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Technology

Very Tiny Motor: Nano-level 123

Posted by Hemos from the getting-there dept.
Daeron Meyer writes " ABCNews is carrying the story of the Boston College prof who took four years but just 78 atoms to create a tiny motor. The current problem is that the wheel get stuck after rotating 120 degrees. So, not much use yet, but it's a step."
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Very Tiny Motor: Nano-level More

Very Tiny Motor: Nano-level

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  • one small step for man ...... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The current problem is that the wheel get stuck after rotating 120 degrees. So, not much use yet, but it's a step."

    Or more specifically, it's a third of a step.

  • big monitors NOT needed (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Consider that video glasses are available right now. They're expensive, but available.

    In the future (thanks to nanotech) it'll be possible to build a high-res display the size of a contact lens.

  • Re:Machines building Machines (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    One danger I wonder about is this: We know that we can't really build machines this small;

    Who knows that, who said that and how could they possibly know. It's brand new technology.

    I'd say there were plenty of people watching the first heavier-than-air flight saying "Geeze, everyone knows we can't get to the stars like this.."

    most of the talk I've seen has been about building tiny machines to build these tiny machines (basically self-replicating). I don't think we've ever done this in any other field...

    Maybe not, but it's entirely possible. Look at the automobile industry. It's largely robotic. That's machines building other machines, on a bigger scale but it's still the same thing..

    How do you test something like that? You let it go (in a controlled environment) and see what happens. Now, if they're building those machines anything like the way I write code, they're occasionally going to go nuts and do something unexpected (oh come on it happens to you too).

    Everything is like that though. If we were always afraid of the unknown, nothing new would ever happen.

    Imagine a tiny factory that could duplicate itself using only water. Now drop it in the ocean...

    Imagine a thermonuclear device capable of killing everyone within a 100 square miles. Now build enough of them to kill everyone on the planet 100 times over, distribute them to 100 different countries across the globe.


    Worry about the present. Plan for the future.

  • None, really (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Let's get some linux porters on this project... This would make a cool "world's smallest beowulf cluster"

  • Sub-nano (Score:1)

    by Yarn ( 75 )
    I'd say this is sub-nano. not really more than a neat chemical trick. Interfacing it with current nanotech devices would be like fitting a toy car motor to a monster truck.
  • thats why I said 'current nanotech devices'. That dust that everyone was so excited about was called nanotech, I dont believe that the definition is as simple as 'of the order of 10^-9m'

    When these things become more common (or people are trained how to use SI units :) we'll be able to classify them better.
  • I just assumed that there was something about the human bio-energy field that the robots wanted. It wasn't just energy, but something about the human aura.

    That's ok, it's just willing suspension of disbelief in action.


    ...phil

  • Yeah right, that's what they said about cancer 30 years ago too.

    I advise you to do a little research. Cancer is a lot more treatable now than it was 30 years ago. It's not a completely solved problem, but it's getting there.


    ...phil

  • This "small" advance in technology is, to me, fairly parrallel to that discovery of the '50s on how electrons could be passed in a controlled manner across a PN junction. That little piece of information has led to the developement of electronics without vacumn tubes and eventually to the computer system(s) you are using to read this possibly off topic post.

    I am fairly certain that not many folks had a vision of where that would lead in ~50 years.

    I leave the predictions to the predictors.

    I just think it is pretty cool
  • But you wouldn't lose just one atom to the water. This motor is a single molecule. Assuming that all of the bonds are covalent, the motor is not going to dissolve in water. It is possible that the motor itself might go floating off into solution, but that is just something the designers would have to account for.


    --Phil (Now I just need a Feed and a matter compiler...)
  • Or maybe not so nasty.

    The end goal of a weapon in war is to "neutralize" the enemy, make them no longer a threat.

    You don't necessarily have to kill or even maim a man to neutralize them.

    Technology like this might be just the thing - it could easily be used to selectively paralyze the human body, and you're an instant POW. When the war's over, they irradiate you with a coded signal that deactivates the nanites, and now, you're a slave to the regime that just conquered your country. (with the threat that if you resist, or don't work hard, the nanites can be switched back on).

    Now, I guess it all depends on who the master of the technology is, and what the goals are. If you want to conquer a nation, that's the most humane way, technologically possible, to do it, and probably the cheapest too, and you don't end up with problems a generation later (you bastard Zambozian! You killed my father, I'm going to start an underground resistance, and I'll be blowing up busses and airplanes for the next 20 years).
    But if your goals are to kill off an entire race - well then, the device won't be designed to selectively paralyze, or be switched off. But then you still have the problem of "friendly fire", you'll want to be able to rescue friendlies that have been accidentally exposed to the nanites, so again, ideally, a reversible, partial paralysis mmode of operation would be best, and when the fighting's over, you round up the hostiles, and, well, terminate them.

    Maybe the human race is not ready for this yet.
    But they better GET ready, in a hurry.

    "The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
  • I disagree with you -- anything truly can be used for violence, and the cause is humans, not the thing.

    The cure for HIV? Well, let's look at some uses.

    - the cure won't come on its own -- there are going to be some scientific advances, and some of them are going to have violent potential in and of themselves. This assumes that the cure has no side-effects, an unheard-of situation.

    - economics -- one can use the cure as an economic club.

    - psychology -- someone who stopped being sexually promiscuous strictly because of AIDS will almost certainly start again once the cure is available. This opens the door to new types of infections (which have ALWAYS turned up just as the previous infection was defeated!). This can also be deliberately manipulated.

    I'm going off now, but I think you get the idea.

    -Billy
  • "Imagine a tiny factory that could duplicate itself using only water. Now drop it in the ocean... "

    Read _Zodiac_, by Neal Stephenson (same one who wrote _The Diamond Age_). Imagine a plasmid that could convert PCBs (organic chlorine compounds; toxic waste) into CO2 and salt water. Now, imagine one that does the reverse. Now drop THAT in the ocean... *shiver*

    ---
  • These things are really cool, but they violate Strauser's Law. That is, they're smaller than a duct-tape molecule, and therefore not usable on a mass scale.
  • I would think that the guts of a nano-machine would have to be an equally well controlled environment. A couple random atoms thrown into the mix could really "gum up the works", so to speak.

    Has anyone developed an atomic-scale equivalent to "throwing a wrench into the works"? Or would anyone care to take a stab at one?
  • As tripe-ish as the sequel series to Rendevezous with Rama is (namely Rama II, Gardens of Rama, and Rama Revealed), they do have a species of benign ultra-intelligent arthroid octopods (called octo-spiders in the books) which do have nanocamera which fly around and record a full-3D holographic memory of everything that happens inside Rama during their stay.
    ---
    "'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.

  • Re:Powered by chemical reactions?? (Score:4)

    by Pascal Q. Porcupine ( 4467 ) on Thursday September 09, 1999 @04:01AM (#1692939) Homepage
    (Disclaimer: I am a computer scientist, not a chemist. The last chemistry course I took was a few years ago. The following information is likely to be anywhere from marginally-correct to dead wrong.)

    You have atoms and molecules reversed, my friend. An atom is the building block from which molecules are formed. The motor is 1 molecule (most likely, or maybe 2 - they didn't say if the bit that turns is separate from the bit that it turns in) formed of 78 atoms. Ionic bonds are a crystal, which isn't really a molecule but a lattice of atoms; for example, table salt (NaCl) isn't a lot of NaCl molecules but a large lattice formed of sodium and chlorine atoms.

    As for the motor 'reacting,' a spontaneous reaction is what happens when one higher-energy bond breaks and forms a lower-energy bond, thus releasing energy. This is the kind of reaction that needs to be worried about. (A nonspontaneous reaction requires that energy be added into the system, and even then it tries to release energy.)

    As someone else pointed out, if the bond is covalent (which is formed by two atoms sharing electrons and is rather strong), it's not very likely to break from water. Water reactions are very different from dissolution; the nanomachine isn't likely to react with the water, particularly if it's made of silicon. After all, if silicates reacted freely with water, we'd be in a good deal of trouble, since glass (SiO2) is often used to contain water. Though SiO2 has a very low energy potential and doesn't react with much to begin with anyway.
    ---
    "'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.

  • One danger I wonder about is this: We know that we can't really build machines this small; most of the talk I've seen has been about building tiny machines to build these tiny machines (basically self-replicating). I don't think we've ever done this in any other field...

    How do you test something like that? You let it go (in a controlled environment) and see what happens. Now, if they're building those machines anything like the way I write code, they're occasionally going to go nuts and do something unexpected (oh come on it happens to you too).

    Imagine a tiny factory that could duplicate itself using only water. Now drop it in the ocean...
  • You'd trade the BSOD for the inevitable kernel panic when a packet kiddie finds yet another way to remotely bust the Linux kernel? Either way, I know I'm not too keen on inserting computing devices into my own body.
  • just about everything (including prokariotes) makes ATP. we just make a lot more of it per glucose.

    Lea
  • my guess is that it's made out of carbon (or that's what the proposals for nanites that haven't been built yet are) it's generally accepted that diamond is the best material -- doesn't react (with anything that I know of -- but I'm an EECS, not a ChemE) and is REALLY hard.

    read some Drexler :)

    Lea
  • it's a neat chemical trick, yes, but sort of on the order of what we're going to have to do until we have a programmable assembler (I only wish). anyways, if you have an entire machine 100+ nanomers across, you don't want the whole thing to be a giant motor. probably don't need a huge amount of power out of the thing either.

    and you have to leave room for all those mechanical logic gates! :P

    Lea
  • so true. I guess I haven't taken bio for too long. I was thinking only of anaerobic prokaryotes...

    so there's something even better to use than humans -- and easier to culture as well! :)

    Lea
  • that would have been my point. I love the movie, but that bothers me (and the people I argue it with)

    however, since I'm a perfectionist, my small arguments to your arments:
    #3, #4 -- they were liquifing dead people and feeding then to the live ones. however, this still does not solve the problem entirely, but with some food stores (which people tend to build up anyways) this could last for a while on starvation rations

    #5 -- that's what we're for. we're good at it :)

    #7, #8 -- actually, if I remember correctly, it took the electric impulses from the brain/etc. problem with this is the same as with taking the current generated by inductive brakes (see Great America's Drop Zone): that current is being used for something, and if you take it away, then whatever was using it wouldn't work anymore. there would be no need for the Matrix, since we wouldn't be ALIVE or have brain signals anyways...

    I think #1 is all you need. if there were (for example) a lotof grain or dead bodies, you could feed those to aerobic prokariotes and take the ATP and use it for something -- it's more efficent...

    Lea

  • ...for animals as well (but impractical) (Score:5)

    by chialea ( 8009 ) <chialea&gmail,com> on Thursday September 09, 1999 @03:39AM (#1692947) Homepage
    it's not just us who can be used for batteries -- any eukariotic animal that engages in phosphoralation (sp?) is a source of energy. however, using the human/animal as a battery is rediculous on a large basis (think Matrix here). every time you run through a level of the food chain, you lose a LOT of energy. it would be FAR more efficient to just have mitochondria supported -- not an entire organism. if that was impractical, then cells -- any cells, just about -- could be used far more efficently than an entire organism, who uses energy for transport/growing hair/living. (Matrix always bothered me -- I loved the movie, but the premise is completely impractical. if you suck the electricity out of the brain, then the brain can't DO anything. you die. you can't be in "the Matrix" anyways)

    however, the nanites could refuel from your cells if they were in there for something else. convenient food source :) personally, I'd be more than willing to have nanites running around and using a bit of my ATP while they destroyed a cancer or something similarly threatening.

    Lea
  • So true! A tiny tuxedo is all most aerobic prokaryotes need to be cultured. Most humans I know, whether in a tuxedo or not, still don't know the difference between the dinner fork and the salad fork unless they've seen "Pretty Woman" half a dozen times.
  • If another chemical reaction could then bond the next paddle to the plate, the rotating motion could continue indefinitely -- a motor, in other words.

    The above claim offends my olde fashioned sense of thermodynamics, to wit, there are no perpetual motion machines. I really don't think a rotating molecule capable of supplying mechanical power (i.e., a "motor") can "continue indefinitely" w/o some kind of energy input, such as light as mentioned elsewhere. I can beleive a 120 degree motion powered by chemical bonds occurred, but don't understand how this can continue in perpetuity. Of course this is all at the quantum level and all new rules apply, all sorts of possibilities, like the ratchet effect alluded to: if that could take advantage of heat (agitated molecules) to create motion, 'd be cool!

    My word

    Chuck

  • Woohoo (Score:1)

    by Now15 ( 9715 )
    Now we can put tiny motors into some tiny cars and break some tiny speed limits across tiny roads, shouting tiny words.

    This is undoubtedly a small development in the big schematic of things. And like all small things, must be applauded for their very hot (120 degrees!) new toy.

    :)

    --

  • Woohoo (Score:1)

    by Now15 ( 9715 )
    Now we can put tiny motors into some tiny cars and break some tiny speed limits across tiny roads, shouting tiny words.

    This is undoubtedly a small development in the big schematic of things. And like all small things, must be applauded.

    This looks to be a very hot (120 degrees!) new toy.

    :)

    --

  • Revolutions meaning turning around, NOT major events in history.

    Sheesh! :)

    --

  • As I read over the responses to this article, I find the two typical responses very funny. It seems some people shout "Don't get all worked up, nanotech is a long way off, but won't it be great?" Then others post, "You people aren't worked up enough, the implications of nanotech are horrible." Ahhh, the future. Won't it be nice and ... middle of the road like it always is? ;)

    Bad Mojo
  • I hate to point out the obvious, but the supposition that the robots in The Matrix use the people as energy generators is almost pure bullshit. Here's why:

    1) Conservation of energy. Nobody's going to argue that with me.
    2) The purpose of a generator is to convert fuel that is hard to use into some energy form that is easier to use.
    3) Humans require, in addition to the small amounts of vitamins, sizeable amounts of proteins, carbohydrates, and fats.
    4) All food sources for life on earth, especially mamalian life like humans, depends on *SUNLIGHT* at the beginning of the food chain. Plants need it. Herbivorous animals need it. Carnivores need the herbivores. Omnivores like people need the carnivores, herbivores, and plants.
    5) Thus, to feed the humans, the robots would have to *SYNTHESIZE* the food.
    6) Can you say 'Monstrous Waste Of Energy!"?
    7) Now, The Matrix implied that what the robots actually 'harvested' was the heat generated by a human body.
    8) Again, a great loss of energy in trying to trap the small amount of excess heat produced by a human body. By controlling the environment (chilling it), they could get the people to produce more heat, but then they would have to expend energy to do the cooling, and the humans would require more food to produce the heat.

    The bottom line is that it just plain doesn't work. The human body is an incredibly inefficient way of burning fuel.

    The Matrix was a great movie, but this piece of it was a total crock of shit.
  • I suppose that that's correct, but the essential argument that is hiding in the over-complicated bunch of mumbo jumbo I wrote is that all the human body can do is 'burn fuel' to convert some substance(s) into a more usable form of energy, and they are a very inefficient method of doing that.
  • And then you'll have the nanites taking over Earth. Wouldn't want that, now, would you? I'd rather see, what I'm stomping into ground round.
  • Have a look at the Microvision Website [mvis.com] for info on Snow Crash type displays.
  • You know, it always amazes me, every article on nanotech I read. I've always thought I'd see practical nanotech while alive, but certainly not so soon! It feels like we are mere years away from a breakthrough.

    I don't think we'll see a big breakthrough yet. We may have a motor soon, but that just isn't enough. Then we need a reliable way for assembling the machinery and controlling it. And in what environment will the machines operate? To be useful the things must work well under something other than lab conditions only. You want nanomachines to build you a new car from dirt? It won't be that easy. These machines will need energy. They will dissipate heat, that could limit the build rate. Then there's the waste problem. Nanomachines tearing apart molecules in dirt will find a lot of atoms unuseable for your car. Merely tossing them won't be a good idea.
    Last, but not least: whatever you want nanomachines to build must be designed first, that won't be easier than today. And it must be designed for nanomachine manufacture. So you can't get any car, only existing models. And no long-distance spaceship.

  • Sounds a great deal like "The Tommyknockers," by Stephen King. Could this lead to a "crew pit" where the crew is wired into the power-requiring machines of our buildings, ships, planes, etc., as in Mr. King's novel?
  • OK, small is cool (in certain cases...) however shouldn't there be more desire/development of autonomous machines/robots?

    A machine that can be sent to the middle of nowwhere and told to do a job - it'll then trundle along and do it. It will build more of 'itself' from available resources to speed up the job... A mobile production line.

    Like in KSR's Red Mars...
  • Even after you apply a half-dozen WD-40 atoms, you'd still need to whack it with something.
  • Just an observation. What they're describing sounds a lot like the way you drive a 3-phase induction motor.
  • If you bothered to read the article, you would have seen the bit about the 58-atom motor that runs on light -- and actually works!

    It's made by the Dutch and Japanese, though. Read whatever you want into that :-)
  • Um, I think the analogy's pretty straightforward: at the nanoscale, we are just inventing the wheel. Unfortunately it is only the alpha version of the wheel and it doesn't spin properly yet. Still a few bugs in the system.

    Some other nanoscale folks are working on gears, rods, bearings, etc.

    Once we get the wheel worked out, then we can start on the problems of mass production... since right now we're still piecing these parts together one by one.

    Difference engine? At least three technology generations away. Colossus? Four. C64? Five. P3? Six. Of course, a nanoscale difference engine is probably about as fast as an IC-scale P3, and a nanoscale P3 probably uses quantum electronics and is *way* faster than an IC-scale P3.

    Now, how long is a "technology generation"? Aye, there's the rub :-) Given what I've seen over the last decade, I would estimate about five years....

  • Smallness of size is just as cool as sending something big somewhere weird. The idea of nano-thingies trundling around one's arteries removing excessive fat/cholesterol and stuff is quite appealing, really!

    ~Tim
    --
  • No, you just need something that uses your retina as the screen -

    they exist already, nano should make them better.

  • hmmmm (Score:2)

    by Wah ( 30840 )
    Could this be the software of hardware...

    When nanomachines are perfected, they'll be easy and cheap to produce, unlike the multibillion-dollar facilities needed to produce computer chips and other silicon-based devices. While Kelly took four years to design his molecule, he can now produce lots of them. "In one batch, you could make as many 1024 of individual units in principle," Davis says. "That's a trillion trillion."
    Which means the future machines are likely to be teeny and plentiful.

    hmmm, massively reproducible, fully configurable matter changers....neat.(and cheap to boot!)
  • My dad has a patent for how you can build the
    largest motor in the world. Any size possible.
    Want to rotate the Pentagon? Sure, it is now
    possible! ;-)

    http://www.henricson.se/hercules/

    Animated GIF:

    http://www.henricson.se/hercules/pic/animation%2 0clockwise.gif
  • ... Japanese effort ...

    /patriot mode on/
    May I remind you that the article also credits the Dutch for that. And if it aint Dutch it aint mutch!
    /patriot mode off/

    Breace.
  • This explanation of the human's function in the Matrix was just a comment made by Laurence Fishburne's character to Keanu Reeves'.

    He could just have been dumb/wrong/stupid....
  • Okay, maybe not too exited but considering that less than 10 years ago respected scientists were arguing that you could not build *Anything At All* at this scale it's a reasuring achievement.

    I'm still hoping I live long enough to join the Introdus ;-)

    Tom
  • We want both.

    We need the autonomous robot research so that our nanorobots will know what to do.

    We need the nanotechnology so our robots can self repair better.

    Tom
  • That's cool,

    Let's do both.

    Tom
  • If I were a dictator who controlled the cure for HIV, I could innoculate all my countrymen, then do everything in my power to hasten the spread of the disease everywhere else, secure in the knowledge that my own people were safe.

    Just about anything can be twisted for a negative purpose.
  • With regards to the second nano-machine in the article that was invented by the Dutch and Japanese scientists...

    This motor spins on energy gained from light. Would it be more efficient than our current photovoltaic cells to generate electricity somehow with these mini-motors?

    Maybe use the motors to bounce around a solution, creating heat energy, and using the heat energy to generate electricity.. Or a more direct method that someone more clever than I could come up with.
  • This is why the term 'molecular manufacturing' came into being. The people working on nanotech wanted to avoid just such confusion.

    The MEMS which were discussed yesterday are not nanotech. They are vacuum tubes as compared with nanotech's transistors. The device illustrated here is 'pre-nano' or 'early nano', not 'sub-nano'.
  • Interesting idea. A factory made only of Hydrogen and Oxygen...

  • Powered by chemical reactions?? (Score:3)

    by fable2112 ( 46114 ) on Thursday September 09, 1999 @02:53AM (#1692978) Homepage

    Now, I am not a scientist, and perhaps it could be argued that every motor is powered at least indirectly by chemical reactions, but the specific type of chemical reaction at work here would tend to limit the applications of this little motor.

    For instance, given the large number of chemicals that can be dissolved in water, you might not want to get it wet. Ever. At all. After all, if we're building on the less-than-100-atoms level, I'd say that every atom counts and losing even ONE to water (or whatever) would be devastating to the efficacy of the whole thing.
  • Arrgh! It's not a single atom, it's a single molecule. A few people on the thread have munged this.
  • At the same time, imagine booting your brain. All of those kernel messages... How're you going to do TCP/IP, anyways -- wireless? Using hair as your antennae?

    :-]
  • I thought it was about 36 or so maybe I am just thinking of the wrong thing?

    Actually, a typical Krebs cycle yields ~34 ATP from phosphorylation (~30 of that from the chemiosmotic variety), but the cycle burns ~2 ATP in active transport. 34 + (-2) = 32. Er something.
  • "But the process of getting the energy out of the glucose is a lot more complicated than getting it out of ATP"...

    The process of getting energy out of glucose is by converting it into ATP.

    Yes, adenosine triphosphate (ATP) easily breaks down into adenosine diphosphate (ADP), and in so doing, releases energy. But that's not an argument against using for fuel - just the contrary. The fact that it can so easily be "coaxed" into releasing energy is what makes it so good at being the basic energy source for humans.

    Also, it's worth noting that using instability as the basis for a power source isn't new to science - nuclear power is a pretty good example.

  • Interesting implication... (Score:4)

    by wanderingstar ( 51363 ) on Thursday September 09, 1999 @02:52AM (#1692983)
    One of the things that I didn't see mentioned in the ABC article (and is only briefly mentioned in the BBC article [bbc.co.uk]) is that the machine runs on ATP. ATP is the fuel generated by the human biological process known as the "Krebs cycle". (You get ~32 ATP from one glucose molecule.) This means, then, that we're building machines that can use humans as batteries... now where have I heard that story before?
  • This is different than Feynman's little demon, which was a molecular ratchet motor based on random collisions turning the wheel indefinitely. Supposedly in violation of the 3rd law of thermodynamics. Unfortunately it was shown that random jiggling of the system would cause it to roll backwards and not make any progress. So much for convenient perpetual motion.
    Rick Rezinas
  • I don't really know if I want something traveling through my veins. They might hit a big chunk of something and send it right through to my brain causing some sort of an aneurysm. This also reminds me of a Xfiles episode where Krychek had some sort of device that could control some little nano devices in the blood of Skinner that was basically building a heart attack. If you can make some many of these things at one time. What is really to stop someone from developing a way to do something like build a heartattack, or mind control? I'm no conspiracy theorist, but I think this could be a problem someday.
  • If another chemical reaction could then bond the next paddle to the plate, the rotating motion could continue indefinitely -- a motor, in other words.

    Perhaps it's phrased badly, but my impression is that you can spin the motor for as long as you can supply the chemical that causes the chemical reaction...

  • You know, it always amazes me, every article on nanotech I read. I've always thought I'd see practical nanotech while alive, but certainly not so soon! It feels like we are mere years away from a breakthrough.

    What gets me is the amount of miniaturisation we're getting at. 60 years ago, we had Turing machines that filled an entire room; today, we have nano-sized Turing machines. That's several orders smaller.

    If this trend continues, we'll get nano-sized Pentium-III's in 60 years or less. :)

    "There is no surer way to ruin a good discussion than to contaminate it with the facts."

  • Oh and remember Inner Sphere? Freaky!
    JediLuke
  • Heh, yep, willing suspension of disbelief is the name of the game, at least for that part of the movie. Not to say that the movie didn't completely kick ass or anything, cause it did...

    anyway, the bit where Morpheus is going "The AI are using humans for power, yadda yadda yadda", I've found the best thing to do in that bit is to pretend he's saying "The AI are using human brains for processing power". I dunno, that at least makes a little bit of sense.
    --
    "HORSE."

  • While I always find these types of advances amazing, isn't anybody else concerned about the possible implications? They mentioned, ever so briefly, in the article the hope that someday something like this could be used in the human body to do things such as clean out our veins, etc. This may be unrealistic right now, but is it impossible? I'm not sure I want to imagine a world where tiny motors can run through my body, doing what somebody else wants them to do. Frightening.

    Oh, you think tiny motors don't *already* run through your veins? Just those tiny motors are biological, not mechanical, and we call them bacteria. Oh, and a lot of them aren't half as friendly as most nanotech motors would be...
    --
    "HORSE."

  • Just think of 300 tylonol-sized CPUs on a massive Linux SMP machine ;-)

    Get about 400 of them for a Beowulf...

  • Just think of 300 tylonol-sized CPUs on a massive Linux SMP machine ;-)

    Get about 400 of the 300-CPU Units for a Beowulf...

  • While I always find these types of advances amazing, isn't anybody else concerned about the possible implications? They mentioned, ever so briefly, in the article the hope that someday something like this could be used in the human body to do things such as clean out our veins, etc. This may be unrealistic right now, but is it impossible? I'm not sure I want to imagine a world where tiny motors can run through my body, doing what somebody else wants them to do. Frightening.
  • haha at the rate of 78 atoms/ 4 years, it will take a LONG time to build that tiny car :)

  • Re:cool. (Score:1)

    by Tri ( 60119 )
    It's not just nanobots... As they learn to use those molecules to make small motors, they'll be able to make smaller and smaller things. As your tools get smaller, the things you can change with them get smaller too.

    And there are *lots* of things that would benefit from being make smaller...
  • Anyone want to lend him a tin of WD40?

    (Sorry, had to be said!)
  • Given the racheting nature of the molecular wheel, it might be able derive power from the effects of Brownian motion.

    It would therefore convert temperature to mechanical motion without a temperature gradient. I believe that the 2nd law of thermodynamics makes that impossible, yet .. I can't see why it wouldn't work.
  • The screen could *be* the computer. It could vibrate for sound (thin speakers have already been created), it just needs to calculate just the right interference pattern. The display tech would be nano, as well, no more CRT crap. Since even using Drexler's design for a mechanical computer, you can fit a 1000 MIPS processor in, IIRC, 1 micron, space for processing power is no problem.

    Power conversion can be done with nano devices, it just requires the right end on the cord. Of course, if it doesn't need much energy, then the energy of its environment could suffice. This would not allow luminescent screens however, as that requires a lot of energy. However, energy storage can be very dense, especially with the many conversion methods that the atomic level makes simpler.

    Networking can be wireless. With the increase in the availability of wireless telecomm, the networks should be in place for fairly high speed connectivity by the time the other technologies needed for this product are available.

    The main problem that I see currently is input. A stylus could be used for a pointer, but I do not want to use that for writing. I type a *lot* faster than I write. So, the question of input still remains. Voice is a possibility, but it would be disruptive in public settings (as this would be an extremely portable device). A virtual keyboard is a possibility, if the eyeglass method is used for the screen (and all of the other parts as well, it would easily fit, properly designed). It doesn't have the same tactile properties, of course, though those could possibly be simulated through the use of gloves (using nanotech to get the force feedback small enough).

    I have a feeling, however, that entire new paradigms will need to be developed for input for a truly portable, bring-everywhere device, so that it is transparent, fluid, and unobtrusive.
    ---
  • Right they are a good source of energy for humans when we keep them inside the cell, they are just too reactive to be used as regular fuel. I was thinking in terms of nano devices outside the body in the environment where they could possibly interact with other molecules not in a controlled environment like inside the cell. I agree that instability as a source of power is not new but notice the controlled environment you need for nuclear power or any other highley instable compound.
  • If I remember correctly ATP is not the most stable of compounds. It usually loses a Phospor molecule and turns to ADP so I don't see it becoming a standard energey molecule outside of our bodies anytime soon. On the other hand glucose related molecules are a lot more stable and give you more energy. But the process of getting the energy out of the glucose is a lot more complicated than getting it out of ATP (see citric acid cycle in the body) so I would expect future research to move into that area.
  • I remember reading something like this in one of the Americanized Dirty Pair manga--by Adam Warren, I believe. In it, Earth was uninhabited because some time before, nanites got out of control and pretty much smoked everybody plantetside. Didn't matter *too* much, however, as humanity had already colonized much of nearby space by then, so it was like, "A great tragedy, but oh well." Heh--yet one more reason go get our lazy carcasses off this rock before it's too late!
  • I keep hearing different estimates as to how close we are to true, functional nanotech--i.e., "teeny" (heh heh--he said "teeny") machines that can run through our blood streams repairing cellular damage, etc. Some say decades off, other maintain that it's just around the corner. So to put it in language that everyone here can understand: are we as close today to true nano as the British "Colossus" was to today's G4 or PIII's, or are we farther off (Difference Engine)? Or nearer (C64)? Or is my analogy totally whack?
  • why a big screen? just override the eyes for your screen... panoramic 360D....
  • It's been mumble-mumble years since I learned it in Biology class, but isn't that precisely what makes ATP a good fuel source? Highly stable compounds require large amounts of energy to catalyse the reaction, making them less useful for such a small implementation.

    For a completely over-the-top example, consider the hydrogen bomb. To produce the "big" boom of the fusion reaction requires the detonation of a smaller fission bomb as a catalyst. Big investment, big payoff, but impractical for nanotechnology (at least right now).
  • do you think sonys new product , maybe a nano disk player. how about nano hard drives , if we can get that moter up to speed so to say maybe we can have nano drives , micro board , as i have noticed the only thing limiting the size of computer is interfaceablity with a human , think of a beowolf cluster of nano processers with 40 tera of nano drives allin the size of your palm pilot. maybe even a way of taking it to the next level , nano do offer a lot of promise for the future , but watch it and we may all turn into the borg , (peronaly that is kinda appeling) all i have to say is keep MS away from it. i would only run linux if it comes near my body , think of seeing a blue screen while you try and tie your shoes, and having to reboot your brain . wouldnt that suck .

    get those magnets away from me NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!
  • "Nanobots" here we come!
  • Many sci-fi writers have already done the hard part for you on that one. Bruce Sterling's latest book kind of addresses the same subject, as do a few assorted short stories.
  • I think my original comment needs bumped down like a mofo. I was thinking about the Diamond Age paradagim (sic?) and forgot all about the Snow Crash computer. Laser beamed directly to the eyes for the image. For the input, read The Hacker and the Ants by Rudy Rucker kind of a VR solution. Still, I think you'd need a bunch of wires coming out the back of the damn thing. It just wouldn't seem right without them.
    Is it just me or is Sci Fi a great source of ideas?
  • Now I love nanotech just as much as anybody. In fact, my favorite book is "The Diamond Age". The thing that gets me about a nanotech computer, though, is that no matter how small it is, you'll still need a big-ass monitor. With that monitor comes a cord attached to the computer. Add speakers, input devices, power supply, and any other connections, and you have the same jumbled mess of wires that you have with your current computer plugged into something the size of an Tylenol.
    Of course, you could always make the box the same size and have 300 or so little Tylenol-sized computers inside it. Of course, that seems like a bit of a waste of energy.
  • I would assume from all the information that I have that to create such a thing one has to use some form of polymers and have them react and then make the motor in the shape of some non reacting mollecule? Would like to know some more specifics about it.
  • I thought it was about 36 or so maybe I am just thinking of the wrong thing?
  • For true cyborgenetic integration one would have to have implants that could safely be inserted into the human brain to enhance it. Most of the devices currently avaible do not look very safe (at least I would not want them in *my* brain). Although the ability to regenerate damaged wounds or to live for 5,000+ years because my cells cannot wear out would be appealing.

  • Myself, I intend to head the other way. Being a basically antisocial type I intend to make a million copies of myself, convert them all into extra-solar probes, and go out to explore a little. When I get done (several billion years in the future) all of me can have a little get-together somewhere nice and re-integrate.

    I have always wanted to see the Horsehead Nebula up close...

    Jack

  • No reason to get excited yet. Nanotech has a long way to go to get to practicality. According to the discussions I have had with people who should know there are still major problems to be solved.

    Like getting rid of waste heat and chemicals. Like getting fuel to the motors in the first place. Like control systems, power transfer, actuators and sensors.

    Of more interest in the article was the mention of the Japanese effort that uses less atoms (58) and spins when light is shone on it. Chemical reaction based nanotech is the most likely posibility in the near term because we can build on biological systems we already understand (the example in the article used ATP). But long term I would think truly useful nanotech would be powered by photons or electron transfers or something like that.

    Jack

  • Didn't I see this in the news several years ago?
  • So whats the over/under in years of when I'll be able to turn myself into a borg?
  • That is interesting. Not suprising though, you would think most applications of this would be bio related (or at least any that have the chance of being profitable in the next, oh, 50 years).
  • I think we should all consider how easily hidden such devices will be...

    As much hidden camera work goes on already, it will be that much easier to do when the camera is invisble.

  • A couple of years ago I read a story saying that this sort of technology could be used to power laptops (and other portable electronic devices). Instead of bateries you use loads of nano-drives, attached to nano-turbines to generate electricity. As most fuels store energy in a more efficient way than batteries you get more power for longer. Using the chemical sources described for these devices they could be powered off your body, giving you laptop as much power as you want, you just have to eat more. How long before this is marketed as a slimming device?

  • The thought that occurs to me when I see things like this, is that people are saying they need to reinvent the wheel, and this time give it square corners for improved safety.

    The groups that have put together these projects have certainly made a chemical accomplishment, but why is everyone looking to this as a 'nano-motor'? Bacterial flagella already exist, function off of ATP, they average 0.25 micrometers (250 nanometers) in diameter, come in a variety of lengths, have been clocked at 2400 rpm, can be assembled in minutes from informational schematics in large quantities, and have repair and maintenance facilities preexisting. To me it's like hearing someone say they've assembled something they call ENIAC and that it is unquestionably superior to the SGI I use for molecular modeling...

    Nanomotors, switches, levers, atomic pumps, and power stations already exist. I don't understand why the 'Nano' researchers aren't using them.

    'Machines' don't have to be made of metal, after all the two in the article aren't.
  • Nanotech is a scary thing, give us (humans) and new technology and what will we do with it? Find a way to use it to kill one another. So just imagine wars fought with these tiny machines, the left over bodies of millions of them will cause serious enviromental damage. Will you feel safe knowing that at any moment nanosites that have been imbedded into your body without your knowledge could start disassembling you from the inside out? All in all I feel the human race itself is not yet ready for a technology so great.
  • Not true. Aerobic prokaryotes actually produce 38 ATP per glucose vs human cells which produce 36 per glucose. Humans would produce 38 but 2 ATP must be spent to get the pyruvate molecules (product of the glucose) into the mitochondrial matrix. Prokaryotes do not incur this extra expense since they do not have mitochondria (they basically *are* the mitochondria), so they produce more ATP per glucose.

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