Re: is submicron and neno same

From: Danny at Chrastina dot net (danny_at_chrastina.notreally)
Date: 03/04/05

  • Next message: Mike Treder, CRN: "Nanobots Not Needed" 
    Date: 4 Mar 2005 02:14:54 GMT

    On Mon, 21 Feb 2005 d.webb@mdx.ac.uk wrote:

    >>> ... 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.
    >>
    >> In one sense yes (and it would be an amazing feat if they get it
    >> to work) but in another sense it will be a poor imitation of a
    >> bacterium... so why not genetically engineer bacteria to do what you
    >> need instead?
    >
    > If you start with an existing bacteria and just engineer it you are
    > starting with a very complicated system and then trying to make it do
    > want you want rather than to do what it was designed , by evolution, to
    > do. If you build up from a very simple minimalist system then hopefully
    > you will have better knowledge and control.

             That's a good point. I just wonder how complicated these systems
    will have to be to work. We may learn a lot about how life could have
    started on the planet from studying such systems.

             I expect that these things would get quickly eaten by ordinary
    bacteria once they were taken out of the clean room though.

    >>> 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".
    >>
    >> But it's clear that these (inorganic) self-replicating nanobots
    >> that get people so excited are still firmly in the realm of science
    >> fiction... What's the current best way of creating carbon nanotubes "to
    >> order" with specific properties and get them organized? Google has
    >> found me lots of research groups who are working on this, but it gets a
    >> bit difficult to cut through the hype and the stuff written in future
    >> or subjunctive tenses to find out what anyone has actually
    >> accomplished.
    >
    > I agree. However I think this is like the better science fiction of the
    > 1950s and earlier with respect to going to the moon.

             It's not exactly rocket science... 

    -- 
 	Dr. Danny Chrastina.
Office: +39 031 3327355	Everywhere else: +39 333 2825623
 				http://www.chrastina.net/
  • Next message: Mike Treder, CRN: "Nanobots Not Needed"

    Relevant Pages

    • Re: Science and Faith (Serious)
      ... >>> Gardeners graft roses, these guys built at a genetic level. ... >>> years ago, this was science fiction. ... bacteria, the bacterial cell's machinery read the instructions and ...
      (soc.culture.irish)
    • Re: is submicron and neno same
      ... >> Well viruses and some bacteria are on the nanoscale. ... >> peptide nucleic acid instead of DNA and will be fed on fatty acid ... with a very complicated system and then trying to make it do want you want ... However I think this is like the better science fiction of the 1950s ...
      (sci.nanotech)
    • Quantcast