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Science Technology

A Review of Nanotech's Future 340

Posted by michael from the tiny-bubbles dept.
captainsaavik writes "A Washington Post article today reviews nanotechnology - 'Nanotechnology, the hot young science of making invisibly tiny machines and materials, is stirring public anxiety and nascent opposition inspired by best-selling thrillers that have demonized the science -- and new studies suggesting that not everything in those novels is fantasy.'"
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A Review of Nanotech's Future More

A Review of Nanotech's Future

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  • Unstoppable (Score:5, Interesting)

    by IanBevan ( 213109 ) * on Sunday February 01, 2004 @07:01PM (#8154101) Homepage

    We will research, improve, innovate and ultimately implement nanotech solutions for one simple reason: we can. It's been the same right throughout human history.

    The views of the objectors, no matter how well founded and how well intentioned, will not lead to r&d into nanotech (or any other new technology, including human cloning) being stopped. At best it might be delayed, but even then the money to be made by Big Business makes this unlikely IMO.

    Can anybody think of any kind of new technology that has been abandoned, or even significantly delayed, through alleged (or real) risks ? I suspect new technologies are only abandoned because they are not feasible either technically or commercially (cost too much, too late to market etc) rather than for some ethical or environment consideration.

    • Re:Unstoppable (Score:5, Insightful)

      by RetroGeek ( 206522 ) on Sunday February 01, 2004 @07:04PM (#8154124) Homepage
      new technology that has been abandoned, or even significantly delayed, through alleged (or real) risks

      Nuclear energy.

      • Re:Unstoppable (Score:4, Interesting)

        by FlipmodePlaya ( 719010 ) on Sunday February 01, 2004 @07:19PM (#8154209) Journal
        If it counts for anything, most of my area is powered by a nuclear plant... It hasn't really been abandoned, judging by the electric bill I'm continually served with.

        • Re:Unstoppable (Score:3, Interesting)

          by BrookHarty ( 9119 )
          If it counts for anything, most of my area is powered by a nuclear plant... It hasn't really been abandoned, judging by the electric bill I'm continually served with.

          All are old and outdated power plants, with no new plans for any new plants to be built. Shame, it was killed due to people passing zoning laws, nobody wants a nuclear plant next door...

          Just look at the power needs during the last few year and the whole Enron scandal. There is a need thats not being fulfilled, the DOE said by 2010 we would

          • Re:Unstoppable (Score:3, Insightful)

            by HiThere ( 15173 ) *
            ???
            Enron was criminal fraud, political corruption, high level double dealing, etc. They could do it as well with water as with electricity. In fact, I've heard that some of the major players have shifted their focus.

            Yes, we need power. This doesn't necessarily mean nuclear power, and this doesn't necessarily mean coal power. I'm getting ready to start pricing a solar roof. (One of my neighbors has one, has been quite happy with it, and is selling power back to the grid most months.)

            Now I'll grant you

      • Re:Unstoppable (Score:3, Insightful)

        by ikkonoishi ( 674762 )
        Not to mention DDT which could stop millions of deaths due to malaria.

        Which was killed by enviromental groups to increase their political power despite being no danger [junkscience.com] to anything but insects.
        • So referring to my original post... DDTs r&d was not affected by environmental or ethical considerations then - it was political.

        • Re:Unstoppable (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Scrameustache ( 459504 ) on Sunday February 01, 2004 @07:54PM (#8154419) Homepage Journal
          Not to mention DDT which could stop millions of deaths due to malaria.
          Which was killed by enviromental groups to increase their political power despite being no danger to anything but insects.

          So you watch nightline, or 20/20, or whatever show that "give me a break" shill is on.

          DDT accumulates in the food chain. The beluga population is severly affected by DDT poisoning to this day even though it has been banned for a very long time.

          I watched that part of the programm because I wanted to hear why he claimed that aspartame was totally safe. He didn't, he just talked about DDT after having named aspartame as one of the products that are "falsely" considered harmfull.
          I am very sensitive to aspartame, if I absentmindedly accept a sugarless mint or gum from someone, I'll suffer a severe migraine wich renders me totally incapable of doing anything for hours. Safe my ass...

          Give ME a break.

          • Re:Unstoppable (Score:4, Insightful)

            by G-funk ( 22712 ) <josh@gfunk007.com> on Sunday February 01, 2004 @08:22PM (#8154553) Homepage Journal
            I am very sensitive to aspartame, if I absentmindedly accept a sugarless mint or gum from someone, I'll suffer a severe migraine wich renders me totally incapable of doing anything for hours. Safe my ass...

            So what? If my brother eats a brazil nut, he'll keel over and die... Should we ban them? I can eat them till the cows come home and I'll just get fat(ter). Some people are allergic to some shit. Some people get sick/headaches/whatever if they eat msg, but to 99% of the population, it's just like salt with an evil name.... it simply makes your food taste a little better.

            And there goes my mod points i gave to the grandfather post, too...
            • Some people get sick/headaches/whatever if they eat msg, but to 99% of the population, it's just like salt with an evil name.... it simply makes your food taste a little better.

              For MSG, its basically a matter of dosage. It doesn't take much to make me sick, it takes more to make most other people sick, and it doesn't make most asians sick.

              The thing is, the MSG and aspartame producing companies invest a lot of effort and money in preventing their drugs from being regulated.

              Because that is what MSG is, a

              • Re:Unstoppable (Score:3, Interesting)

                by tgibbs ( 83782 )
                Because that is what MSG is, a drug. It induces pleasure, its addictive (it makes me sick and I can't stop myself from eating it, I'm definatly addicted to that shit).

                Glutamate is a lot of things. It is an amino acid, found in essentially all protein. Injected into the nervous system at high concentrations, it can be toxic, but it is also a neurotransmitter that is critical for learning.

                Some people have adverse effects after eating it, but for most it merely enhances the taste of food. It is now known to

            • Re:Unstoppable (Score:3, Interesting)

              by IthnkImParanoid ( 410494 )

              So what? If my brother eats a brazil nut, he'll keel over and die... Should we ban them? I can eat them till the cows come home and I'll just get fat(ter). Some people are allergic to some shit. Some people get sick/headaches/whatever if they eat msg, but to 99% of the population, it's just like salt with an evil name

              Of course, if we were to grind up brazil nuts, load the powder into crop dusters, and spray nearly every vegetable produced in the U.S. with them I think there would be cause for complaint.

          • Re:Unstoppable (Score:3, Informative)

            by MarkusQ ( 450076 )

            The whole anti-aspartame case is based on an urban legend [snopes.com], which started, IIRC, with some "research" published to promote a stock fraud scheme by a "food science" professor at ASU (Arizona State University). Dispite the chemical implausibility of the reactions he proposed (unfavorable reaction paths that require odd conditions + heat to occur even in theory, no repeatable demonstration of them under any condition) has taken on a life of its own. Many people (on both sides) have a vested interest in "winn

        • No danger? (Score:5, Insightful)

          by fm6 ( 162816 ) on Sunday February 01, 2004 @07:58PM (#8154438) Homepage Journal
          I'm not even going to try to refute anything on junkscience.com. The guy just picks whatever studies seem to back up his agenda, and. Like when he claimed that abestos insulation would have prevented the fall of the WTC towers. And when somebody points out the flaws in his claims (abestos is not that superior to other kinds of insulation), he just insists that he never said what you think he said. That makes any link to his site a non-argument. And plenty of reputable scientists do consider DDT a health hazard. Hey, by the time it was banned, it was reaching toxic levels in human milk.
          • The problem with DDT was the frickin' amount being used. Obviously you haven't seen the film of happy people being voluntarily gassed with insane amounts of the stuff. No wonder it was reaching toxic levels in boob-juice. It'd probably still be in use today if it had been used in sensible amounts (i.e. very small).

            "Boob-juice"... heh heh heh.
            • The problem with DDT was the frickin' amount being used. Obviously you haven't seen the film of happy people being voluntarily gassed with insane amounts of the stuff.

              That "gimme a break" guy was saying "none of these people got sick from DDT" while showing that footage.

              I think he has shares in a DDT manufacturing company and is using his TV spot to make the stock rise a bit...
            • The problem with DDT is that it is a poisonous excuse for not using one's brain.

              I used to live across the street from a river, and up the road from a marsh. Yet I could go out a night without fear of mosquito bites! Why? Bats, an army of 2,000 of them, patrolling the skies every night during mosquito season, sucking up the insects like a vacuum cleaner. They were cute little brown bats, and thanks to them, I could star gaze in safety.

              Mosquitos are, with the exception of females in mating season, basically

        • Re:Unstoppable (Score:3, Informative)

          by canadian_right ( 410687 )
          From the Junkscience web site

          "Steven J. Milloy is the publisher of JunkScience.com, an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute, and a columnist for FoxNews.com. "

          They love nuclear power, don't see a problem with "second hand smoke", and in general are for anything that can make a buck. While there may be interesting information at the site it certainly does have an agenda.

        • Re:Unstoppable (Score:4, Interesting)

          by NixLuver ( 693391 ) <stwhite&kcheretic,com> on Sunday February 01, 2004 @08:06PM (#8154478) Homepage Journal
          I know that here in the midwest, the red-tailed hawk has recovered in population - you never saw them at all when I was a child.

          I've also seen the nests with crushed eggs that collapsed under the weight of the mother 'way back in the gradeschool days, from people who weren't aware of any political agenda behind DDT.

          I'm not one to reject out of hand the concept of the government putting political and corporate concerns above and ahead of the health of their citizens. Perhaps you can tell me, then, if it wasn't the DDT used extensively here in the country's breadbasket, what, exactly, was it that caused the fragility of the Raptor's eggs back then, and where did it go?

        • Re:Unstoppable (Score:5, Informative)

          by fenix down ( 206580 ) on Sunday February 01, 2004 @09:04PM (#8154833)
          God, I can't wait for that crazy motherfucker to go away.

          Most of what he says there is reasonably accurate, but he also does a good job of leaving out most of the actual problems DDT has. He does a nicely comprehensive job documenting the predictably hysterical behavior of pop-scientists and the inefficacy of committees in doing anything useful, but jumping from there to advocating unbanning DDT is kinda insane.

          DDT is poison. This is the whole point. It's also fat-soluable. One of the many things that Junky doesn't talk about is DDT's effect of bats. Bats were hit pretty damn hard by DDT, because bats migrate, and when bats migrate, they first load up on fat, which is full of DDT, so when they start burning their fat in migration season, the DDT level in their blood suddenly goes through the roof and they all die and end up all over your back yard.

          Same thing happens to people. Like most fat-soluable chemicals, DDT is cumulative. In an environment saturated with DDT, like the US in 1970, you take in more than you pass. The .0026mg/kg body weight Junky mentions as a safe dose just means that it takes about 5 years of eating fish, vegetables, etc. for you to build up enough DDT in your fat to give you the effects of a good stroke. The trick to avoiding that is to never lose weight.

          Based on just the numbers Junky has, you take a 250lb farmer who's been ingesting 17, 18mg/day of DDT on the farm, have him work hard for 25 years, have a heart attack when he hits 50, decide to try and come down to 180, succeed, and then suddenly he drops dead because he's been flooding his system with backed-up DDT at 400mg/day as he burns off the fat.

          Regardless, the millions of lives are being saved anyway. We push DDT all over the 3rd world, it's not like Ghana's banned the stuff. The sad thing is we give them the same old shit that mosquitos have been selected to avoid and tolerate since facism was still cool instead of the vastly more effective, safer, and more stable products we've come up with in the intervening 1-1/4 centuries.
        • Indiscriminately spraying tons of DDT over every domestic crop in the world is a Bad Idea - DDT is a pretty nasty substance to have in the food chain in massive quantities; I'm sure I don't need to review the effects. But, if it were used correctly, the way its inventor intended, it would be the Magic Bullet against malaria, without wreaking massive environmental havoc. (Source: New Yorker article about two years ago, reference it yourself. Interesting tangent - the New Yorker was the mag that serialized Si

      • Nuclear power was only delayed in the US. (Score:5, Informative)

        by Behrooz ( 302401 ) on Sunday February 01, 2004 @07:33PM (#8154291)
        Close to 100% of France's electrical power is nuclear, and they export power to much of western Europe.

        Japan is big on nukes, also.

        Actually, just about every industrialized country other than the USA sees the risks as much less of a barrier to development than they are here... blame the idiot wing of the environmental lobby and the pathetic PR efforts of utilities here for shutting down nuclear in the US, resulting in hundreds of thousands of deaths from coal-fired power plant emissions over the last several decades.

    • Re:Unstoppable (Score:5, Informative)

      by jabberjaw ( 683624 ) on Sunday February 01, 2004 @07:25PM (#8154247)
      Can anybody think of any kind of new technology that has been abandoned, or even significantly delayed, through alleged (or real) risks ?
      GM crops outside of the United States.

    • Health risks? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Saeed al-Sahaf ( 665390 ) on Sunday February 01, 2004 @07:28PM (#8154264) Homepage
      Can anybody think of any kind of new technology that has been abandoned, or even significantly delayed, through alleged (or real) risks?

      I think one of the more realistic fears is not the new toys of spying and things that might creep into our personal freedoms, but rather environmental issues. And here, I don't mean the nasty chemicals needed to produce these things, but rather nanotube detritus finding it's way into our ecosystem and food sources. Certainly there is now and there has always been nano dirt in our air and finding it's way into our bodies, but these new engineered shapes may have unforeseen health issues, much like asbestos in the last 30 years.

    • Yes I can....big oil successfully stopped r&d of a water powered car. It was ugly back then, but where would we be today if that technolgy flourished?
      • But again, that's not ethical or environmental, it's purely economic, isn't it ?

      • Re:Unstoppable (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Smidge204 ( 605297 ) on Sunday February 01, 2004 @10:58PM (#8155390) Journal
        Oh yes, every time someone invents a motor that violates the laws of thermodynamics, it's Big Oil that steps in to silence them!

        I have yet to find a single credible source explaining how the "Water engine" is supposed to operate. Perhaps you can point me to one?

        It's always put up or shut up. Talk all you want but proof is proof. So far every nutball that claimed to build an engine that runs on water or an overunity device or inertial propulsion system has denied anyone credible from examining their invention.

        Big Oil my ass. Maybe it just doesn't actually work? What could you possibly do to the water to get out more energy than you put in, or use the energy more efficiently by manipulating water than using it directly? Got any credible sources? If you do please share, I'm willing to accept the concepts if they are properly represented with lucid facts and backed by real data.
        =Smidge=

  • still a dream (Score:5, Insightful)

    by wmeyer ( 17620 ) on Sunday February 01, 2004 @07:03PM (#8154109)
    Nanotechnology may yet become the AI of the 21st century. As the nightmare stories about the risks of runaway tech will undoubtedly appeal to the enviro folk out there, I anticipate heavy resistance to widespread adoption of the results.
    • The way your statements are positions, it appears that you're suggesting AI isn't popular because of widespread resistance to its adoption (which I know your not, cuz that would be preposterous).

      A better analogy, already made upstream, would be with nuclear power (not that nuclear power is necessarily safe).

  • The ultimate vaporware... (Score:5, Funny)

    by mobiux ( 118006 ) on Sunday February 01, 2004 @07:04PM (#8154118)
    I can just see it now,
    Some salesguy holding up an empty glass.
    "No, No, they are really in there, you just can't see them."
    • Somehow I get the feeling nanotech is a solution looking for a problem.

      • Re:The ultimate vaporware... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by ikkonoishi ( 674762 ) on Sunday February 01, 2004 @07:29PM (#8154273) Journal
        Nanotech if it takes off like predicted will basically change society like electricty did.

        Want a new car?

        Dump some scrap metal in the factory, load up the car image you torrented off the internet last night, and in a few hours you have your new ferrai.

        We might start getting beer that is free as in software. :)
      • Nanotech if it takes off like predicted will basically change society like electricty did.

        Want a new car?
        br> Dump some scrap metal in the factory, load up the car image you torrented off the internet last night, and in a few hours you have your new ferrai.

        We might start getting beer that is free as in software. :)

         If you hated the reaction from the RIAA/MPAA, wait for the reaction of lobbyists for the entire industrial sector.
        The objective value of any good is only the cost of making an ident
      • Nanotechnology is interesting primarily because if you have it it's a kind of solution for all possible manufacturing problems. It allows you to build incredibly complex and yet highly reliable objects from a very small scale to currently unthinkably large ones. It provides improvements in processing power both from replacing all photo-litho processes on the silicon side, to the potential of rod logic. This of course is all still speculative since we have as of yet failed to do much more than observe that i

    • Re:The ultimate vaporware... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Saeger ( 456549 ) <farrellj@nosPAM.gmail.com> on Sunday February 01, 2004 @07:39PM (#8154324) Homepage
      Very funny, but what you call vaporware actually has a real name: "Utility Fog" [foresight.org]

      Imagine it as a huge mesh of strong, flexible, microscopic interlocking nodes with a distributed brain. Its density is so low that you couldn't see it in a volume as small as a glass, but like a cloud it becomes more opaque with thickness. Sort of like that aerogel stuff, but more XTREME(!).

      The applications of utility fog are boundless, but one I'm sure parents would love is the "security blanket" for their kids - the fog would act as smart 24/7 airbag extending for several feet around the body so little Timmy never gets bruised falling down the stairs...

      --

      • I'm hoping that Wil McCarthy is successful in his development of programmable matter [sciencebar.com], AKA Wellstone. I want a Bunkerlite(tm) jacket! :D

      • The applications of utility fog are boundless, but one I'm sure parents would love is the "security blanket" for their kids - the fog would act as smart 24/7 airbag extending for several feet around the body so little Timmy never gets bruised falling down the stairs...

        The Timmy's of the world then learn a new game: "how far can I fall without getting bruised?"

        Similar concepts are explored in "The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect" [kuro5hin.org] -- highly recommended (free!) reading. Localroger's short story (no

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Sunday February 01, 2004 @07:04PM (#8154122)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:Fear Monger (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Thing 1 ( 178996 )
      Invisible machines are just that, invisible. The machines can be machines to kill. If they are not detected, they can accomplish their goal.

      I found the fortune surprisingly appropriate for this discussion: "Never worry about theory as long as the machinery does what it's supposed to do." -- R. A. Heinlein

    • Re:Fear Monger (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Saeger ( 456549 )
      That's why the good guys have to "get there" first. If we don't in effect infest the people and the earth with an active artificial immune system before the bad guys let lose (or the good guys have an accident), we're screwed.

      --

  • Why Prey (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Crashmarik ( 635988 ) on Sunday February 01, 2004 @07:04PM (#8154123)
    With so much good fiction out there why did they have to take a book that got the science unbelieveably wrong. If they wanted something closer to the mark they could have at least taken Diamond Age. Some of the predictions in that book have allready come to pass.
  • ...the truth of nanotech's future probably lies at neither extreme: I doubt that the disastrous runaway growth grey goo scenarios will be true, nor will they be the be-all and end-all of any kind of physical and biological technology. They'll probably have many useful applications though, possibly concentrated all in one field.

  • Prey (Score:2, Informative)

    by gcaseye6677 ( 694805 )
    Michael Crichton's Prey [crichton-official.com] is an excellent science fiction novel about nanotechnology and the possible problems with it. Its an awesome technology, but I would be very concerned about possible abuse or mistakes.
    • While I definitely don't disagree with your point, what technology can't be abused? I'm sure if I thought hard enough there's probably something out there, but the fact is, just about anything can be abused in some way or another, and very likely will be.

      It's one of the sicker aspects of our race - invent something and we'll find a way to abuse it.

    • Re:Prey (Score:2, Interesting)

      by ikkonoishi ( 674762 )
      Isn't prey the novel were the guy actully has to run from the nanites that he sees chasing him?

      If not there are plenty [nanotech-now.com] of other errors.
    • More fiction than science from what I've read. There are some basic energy constraints that limit what self-replicating molecules can and can't do. The people proposing this stuff should read up on microbial ecology.

    • If science fiction is the literature of how people cause or react to scientific change, then Crichton is the literature of how people react to virtual change. Like virtual particles that show up then cancel away, the scientific change in MC's novels isn't really a permanent change. You end up back where you started, albeit with the threat that it might come back.

      Plus, of course, the expectation in SF is both that the writer gets all current science right, and that extrapolations are (as much as possible)

  • Diamond Age, I pray for thee (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Azghoul ( 25786 ) on Sunday February 01, 2004 @07:08PM (#8154144) Homepage
    ... and I'm a friggin atheist. :)

    Man, I can't wait. Of course, the greatest innovations of the coming Diamond Age haven't even been imagined yet, if history is any guide.......

    (just wish they'd hurry up)

  • IPv6 and RFID (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 01, 2004 @07:08PM (#8154145)
    ...is not enough for a trillion trillion trillion trillion........ of nano bots.

  • fantasy? ya right (Score:4, Interesting)

    by t0ny ( 590331 ) on Sunday February 01, 2004 @07:09PM (#8154152)
    The early claims ranged from immortality to Star Trek-like shields.

    First, its going to be really hard, IMO, to get these things to autoreplicate as suggested. Shit, we cant even get large robots to replicate; how will they get nano-sized ones to do so?

    Personally, I only see nanotech being used in manufacturing, but eventaully branching into other things after a century or so (similiar to the way computer tech has spread).

  • New Slashdot Icon? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 01, 2004 @07:11PM (#8154166)
    Come on, make one for nanotech already. It only has to be one pixel!!

  • Backlash. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jabberjaw ( 683624 ) on Sunday February 01, 2004 @07:16PM (#8154197)
    Does anyone recall the hostility encountered with GM crops in Europe and Africa? I do believe that corporations are going to have to take a good long hard look at how they are going to handle the public with regards to nanotech.
    • The great thing about nanotech is that, once you use it to develop extreme life extension technology, you just wait for your opponents to die out!

      Come winter time the gorillas simply freeze to death. - Principal Skinner

    • The backlash isn't about the tech itself (Score:4, Informative)

      by Quizo69 ( 659678 ) on Monday February 02, 2004 @04:58AM (#8156829) Homepage
      Yes, there is a huge backlash against GM crops in Europe and Africa (and other places too). It's NOT, however, due to the technology itself, but rather it's a backlash against the companies concerned making the modded seeds sterile, thus forcing farmers into subsistence and reliance on a single source of seeds forever (the ultimate genetic customer lock-in), or worse yet, having those seeds spread to normal crops, rendering THEM sterile. That's why countries refused shipments of American excess grain unless they were milled down - they didn't want their citizens planting the sterile seeds and condemning themselves to a barren wasteland when those seeds don't germinate.

  • Nanotech (Score:5, Informative)

    by ikkonoishi ( 674762 ) on Sunday February 01, 2004 @07:18PM (#8154202) Journal
    This site [responsibl...nology.org] has a lot of good information on nanotechnology.

    Among other things they address the 'grey goo' or uncontrolled replicator issue.

    Basically it would require a deliberate effort to create such a thing.

    The spread, while exponential, would be slow due to a nanite's size.

    • Re:Nanotech (Score:5, Insightful)

      by DAldredge ( 2353 ) <SlashdotEmail@GMail.Com> on Sunday February 01, 2004 @07:24PM (#8154236) Journal
      And thank God we live in a world where humans don't purposly try to kill millions of their own kind.

      Oh, wait....
    • The spread, while exponential, would be slow due to a nanite's size.

      Have you ever looked closely at an exponential function?
      Suppose their number doubles every step (that's exponential). A day before the whole earth is covered with them, only halve the earth would be covered. So, while at the beginning it might go slowly, once it catches up speed (that speed doubles also every step!), there's no stopping it.
      Note that I'm just attacking this statement, I'm not saying it would be probable to happen or someth

  • Nanotech potential is oversold (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Nanotech is clearly being oversold. The one area that really appears to have some future potential is in construction materials for very tiny roller coasters at gnat theme parks.

  • Small machines. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    "A Review of Nanotech's Future"

    Biology's doing rather well.

  • Nanotech Spam (Score:4, Funny)

    by erick99 ( 743982 ) <homerun@gmail.com> on Sunday February 01, 2004 @07:27PM (#8154260)
    Great..soon I will get spam touting how little nanotech machines can provide a better and longer lasting erection? Hey, it could happen. Happy Trails, Erick

  • Grey goo fake/medical risks real (Score:5, Interesting)

    by kirkjobsluder ( 520465 ) <kirk@@@jobsluder...net> on Sunday February 01, 2004 @07:50PM (#8154389) Homepage
    One of the things that I appreciated about this article was how it only spent a small bit on the grey goo hypothesis. The folks who propose any kind of a goo should step back from the science fiction, and read some biochemestry and microbial ecology. Energy is probably the primary limited resource for replication and there just is not that much out there available to nano-scale machines or organisms.

    The medical concerns should be taken seriously however. The Center for Biological and Environmental Nanotechnology has a nice page [rice.edu] that promises to be a clearinghouse for information on these issues.
    • Actually, if you look at it, any good article on technology would rarely contain elements of science fiction.

      The truth is, a lot of good technology out there is largely harmless.

      Sure, grey-goo is likely to happen. However, its as likely to happen as some random evil person in the world would get hold of a dirty bomb to wipe out half the world and hold us at ransom.

      Everytime I see people ranting about nano-tech, nuclear energy or global warming, this is what puts me off.

      The truth is, Nuclear Energy when
      • Sure, grey-goo is likely to happen. However, its as likely to happen as some random evil person in the world would get hold of a dirty bomb to wipe out half the world and hold us at ransom.

        I think your comparison is a bit off. I think grey goo is about as likely to happen as a random evil person creating a bomb that causes everybody's clothing to disappear leaving us unharmed but naked. The dirty bomb is possible, but unfeasable. The naked bomb is impossible. Toxic nanotech is possible. Grey goo is
        • Basically, I have yet to see any convincing argument that grey goo is possible. Where is this grey goo going to get the energy for even self-assembly from raw substrate, much less unchecked exponential growth?

          I'm not much of a bio guy, but i remember those experiments where you put some bacteria and watch them spread, or about how quickly fruit flys can reproduce and such. Getting the energy for exponential growth isn't such a hard thing. Developing nanotech that's as good at using sources of energy as b

  • Bad news is still news... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by thrill12 ( 711899 ) on Sunday February 01, 2004 @07:53PM (#8154417) Journal
    so this publicity is probably a good thing, even though they never tell the truth.
    I can still remember the days when these books hit the shelves:
    "Evil steam-monster" [about.com], around 1803, told a horrifying tale about a big steel monster that spewed steam, ran over everyone and made everyone cough very heavily.
    "Lightning horror!" [about.com], around 1877, very good thriller about artificially created light that made zombies of everyone so they couldn't stop working for the whole 24 hours.
    "Tube of death" [about.com], around 1926, which was mostly about a tube that transmitted moving light-beams and brainwashed everyone with stories about fictious people through their everyday lifes.

    See, nothing to worry about...

  • Gov't Downplaying Nanotech like Nuclear (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Saeger ( 456549 ) <farrellj@nosPAM.gmail.com> on Sunday February 01, 2004 @07:54PM (#8154422) Homepage
    Some of the best evidence for the feasibility of advanced nanotech is that the government has recently started up a disinformation campaign as a smokescreen to accelerate their own research. They did the same thing back in the 40's when developing nuclear weapons: publicly poopooing it on the one hand to discourage others, while actively developing it on the other.

    A salient quote from a nanodot.org article [nanodot.org] on this subject:

    After the seminar, I happen to bump into Drexler and have a rare opportunity to speak with him alone. I bring up the possibility that there could be a secret military project to develop nanoassemblers, and the current government position in the nanotech debate is a disinformation program.

    Following the briefest of pauses, Drexler looks me in the eye and replies in the same high, clear voice I'd heard him use during the panel discussion, "Those things are hard to know about." He still has his game face on.

    --

  • good and bad (Score:4, Insightful)

    by netwiz ( 33291 ) on Sunday February 01, 2004 @07:55PM (#8154425) Homepage
    All of us on /. like to cheerlead the coming wave of nanotech, but it's looking more all the time that while we may be on the cusp of a new industrial revolution, like the first IR, it will bring horrors to match its benefits. Probably the most significant point made by the article is that while this tech could be very beneficial, due to our lack of understanding of surface chemistry of most living organisms, some of the byproducts could be toxic to levels previously unknown to exist.

    Significant is this bit from the article:

    On average the reactions [to nanotube inhalation] were worse than those in mice given equal amounts of quartz particles, which toxicologists use as their "serious damage" standard.

    And this is from one dose, and they further state that even without continued exposure, the existing particles continued to produce damage, presumably beyond what a single exposure to quartz dust might produce.

    I fear that we'll rush headlong into this without thorough research, and do significant damage to ourselves and the rest of the world. Yah, that sounds all "tree huggy," but when they talk about accidentally killing all soil microorganisms over a large area, frankly, that kind of scares me.

    I'm starting to tilt towards a rant, so I'll keep this short, but given our recent history (asbestos, PCBs, tetraethyl lead), we're probably going to find ourselves chasing waste streams yet again, only much worse this time around.

    • Re:good and bad (Score:3, Insightful)

      by RetroGeek ( 206522 )
      bring horrors to match its benefits

      Which pretty well describes ANY technological advance, from the first person to rub two sticks together to produce fire, to the latest Gee-whiz technology.

      And once it has been discovered (or invented?), it is here to stay. Once Pandora's box has been opened, you cannot stuff the contents back in.

      The best we can do is get the best understanding we can of it, then manage it.

      People WILL die, but somewhere down the line it will benefit more people than will die from it.

      W

      • Re:good and bad (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Saeger ( 456549 ) <farrellj@nosPAM.gmail.com> on Sunday February 01, 2004 @08:16PM (#8154529) Homepage
        There's a big difference, though, between present/future and past technological advances. Our tech now evolves faster than our primitive brains are able to cope with. We barely survived the invention of nukes.

        Unless intelligence augmentation (IA & AI) is near on the horizon to reduce that gap, it's very likely we'll end up destroying ourselves. [gmu.edu]

        --

        • No... (Score:3, Insightful)

          by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) *
          We barely survived the invention of nukes

          "Barely survived" means a few thousand people holed up in military bunkers are the last people left on earth, with nuclear winter starting to snow overhead.

          As it was we used a few, built a lot more, and we're all doing quite fine. I would say "We survived the creation of nukes by an incredibly comfortable margin".

  • ideas for nanotechnology (Score:5, Funny)

    by z00ky ( 614811 ) <djzooky@@@ncws...com> on Sunday February 01, 2004 @08:01PM (#8154451) Homepage
    a replacement for viagra,
    a replacement for sex toys
    a breath-a-lyzer in your thumb! just suck your thumb and you'll find out how drunk you are!
    Slashdot Pager, your thumb vibrates when there's a new slashdot post so you can race to be the first person to post on that article
    a replacement for SCO
    and last but not least, my personal favorite...
    replacement for microsoft

  • 2000? "Grey Goo" hypothesis is older than this (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 01, 2004 @08:03PM (#8154465)
    The fears about nanotech existed far earlier than 2000. I don't know the origin of the term "grey goo" but I know it existed in the early '90s, as it is referenced by Ben Bova in his Moonbase series of novels, which deal with issues surrounding nanotech (unfortunately, from a purely scientific viewpoint, it seems..)

  • Biological nanotechnology (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ToKsUri ( 608742 ) on Sunday February 01, 2004 @08:09PM (#8154493)
    Is there any field of study of "biological nanotechnology" ? I have always found a big relationship in the way many biological features work with nanotechnology, but in a more comlicated and refines way
    For example a seed, could be considered as a nanotechnology machine which develops an extraordinary system (tree) by arranging the molecules in it sourrounding.
    • While we're still decades away from consideration of such things being worthwhile (this would be like thinking about how you'd allocate swap-space on your linux cluster when you were pretty close to figuring out how to make bronze), I must warn now against the annoyance associated with having clothing which outgrows you.
      Soviet Russia jokes aside.

  • I can see the future (Score:3, Funny)

    by Herkum01 ( 592704 ) on Sunday February 01, 2004 @08:17PM (#8154531)
    It is looking very very small, microscopic even!

  • We've barely begun to break the horizon of humanities potential in the universe.

    I think it's very ignorant of people to demonize in-animate objects. It's a way to blame something and not deal with the real problems.

    Why don't they have a 5 day waiting period on boards with nails through them?

    que Simpsons

  • Then came "Prey." And in Dan Brown's No. 1 best-selling novel, "Angels & Demons," the Catholic Church denounces nanoscience as evil. (It has not, although Britain's Prince Charles has expressed alarm about the science.)

    Eh, I doubt that the Britisch crown prince has much ado with the catholic church. Now that prince Charles has expressed alarm, I am sure all scientists will take another woried look at their safety procedures.

  • Risk Awareness (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Wardish ( 699865 ) on Monday February 02, 2004 @12:03AM (#8155739) Journal
    After having read the article, Yep I RTFA.

    Good article overall. Points out that the extent of nanotechnology is likely to be less than some hope and fear.

    The gray goo ideal is hampered by design, energy and speed/movement constraints which means that it's only going to be a problem if we haven't the technology to combat isolated outbreaks.

    We can't put the genie back in the bottle, someone is going to study this technology and use it for unfriendly ends. The only question is will we have the knowledge and skills necessary to counter that.

    I believe that restrictive regulation would make it more likely that we wouldn't have the resources to fight such threats. I also believe that there is a limited period of vulnerability until all citizens have defenses as part of their normal biotechnological compliment. The less restriction on research in the bio/nano technology arena the faster I believe we can get through this threatening period.

    As an aside on "Prey", I've noticed over the years that Mr. Crichton has made it a point to use his status and writing talents against Bio and Nano technologies. I understand that he has every right to do so, but I also believe I've a right to point out such.

    *chuckle* it's going to be a VERY interesting couple of decades...

    *now* back to my regularly scheduled Thorazine dose...

  • It's official... (Score:3, Funny)

    by skintigh2 ( 456496 ) on Monday February 02, 2004 @01:05AM (#8156068)
    Nanotech is officially hyped to death with the release of this [amazon.com]

    Welcome to the ranks of VR, worms and cyberspace.

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