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Science Technology

Viruses Enlisted as Nano-builders 105

Posted by michael from the so-that's-how-the-ship-gets-into-the-bottle dept.
Parsa writes "Nanotechnology is getting closer with genetically engineered viruses grabbing zinc sulfide and arranging themselves into highly organized structures. The story is here at MSNBC.com."
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Viruses Enlisted as Nano-builders More

Viruses Enlisted as Nano-builders

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  • Hmm...viruses (Score:2, Funny)

    by NaCh0 ( 6124 )
    According to reports, Microsoft is already leading the field.
  • This question is of particular relevance to the American readers: do you think the nano system will eventually replace the feet, miles, etc you are using? If yes, then when?
    • The nanosystem??? Ive always been taught it was called the metric system. Why bother learning it if they keep changing the name of it....
    • For instance:
      Distance: nanofurlongs (10^-9 furlongs, or 10^-8 chains)
      Liquid measure: nanohogshead (2*10^-9 liquid barrels)
      Quantity: nanogross (1.44*10^-7)
      Weight: nanostone (1.4*10^-8 U.K. pounds)
      also used:

      1 nanoscruple = 2*10^-10 grains (or 2 Ånggrains)
      1 nanodram = 3.2*10^-10 grains
      1 nanogill = 2.5*10^-10 nanopints
      1 nanoacre = 1.6*10^-7 nanosquare rods

  • Just great. (Score:4, Funny)

    by jackal! ( 88105 ) on Saturday May 04, 2002 @08:09PM (#3463971) Homepage
    Here I am unemployed, and they're giving high-tech jobs to viruses. Talk about a hit to the self-esteem.

  • links (Score:3, Informative)

    by Alien54 ( 180860 ) on Saturday May 04, 2002 @08:10PM (#3463977) Journal
    Angela Belch [utexas.edu], Lead researcher (personal page)

    Main Research Page [utexas.edu]

    And yes, they have Movies [utexas.edu], along with pretty pictures

  • Millions of viruses in solution can line up and stack themselves into layers, creating a material that flows like a liquid but maintains an internal pattern.

    Isn't this how the Blob was born?

    • Don't be stupid! The blob came from outer space on a meteor and when the old guy came to check it out it latched itself onto his arm... at least i'm talking about the original version... how sad.
  • All technology has the potential for abuse and many have been abused for nefarious ends. The reality for us all is the same now as it was for Prometheus. Nothing ventured nothing gained. If you prefer Henry T. Ford..."No One Can Stop An Idea Whose Time Has Come!"

    We must be vigilant but we must grow. Our world is dynamic not static and we need the long view to ensure the survivability of human kind. Sure we could destroy ourselves if we take the fire....but....we will most certainly perish if we play ostrich.

    Fortune Favours The Bold!
    • Good points made on the call for calm regarding the destructive potential of nanotech. A hammer can classified as a very useful tool to drive nails, pound things into place, etc. It can also be considered as a dangerous weapon when employed to bash in a human skull...ANYTHING can be used for good as well as bad. I'm sure there are some (ok, many) who tire of hearing me saying this, but I believe that it is worth repeating: There are a small handfull of technologies that are going to mature from the laboratory to commercial use very soon, prabably in about three or four years. Nanotechnology will be one of them, probably the first one. This will be like the micro-processor was to "the information age." It will happen fast, too fast by the standards of the chicken littles of the world. Most people don't have a good grasp on what this will mean to the world. Materials will be able to be designed atom-by-atom, producing materials that are now thought to be impossible to make. Imagine being able to make an alloy that is harder than steel, more resilliant than titanium, and weigh less than aluminum. If you really want to show off, you can make it superconducting at room temperature. Suddenly things like fusion reactors (ones that actually produce more power than they consume) will seem within reach. There will be a lot of changes resulting from this technology. It's best to make "change" your friend, otherwise, someone else will.
      • Nanotech could theoretically have immense destructive power, more so than any weapon of mass destruction we have today. Something that's going around manipulating molecular structures and replicating itself is a very potent tool. A nuclear weapon may be damaging, but it can't make more of itself.

        I agree that it's going to be essentially unavoidable - if one country outlaws it, the rest will keep researching - but it still is a little worrying.
      • Orangedog_on_crack wrote:

        > Good points made on the call for calm regarding the destructive
        > potential of nanotech.

        Calm is good as opposed to mindless panic. Calm is also good as opposed to carelessly ignoring such destructive potential, and forging on recklessly, for the sake of change, without regard to proper safeguards.

        > A hammer can classified as a very useful tool to drive nails, pound
        > things into place, etc. It can also be considered as a dangerous weapon
        > when employed to bash in a human skull.

        A hammer is more frequently dangerous because of unsafe working practices. If you hammer on something, and a piece of what you are working on flies into your eye, you could loose that eye. It is better to wear safety googles, keep your fingers well away from where your hammer is hitting, and keep your mind on what you are doing. A hammer is a simple, obvious tool. It is easy to figure out how to use it safely.

        It is far less obvious what to do about tiny nanocritters you can't even see, created by a relatively new field of science, with little accumulated history of what kinds of accidents are even possible to have. Furthermore, this technology will be subject to the control of corrupt and/or clueless governments, and big corporations, many of which care only for market position and/or the almighty dollar (yen, euro, etc.). Accidents can and do happen in the real world, and these two groups, with ignorance and greed resulting in safety precautions being ignored and costs being cut, are great breeding grounds for such accidents.

        > It will happen fast, too fast by the standards of the chicken littles of
        > the world.

        Rapidly followed by massive class action lawsuits over the town of 5,000 people whose spleens got turned into microchips by some escaped (and highly imaginative) nanocritters. Soon after, Equal Rights for Nanocritters formed to protest their slavery. (IANAL)

        > Suddenly things like fusion reactors (ones that actually produce more
        > power than they consume) will seem within reach.

        I thought we already had one of those. You know, that shiny thing in the sky? ;)

        > There will be a lot of changes resulting from this technology. It's best
        > to make "change" your friend, otherwise, someone else will.

        Last I heard, we couldn't have a cure to the common cold because those pesky virus bugs were so damn mysterious and hard to kill. Now we are genetically engineering them to do cute tricks for us, and poor humans still suffer from colds and flus. "Change" isn't a very compassionate "friend" when it is in the service of the big corporations.

        We "stole" fire from heaven millenia ago, and accidents (and arson) still result in the destruction of homes and businesses. We "stole" the godly flame of the atom nearly 60 years ago, and the last of the three major nuclear plant accidents occured in 1999 (Tokaimura, Japan -- caused by gross stupidity: fill open vat with nitric acid, add powdered nuclear fuel, invite Toho over to film a Godzilla attack on your plant, and mix with a really big spoon). If we still can't control those two without accident, what makes you think nanotechnology will be any different, particularly if we proceed with it rapidly?

        I'm not saying it's evil. I'm just urging caution and wise use.

        "What do you think Mothra would do?" - Moll, "Mosura" 1996

  • Bad Nano PR (Score:2, Insightful)

    by geoffsmith ( 161376 )
    With Bill Joy's alarmist speil [wired.com] about nanobots replicating out of control, this is hardly good PR for nanotech. I mean, viruses? We're talking about the most evil self-replicating things we can find, throw them in with nanotech and it doesn't exactly make a good association.

    Now I'm not particularly worried about these custom virii infecting humans, particularly if they're using virii that don't infect multicellular organisms (like the very cool bacteriophage [cellsalive.com] virus). I think the laymen will, however, and the last thing I want to see if governments restricting nanotech the way they are clamping down on biotech.

    Websurfing done right! StumbleUpon [stumbleupon.com]

  • Viral Viruses (Score:4, Funny)

    by SEWilco ( 27983 ) on Saturday May 04, 2002 @08:34PM (#3464051) Journal
    Can they GPL their technique, so they have a viral viral product?

  • Please come up with a snappy name (Score:4, Insightful)

    by FunkSoulBrother ( 140893 ) on Saturday May 04, 2002 @08:44PM (#3464063)
    If you continue to refer to them as "viruses", people will never support this sort of thing.

    Its like the people who follow Bush on "cloning". Oh sure, some of them have legit religious opposition, but most blindly think that a "clone" is some sort of sci-fi copy of yourself, when in reality, a full grown human clone would be an identical twin, and a totally different person, except for genetic traits.

    People are going to see virus and thing "little organism that kills" and we will never even get started.

    I hate stupid people.
    • thing = thinK

      so thats what the preview button is for!
    • Since these viruses infect bacteria and not eukaryotic cells, you can more specifically refer to them as bacteriophages. But while I see your point regarding knee-jerk reactions to terms like "cloning" and "viruses," at the same time, people have been using viruses for non-malignant purposes for quite a long time already, specifically for the purpose of immunization. The first scientific demonstration of this was way back in 1796 (with the use of the cowpox virus to immunize people against smallpox [nih.gov].) Immunization has gotten so commonplace that I don't think that too many people worry about having to be purposefully infected by a live attenuated virus like measles or mumps or rubella in order to go to school or work at a hospital. While there will definitely be some phobic people out there, I think that the utilization of viruses has become so relatively mundane that it won't be as big a deal as with cloning or even the theory of evolution.
    • And just what do you want to call them? Here are some suggestions:

      • Happy Kill-Machines
      • Silly-Willy-Buildy-Killies
      • Homocidal Huggies
      • Fun Uberbuilders, Can Kill (or as I prefer, the acronym FUC...)
      • Maybe a better acronym, like LOVE (Little Organisms of Villianous Emotion)

      Yeah, that will change the image of viruses ;)

    • If you continue to refer to them as "viruses", people will never support this sort of thing.

      Using bioengineered organisms is currently the best known bet for bootstrapping nanotechnology (out of the realm of bio). Viruses just happen to be smallest of these organisms, and there's no good reason for a name change.

      Rather than Euphemizing (which I hate), would it be so hard for people to understand that there's a difference between good viruses and bad viruses? Just like there's a difference between good radiation and bad radiation? And just like there's a diff between high seas piracy and copyright infringment? ... (Oh, wait...maybe you're right :)

      --

    • What exactly is legit about religious opposition? There was religious opposition to a heliocentric model of the solar system, was that legit? There was relgious opposition to the removal of slavery, was that legit too?Cat
  • The film produced by this virus cannot be used in mass production yet. It is necessary to replace the virus with a conductive material in the finished product.

    Interesting though. It seems we have a clear winner in the race between building smaller machines with smaller machines, or using biotech. Viruses are in!

  • Thanks (Score:4, Funny)

    by flynt ( 248848 ) on Saturday May 04, 2002 @08:57PM (#3464087)
    Thanks for the link to msnbc.com in the writeup, I knew that site existed, but I had forgotten where it was over the last couple days. Much appreciated.
  • We've found that this is a reversible process, that you can completely disassemble and reassemble these films, which is interesting from a biotechnology aspect," So you can build something, and then have it come apart? Let's say you use this technique to build a chip that goes into a popular motherboard. Then you combine it with someone with waaaaay too much time. Next thing you know script kiddies aren't just threatening to melt your box, they really are! :)
  • Checkout their people page [utexas.edu], and scroll to the bottom for pictures of some hectic research activity. These biochemists....

  • Immoral and extremely uncorrect (Score:3, Funny)

    by wackybrit ( 321117 ) on Saturday May 04, 2002 @09:34PM (#3464154) Homepage Journal
    This story disgusts me. It's wrong for Nike and Adidas to enslave living organisms in countries such as Africa and Bangkok but it's okay for American scientists to do it? Hell, Nike and Adidas even pay their living organisms 50 cents an hour.

    I say that we should negotiate labor rights with these creatures, let them have a 15 minutes 'osmosis break' every 4 hours, give them a good pay, and treat them with the respect they deserve!

  • If the make nanotubes, what happens when they get loose?

    Doc: "Billy, you've got nanitis, you need to stay away from pregnant women and flash photography."
    Billy: "Flash photography? You're kidding right?"
    Doc: "You don't have to, but don't blame me if you explode."

    Maybe that idea some indian tribes used to have about it bad to get your picture taken was right. Hey! There's a reporter here at my house to put me in the paper for this insight. You need a photograph for the front page? OK, what harm could it do? Wait... Noooooooo.........

    *KABOOM*
  • am i missing something? The article referred to modified viruses, that are capable of assembling nanostructures to high precision, and on a scale that we cannot en-masse build?

    If so, it it out of line to say that nanites have crossed the boundary from S.F. and "wouldn't it be cool?" and into reality?

    Now... they may not be general-purpose; like the first hard-wired digital computers, the structures they produce may be limited and not of immediate practical purpose, but it seems to me that these GM virues actually are nanites, and should be treated as such.

    These are fearful times we live in. I hope our new friends like us :/

  • This story reminds me of article I read in Scientific American that says that Virus are being developed to be super-effecive anti-bacterial Agents that can target only a strain or two of bacteria.

    It is only natural that we are using the simpilist form of life on earth to help us build technology, as viruses are (deadly) efficient. But when we start to inject viruses into humans, we need to modify them so they die soon and cannot reproduce.

    None the less this could be a major development in world of Technology.

    Medevo
  • Recently, a friend that works at a prestigious laboratory noted that they saw a very strange pattern of xenon atoms on top of a palladium plate. Assuming that it was a joke perpetrated by a coworker, it was never reported. While mostly illegible, he was able to make out several words.

    "We not slaves, ugly bags of mostly water."

    Both of us were perplexed, if it was a joke, we didn't get it.
  • The viruses formed a film that was strong enough to be handled with forceps. The organization of the film suggests to me that it would make an excellent substrate for a conventional hard drive or even solid state mass storage.
  • For those of you Slashdotters reading this and wondering how you control a group of viruses and make sure that they don't run rampant, you might be interested in this article on a DNA computer [yahoo.com]. The software, hardware, everything is made of biological material.

    Simply use the virus's DNA as part of the computer and manipulate it to do whatever you want. It's small and effective, as far as I can see.

    Marketing possibilities are also opening up. Can't you just envision Intel start making these viruses and/or DNA computers, show someone swallowing a test tube full of 'em on a commercial, and have him wear a shirt, "Intel Inside"? Horrible humour, I know, but so was a lot of the Blue Man Group commercials after the first two.
  • When I first read the title, I thought that we were dealing with another computer virus like Klez. Who wants a computer virus building hostile nanotechnology in their computers that crashes them or spies on them? (I know this is not possible today. This is meant to be a joke.)

    The title should have use the word "Biological" in front of "Viruses", considering that this board is Slashdot, a board that mainly deals with computer stuff.

  • Old-school nanomachines (Score:3, Informative)

    by AndyChrist ( 161262 ) <andy_christ@yah[ ]com ['oo.' in gap]> on Sunday May 05, 2002 @03:16AM (#3464816) Homepage
    I don't really see how this is fundamentally a novel concept...I mean viruses and bacteria have been operating on these scales forever, they've been manipulated for decades... It is interesting to hear that they're being used in a manner not dissimilar to earlier self-assembly techniques.

    The line about disassembly is interesting, though. If this is self-dissasembly and reassembly, wow, that makes for some interesting possibilities. Kind of like a ship-in-a-bottle, you could get devices into places with no route for the whole object...does your bladder need repair? Stick a catheter in, pump in whatever solution the nanotech-viruses need to operate, pump in the viruses, and let them build the surgical tools, then take them apart when they're done. Better than laproscopy (sp?), we could be talking about surgery through a syringe.

    I'm sure this could also be used for evil, as well...
      • I don't really see how this is fundamentally a novel concept...

      It may not be a fundamentally novel concept, but it is a demonstration of a new technology, actually creating virus-like entities to manipulate inorganic materials.

      It's definitely news.

  • If a bite from genetic-engineered spider makes that guy did what he did,
    just imagine what you can do if you get infected by this virus...
  • I remember an old 1968 or 1969 Marvel comic either Fantastic Four or Iron Man comic where the main character had to build a device and uses conducting microbes, program to move to a certain place and die. This created the layout of this device to activate some gateway. It may have been the Fantastic Four with help from Tony Stark.
  • As if most people weren't already scared to open the case of their computers... now they'll think that they'll not only break it, but that they'll get sick too.

    This may actually make tech support easier, if more morons were afraid to pop open the case.
  • Lets hope we dont end up having to feed our CCD sensors in the future, you know, "Pick up some Purina CCD Chow...!"
  • You wanna talk about nano stuff, you gotta get the word from Steve Gibson. He's the only guy what knows about Micromolecular Prophylactic Filter Technology and stuff like that.

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