Birth of the nanoprocessorFollow

For the first time in human history, we have a computer processor small enough to control a nano-scale medical robot. THis doesn't mean that much today, but this first tentative step into the relm of nanoscale computing means that sometime in the next 20 years we should see a working medical robot technology that could be used to cure most diseases, clear arteries, and possibly dramatically extend life by repairing telomeres. Exciteing stuff!

http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/11/researchers-from-harvard-and-mitre-announce-worlds-first-progra/

"We've seen plenty of breakthroughs involving nanowires over the years, but none of those have involved an actual programmable processor -- until now, that is. That particular "world's first" was just announced by a team of researchers from Harvard University and the MITRE Corporation this week, and it's being described as nothing short of a "quantum jump forward in the complexity and function of circuits built from the bottom up." As for the processor itself, it consists of an array of nearly 500 germanium nanowires that have been criss-crossed with metal wires on a chip that's just 960 micrometers (or less than 1 millimeter) square. That becomes an actual processor when the researchers run a high voltage through the metal wires and switch the individual intersections off and on at will -- we're simplyfing things a bit, but you get the idea. What's more, the researchers note that the architecture is fully scalable, and promises to allow for the assembly of "much larger and ever more functional nanoprocessors." Head on past the break for the official press release."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyenRCJ_4Ww

Sure, but can it transform itself into a cassette tape?

Nice should have the tech in place in around the same time my chronic tobacco consumption finally catches up to my lungs and heart. Good to know I don't have to quit smoking, because I am not a quitter.

Ever see a human survive Borg?

Sounds like they're doing it wrong.

2 milimeters is about the size of the head of a pin. thats still a bit large for a nanobot, but the way I see future medical technology working is you have some sort of main control node, probably somethign doubling as an implanted "cell phone / computer interface type object of doom" The actual medical regulation computer would be in there The nanobots that actually do the work would have a bare minimum of actual computer processing power, but would be directed via the main medical regulation computer. It would communicate via extremely low powered electrical signals transmitted via the nerves or the blood. I figure you would have slightly larger "Beacon" nonobots that the medical processor would direct to a trouble spot, where it would temporarily anchor itself. After that, the smaller, somewhat less complex worker robots would detect the beacon signal as they travelled through the blood stream and fix the affected area using the paramaters in their limited programming.

Other nanobots would get simple pattern recognition. "If you see this cancer cell shape at this temperature with this electrical field, kill it" etc. Same thing for viruses and whatnot. The tricky part at that point won't be directing and controlling them, it would be preventing an outsider who wished to control you or harm you from taking over. Imagine a computer virus that could program your internal robots to switch from attacking cholestoral to attacking your lung lining cells instead? I suspect that part of the equation will be the real limiting factor to the technology once they have the actual machines themselves. Probably at first they will be a "come into hospital, let us inject the thingies into you that will only last for x amount of hours and are controlled by this hospital main computer that we have to hook you up to" type scenario. But eventually as the benifits become more apperent I suspect the technology to move into some sort of full time monitoring and repair capability. Imagine small nanorobots with electrical capacitors that charge from the electrical field of the body, and could cluster on the surface of the heart and shock it back into rythem in the event of a heart attack? Or nanobots int he upper resperatory system that could kill incoming flu viruses before they can spread. The potential is limetless.

I expect that within the next 25 years we will see these. Japan would be my pick for who will develop them first due to their particular bioethics laws. Maybe china, but they are still playing catch up on many fields of engineering.

I watched a few episodes of that show Generator Rex on Cartoon Network.

Cool!

I was watching some show about nano-stuffs a couple weeks ago. They were cruising proto-nanobots around inside cow-eyes using magnetism as the driving force. It was pretty cool.

Anyway, I'm on the other end of things with Nanotechnology. I'm on the working group for my agency that will be recommending necessary environmental regulation (thus far Cali is the only state that is regulating 'nano-waste'.)

Unfortunately we will probably solve the problem of immortality before we solve the problem of overpopulation. It's going to present some interesting ethical considerations when we start to see the wealthy able to live on indefinitely while the poor die, much more so than today.

Probably too bad I couldn't have been born a hundred years later, but maybe the singularity will save us all.

Since this seems semi relevant. Watson the jeopardy computer has a two day total of 77K he kicked Ken Jennins ***. Ken Jennings was the guy who won for like a year straight. Although I thought it was funny, at the end of the show in his final answer he put.

(and I for one welcome our new computer overlords).

I didnt get to see it yesterday, But Alex did have a laugh at it tonight.