Do the Nano-Locomotion
Roland Piquepaille writes "It's widely accepted today that nanotechnology will soon be able to deliver medicine inside the human body or to do research on cells. But to achieve this goal, you need nano-cargos moving through liquid environments, such as blood. And this is a very difficult challenge because the nano-swimmers have to struggle with blood's viscosity, which has very large effect in a nanoscale environment. But now, two Iranian researchers have found a simple and elegant solution to this problem, based on the principle of non-reciprocal motion and described in "Teaching Nanotech to Swim" by Technology Review. Their nano-swimmer consists of three aligned spheres connected by two rigid rods which can contract and expand. The nano-cargo then advances in the blood like an earthworm inside the soil. Even if these nano-swimmers look promising, nobody knows when they will be able to deliver drugs in our bodies. Read this summary for more details and references. You'll also find an illustration showing how the nano-swimmer moves."
July 26th, 2004 at 8:05 AM
Cool! One step closer to… what?
This is really cool. Imagine a few hundred of these things swimming through your blood vessels. Now imagine these things collect positional information, by, say, bouncing light beams off the walls, and can create an extremely accurate map of your entire circulatory system. Think of what that can do for medicine! Add a transdermal delivery system, which might work by pushing these dumbells through each cell membrane one at a time; three attach to the cell wall like a tripod with the apex connected to the one that is pushed through. No more needles! All you have to do is touch the doctor's table in the right place and he can measure your blood pressure, your pulse rate, whether you are too fat, or how clogged your arteries are. The next step might be to simply give doctors an implant that would generate these blood hounds and then excrete them through his hand's sweat glands on command. Think of the convenience for the third world doctors, who can not afford too much technology. Won't the implant be expensive? Of course not; we can use the swimming dumbells to carry it in and compile it in some convenient place (shouldn't be hard to pack a few assemblers into them, right?). And if it also compiles a short antenna, it would be trivial to upgrade it when necessary by simply "flashing" the software. And the little factory that synthesizes the blood hounds can also fill them with medication, so every poor doctor would be able to treat his patients with a simple touch; no needles, no foul tasting concoctions; paradise. Medicine recipies could be open sourced and downloaded via the antenna, so no cost would be incurred. Even making more doctors would be free, since if he can compile medicines, he can also compile the "seeds", and then turn his friends into doctors just by shaking hands. Is this cool or what? I wonder, what "drugs" the article had in mind to deliver?
Is that all? Let's see what else we could do. What do we have that really annoys us this year… Ah. Filling out census forms is a drag. Wouldn't it be cool if we all had those little blood hounds and it could just map our circulatory system and automatically record the age (old people have clogged arteries, children can be classified by body proportions, I don't know about adults), sex (pretty obvious), weight (we all have blood vessels in those fat deposits), race (different races have different body structure, like the epicanthic folds on the asians or thicker lips on the blacks. I don't know what else since such research is just not tolerated these days), place of residence (that antenna could get GPS signals too), marital status and number of children (by counting people in your place of residence), and whether you are good looking or not. Gosh, that's nearly half the form already. Maybe they could just radio in the instructions to our built-in antennas and do the census in real time! This is so cool! And the "seeds" could be distributed simply by physical contact, so no need to wait in line; just shake hands with your neighbour, or rub your hand on the nearest handrail.
Now let's see. Each little seed knows where you are at all times, your ethnic group, your age, your body weight and proportions, and your face. Hmm. And they can synthesize medicines too. I wonder what would happen if I wanted to be really nice and send lots of AIDS drugs to the suffering africans… Select African continent by GPS, select black race (wouldn't want those rich white exploiters to benefit, no sir!), select drug… I wonder what all these drugs do… Hey, Kadamose, what's a good AIDS cure? Huh? "Hydrocyanic acid" dosn't sound right… Oops.
July 26th, 2004 at 8:10 AM
Chemisor: A question
Chemisor, I like your posts, you are on the ball when it comes to MNT. So what is your time line estimation for MNT development? How long do you guess it will be for the world to build limited assemblers like diamond or fullerene or polymer only nanites, and then generic assemblers, etc?
July 26th, 2004 at 10:20 AM
Inventions are like art
> So what is your time line estimation for MNT development?
Very funny. You can't just "estimate" how long it would take to invent something. If you asked Newton how long it would be before he invented the theory of gravitation, he'd laugh in your face. Estimation is for managers; scientists just want to study things and damn the time frame. In like manner, we can apply this to MNT: the assembler will be built when someone smart enough (let's call him Dr.Evil) figures out how to make it work and finds someone with enough money to pay for the bootstrap (perhaps some wealthy Arab gentleman who would be quite interested in some immediate applications of such work). It could happen next year, or it could never happen at all; it is simply a matter of intelligence, having enough time and opportunity to use it, and having the tools to verify intermediate results. Combine this with the fact that brains are getting harder to find every year, and I might lean toward the latter conclusion. I should also state that I would vastly prefer it.
> How long do you guess it will be for the world to build limited assemblers like diamond
I would say that diamond will not be the first target because of the need for complex hydrogen abstractors. See Nanosystems for a description on how they might work and you will discover just how difficult it is to make them. Compare this to protein synthesis. If you could create custom proteins, you could produce the full spectrum of materials available in nature, like spider silk, chitin, or cellulose to name a few. Sure, you won't get diamonds this way, but it is much easier to bootstrap. In fact, it already is being done, which means that we are much closer to nanites that work in the body than the ones that would produce the hard substances needed for the space elevator. This in turn means that the type of nanites that would be capable of genocidal actions would likely appear much sooner than the type of nanites that would be able to convert our skin into saphire to guard against the former. And that is exactly why I am writing all these "scary" posts trying to tell people that going down this road might not be the brightest idea in the world.
July 26th, 2004 at 11:46 AM
Re:Inventions are like art
Those are some darned great points, Chemisor, but isn't it true that once you have the 'wet nanotech' able to assemble things molecule by molecule, even the protein stuff, can't you use those to rather quickly make harder and drier polymers, and then get to diamondoids? But your point is noted: The Bio Nano technology framework already exists, and that day approaches sooner and sooner. Here is an interesting thought: Silicate/Silicon MNT gives you the best of both worlds: Silicate crystalline structures can be polymerized at ambient pressure and temperature and even in liquid phase enviroments, unlike diamond which requires those hydrogen abstraction tools. Silicate MNT can be directly built using wet nanotech, as a man named Stephen Gillette pointed out in a whole series of papers on it for Foresight.
July 26th, 2004 at 12:17 PM
Re:Inventions are like art
> even the protein stuff, can't you use those to
> rather quickly make harder and drier polymers
Not necessarily. While "wet nanotech" can rely on enzyme-like reactions, to make diamond you will need mechanosynthesis or some such method of tearing apart already stable molecules. There is a reason why biological organisms do not digest sand. If you look at common biological pathways you will see that each step is energetically favorable. Things like carboxyl groups can be replaced with ATP by regular chemistry, but that is not going to work if you want to deprotonate a carbon in a diamond lattice. With a pKa of 46, it is not coming out without some serious pulling.
> Silicate/Silicon MNT gives you the best of both worlds
Although it may be easier to build nanostructures on silicon, especially since we already do this with computer chips, this forces you to adopt mechanosynthesis methods from the start because silicone is not very reactive from a chemical perspective. Such an approach would suffer from "Smalley fingers", because real bonds would be harder to form, making "handles" (Nanosystems goes into depth about handles) difficult to attach.
July 28th, 2004 at 8:31 AM
First things first.
Before you go just injecting people with nano-locomotives that carry designer chemicals into a persons body, you should first have a way to insantly and effectively destroy every single one of them… And if there is no way to do that, then simply do not use them/make them.
What I see is perhaps making a certain vital part of these nanobots susceptible to a wavelength of radiation such as brief high intensity (not too high) X-Ray that would destroy them all in seconds. Or maybe use resonant harmonics with radio waves to actually power them, so that when you are no longer in the presence of the waves the machines no longer operate.. or conversely use the harmonics to destroy them.
This way, just in case there were people who used your creation for Bad Things, there would be a way to prevent their spread.
This must be done as a built-in design measure, not an afterthought.
July 28th, 2004 at 9:28 AM
Re:First things first.
Built-in safeguards WILL be circumvented, in one way or another; it's just a matter of when.
July 28th, 2004 at 9:46 AM
Re:First things first.
Tell me, how do you circumvent a safeguard such as radio resonance-harmonics propulsion? If the devices were constructed properly:
Or, let's even get more inventive and imagine them working in a different way. You are in a machine. On each side of you are electromagnets which oscillate between on and off in a designed manner. The oscillation of the magnetic fields is what is used to power the nanobots. Perhaps you would need more than two opposing angles of magnetic attraction, but you get the picture (I hope). So, Kadamose, tell me, how are you going to produce exactly the correct oscillating magnetic field surrounding each and every person's body to allow operation of these nanobots? Please, tell me, you say "one way or another"… So give me one.
July 28th, 2004 at 11:13 AM
Re:First things first.
It can be done via modified shielding which is immune to magentics, RF, and radiation. This could be done in multiple ways (i.e full body armor or modification of the nanobots themselves)
As for elecromagnetics powering these nanobots…that's highly unlikely. They will most likely be powered via ATP, as they will only require a few milliamps to run. The Japanese have already done research on this area, and currently have 100 mA devices running in and on the human body powered by the blood stream of the individual.
July 28th, 2004 at 1:27 PM
Re:First things first.
"modified shielding which is immune to magnetics, RF, and radiation"
First I have to point out the obvious. That statement is so flawed that you might as well say they'll operate on super-conducting monkey-colliders. Or maybe you should read Microcosmic God by Sturgeon and see what happens when the lifeform the scientist creates is told to create an impenetrable shield.
Why? Because if these little nanobots are in any way going to be controlled intelligently, you're going to have to be able to communicate with them. Tell me, if they're shielded from all outside interference and signals, how exactly do you communicate with them?
Electromagnetic oscillatory propulsion may be unlikely, but as far as I can see it would be one of the most safe ways to do it. For exactly the reason it would be unlikely: Because it would be hard to duplicate, let alone even achieve, without extremely sensitive and specific equipment and an operating environment engineered within strict boundaries. It would make that technology extremely difficult (if even possible) to misuse on any sort of large scale.
As far as "100 mA devices" (and I think you mean uA, not mA) operating on Active Transport, that's all well and good. But I shouldn't have to point out that such devices will inevitably have susceptibilities. It shouldn't be difficult to destroy them alone, again, with the proper interference.
Anything inorganic inside an organic system immediately differentiates from the environment, making it possible to single out and destroy the inorganic objects, especially if they are delicately crafted machines.
That is why virii will continue to be the most difficult to remove pathogens into the far future, because often the only way to kill them is to kill the surrounding tissue, which, if you want to go on living, is totally unacceptable. In this case, nature has already developed an efficient method (if not the most efficient), and we will be hard pressed to do better.
You may hold on to your delusion of world-engulfing, singularity inducing, invincibly progressing nanomachines if you like. I just get the feeling that what you are realling holding on to is more of a neurotic compulsion of misanthropic origin.
July 29th, 2004 at 4:48 AM
Re:First things first.
> Tell me, if they're shielded from all outside
> interference and signals, how exactly do you
> communicate with them?
By programming them in advance for a specific task. This may have to be done in two stages; first run to find the problem, second run to fix it. With storage capacity of 10^21 bits/L, I don't think you will have any problem with space for programs or results.
> Electromagnetic oscillatory propulsion may be
> unlikely, but as far as I can see it would be
> one of the most safe ways to do it.
There have been some doubts as to the safety of sitting in a variable magnetic field for long periods of time.
> Because it would be hard to duplicate, let alone
> even achieve, without extremely sensitive and
> specific equipment and an operating environment
> engineered within strict boundaries.
Really, now. If you are trying to power a microsocopic machine with a macroscopic force, it would be unwise to make the interface this complicated. It is difficult to tell if the power is getting through as it is.
> It would make that technology extremely
> difficult (if even possible) to misuse on any
> sort of large scale.
What technology? While this is a good idea, you should keep in mind that somebody has to build them first. And in that case the information concerning their design can be stolen and modified by other people to run on ATP (adenosine triphosphate) instead. So while you are correct in trying to make a specific design difficult to misuse, you must also take care to make it difficult to reverse engineer and the designs impossible to steal, because they will try; oh yes, they will try.
> Anything inorganic inside an organic system
> immediately differentiates from the environment
What makes you think they will be inorganic? They will have to be constructed of biocompatible materials, and may have to accumulate a protein jacket to avoid being eaten by the immune system anyway. Its internals are either going to be similar to biological machinery, or harder substances like diamond. In the former case they would be pretty hard to differentiate from the body, and in the second case you would have to work hard to make them destructable.
July 29th, 2004 at 9:14 AM
Re:First things first.
"By programming them in advance for a specific task. This may have to be done in two stages; first run to find the problem, second run to fix it. With storage capacity of 10^21 bits/L, I don't think you will have any problem with space for programs or results."
Pre-programming will work in the way you have described it. However, the problem being debated here is one of preventing malicious intent. Therefore, if you can program in advance to do a malicious act you should also be able to program a way to counter that act.
"There have been some doubts as to the safety of sitting in a variable magnetic field for long periods of time."
Who said anything of long periods of time? I am talking about magentic immersion on the scale of an MRI, etc. Nothing extreme should be required.
"Really, now. If you are trying to power a microsocopic machine with a macroscopic force, it would be unwise to make the interface this complicated. It is difficult to tell if the power is getting through as it is."
The interface itself wouldn't be complicated. The machinery would actually probably be quite easily implemented, but only on a scale that would work in a square meter of area, for example. As far as being able to tell if the power is getting through as it is… this is why we have something called experimentation on cadavers etc. It shouldn't be too difficult to make sure it works before you try it on living breathing person.
"What technology? While this is a good idea, you should keep in mind that somebody has to build them first. And in that case the information concerning their design can be stolen and modified by other people to run on ATP (adenosine triphosphate) instead. So while you are correct in trying to make a specific design difficult to misuse, you must also take care to make it difficult to reverse engineer and the designs impossible to steal, because they will try; oh yes, they will try. "
They will try, and in some cases they will succeed. And the only way to ensure safety of the human race is to keep the Good ahead of the Bad… The old saying in sports applies: The best offense is a good defense. I think it will be easier to stop nanomachines than it will be to keep them going, so I don't see a problem with having defense that outweighs offense.
"What makes you think they will be inorganic? They will have to be constructed of biocompatible materials, and may have to accumulate a protein jacket to avoid being eaten by the immune system anyway. Its internals are either going to be similar to biological machinery, or harder substances like diamond. In the former case they would be pretty hard to differentiate from the body, and in the second case you would have to work hard to make them destructable."
Certainly portions of the machines will be constructed of diamond and protein.. and most of them will be largely organic. I still believe there will be a way to differentiate and target human created machines such as these, unless, as I have said, they are simply virii which have been engineered.. and in this case there may still be a way.. On top of that, virii are very hard-pressed to survive outside of a living host for very long.. and even if they can, the whole point is that when they are outside of the host then you can perform all sorts of things on them that you wouldn't want to had they still been inside.
July 29th, 2004 at 11:33 AM
Re:First things first.
They will try, and in some cases they will succeed. And the only way to ensure safety of the human race is to keep the Good ahead of the Bad… The old saying in sports applies: The best offense is a good defense. I think it will be easier to stop nanomachines than it will be to keep them going, so I don't see a problem with having defense that outweighs offense.
You're not serious with this statement, are you? If you are, then it means you are the one who is delusional…in this world, there are no good guys and everyone is only out for themselves. Therefore, it's simply best to give the technology to those who will utilize it to its full potential…and if it destroys the human race in the process, it just proves that extinction by our own hand was inevitable since the beginning of our pitiful existence.
I am currently ashamed to be human, and I'm surprised everyone else isn't ashamed, as well. We are an extremely vile race, with nothing but selfish and evil intentions…so perhaps it's best that our existence comes to a swift end.
July 29th, 2004 at 1:04 PM
Re:First things first.
> Pre-programming will work in the way you have
> described it. However, the problem being debated
> here is one of preventing malicious intent.
We are talking about two different methods then. In my scenario the bots will be programmed to do a task, will enter the body for a brief time, and then self-destruct and leave the body. Your scenario assumes that bots live in the body permanently and respond to instructions when those are given. This seems a lot more dangerous to me. If you want them to work only at a predetermined time and place, then having them hang around like inert debris for the rest of the time is not only unnecessary but a danger to the patient's health.
> Therefore, if you can program in advance to do a
> malicious act you should also be able to program
> a way to counter that act.
Well… Yes. But how will you convince each terrorist to put backdoors into his programs? You see, those who program malicios acts are not the same people who design the bots in the first place, and to attempt to limit the bots' capabilities to prevent any conceivable danger is beyond the powers of my imagination, since the same type of actions that are required to do cure the patient may be used to kill him if performed in a different location.
> The interface itself wouldn't be complicated.
Could you give us a general idea of what you are thinking?
> The old saying in sports applies: The best offense is a good defense.
And an even older saying in martial arts is "offense is the best defense". This also happens to be the opinion of the U.S. government. I have not yet seen any proposal on how to fight, or even detect, the type of nanoplague that I keep on describing (see the other thread of this article).
> I think it will be easier to stop nanomachines
> than it will be to keep them going
You might as well say that about bullets. We still can only stop those with very heavy body armor, and only in a very small area of the body.
> I still believe there will be a way to differentiate
> and target human created machines such as these
If you design them to be differentiable. But what if such a machine were to be designed specifically in order to evade detection? It really is not that hard because unlike with macroscopic objects, there is no way to look inside a nanobot. You can feel its surface and try to decide whether it is malicious, which seems rather futile to me when the surface can be made to approximate any chunk of biological matter simply by creating binding sites for cellular junk on the skin surface. The only way to be really sure is to decompile each and every object you are not absolutely sure is hostile, and that means every grain of dust, every flake of skin, every dust mite, and every thread of clothing. Think of the energy requirement for keeping such an ultraclean space!
> On top of that, virii are very hard-pressed to survive outside of a living host for very long.
Only because of the way their jackets are constructed. A nanomachine is not constrained to protein materials; it can build a buckyball-type shell, which would be nearly indestructible under all external conditions.
> the whole point is that when they are outside of
> the host then you can perform all sorts of
> things on them that you wouldn't want to had they still been inside.
Again, think of the energy requirements to decompile them all. Furthermore, it is the ones that are inside that pose immediate danger; the ones outside are merely potential infectors.
July 29th, 2004 at 3:33 PM
Re:First things first.
I concede that it will probably eventually be possible to construct nano-scale machines which will be all but impossible to stop from killing a single person, or even a group of people in a local area. What I do not think will be possible, however, is scenarios such as the "grey goo", or any derivative thereof.
Such as it is, I don't think we have to worry about the world being completely consumed by tiny robots — I think there will likely be some form of protected enclosure that prevents the extinction of the human race if something like this ever did manage to spread across the globe. I have to think this is the case, simply because if I were to take the route Kadamose seems to be driving down then I would not care to protect myself or humanity.
That being said, I believe that we are all constructs of nature, and that we are not special amongst the rest of the natural universe in any profound way. This does not lead me to the conclusion that we should all just stop caring and die. Rather, I believe we are capable of some complex and interesting behavior and am very curious to see where it all leads. Alas, this has me veering towards a philosophical essay, and I'm sure you will be happy that I do not do that
It is possible that it all leads to a dead end, pun intended. It is also possible that we are the very harbingers of that end. However, if one does not think, does not use intuition and imagination, then it is not only possible, but it is probable.
There will always be people like Kadamose, people without any sense of hope or reason. This is unavoidable. And, as a yin to that yang, there will likewise always be people who are perhaps too optimistic and hopeful, like me.
Give me some time to think and I will likely reply to your previous post, Chem. At least, in a manner that is on topic and not wandering and aimless such as this one has been.
October 26th, 2004 at 9:13 PM
Re:First things first.
One possible way is an MRI, assuming the nano-locomotives have metallic properties.
The process wouldn't be pretty (bruising), depending on the amounts and locations of them, but would be effective.
At least that's the way it happened in Michael Crichton's book Prey. :}