Hello World.
I'm Imagination.
Today I'm going to talk about Nanobots.
Nanorobotics is an emerging technology field
creating machines or robots whose components
are at or near the scale of a nanometer.
The terms nanobot, nanoid, nanite, nanomachine,
or nano mite have also been used to describe
such devices currently under research and
development.
Nanomachines are largely in the research and
development phase, but some primitive molecular
machines and nanomotors have been tested.
An example is a sensor having a switch approximately
1.5 nanometers across, able to count specific
molecules in the chemical sample.
Most historians credit the concept of nanotechnology
to physicist Richard Feynman and his 1959
speech, “There’s Plenty of Room at the
Bottom.”
In his speech, Feynman imagined a day when
machines could be miniaturized and huge amounts
of information could be encoded in minuscule
spaces, paving the way for disruptive technological
developments.
Drexler posited the idea of self-replicating
nanomachines: machines that build other machines.
Because these machines are also programmable,
they can then be directed to build not only
more of themselves, but also more of whatever
else you’d like.
And because this building takes place on an
atomic scale, these nanobots can pull apart
any kind of material (soil, water, air, you
name it), atom by atom, and construct, well,
just about anything.
Drexler painted the picture of a world where
the entire Library of Congress could fit on
a chip the size of a sugar cube and where
environmental scrubbers could clear pollutants
from the air.
In the same ways that technology research
and development drove the space race and nuclear
arms race, a race for nanorobots is occurring.
There is plenty of ground allowing nanorobots
to be included among the emerging technologies.
Nano factory Collaboration, founded by Robert
Freitas and Ralph Merkle in 2000 and involving
23 researchers from 10 organizations and 4
countries, focuses on developing a practical
research agenda specifically aimed at developing
positionally-controlled diamond mechanosynthesis
and a diamondoid nano factory that would have
the capability of building diamondoid medical
nanorobots.
Retroviruses can be retrained to attach to
cells and replace DNA.
They go through a process called reverse transcription
to deliver genetic packaging in a vector.
Potential uses for nanorobotics in medicine
include early diagnosis and targeted drug
delivery for cancer, biomedical instrumentation,
surgery, pharmacokinetics, monitoring of diabetes,
and health care.
In such plans, future medical nanotechnology
is expected to employ nanorobots injected
into the patient to perform work at a cellular
level.
Such nanorobots intended for use in medicine
should be non-replicating, as replication
would needlessly increase device complexity,
reduce reliability, and interfere with the
medical mission.
Nanotechnology provides a wide range of new
technologies for developing customized means
to optimize the delivery of pharmaceutical
drugs.
Today, harmful side effects of treatments
such as chemotherapy are commonly a result
of drug delivery methods that don't pinpoint
their intended target cells accurately.
Imagine going to the doctor to get treatment
for persistent fever.
Instead of giving you a pill or a shot, the
doctor refers you to a special medical team
that implants a tiny robot into your bloodstream.
The robot detects the cause of your fever,
travels to the appropriate system, and provides
a dose of medication directly to the infected
area.
That's all for today.
Thanks for watching.
