Re: is submicron and neno same

d.webb_at_mdx.ac.uk
Date: 02/12/05

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    Date: 12 Feb 2005 00:06:45 GMT

    In article <cttnfr0olu@enews3.newsguy.com>, Danny at Chrastina dot net
    <danny@chrastina.notreally> writes:
    >
    >On Wed, 2 Feb 2005, din wrote:
    >
    > There are two kind of nano, or rather two ends of the spectrum: at
    >one end there is the kind of thing mentioned in
    >http://www.forbes.com/home/investmentnewsletters/2004/10/21/cz_jw_1021soapbox.html
    >
    >: metal oxide nanowires and that. In this case "nano" just means "of the
    >order of 1 nanometre in size". And the other end are people who talk about
    >small dekstop boxes which could churn out self-replicating nanobots as if
    >anybody had any idea about how to go about making such a thing. In this
    >case "nano" means "totally made up without basis in known science".
    >I
    >mean, I've seen hypothetical pictures of artificial red blood cells which
    >looked like the Death Star. Maybe I could add a third dimension to this
    >spectrum by mentioning life sciences: nature has been working on
    >nanotechnology for 4 billion years and it's us.[1] I notice we're on the
    >macro scale.

    Well viruses and some bacteria are on the nanoscale.
    Hence you can consider some bacteria as a proof of concept for the development
    of self-replicating nano-machines. According to this weeks new scientist
    groups are already working on creating an artificial lifeform from scratch.
    The design of the Los Alamos Bug uses fatty acid molecules, a peptide nucleic
    acid instead of DNA and will be fed on fatty acid precurors. Once setup this
    should reproduce itself.
    I'd guess that would qualify as building a self replicating nanobot.

    Just because we haven't the technology at this particular moment to create
    self replicating nano-assemblers doesn't make them
    "totally made up without basis in known science".

    David Webb
    Middlesex University

    >
    > I also notice that there's no newsgroup called "sci.submicrontech".
    >
    >--
    > Dr. Danny Chrastina.
    >
    >1. By "us" I mean the whole family tree of carbon-based life, but that
    >would have made the sentence less snappy.
    >
    >Office: +39 031 3327612 Everywhere else: +39 333 2825623
    > http://www.chrastina.net/
    >

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