and debman: that doesn’t sound like it uses nanotech, but what do I know.
Nanotechnoly as proposed by E. Dexler is to create things out of molecules which are precisely controlled: this molecule goes here, this one goes there, etc..
This “nanotech” in the article is just classical chemistry using small particles, no position control at all.
“Poverty has no nationality.” – Correct. In the US that difference is much smaller than other countries. Also it is not a function of government to ensure everyone makes x amount of money or more. Almost anyone can make it in this country, and those who don’t have made the wrong choices.
The ‘poverty’ line in the US is like 15 grand a year.
In some areas of the country, you can live just fine that way(Alabama) because the cost of living is nil.
The so called ‘disparity’ from rich to poor(in US) is largely nonexistent in the long run. Something like 80 percent of the lowest 20 percent will rise to the upper half of income earners in their lifetime.
Nice to hear from you Mr Marx. I remember in your ‘Communist Manifesto’
(section:BOURGEOIS AND PROLETARIANS) you detailed a poor vs rich scenario needed for Communism to take hold. Glad to see you are still on the case.
http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/classics/manifesto.html
http://www.nationmakers.com/com_man.htm
Oh, please. Should I even reply to this?
I won’t because I don’t want to start a long, totally off-topic discussion.
Max (who has no sympathy at all for communism)
Nope he’s still dead, I walked past his grave a week ago 🙂
Socialism has been proven it’s too flawed to function, but that doesn’t mean we can’t pick and choose some of the more relaistic ideas…
Agreed. It’s OT & wrong.
Anyway back to the main subject. Nanotech sounds interesting but it looks like we are a long way from some of science fiction dreams. Our understanding and control is still a ways off.
Biology of course can teach us quite a bit about working at that scale, even if most of it is at the molecular level.
Socialism has been proven it’s too flawed to function, but that doesn’t mean we can’t pick and choose some of the more relaistic ideas…
The same can be said for capitalism.
I’m sure we’ve made some amazing advances in Nanotechnology in the last couple years. Unfortunately for us the media is too dumb to even be able to report what is nanotechnology. And most of the public could care less. From my perspective we do not appear to be a country that wants to progress. We’re a country that just wants everyone to have kids so we can tell them what to do and who to be.
Go be a nanotech scientist dear. Wouldn’t that be neat?
And when the rugs gets pulled out from under them?
I think we’re slowly moving into a Gibson type of world. And I think we deserve it.
u could use nanobots to build a terminator to terminate john connors, the t-1000
Yeah right. For most people… most of the time…. our medicare program here in Canada works. Granted if you require a hospital.. things sometime take time… but hey…its free and a basic right. I’m willing to pay some more tax for those less fortunate than myself.
<grin>
Sweden is much more extreme… but I believe many there are happy too.
Even the U.S. has some socialism… you just have to look around you.
The world is fully of hybrids, guys. I’m partial to our (Canada’s) hybrid… but thats a function of growning up here, most likely.
😉 I like the States too… so tempted by lower taxes… but turned off by violence / gun control issues.
l8r
Communism might have been a good idea if it had happened several hundred years later.
If nanotech actually progressed to the point where Drexler dreams it will go, Capitalism would completely break down. If nanobots did all the work, what would the average person do to earn an income? I doubt that a sevice economy would be large enough to support the entire population (esp. if robotics really advanced).
You would almost have to have a political system where people worked if they wanted to, but otherwise had their needs provided for by the state.
Isn’t that how the world functions in Star Trek?
Why would I want tiny cancer-fighting robots travelling my stain-resistant trousers?
to join the partly off topic discussion:
It is true that the major medical inventions are usually first available to the rich. But as time goes by they come available to wider public too, even in the poorer countries – especially if the politics of that country work towards that goal: a welfare system for all citizens.
Like someone said there are often lots of riches and resources in the so-called poorer countries too, but often the just are in fewer hands. There’s basically no reason (except political will) backing such countries from developing their society towards a welfare state kind of system, where medical care is also supported more by the state.
In Europe there are many economically succesfull countries that also have a good welfre system. Sweden and Finland are good examples. Finland is thought by many experts to be the leading and most advanced information society today, ahead of the USA, Japan etc. Yet its politics are such (=high taxation) that people don’t so easily fall outside the welfare state safety nets than in some other harder kind of societies. Because of the state support people have better opportunities for medical care, higher education etc. In fact, researches like Manuel Castells say that just because of that welfare system, also the information system economy is so succesfull (see for example: http://www.tt.fi/arkisto/gethtml.pl?ft_cid=2116 )
sorry I have been out all day.
any way, the time frame is indeterminate because they do not know the unforeseen problem, but if the past is any predictor, I would say 5 years for an initial prototype. in the last 10 years we have moved from growing new skin, to regenerating entire portions of already existing organs. now, they can make tissues from any part of the body. the problem with moving 3 dimensional as in organ growth is oxygen.
oxygen can not permeate deep enough with out a structure to take it deep, like capillaries do in the body.
they have already developed temporary lattice structures that they can grow the tissue on in 3 dimensions, and now thanks to nano tech, they have the lasers needed to make make shit blood vessels, except they will have pure oxygen running through them. the next step will be how to get the cells around these mini tubes to turn into the appropriate blood vessels rather than regular tissue for the organ.
they have already begun work on lasering out lattice and testing on small scale, and once they get the kinks worked out, they will move forward into large scale (size wise) testing to see if they can make parts of hearts and things like that.
that is why I say about 5 years for a prototype, the tech is there now, they just need to work out the process and they can begin making them.
I can’t wait until they make condoms out of nano particles so I can still get all that nice, warm, wet lovin’ sensation without the dull, blunted feeling of wearing a traditional condom!
*wink*
Hmmm… I thought you were going to say you needed a really small one!
You thought wrong