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Technology

"Noocyte" Microrobot Can Work On A Single Cell 93

Posted by timothy from the can-it-find-my-tiny-hardened-heart? dept.
xemu writes: "This 670 m small robot designed to manipulate single cells inside your body reminds me of the noocytes in Blood Music by Greg Bear. Both the complete article from Science and an abstract are available online; the first link xemu points out has Quicktime videos of the beast in action, for those so equipped. According to the article, "[t]his microrobotic arm can pick up, lift, move, and place micrometer-size objects within an area of about 250 micrometers by 100 micrometers." That's small.
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"Noocyte" Microrobot Can Work On A Single Cell

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  • This is the ignorant, closed-minded thinking that will prevent the human species from advancing to the next level of technology. Robots DO NOT take jobs from people in factories, they are there to free up the intelligent people from the tedious and repetitive tasks normally done by labor. If you feel a job is taken from you by a robot, then you obviously should be enhancing your mentality and researching ways to even further the technology; always stay one step ahead of technology! It sounds odd, but I actually look forward to the day when Robots are accepted as a part of society. Only then will I have respect for the Human Race.
    --

    Vote Homer Simpson for President!

  • The "standard" form of measurement today (the SI, or systeme internationale), with meters, grams, liters, etc, was invented by the French around 1793. This was "officially" adopted by the rest of the world at various times throughout the twentieth century.

    Most people consider July 4, 1776 to be the first date that the United States "existed".

    You were about 17 years off, or so.


    - Mike Hughes
  • Um.. Raquel Welch...
  • Gee, I guess you've never heard of the +1 bonus. You get it as a default option in your reply window once your karma level breaks 25. Of course, if you're so negative in your posts, you may never get there.
  • This shows that the robots are possible. Everything else will follow. Given time the robots could do everything you say.
  • ... sorry but i just thought that was really funny, not even sarcastic.

  • This will change the future of medecine (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    A bunch of these could fight cancer. Also there is a sharp increase in resistance to modern medecine. This threatens to create epidemics. Pretty soon, lice, scabies, ghonorhea, etc antibiotic resistance will be untreatable and we will all be affected. Luckily these diseases cannot become resistant to nanobots. We need nanobots in medecine now.
  • You want to see Reductionism, take a Biochemistry class. Anyway these 'bots aren't so small, they're talking a few hundred micrometers. The average eukaryotic cell is 3 to 30 micrometers (not counting muscle cells, which are huge), so the best this could probably do is to manipulate a small cluster of cells, presumably cancerous tumors(or benign ones for that matter). Don't buy into the Hollywood image of science, 99% of biotechnologists have a heart and wouldn't use their tools for evil. The 1% that would are weeded out as quacks and never get promoted beyond lab tech.
  • UGH! Did I just confuse muscle cells with nerve cells? OK time to put the beer down and open up a textbook...

  • Re:Actually, disease _could_ become resistant to n (Score:3)

    by tylerh ( 137246 ) on Saturday September 23, 2000 @07:25PM (#758667)
    Very Wise grasshopper.

    This is why some GI problems and yeast infections are better treated with yoghurt than anti-biotics/anti-fungals.
  • why the hell would i have to "keep track" of anything. all you have to do is look at what he posted retard.
  • It's just the advancement of medicine, not a vile process.

    This would be to the scalpel, what the scalpel is to using leeches. It's just an advancement in the tools, it has nothing to do with our humanity except to help us live longer.
  • It seems that lots of folks are frightened and even offended by the idea of a technology so advanced that it might allow for significant advancements in health and medical research. It's really the same old concern played out on a different topic.. "This new technology is so powerful...A truly evil dude could wreak havoc on humanity."

    This sort of unwarranted fear of technology has resulted in Big Brother type intrusions into our lives. Just look at Carnivore. "If PC's fall into the wrong hands, some truly evil dude could destroy the world with one." Well... so far, we're all still around. Here, most of us are concerned as ever that we maintain free usage of our machines and freedom to mess with all sorts of techie stuff.

    Like they say, knowledge is inherently neither good nor bad. It's the use of technology that defines its nature.
  • ... or that he is really what he looks like: a psychopathic right-winged extremist?

    I'm getting tired of hearing every religious wacko called 'right-wing'. The loony liberal left (how do ya like it when you're labeled, politico-bigots?) has plenty of religious nutlogs as well, among them Joe Lieberman, Louis Farrakan, Jesse Jackson, and Al Sharpton. Just being a God zealot doesn't automatically qualify you for membership in the Republican Party.

  • We are the borg. Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.
  • Actually, that's not too far off...if there were humans whose skulls were sufficiently resistant to bullets.
  • I like the bible: it's one of the reasons why I believe in a compulsory religious education. It acts like an innocculation against rabid fundamentalism later.(Alas not original, would thqt I could be so witty. 'Corruptions of Empire' Alex Cockburn).

    Elgon
  • Nah, he's just an arsehole.

    (OTOH I would defend to the death his absolute right to spiel whatever liberal horseshit he wishes.)

    'Liberalism - You can do anything you like as long as we agree with it.'

    Elgon
  • The imperial system has its uses - namely in the handloading of ammunition for firearms: The numbers are just so much more convenient.

    OTOH for just about anything else (barring spectroscopy in chemistry I admit) the good old metric system kicks butt.

    Elgon
  • Nah, just skip out the electrical bit by using biopolymers and other such exotic materials which turn chemical energy into motion directly à la muscle.

    Elgon
  • From the Bantam New College Latin & English Dictionary, John C. Traupman, Ph. D., April, 1966. P. 332.

    virus -i n slime; poison; pungency; saltiness.

    So there.

  • http://sysopmind.com/singularity.html It is very interesting. Scroll down to the part regarding nano tech if you would like.
    -
  • Be wonderful for clearing arterial blockages, etc...

    And if those Jack 'n the Boxes keep popping up on every corner down here in the South, there will be plenty arteries to clear...

    -Antipop
  • Wow, do us a favor and don't link to articles that ask for money [sciencemag.org] to read them. The NYT sign up thing I can deal with. But $5 for temporary access to one article? No thanks.

    -Waldo
  • We're not at the level of the most forward thinking SciFi yet, but this is a pretty amazing step in that direction. If it doesn't excite you in the least, maybe you should go into a time capsule for a hundred years or so.

    I know sometimes I would :)

  • Of course their is the potential for disaster, as their is with every new technology that comes out. In this case these nanobots have the ability to change the field of medicine radicaly. Imagine sending in a few thousand nanobots into a cancer paitent. They go through the cells cutting out the ones that cause cancer, or are cancer growth while leaving the healthy ones alive. Thats just ONE example of what these little things can be capable of in the future.
  • If you plan on taking a standardized test... according to most authorities on the matter, viruses are not considered life because they can't reproduce without a host cell. I won't engage any philisophical debates here, I'm just saying how your answer would be scored on a test.
  • It's very easy to imagine an organism becoming resistant to a nano-attack -- depending on what a nanobot would plan to do. Suppose a nanobot concentrates on puncturing a cell wall (for cellular organisms). Presumable, there are limitations on how much pressure a nanobot could exert. Perhaps soon there would only be organisms left that had a harder cell wall, impenetrable by nanobot -- or perhaps just hard enough to make it so that an organism tends to be pushed away, rather than punctured. Or perhaps some variants of an organism have more of an ability for motion.

    In short, no matter what kind of attack you think of -- whether "chemical" or "physical" or "nano" or psionic (and at the nano level, they're sort of similar, except for maybe psionic) -- chances are, there's some variant of the organism that's resistant. When used massively on the organism, soon only the resistant variant is left. Then the attack is less effective...

    Sometimes I wonder if using the attack actually makes things worse by the following mechanism in addition to the above selection: Presumably, a variant organism and a "standard" organism compete for resources in an environment. Thus the standard
    organism keeps resources from the variant that it would otherwise have. So the standard organism actaully inhibits the spread of the variant (not to mention providing something for immune systems to cut their teeth on). Remove the standard organism, and the stronger variant has less competition....
  • Non intrusive surgery from a laser equipped nanite ? Be wonderful for clearing arterial blockages, etc...

    Did anyone else think of MST3k's nanites when they read this? The little buggers'd probably be consulting their union shop steward before agreeing to embark on such a large-scale industrial project.. Probably involves overtime, particularly on an American...

    I miss MST..

    Your Working Boy,
  • Let's hope that they don't run on WinCE :)

    Oh NO!!! The Blue Face of DEATH!!
  • hmmm, the link didn't work for me. I got the same ol' registration page. Am I missing something? I really hope someone with access will post it.
  • Take your fucking life then...

  • Re:Slashdot and biology (Score:3)

    by spitzak ( 4019 ) on Saturday September 23, 2000 @09:29PM (#758690) Homepage
    Biology is reverse engineering, and is illegal nowadays. Better look for a new job.
  • Maybe we don't want you around any way. While I'm sure you expect flames, this is some of the more narrow type of thinking I expect from the hard core bible thumpers. This is the type of thinking that probably cause the Norse colonies on Greenland to fail while the indigenous native population. You probably think the earth is flat, too. "The world is not stranger than you suppose, it is stranger than you can suppose."

  • When I read this, I thought Emmerson was the best troll ever on slashdot, and in the top ten on Usenet. I was so amazed at how articulate this guy was, I wanted to see some of his other art, so I checked his history. Consider:

    If this guy really is a troll, then he is the best troll ever in the history of Usenet, all bbs's, fidonet, arpanet, and all other such mediums!. Think about it, is it more likely that this guy is a genious with nothing better to do than troll Slashdot, or that he is really what he looks like: a psychopathic right-winged extremist?

    I don't really find this guy funny.

  • Go to forum.borngraphics.com to read a few published science fiction short stories about nanotechnology and what it is like living with it. Many of the comments are good, and well reasoned, but a few, well, lets leave them in the trash. Hope this link helps clear up some of the craziness about nano machines that has been airing here.
  • And, *shrinking* was never part of my cunning plan to enter Rachel Welch's body.

  • I wonder if we will soon see.. (Score:4)

    by SirGeek ( 120712 ) <sirgeek-slashdot.mrsucko@org> on Saturday September 23, 2000 @03:18PM (#758695) Homepage
    Non intrusive surgery from a laser equipped nanite ? Be wonderful for clearing arterial blockages, etc...
  • You forget that "Lightbringer" was Ja's right-hand-man before he got sent down. Whoever said Ja is omnibenevolent? (hint, ask Job.)
  • (Poly)dimethylsiloxane is fuser lubricant used in printers. Basically it's the mechanical equivalent of Astroglide. Whoever was writing this did not 'write down' for his audience at all.
  • Teeny little problem there --- the only "biopolymer" I can think of offhand that does direct chemical->mechanical would be a cellular contractile/walking protein. Every such system I know of requires a fairly complicated array of tubules and filaments, which in turn requires a whole buttload of stuff to keep it organized and working. Moreoever, any system like that is in constant need of renewal and repair; tubules turn over very fast.

    Sure, you could do it. But if you've got the machinery to be continually synthesizing and maintaining a tubular network, plus the machinery to turn glucose into ATP for the motors, you're getting damn close to being a muscle cell. Seems to me you'd be better off skipping the robot arms, engineering an antigen-based targeting system for whatever you want to kill, and packing the whole thing up into a little proliferating purely biological bundle of joy. (This is, IMHO, why we may never see nanites at all --- it may turn out to be always easier to just design a bacterium.)
  • Awesome. Now they can finally get around to circumcising Signal 11's cock.

  • Robot registration, please (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    What I need is a microbot to fill out fake stuff in needless free registration pages and make up usernames and passwords so I can see stuff in site like this that I'm just visiting once cuz /. says I should. Is that too much to ask?
  • That sounds like a breakfast cereal for bald people.
  • Are there any volunteers who would like to have a microscopic robot working inside themselves? If the technology isn't accepted by the populace, it's just like it doesn't exist.

    Tell me what makes you so afraid
    Of all those people you say you hate

  • ...who finds this frightening?

    designed to manipulate single cells inside your body

    The potential for either malicious use or unanticipated disaster is HUGE here! What steps are being taken to ensure that this doesn't turn in some kind of Frankenstein disaster?

    And don't tell me it can't. We've got kudzu in the S. US, rabbits in Australia, and Dutch Elm disease in the N.E. US just to mention a few examples of carelessly poking around with biological systems.

  • NanoVideo (Score:4)

    by SEWilco ( 27983 ) on Saturday September 23, 2000 @03:23PM (#758704) Journal
    Quicktime videos of the beast in action

    The first 1x1 pixel Quicktime videos...

  • Damn! My Nanorobot crashed my LUNGS.

    I'd better drink a service pack.

  • As with all apocalyptic visions, if this was easy to do the real world would have done it by now.

    There's this little thing called entropy. Your nanowhatsises that are busily trying to reconfigure large quantities of molecular bonds in bulk: where do they get the energy to do so? If they're something capable of using the energy available in your body (metabolize sugars, etc), they're almost certainly something our immune system is designed to attack.

    Even if they can get over the energy, thing, they're not going to be able to act TOO much faster than the reactions we're used to. The inherent chaos in the system (brownian motion) means molecules are whipping by darn fast, and everything at that level is twisting and jiggling. Standard reactions just grab and hold something and wait for the appropriate molecule to wander by and stick. They work because there's zillions of molecules wandering by, and if the reaction's to have any chance of working there's zillions of the appropriate type. When the right one hits, it sticks, and the various vaguely ionic attraction/repulsion forces (think magnetism, static cling, and the kind of constant vibration that turns sand into quicksand, all rolled into one) the molecule twists into a new shape (still twisting and bending and wobbling and jiggling, it just now spends the majority of its time in the new shape) and the reaction proceeds to the next step.

    The reactions that ARE capable of proceeding rapidly aren't the kind that create more order. They create more DISORDER. Set fire to something. Dip it in acid. Blow it up. It's easy to rearrange molecular structure real fast, but the end result is scattered gasses and buckets of waste heat. Increasing order is a PAINFUL uphill climb, that's very slow and consumes a lot of energy.

    We've had four and a half billion years of evolution fighting on this point. If there was a better way to do it that didn't have DARN obvious down sides, it would be the way it was done everywhere. Anything capable of taking over the planet in a week or two would have already DONE it at some point over the past few billions years.

    There's a bunch of fun reactions we can't use locally. All sorts of exotic compounds that j ust so happen to explode on contact with water or oxidize amost immediately in our remarkably corrosive atmosphere. (Memo: rust ain't normal elsewhere in the universe. The life on this planet made the atmosphere that way a billion or so years after the fact (in part to kill off competing microorganisms that were poisoned by excess oxygen because their guts essentially rusted), and anything from elsewhere that was NOT used to a 20% oxygen atmosphere (where self-sustaining exothermic reactions can be set in motion and just continue! I.E. fire.)... It probably wouldn't live very long.)

    I'm not TOO worried about this. :)

    Rob

  • the not-so-pretty side of this technology (Score:5)

    by msouth ( 10321 ) on Saturday September 23, 2000 @03:31PM (#758707) Homepage Journal
    It's bad enough that robots are taking jobs in factories and production lines all over the place. Now, it's going to affect the little people.


    --
  • While there are still white people who would refuse a heart transplant from a black man, death scares most people more than technology.

    -Nev

  • Utterly frightening (Score:3)

    by Emerson Willowick ( 215198 ) on Saturday September 23, 2000 @03:27PM (#758709)
    What an abomination this is to the name of both God and human life! Not only must human life be reduced to such a tiny level, we must also find ways to modify with the very seeds of humanity? What's next, a device which can transcend earthly existance and modify the human soul? Are we so vain?

    I'm horrified by the thought that life can be treated as some sort of vile mechanical process rather than the sacred and beautiful thing it is. I'm all for the curing of diseases, but modern medicine is going too far with this. I'm worried that in several years, humanity will be replaced with robotic drones who serve no purpose other than to work and perform. And we're throwing praise and money into this abomination?

    Were it not expressly forbidden by the 6th commandmant, I would rather take my life than live in such a horrendously blasphemous society.

  • Does this mean the ability to alter card markings undetectably? Or would these teeny robots only work if water were "accidentally" spilled onto the cards? What about hard liquor?

  • Yes, I think people did realise that a few months ago. Then something (maybe it was timothy or something) set it all straight, saying something like: "Andover does the ad stuff; the Slashdot editors do the content stuff; never the twain shall meet". So Slashdot's policy has nothing to do with Andover's policy and vice versa.
  • Jeezus! Boy did I learn a bunch of new words: polypyrrole, genomics, proteomics, polyimide, polyaniline, dodecyl, benzocyclobutene, photopolymerization, electropolymerized, voltammetry, and dimethylsiloxane. I won't even venture a guess of how words started with micro (but no nano's).

    I'm pretty knowledgeable in the ways of science (what also floats? A duck!), but even I had problems reading this one. So, raise your hands, who really understood all of this one? Actually I read Science on a regular basis but usually skip over stuff that make my head hurt.

    Still, this is a pretty cool device.

  • I found this post to be pretty damn funny. Of course, I'm reading The Hobbit right now. If only I were a moderator.
  • '"[t]his microrobotic arm can pick up, lift, move, and place micrometer-size objects within an area of about 250 micrometers by 100 micrometers."'

    Cool. Maybe an even smaller version can cheat lithography and fix the many circuitry bugs within the AMD Athlon Processor. Sure, people will say "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." Reality check: all of AMD's processors are broken. The proof is in their 92.816% x86 compatibility.

  • In your free country? Man, you're lame. Metric system was (and will be) de facto standard long before your free country even existed.

  • Sounds perfect for the RIAA and MPAA (Score:4)

    by Cerlyn ( 202990 ) on Saturday September 23, 2000 @04:43PM (#758716)

    Now if I'm hearing or looking at any "unlicensed" content, I simply will not be able to interact with it. If I don't agree to be implanted with their robots, all I will see of their works is gibberish.

    Crap. I forgot to renew my subscription to "The Outside World(tm)." I stepped outside to enter my car and suddenly went blind. Guess I'll have to call in sick to work today...

  • Not much to be afraid of (Score:3)

    by The_Messenger ( 110966 ) on Saturday September 23, 2000 @04:49PM (#758717) Homepage Journal
    I am fairly confident that I could kick this thing's ass.

    ---------///----------
    All generalizations are false.

  • If you want to keep the patient inside a constantly varying magnetic field for a long time, maybe, but that doesn't strike me as a particularly sound idea. Even a low-amplitude pulsed field has effects on cells --- not carcinogenic, but it messes with the electrical balance. You could charge the batteries this way (brief exposure to the field every day or so), but I personally wouldn't volunteer to have it going constantly.

    There *is* another option I forgot, though... have them feed off the blood glucose or better yet, from the stuff they're destroying. Of course, the efficiency of taking chemical energy and turning that into electrical energy and turning that into mechanical energy is really poor. However, that might actually be beneficial --- most patients could stand to be using their energy reserves less efficiently.
  • I noticed that. I wish whoever posted the link to the article here would kindly place the full text of the article here as well.

    --
  • So, basically, Rob has just spit on his earlier promises of Andover's purchasing Slashdot having no influences on Slashdot policy. Granted, few people believed it in the first place, but this just reinforced the facts.

    --

  • > What an abomination this is to the name of both God and human life.

    Learning to understand and manipulate cells is an abomination?

    With that thinking, so is, say, a lifesaving heart bypass, or even using a condom, because using our knowledge to manipulate life is Bad(tm).

    > Not only must human life be reduced to such a tiny level

    Because life kinda exists at such a tiny level; you'd prefer ignorance? You think it best to ignore reality and go about our lives like good [insert whatever religion you are]?

    Way to waste your (God given?) gifts.

    > we must also find ways to modify with the very seeds of humanity?

    IMO, it's more evil to waste our knowlege and abilities than it is to explore them; would you rather we just let people die needlessly, when the technology exists to help them? Causing death by inaction.. that's paramount to murder (or in the timescales of the life of a species, mass-murder. Oops).

    > What's next, a device which can transcend earthly existance and modify the human soul? Are we so vain?

    Seeing as the soul is merely a concept in people's minds; a meme, if you will, I don't see this being likely. TBH, if you think we're inherintly "better" than everything else because of some utterly abstract nonsense like a god given soul, you're the vain one. (not to say I don't value human life; I don't need the idea of a human soul to do that when it has intrinsic value)

    > I'm horrified by the thought that life can be treated as some sort of vile mechanical process

    Why "vile"? What makes you think life is any more than a complex reproducing machine, forged through billions of years of evolution (bet you hate that too)? Why does the idea that the Universe can create complex life like without a plan, or a creator disturb you? We're certainly not well designed.. more a massive kludge.

    That doesn't make it any less incredible, or wonderful, unless you're an ignorant fool.

    > rather than the sacred and beautiful thing it is.

    Knowing how a sunset produces all those wonderful colours doesn't make it any less beautiful. In fact, knowing how such complexity and beauity can arise naturally makes it even more wonderful. As it is with many things.

    > I'm all for the curing of diseases

    In what way is this any less meddling than cellular level manipulation? Or using a condom? Or trying not to be hit by a bus when you cross the road? Would you rather sit back and die, or become ill, when there's a chance to avert it?

    Do you cross the road, or drive with your eyes closed so you don't interfere with life, and God's plan by inadvertantly not mowing someone down, or being mown down yourself? Or do you think our abilities are ok dealing with things like that, but nothing more complex that is, yet, reached within a couple of centuries of rapid development at the very start of the technological era of our species?

    > I'm worried that in several years, humanity will be replaced with robotic drones who serve no purpose other than to work and perform

    More like freed to do things it's good at, and enjoys. Wasting a human with a nasty repetative job when a machine can do it better is a bit evil, concidering the worth of the human who could be doing better things. As our technology becomes better supportive, this is what will result; people freed to live their lives.

    > And we're throwing praise and money into this abomination

    Don't get me started about throwing praise and money into a religion that.. no, let's just not.

    > Were it not expressly forbidden by the 6th commandmant, I would rather take my life than live in such a horrendously blasphemous society.

    You realise, of course, that not everybody wants to follow your religion, or a religion? You, of *course*, respect peoples right to make their own choices and believe in whatever they want to?

    Seemingly, you don't; I noticed your use of the word "Godless" in a post about the third world, which I take as something of an insult, seeing as I'm also "Godless"; that doesn't make me respect life any less, nor does it take the wonder out of life.

    If you're so narrow minded to think it does, you're obviously not well educated enough to really understand what makes it so wonderful.

    (Oh, and guys, I don't think this is a traditional troll, unless you count differing opinions as trolls, which isn't very P.C., now, is it? Maybe he's an idiot with awful opinions, but that doesn't really make him a troll, does it?)
  • Whoever has played Homeworld: Cataclysm should see some similarity between this, and the game (which is a little scary really). Little ittie bittie spoiler here: For those of you who haven't, here's the gist of it: You're crusing around space and pick up a chunk of metal. On it is this semi-organic stuff. It actually is made up of lots of really small, nano-sized, half-robot, half living beings. They take over whatever they touch (basically) and convert it to whatever is needed. People's bodies are converted to neural networks (and are torn apart in the process, quite painfully). Ships are converted to be used by the nano-organism. Cataclysm page [sierra.com]. There really are some scary implications to this. Say someone sprayed a whole bunch of them on you, or dumped some in your glass, what then? They get inside of you, and could basically do whatever they wanted to. Not fun.
  • Hey kids, Someone, please mod this up for awhile, just so that they'll fix the HTML in the story. As you all know, it looks like somebody forgot to put a </a> tag and it's making the rest of the site look like one big link. Hopefully timothy or one of the other editors will notice and fix it. toodles


    If you're not wasted, the day is.
  • of the noocytes in <a href="http://www.uta.edu/english/bek/cy-fi/blood.h tml"></i>Blood Music<i> by Greg Bear</a>. Both the


    The I-tags are the wrong way around! At least on my Netscape Communicator 4.7 it shows the whole rest of the page in italics, underlined and in the same color as links (ie. looks like one looong link)! (OK, it seems like a but in netscape, but still could it be corrected....)

    The effect of which is like having your brain smashed out with a slice of lemon wrapped around a large gold brick.
    --Douglas Adams, HHGTTG

  • Sounds like you know your stuff - in some ways an engineered bacterium or virus is a nanite!

    Elgon

  • Well I can't remember exactly what Rob said, but I don't think that's completely true. I think Rob would have said something to the effect that Andover's take-over wouldn't have any impact on the editorial content, which is true.
  • But at a cellular level ? I can under stand that "normal" lasers would do that but one that is the same size (or smaller) than the blockage ?

    I guess that some damage could happen if the laser was too powerful..

  • I had to go through the first link [ifm.liu.se] to get this [sciencemag.org], but for whatever reason, I can read the article without registering.

  • Well so far humans have not developed armored skin to hamper the penetration of scalpels. I dont think a simple life form like a virus or a bacteria could use evolution to stop precision nanodevices. A diamond scalpel with an edge 1 atom wide could penetrate any massive lifeform like a bacteria (massive in comparison to the tools.) At the scale we are talking about (still decades away) the huge wet sloppy defenses of life forms will be no match for precise engineered devices. No virus or bacteria is as smart as humans. The reason they develop defenses to antibiotics and such medicines is the crude sloppy nature of these medicines, which jam machinery in the bacteria, or use some other mechanism which isn't controlled or precise in any way. If a machine grabs a bacteria and proceeds to slice it up, there is no hope of natural selection defeating this, ever.
  • "Know my stuff"? Maybe. I know bio and I'm trying to become a decent engineer. I work on MEMS, but I'm not good at it; I'm theoretically as good at manual lithography as anyone in the lab, and I get crap for fabrication yields.

    Anyway, you're absolutely right, a bacterium or virus is a nanite. OTOH (and IMHO), it's not what people are thinking of when they think of nanites --- they're thinking of things that are basically a robot made really small.

    Actually, I need to revise my prior statement again. If we can actually make them, there may indeed be a role for mostly-nonbiological nanites. Since most biological stuff is really working on a statistical basis, it always gets a few false positives and negatives. There might be tasks (not medical so much, but perhaps industrial) where absolute 100% precision is required, and then you might need the digital paradigm. Maybe. I can't think of such an application offhand (even an advanced material can be made to self-assemble if you're clever), but I'm a lousy futurist.
  • Out of the first 18 posts to this article, 5 had comments that were posted with serious intent. One was a first post, one was a random troll, and 4 were about using this to manipulate people's small dicks. The rest were stupid jokes. -Splat
  • I'd like to have read the articles, but to pay for them, what if they turn out to be shit....wouldn't I feel silly having forked over my hard earned bucks. What gives? Obviously, not this site! I wonder if they pay for referrals?
  • Woohoo. I have never been called a heathen jackal before. This makes me so happy. It means so much more coming from a raving lunatic too. As far as the 6th commandment, goes, I have never even contemplated suicide, unlike yourself.

    I think you need to ask the lord for a little guidance, because a hateful heart will get you nowhere near heaven my friend, but instead make your life hell on earth. I actually consider myself a very moral person, and its your kind of glassy eyed worshipping a wrathful god types that give rational religious people a bad name.

    By the way, I hate it when "Christians" quote the Old Testement. The old testament covers the covenant made with Jews. This includes the 10 commandments. Those who believe in Christ are covered under the New Covenant, which can be summed up with John 3:16 if you are so inclined. Adhering to the New Covenant as I do, I can easily say the word "FUCK" and feel no remorse, if I feel that I'm using it at an appropriate time. (Which I'll admit is almost all the time) Not only with I be forgiven, but also, I don't even think it matters what is said, but only what is meant. Intent is always worse than the words used to express it.

    I wonder if you do respect the words of "Our Lord", or merely find them convenient when you want to make attacks on people.

    May the lord bless you and keep you, unless you are really the asshole you pretend to be.

    -Mecha
  • We can already do manipulation of individual cells (how do you think Dolly appeared?) and we can already alter DNA without too much trouble. What this technology supplies is the ability to do this to specific cells in a living organism. In terms of ecological damage we already have tools that are capable of wreaking significantly more damage. You do know that genetically modified bacteria and viruses are commonly used in biological research, right?

  • Inside the body? Not anytime soon. (Score:5)

    by Alik ( 81811 ) on Saturday September 23, 2000 @03:45PM (#758735)
    I saw the article when it was first printed this summer, and this thing is indeed cool. However, don't fool yourself into thinking that you're going to see arterial plaque-scrapers or tumor hunter-killers anytime soon. There would be two major problems with having something like this living inside the body: power and control. It may only draw a volt, but we still don't have small batteries. Along the same lines, you need to be able to hit the target, which means you're going to need sensors and either a transceiver or an onboard processor; none of those is even remotely cell-sized yet. There might be a use for it in microsurgery, if they can come up with something that lets the surgeon control an array of arms fairly naturally.

    Still pretty neat, though. My lab does MEMS work, but we don't have the lithography capabilities to build something like this.

  • PDF Version of the Paper.... (Score:3)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 23, 2000 @05:00PM (#758736)
    You can download a PDF version of the paper (without registration) from here [sciencemag.org]
    - El Nino
  • Are there any volunteers who would like to have a microscopic robot working inside themselves? If the technology isn't accepted by the populace, it's just like it doesn't exist.

    Well it doesn't have to be accepted by everyone. If it will help me, I'll take it; I'm sure they'll get enough other takers to make it worthwhile to develop.
    --

  • Small? (Score:3)

    by Compuser ( 14899 ) on Saturday September 23, 2000 @05:11PM (#758738)
    This thing is about a millimeter large.
    It's visible with naked eye. It's not
    autonomous/programmable, and has no
    built in power source. It is not useful
    as is.
    Real stuff is decades away, if feasible at
    all. Take grand words like nanotech
    with a bag of salt.
  • Robots DO NOT take jobs from people in factories, they are there to free up the intelligent people from the tedious and repetitive tasks normally done by labor

    Well, in a capitalist society such as ours, that's not quite the case. If a new robot is introduced that can let one man do the work of 10, it would be great if the other nine could just kick back, take a break, tinker with some electronics (if that's their thing), and 'enhance their mentality'. But instead, they're going to be fired.

    Robots may be able to replace the factory worker in performing repetitious labor, but the only people they "free" are the factory owners who don't have to pay human labor anymore.

  • Ever here of these things called WARS!!!!
    Think Kosovo for a recent example.
  • There have been laser devices already fabricated to remove arterial blockage, and they are not any more successful than ballooning the blockage or what not. Every way the blockage is removed there is trauma to the arteries themselves in the form of heat damage with the laser or mechanical damage from ballooning or heat from drilling or damage from physically positioning the device in the artery, etc. The trauma causes scarring and a reclosing of the artery, bringing about 20% of the patients back to square one. -rory
  • oops, that was supposed to be hear (not here) in case you are confused.
  • Sometimes I wonder if using the attack actually makes things worse by the following mechanism in addition to the above selection: Presumably, a variant organism and a "standard" organism compete for resources in an environment. Thus the standard organism keeps resources from the variant that it would otherwise have. So the standard organism actaully inhibits the spread of the variant (not to mention providing something for immune systems to cut their teeth on). Remove the standard organism, and the stronger variant has less competition....
    That does not make any sense in that if you were attempting to kill an organism in the first place, you don't care whether or not it is resistant to a form of attack or not, you just want it gone. The "standard organism" is just as much of a problem as the "variant", so it doesn't matter whether or not there is selection pressure for the variants to win out. If you just let all of the organisms hang around it would be the same result as letting the variants take over the population. The person would be dead or the water would be contaminated or whatever.

    It is -misuse- of a technique that is the problem. This provides unnecessary selection pressure towards the variant you can do nothing about, which is why there is a big stink about overperscription of antibiotics and what have you.
  • Robots ... are there to free up the intelligent people from the tedious and repetitive tasks normally done by labor

    it would be great if the [people replaced by robots] could just kick back... but instead, they're going to be fired.

    Well, you're both right - it's just that those people whose jobs are replaced by robots don't necessarily get new jobs right away. Perhaps some of them can get jobs at the robot factories, building robots. Or they can be robot repairmen. I doubt they build and fix themselves yet.

    It's similar with computers - since their introduction, they have created entirely new industries. I venture to guess that most of us reading slashdot have jobs that didn't really exist in these numbers 15 or 20 years ago.

  • Mankind has been manipulating its environment since the dawn of time, and will continue to do so, ever more effectively. Evolution ceased to be a natural (in the sense of blind) process from the moment when lifeforms started to think for themselves, and our own evolution is most emphatically in our own hands now.

    It is of course your choice not to take part in this science-driven future of our own making, but I have no idea how you could possibly avoid it: almost everything you wear, eat, touch and see around you in daily life is a product of technology (unless you grow your own vegetables, peel them with a flint knife and eat them raw), so if you are sincere you will need to travel to one of the few untouched parts of the planet, throw away all your man-made cloths and implements, and go back to extreme basics and a life on the edge of existence. I doubt that you would succeed in your quest though; even the most primitive groupings of people use modern technology these days. You'd have to be a hermit as well.

    On the other hand, you may be happy with modern life up to now and just consider these latest advances as one step too far. Well, in that case you're just a blinkered Luddite and I have no sympathy for you.
  • How 'bout we call them robits?
  • Has anyone noticed that Slashdot is now serving Doubleclick ads? Well, they are.

    <A HREF="http://ad.doubleclick.net/jump/N668.SlashDot /B20201;sz=468x60;ord=969347632969347632 ?"> <IMG SRC="http://ad.doubleclick.net/ad/N668.SlashDot/B2 0201;sz=468x60;ord=969347632969347632?" BORDER=0 WIDTH=468 HEIGHT=60 ALT="Fast. Native. XML. Click. Software AG."></A>

    It seems to be somewhat random, intertwined with their own ads, but it's there. Just reload a page a few times and watch your proxy logs.

    D:\ijb20\junkbstr.exe: GPC slashdot.org/
    D:\ijb20\junkbstr.exe: GPC ad.doubleclick.net/ad/N668.SlashDot/B20201;sz=468x 60;ord=969347632969347632? crunch!
    D:\ijb20\junkbstr.exe: GPC images2.slashdot.org/Slashdot/pc.gif?/index.pl,969 347632617 crunch!
    D:\ijb20\junkbstr.exe: GPC images.slashdot.org/pagecount.gif?/index.pl,969347 632617 crunch!
    D:\ijb20\junkbstr.exe: GPC images.slashdot.org/banner/swag5001en.gif?96934763 2677 crunch!
    D:\ijb20\junkbstr.exe: GPC images.slashdot.org/banner/swag5004en.gif?96934763 2697 crunch!

    All those web bugs, too...

    (Yes, I'm using NT. Shoot me.)

    --

  • For some background on emersons hilarious bigoted(and just plain stupid) posts go to his info and read the post he just made on linux in africa. Either he is a toal idiot or one the most fantastic trolls ever!

    Oh my god emerson! Did you eat dinner tooday!? Holy shit you were "modifing with the very seeds of humanity" by altering their glucose content. You'll surely suffer eternal damnation for this abomination of tinkering with life's sacred inner workings!

  • I'm worried that in several years, humanity will be replaced with robotic drones who serve no purpose other than to work and perform.

    And in what way is this different from how most modern corporations now treat their employees?

    Personally, I'd be glad to see myself replaced with a robotic drone that served no purpose other than to do all my work for me while I lounged in an easy chair watching the latest episode of "Battle Robots Meet Crazy Machines".

  • This is a robotic arm capable of moving individual cells. Exciting, but only a step to something useful.

    The noocytes in Blood Music were self-contained computers designed to mimic white blood cells, who could network together and create a very powerful (sentient, in the story) computer.

    How do the two have anything to do with one another? I'm confused. Or was the Blood Music reference just name-dropping in an attempt to get the story accepted?

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