Lifeboat Foundation Nanoshield

Maria Williams writes "KurzweilAI.net says: Tomorrow's biggest danger may be nanoweapons (grey goo and other) created with molecular manufacturing. The Lifeboat Foundation proposes development of detection methods, such as infrared satellite surveillance for nanobot signatures, along with a three-layer defense system, with devices such as an orbiting mirror to focus concentrated sunlight on an ecophagic outbreak."

Re:The nanotechnologists I've spoken with...

[RingDev]

So true, I'm significantly more concerned about skin irritation, blood stream poisoning and respratory problems due to nano-particles than some unrealistic nano-bot.

-Rick

Re:The nanotechnologists I've spoken with...

[vertinox]

hen you get down to it, we have little to fear from nano-sized robots that we don't have to fear from, say, bacteria - who already have billions of years' worth of experience in the just-above-the-nano-scale operations.

If you ever happened to read Ray Kurzweil's, The Singularity is Near, he argues that the evidence that nanotechnology is possible is the human body, viruses, and bacteria. Chances are that the first nanotechnologies will resemble our own cells if not just modified versions of them. When we talk about grey goo and the like most people envision little tiny robot spiders manufacturing everything into themselves.

However, we would more likely see a super virus or bacteria that kills off 50% of the population before we would see that. However, I'd like to point out gray goo is possible, but concrete and non-organic material would be resistance for a while. All the nanoids would have to do is process air, water, and sunlight much like plants.

Think of it like a super plankton consuming the ocean and all life as long as it has sunlight and the ability to break down water into oxygen and hydrogen.

Get some perspective here

[TheLink]

Unless I see concrete reasoning/evidence otherwise, this worry about goo stuff is way overblown.

Where will the grey goo get _energy_ from to be such a big threat? Solar energy isn't that great a source of energy.

Bacteria have been around for billions of years, there are all sorts of bacteria "eating" all sorts of stuff. If it was so easy to turn the entire environment to goo, the bacteria would have done it already - it's practically what all of them try to do all the time (just look up fermentation).

It takes a pretty sophisticated grey goo to do what bacteria do, and if the grey goo is made of stuff which bacteria or fungi can use, then I think it's the grey goo that has to watch out...

Viruses, bacteria etc can be a problem to us, because they can get energy and resources by parasiting _us_ and other creatures we depend on, in often harmful or deadly ways. They are made from the same stuff as us and thus they can build themselves from us (or subvert our machinery to build themselves).

So if you have a "naive" organic-based goo, good luck stopping fungus and bacteria etc from eating it the moment it gets wet :). I call a goo with no such defenses "naive" - because it was just born yesterday - unlike bacteria etc which have been battling each other for billions of years.

In theory if you have a normal naive (no defense against other micro/nano organisms) organic-based goo our immune system (phages) would probably be able to eat it too. Now if you design a goo that subverts our immune and other systems, then we could have a problem, however I suspect it will be easier to modify an existing virus than to build a "goo" one from scratch.

Alternatively if you have a metal based goo, these would only be a problem if you could create a grey goo that can somehow float around, land and burn/catalyze oil and air and use the energy to shape metal in a way so it can reproduce and repeat the process... The big issue is the burn/catalyze part. Catalysts used by common living creatures (enzymes) are mainly made of commonly available materials - only very trace amounts of other elements are required (if at all). If you prefer to burn instead, then you need to store a fair bit more energy, be able to release it at a high enough power and at the right time to start the burning process.

I recall there was a fungus in South America that was eating CDs - polycarbonate and metal.

So IMO, the most likely great danger to humans from micro/nano stuff would be biological viruses whether modified/bred/engineered or "natural".

I'm not a biotech person but I believe one can feasibly breed viruses to be more dangerous - just get tons of cultures of human cells, then expose the viruses to them, and repeat the process with viruses that produce the effect closest to what you want. No need for much engineering - could probably be very automated. Or do it in conjunction with a carrier organism and human cells - basically breed the virus to survive and spread sublethally in the target carrier organism - rat/roach/flies etc, but be really bad to human cells. The danger is some person/organization actually doing this for USD100k or something.

For macro dangers it'll be one of those meteorites/comets, or humans (we are probably one of the best things at killing ourselves).

Re:It would seem

[Anonymous Coward]

The real threat from Grey Goo is if somebody designed a superparasite, I dont mean to be parasitic to us, not at all, its not US we need to worry about. Lets say for example somebody made a nanobot that functions as a superbacteria and eliminates other bacteria we depend on in our bodies and in the bodies of animals. It would be like creating your own roaming version of a white blood cell. Plus, by targeting specific bacteria that a species is dependant on you can selectively kill whatever species you like. It wouldnt take much it would be just the same as "Cancer fighting nanobots" just instead of cancer, they destroy the ecosystem bottom up.

Re:Nanoweapons scare me

[SatanicPuppy]

Yea, the real key to self-regenerating bodies is to figure out the chemical signals we need to send/block to tell the body to regenerate itself. Little machines could never do that good a job.

Got to remember that, evolutionarily speaking, death is an advantage. If we never died, we'd never evolve. Every generation would be far more similar to past generations through back-breeding, and there would be much stronger forces maintaining the genetic status quo. Just a mess.